A hidden world, growing beyond control  - <AUTHOR> http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/ <comment><USER3> This is what bureaucracies do, they grow, more complex, more political, more expensive, and exponentially harder to dismantle. Everyone knew that once Homeland Security was created it would become a sprawling, pervasive, and never-ending drain on the country. Eliminating it now is probably out of the question because it would be substantially more costly (politically and economically) than keeping it running.

Basically they've taken the script of the TV series "24" and used it to turn the entire government into a giant anti-terrorism organization that cannot locate or defend the country against any terrorists. But year after year the programs are always "underfunded" and so the bureaucracy grows and gets worse at doing its job... It's a perfect storm of stupidity and ignorance that has no benefits other than keeping the system going for no reason whatsoever.

<comment><USER4> this is completely of topic, i know. But could not not think about Obamacare when reading about "This is what bureaucracies do, they grow, more complex, more political, more expensive, and exponentially harder to dismantle. " ... I would also add to that: undemocratic.

<comment><USER5> Yes, conflate healthcare policy (that in many ways is fundamentally different) with Homeland Security. I apologize for my sarcasm, but this just seems like knee jerk partisanship.

In addition, we are not a democracy (per se), but a constitutional republic, and as such, our elected representatives decide public policy. In the case of Obamacare, Democrats had been overwhelmingly elected the prior year (and Obama ran with healthcare reform as a campaign pledge). So, I don't quite see how it is "undemocratic" either.

<comment><USER6> I think the analogy is perfectly valid. Regardless of the _goals_ of a policy, its _implementation_ via bureaucracy can still be so hopelessly complicated that it's a net drain on society.

It reminds me of a quote I once heard, possibly by Ron Paul (though I am not sure), that went along the lines of "Politicians mention 'tax reform' all the time. But unless they're talking about simplifying the tax code, they're not talking about tax reform."

The DHS and Obamacare both tacked on additional rules to an already overcomplicated and opaque set of systems, rather than streamline the underlying systems and their interactions. Our political process makes adding bureaucratic complexity easier than removing it. For under-regulated areas (like anti-trust laws in the early 20th century), this can solve problems. But otherwise it's more likely to make the underlying problems worse.

<comment><USER7> Obamacare and DHS removed plenty of regulations streamlining many things. What people really complain about is regulating new things not the overall complexity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some of these criticisms are utterly stupid:

> * Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on > programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in > about 10,000 locations across the United States.

Without a mention of how much work these people do on terrorism, it's meaningless. Homeland security is a cross-cutting concern. So Excelon in Illinois might have a program in place to harden their nuclear power plants against potential terrorist attack. Should they be counted as part of this "hidden world" "growing beyond control?"

> * An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in > Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

There are a ton of reasons to have top-secret security clearances that have nothing to do with counterterrorism or intelligence gathering. Anyone doing sensitive military research, for example, will often have a top secret clearance.

> * Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating > redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military > commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from > terrorist networks.

Again, homeland security is a cross-cutting concern.

> * Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign > and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence > reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

50,000 intelligence reports in a year is 136 per day, in a country of 300 million people.

<comment><USER9> You're right, some of the criticisms don't make much sense.

But we're going to hear a lot more like this now we know that intelligence was aware of the alleged boston bomber at least a year ago.

<comment><USER10> When I hear that the FBI interviewed the Boston bomber a year ago, I don't immediately think of FBI incompetence. No, rather, I think, "Hey, the bomber had many experiences & changes of mind, & is truly a different person a year hence".

I mean, are personalities & motivations & intentions truly permanent? C'mon, haven't we all changed as life goes on?

It's a fallacy to think you can ever 99.9% predict the future regardless of how much "big data" & "army of experts" you have.

That approach hasn't predicted the stock market within 70% accuracy, so how can we expect it to predict security issues any better?

We need to just realize that we're far more likely to die from causes other than terrorism, & just treat it like other crimes.

<comment><USER11> If we drag the FBI over the coals for interviewing this guy and failing to stop him, we are shooting ourselves in the foot.

Either the FBI is going to stop interviewing people, or they are going to start putting lots of innocent people in jail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> (English is not my native language)

I am very surprised by the very large amount of statism that seems to be present in USA in general and on hacker news in particular.

The high level of support for GWOT and all the side dishes like TSA, mass surveillance etc is very surprising.

Each and one of all the things that have been done in the post 9/11 world may partially or completely be justifiable on it's own.

But please, take a step back and paint a picture of where we have come from and were we are going if this trend continues.

If I may help you...

<http://i.imgur.com/tfPY1y0.jpg> , here is a picture of the subway in New York in the 80's, dirty and full of graffiti - with drugs and violence present and by all means also music, food vendors and a lot of people going to their jobs.

<http://i.imgur.com/AxWRPgl.jpg> , here is the Moscow subway from the same time. Clean, spotless and no one behaves disorderly without the police arresting them quickly, police officers with none of the ridiculous limitations that the western police had in their code of conduct at that time.

In which of those two subways would you prefer to ride to work every day?

With every new alfabet law designed to protect us that passes through the parliaments, with every new government agency we move closer to a society that looks more like the Moscow subway station.

Not to long ago we were prepared for thermonuclear war to defend our ways.

Today we are giving up our open and free society with a cheer so we can stay safe. Step by step, piece by piece.

Why can't the otherwise so intelligent and educated crowd of hacker news see that our society is heading in the direction of a police state? We are not there yet, but it is where we will end up if we don't turn around soon.

<comment><USER13> > Why can't the otherwise so intelligent and educated crowd of hacker news see > that our society is heading in the direction of a police state? We are not > there yet, but it is where we will end up if we don't turn around soon.

We don't have much of a choice unless we want to regress into a pre-state hunter gatherer society (aka, a non-society). People live closely together, people don't want to get shot by their neighbor.

Advanced society requires the right set of laws to protect our safety and our liberty. And the USA is not alone in trying to balance these concerns: look at western Europe, Japan, Aus, NZ, ..., they all have the same issues to consider. There is also no "right" solution, its not black or white, but rather there are many tradeoffs to be made.

<comment><USER14> _We don't have much of a choice unless we want to regress into a pre-state hunter gatherer society_

Yikes, so we become a police state or we go roll things back 5000 years. Amazing.

It's like the United States wasn't a world power and thriving before the New Deal.

<comment><USER13> What part of rising population densities do you not get? We will become more urbanized, you just can't support 4 or 500 million Americans rurally. As we live more closely together, issues that would otherwise be benign or insignificant become significant. Couple that with globalization, and what are otherwise local problems have become global ones.

From the libertarian perspective, we've been going downhill ever since the first city state kings appeared. People during the 30s were probably bitching about how it was much better in the 1870s, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> On a related note, PBS had an episode called "Top Secret America" in 2011 [1] - it's pretty good. Overview: _"A two-year examination into the massive, unwieldy, top-secret world the government has created in response to 9/11"_.

[1] <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/topsecretamerica/>

<comment><USER16> IT's the same authors, I think. They also published this in a book a couple years ago.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra The real danger there is that security apparatus tend to replace government as a decision making center.

Nazi Germany towards the end or Russia today, you will see security apparatus contributing most of people who has real political weight. They have clearances nobody else does, they think of themselves as defenders, they never trust anyone outside their circle, and once they're in - nobody else gets to decide anything that can't be overriden by them.

</comment><comment><USER17> >"More is often the solution proposed by the leaders of the 9/11 enterprise. After the Christmas Day bombing attempt, Leiter also pleaded for more - <USER2> analysts to join the 300 or so he already had.

>"The Department of Homeland Security asked for more air marshals, more body scanners and more analysts, too, even though it can't find nearly enough qualified people to fill its intelligence unit now. Obama has said he will not freeze spending on national security, making it likely that those requests will be funded."

and this scares me the most:

>"Meanwhile, five miles southeast of the White House, the DHS has broken ground for its new headquarters, to be shared with the Coast Guard. DHS, in existence for only seven years, already has its own Special Access Programs, its own research arm, its own command center, its own fleet of armored cars and its own 230,000-person workforce, the third-largest after the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs."

More more more, funny how all this makes me far more uneasy then any terrorist threat. At least I can fight off a terrorist, lord help you if you try to say no to the SWAT team wanting to search your home for a teenager who made a homemade explosive.

<comment><USER8> DHS isn't an organic entity that sprung up from 0 to 230,000 in the wake of 9/11. It is just an amalgam of a bunch of agencies that already existed. It includes the Coast Guard, INS, Customs, FEMA, TSA, and Secret Service, along with a bunch of smaller agencies. Of those, the only new thing is TSA, which is 56,000 employees. And while annoying, TSA is mostly doing the same job private companies used to do under contracts with airlines.

<comment><USER17> That's an excellent point, though it still is relatively scary. Such as the powers the DHS has in "constitutional free zones"[1]. It makes me nervous having 230,000 people having this much power because they're under the umbrella of "DHS".

[1] [http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/homeland- sec...](http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/homeland-security- assuming-broad-powers-turning-vast-swaths-us)

<comment><USER18> That's a rather loaded term to describe a tradeoff between individual rights and the government's legitimate interests. Moreover, it's a balancing that has survived Supreme Court scrutiny, IIRC.

<comment><USER19> It's a funny "balancing" that means that 2/3 of the population does not have the right to be secure in their persons or papers, freedom of movement, the requirement of due process, warrants, and probable cause before being handcuffed or cavity-searched, and so on.

<comment><USER8> That's a huge exaggeration to the point of verging on an outright lie. See: [http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6933260753627774...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6933260753627774699)

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure what assertion you're claiming is a huge exaggeration? The Federal government claims a 100-mile region in which the border-crossing exceptions to the Constitution apply. The court judgment you cite says that's BS and the government does not have that much leeway. The comment to which I was replying appears to argue that the 100-mile rule is a tradeoff/balance that has survived scrutiny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article was written in 2010 as part of a series. Also, for a single-page view, [http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret- america/articl...](http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret- america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/print/)

<comment><USER21> Thanks. I figured this was the case given the sentence "After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, ..." I wonder why the didn't include a date on the linked page. Seems like an important piece of information for any news article / investigative journalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you found this article enjoyable you should check out the book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-America-American- Security/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-America-American- Security/dp/0316182206)

This article is from a while back and in the intervening time the journalists came out with a book that goes into more detail.

</comment><comment><USER23> The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

<comment><USER24> Maybe it's a self-referential, insular sense of what's a reasonable rate of expansion? Pensions for them, while the free market searches its sofa for spare change. How do we compete with India, Philippines and the rest of the world? Telecommuting, Bitcoins, the Internet, are we blind to what's coming? Ocean moats become puddles. It's an open playing field, yet we spend like the next Zuckerberg will save our ass. What if Zuck moves to China? [http://www.forbes.com/sites/techonomy/2012/02/20/facebook- an...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/techonomy/2012/02/20/facebook-and- dreamworks-make-moves-for-growth-in-china/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> And not one of these people identified the Boston pair before they blew up the Marathon. Yes, the FBI interviewed the older brother but never followed up. If you can't catch the amateur "terrorists" how will you catch the pros?

<comment><USER26> I resent (and reject the need for) the growth of the "security" apparatus as much as (almost) anybody else, but it's worth pointing out that what works for catching the "pros" is quite different from what works for catching amateurs. Pros are capable of inflicting greater damage, and are therefore a greater threat in that respect, but tend to organize in order to get access to larger resources. That means there's a larger target to "hit" when probing for information, and it makes picking up on plots much easier. An amateur can't inflict as much damage, but can do so practically undetected, and there's really not much that can be done about it AFAIK.

Thought experiment: suppose you wanted to kill as many people and cause as much chaos as you could. How would you go about it? And how easy would it be for the security apparatus to catch you? Would you be able to, evading capture, perform another attack a week later? How long could you go on?

It's really quite fortunate that the sort of people who want to do large amounts of violence, are exactly the sort of people who tend not be very good at it.

<comment><USER27> "The federal government added the name of the dead Boston Marathon bombing suspect to a terrorist database 18 months before the deadly explosions, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday."

[http://bigstory.ap.org/article/officials-dead-bomber-name- te...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/officials-dead-bomber-name-terrorism- database)

<comment><USER28> > About a year ago, there were some 745,000 people listed in the database.

Wow. Suspected terrorists outnumber the Army and Marines, put together!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> From the article:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

Is there a central place were one can get a list of the mentioned agencies and who they are accountable to? If the Washington Post did all this research it would be great to see them create an online resource with their findings.

<comment><USER22> Did you check out the "search the data" link?

[http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/gov- or...](http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/gov-orgs/)

The above link lists all the high level gov organizations. I am not sure where you can get a list of the 1,271 smaller organizations. As far as who each organization is accountable to that is pretty easy...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> There is something not at all touched on in this article that I feel has a big impact on the growth of classified space. That is the classification system itself. Essentially "top secret" is a viral license. Information synthesized from N sources gets a secrecy level of at least max_level(sources). Frequently even more.

Further, if someone with secret knowledge works on something that isn't at all in classified space, it may turn out that the new product/work needs to be classified, because classified knowledge may have gone into it.

This is a very virulent license - worse than the most paranoid analyses of GPL.

Countering this, the declassification process is slow, difficult, and a bit ridiculous. Lots of things remain classified not because they present a continuing issue, but because they make someone look bad. Or because they may be used to establish a pattern or MO that could endanger current operations. Even if that information is widely published.

As an aside - one of the fun games you can play with your friends that have some sort of clearance is to ask them recent news related to their area of work. If they respond with vague statements "oh thats interesting" or "I don't know anything about that" and keep trying to change the subject, it generally means they saw a classified briefing about it, or expect to, and can't reveal or discuss anything about it, even if it is all over the news. Particularly if they're very resistant to such discussion. It's a nice way to screw with them. (It's a game because they figure out what you're doing and start screwing with you back, be careful tho, you don't want to get them in serious trouble, or yourself in trouble for pushing too hard).

Anyway, the weird viral classified things is why I have rejected offers of work requiring a clearance. It is just too annoying to get interesting side projects and open source participation done when you're in the world of classified. That and I just like sharing cool and interesting things with people. I don't think I'd be happy not sharing.

<comment><USER31> > things remain classified...because they make someone look bad

I thought this was a felony in the US. (I wish it was in Australia.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> "publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored" - I would contend this. It's simply an assumption.

Many of their sources seem to be very junior to their respective organizations.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is really worrisome - all I read about secret organizations shows how crazy they become with time.

</comment><comment><USER34> Rent-seeking is not limited to the private sector -- it happens within the government as well.

</comment><comment><USER35> when was this published? I read something very similar to this, maybe 1.5-2 years ago.</comment>


Summer camps use facial recognition so parents can watch from home - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Summer-camps-use-facial-recognition-so-parents-14291272.php <comment><USER2> About 36 years ago I was abused by two camp counselors in one summer. One of them fractured my sternum when he punched me after I mouthed off. I still have the bony ridge and slightly deformed pectoral. But the other did much worse leaving me with lifelong emotional issues.

If you asked pre-teen me how I would deal with a grown man determined to abuse me, I would have talked tough. But when that time came, I froze like a rabbit in the presence of a coiled python. Over the course of my life when other victims shared their story with me, I am always reminded how shockingly easy it is to abuse a child. For the record, one of them ended the abuse when she gathered the strength to simply whimper the word "no".

For all the confused commenters that wonder why we have this cameras- everywhere trend, it is because there are a multitude of adults like me with their secret abuse stories. There just doesn't seem to be competing ideas on how to prevent child abuse.

At the very least if you are a dad, tell your child this, "if an adult harms you, I know it will be difficult but you must tell me. I'll probably get angry at first but I promise I'll calm down and I won't do anything rash, etc.". I just assumed my dad would lose his temper and either wind up in the hospital, jail, or both. But then again given the stigma of being an abused boy I probably still wouldn't talk which appears to be the norm and why it is so widespread.

<comment><USER3> Sorry to hear that, but gotta ask: Do you think a camera would've prevented the abuse? Or maybe would it have happened somewhere out of view of a camera?

<comment><USER4> Nobody can be certain that it would completely prevent something like that, and world doesn't deal with absolute. However, it would make it harder to perpetrate, make potential abuser more fearful, and, on average, would make it much less probable, this I'm sure of.

<comment><USER3> With the cost of many many people feeling observed, many parents being nudged into thinking it's okay to observe their kids 24/7 etc.

The old discussion about security vs freedom again. And I don't think there are easy answers to that.

<comment><USER4> I disagree that parents are passive objects here - it's them who are subjects. They are the camp's customers, and they make decision to choose one camp over another depending on which one has this security and which one doesn't, and they are able to communicate their opinion to the camp's administration.

It's all in the parent's hands, as it should be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "When a camper isn't smiling or is on the outside of a big group shot, counselors said they know to expect a phone call from back home. Liz Young, a longtime camp director now helping oversee two camps on the coast of New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee, said she now fields as many concerned-parents calls in two hours as she used to get all month - mostly from parents asking about how their kids look on camera, or whether they're being photographed"

So they now remind the kids their parents are watching, so they'll smile.

Time for a new era a camp movies. Not sure if it would be a comedy, black mirror or horror movie.

<comment><USER6> I don't know why people find black mirror so interesting- isn't it just a humdrum depiction of how things are these days?

<comment><USER7> You may be more tuned in to some of the issues that it's calling attention to than the typical viewer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The first time I got high was when a camp counselor shared a joint with my friend and me. There were no photos, and no parents ever knew. Everything was just fine that way, too. Who knows what my parents and siblings were up to while I was gone.

It was such a relief to get away from my whole family for a week when I was a teenager.

That was in the 70s. I would have gone nuts if I'd been raised by the helicopter parents of the 90s who were always on the verge of calling social services on my wife and me because we didn't always supervise her every waking moment. Hell, sometimes we didn't know where she was when she was a teen. And the psychotic version of obsessively intrusive cyber-stalking parents that exist now makes me not want to know young parents.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't get it. What drives parents to this level of micro-management of their kids?

I'm a father, in my mid-40s, and my son just turned 25. So, I definitely parented though the first wave of helicopter parents. I just don't get it. Sending my son out on his bike to roam free was the best part of the day for all of us. And summer camp was a welcome break from the tedium of suburban life - for all of us. He got to run around outside without concern that we were watching; we got some time to catch up on our marriage or whatever else needed tending.

And any time we tried to force control his life, it created more problems than it solved. We always had more success just letting him do his thing and trusting that he'd mostly do the right thing (he stumbled a few times, but most of us have).

<comment><USER10> I think there always has been an over anxious section of humanity, but now they are enabled by technology and society around them to be that anxious.

<comment><USER11> I'd say they should chill out and smoke a blunt, but that would probably make them paranoid as well as anxious. What an awful way to go through life, is there nothing that can be done for them?

<comment><USER10> Anxiety & panic attacks being a common mental illness isn't a high statistic for no reason, and it tends to skew more female.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is utterly terrifying.

Maybe the kids are used to this level of obsessive control? I'm not sure if this sounds more damaging for the kids or for the parents.

This also sounds only a _really_ small step away from just having cameras everywhere that the parents can watch 24/7.

I'd really like to hear a persuasive argument as to why this is at all reasonable.

<comment><USER13> This is next level helicopter parenting in action. Kids these days are twice the age of millennials when they start roaming their surrounding environment without supervision. When I grew up we had a comedy movie called the Truman Show and we were actually laughing about a similar situation. This is guaranteed to set up a generation for failure if kids are never exposed to any risk taking activities.

<comment><USER10> My mom brought up a point, that in the 50s-70s, maybe even the 80s, there was a vast informal network of housewifes and grandparents that kept watch on the kids playing outside in the neighborhood, that they felt like they could trust. Also there were not laws that made it kids had to be supervised by adults until age 12. Now CPS will be called on you if you have your kids go on the bus by themselves:

[https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/09/06/a-dad-in- bc-l...](https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/09/06/a-dad-in-bc-let-his- kids-ride-the-bus-alone-and-it-sparked-a-national-debate.html)

In today's dual income norm where you don't know your neighbors, that doesn't exist anymore. That & the new laws creates helicopter parenting to assuage these new anxieties.

<comment><USER13> Sounds like an administration completely out of control. This is the kind of nonsense you actually sue a government for. Is Canada providing the support for parents working full time to accommodate these kinds of demands?

> After a weeks-long investigation, the ministry concluded that children under > the age of 10 cannot be left unsupervised — whether on a bus, riding bikes > around the neighbourhood or walking to the corner store, he said.

It's so sad our world has never been as safe as today.

<comment><USER14> >Sounds like an administration completely out of control.

This isn't an administration completely out of control.

This is a _society_ completely out of control.

The administration simply reflects the prevailing social attitude, and that attitude is that we want to take away the rights of children to properly develop (and more to the point, limit the rights of parents to _allow_ their children to develop) and hand it over to concern trolls and/or the paranoid so that they may exercise power over their neighbors under the guise of looking out for them- remember, abuse from CPS is always initiated by a "concerned citizen". Oppression, after all, is always at its worst when the oppressors act with the approval of their own conscience.

Societies typically fail to deal with this kind of person appropriately, because when risk is exposed it both presses emotional buttons _and_ provides an easy way out (by banning the risk).

The way it's _correctly_ dealt with is to write laws that ban society from paying that kind of Dane-geld. These laws codify things called "rights"; and their primary function is to prevent unwarranted risk aversity (be it genuine, or fake to score political points) by setting down a baseline beyond which those that spread terror are not negotiated with (that your children will be abducted unless you pay the ransom of never letting them outside, or that they'll grow up to be mass killers unless you pay the ransom of banning rock music, D&D, and video games), _even if the allegations are correct_ (a child raised in a locked cage will by definition never be abducted).

Utah has passed such a law (I'm not sure about other places, though Red states are by current definition more likely than Blue ones to do this) explicitly codifying the right of way of minors of "sufficient age and maturity" in its state definition of "neglect" so that State power can't be abused to harass them. While it's not a permanent solution explicitly recognizing the rights of persons of sufficient age and maturity (as it could easily be changed later, and even if minors had the explicit right of way they would be unlikely to realize if it was being infringed), it's a good first step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is entirely overblown.

Several camps my kids have gone to use Bunk1 to post pictures of what the kids are up to. Sometimes there are several hundred photos (for a large camp they may have a full-time photographer who is also putting together yearbooks and social media).

The software can flag which photos are more likely to have your child in them. It saves a lot of scrolling. That is all.

"Oh look, there she is! Cool."

There is no way I'm calling the camp unless I see blood streaming down my kids face. I have never called the camp except for medical issues.

Mostly the pictures make me jealous of all the cool activities they get to do. They give a topic I can mention in the bunk notes (instead of mailing a letter you write a message and they print it and hand it out, and your child can write a reply which gets scanned in and emailed back the next day.)

</comment><comment><USER16> I well and truly hope the Gel-Mann effect applies here and this is being exaggerated or misreported.

Cause what is described here is absolutely insane.

</comment><comment><USER17> This comes to my mind. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent)

The first results of this method of parenting are comming in, and I will tell you only the most hilarious result: some guy, 25 or something, came to a job interview with his mother (and I am not joking)

<comment><USER3> The media reporting about helicopter parents might be way out of proportion:

[https://www.salon.com/test/2015/09/04/debunking_the_myth_of_...](https://www.salon.com/test/2015/09/04/debunking_the_myth_of_the_helicopter_parent_the_pernicious_cultural_biases_behind_a_collegiate_urban_legend/)

<comment><USER17> Maybe, but this event happened in my company. It is not from the media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Parents: hanging out with your children is reasonably-priced and can actually be fun.

Non-parents: starting a family is fun and can actually be reasonably-priced.

</comment><comment><USER19> The parents have to set up automated cameras in their house and car and ask their employer to set some up in their workplace as well. Then let the kids get automated messages with the photos. It would only be fair.

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

</comment><comment><USER20> This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I really think some technologies should simply not be developed.

Like it or not, engineers have a social responsibility, and this they should be able to refuse to make certain types of products. In other fields (biology and medicine for example), there is a notion of ethics. We need that too.

<comment><USER21> Social responsibility is great and all, until you are struggling to feed your kids. Then it goes out the window. In a country of 300 million, I'm sure someone would be willing to develop it

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Show the pictures to the kids daily and let them choose which pictures get sent home, and this is a win for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER23> Sounds like a good way to build up a large accurate database of children's faces with matching expressions.

</comment><comment><USER24> Getting kids ready for always being under surveillance in an authoritarian society.

</comment><comment><USER25> Obsessed parent or not, the facial recognition is a huge time saver. Some of these camps post hundreds of pictures a day.</comment>


Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/us/politics/georgia-official-code-copyright.html <comment><USER2> The Republic of Georgia claims that the legal code establishing the rights and obligations of its citizens (including annotations commissioned and approved by the state) should not be freely available to its citizens or anyone else, because it is copyrighted by the state.

According to the article, 20 other states around the world are making similar copyright claims.

The written laws of a state (along with annotations commissioned by the state) are, in effect, the source code for running the state.

Citizens _must_ behave as specified by this code. Otherwise they are fined, incarcerated, or worse.

Shouldn't the code that controls people's lives be free, open-source?

<comment><USER3> The text of the laws themselves _are_ open-source. It's the annotations that are the issue and this is, at least, an area where there is a reasonable ambiguity. Hopefully one that will be resolved in favour of greatest openness, but the state's position is at least not _totally_ unreasonable.

What is unreasonable, and why this is getting attention on HN is because Malamud's actions in publish the annotations has been described as "terrorism". Perhaps this is just one boneheaded lawyer speaking carelessly, but maybe it's a deliberate attempt to conflate political activism, which may often involve breaking the law or defying authority in a harmless way in pursuit of a political goal, with terrorism, which involves breaking the law in a violent or dangerous way for the same ends. It's important that such a distinction is kept, and the state cannot depict any and all political motivated misbehaviour as "terrorism"

<comment><USER4> Unofficial versions of the law are available, somewhat.

The only official version of the law is the annotated one. Thus the only official law is deemed secret without payment by the state. Thus you cannot know the true law in Georgia without paying.

Not to mention the official annotations are considered authoritative. Lawyer and judges reference them, making them part of the law.

<comment><USER5> Lawyers and judges reference a huge variety of materials in their opinions. That doesn't make all those reference materials "part of the law."

These annotations do not appear to be essential to understanding the law. They appear to be explanatory aids.

<comment><USER6> > These annotations do not appear to be essential to understanding the law

At least 3 judges disagree with this (quoted from the article):

> "The annotations clearly have authoritative weight in explicating and > establishing the meaning and effect of Georgia's laws," Judge Stanley Marcus > wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the court

<comment><USER5> The Eleventh Circuit's decision turns more on the annotations being published under the authority of the State than the fact that judges and lawyers "reference" them. Courts routinely reference the Restatements, for example, but those are private works.

<comment><USER6> To an outsider like me, this situation seems bizarre; please correct me if this is wrong, but...

It seems like you're arguing that it's reasonable to keep these annotations private because it's already impossible to understand the law without other stuff that is private, _not_ because these annotations are not essential to understanding the law.

<comment><USER5> You're starting from a premise that doesn't really work. In a common law system, you can't completely "understand" the law. You guess at what the law requires, the judge evaluates the law in the context of what you did, and renders judgment based on everything from other judges' opinions to statistical studies to the judge's moral sensibilities. For example, we are currently debating in the US whether our workplace discrimination law covers discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Erudite analysis has been written espousing both sides of that issue. Can you say you "understand" that law? Yet, people are expected to follow it.

The relevant distinction is between what sources are binding and what sources are not. The statutory text is binding. Case law in the same jurisdiction is binding. The annotations produced by a private company, or private scholarship published in a treatise, are not binding.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for explaining, that makes a lot of sense.

What's surprising is not that it's very hard to understand the law; it's big and messy and evolving.

What's surprising is that in practice one has to pay money to even try to understand what the experts are talking about. It's impossible to find all the relevant texts to study in a library, for example. That seems deeply undesirable; it exacerbates the problem you described of people being expected to follow the law when they can't possibly understand it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Carl Malamud does very important work. You can fund Public.Resource.Org at

[https://public.resource.org/about/donate.html](https://public.resource.org/about/donate.html)

A recurring monthly donation is probably most valuable to them (see "Other Donation Options").

<comment><USER8> [Remove the two spaces before https, so the link becomes clicky.]

<comment><USER7> Clicky is good :) Done, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just a note: the use of the word "terrorism" appears to be Malamud's own usage, though likely taken severely out of context for shock value (I cannot find Exhibit 2, which is cited as the source of the term). It does not appear as if anyone is legitimately accusing him of terrorist acts.

That said, it is absurd that materials that have the force of law (being consulted and cited by judges themselves in rendering judgements) can be controlled by a commercial entity. I wish Malamud the best.

</comment><comment><USER10> Probably worth noting that putting court precedents from PACER free online on RECAP was what launched the first FBI investigation into Carl Malamud's friend, my friend, Aaron Swartz. They had to close the investigation after they figured out that unfortunately (from their perspective) everything Aaron had done was actually legal, but when they got another chance with the JSTOR incident, their friends at the US Attorney's office hounded him to suicide.

Carl, fortunately, is a bit more laid-back than Aaron was — I don't think suicide is in the cards — but we should absolutely see this lawsuit as a continuation of the same appalling, absurd caricature of justice that killed Aaron.

</comment><comment><USER11> The plaintiff is listed as "Georgia code revision commission", and it's surprisingly hard to find out who that actually consists of - googling it just finds more reports of this case. I note that Georgia is currently an "R" state.

<comment><USER12> > _The plaintiff is listed as "Georgia code revision commission", and it's > surprisingly hard to find out who that actually consists of_

From the federal court opinion [1]:

"The annotations were initially prepared by Mathew Bender & Co., Inc., an operating division of the LexisNexis Group, (Lexis), pursuant to an agreement it entered into with the State of Georgia. Under the terms of the agreement, Lexis is responsible for the ongoing publication and maintenance of the Code, and all editorial, publication, and distribution costs. In exchange, Lexis was given the exclusive right of publication by Georgia. But, notably, Georgia holds the copyright in the annotations in its own name. The publication agreement also specifies what types of annotations should appear alongside the statutory text, and provides detailed and specific directions as to how Lexis is to generate and arrange this content. The agreement also provides that the Code Revision Commission (the "Commission") supervises the work of Lexis and has final editorial control over the contents of the OCGA.

The Commission is a body established by the Georgia General Assembly in 1977 that was originally tasked with undertaking the recodification of all of Georgia's laws, a project that had not been done since 1933. The Commission is comprised of Georgia officials, including the Lieutenant Governor, four members of the Georgia Senate, the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, four additional members of the Georgia House of Representatives, and five membersappointed by the president of the State Bar of Georgia. Following its successful recodification of Georgia law and the publication of the OCGA in 1982, the Commission is now responsible for updating the OCGA and supervising Lexis's editing and publication of the OCGA."

[1] [http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201711589....](http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201711589.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Isn't terrorism the use of physical violence to further political means? How does this meet the standard of terrorism? I feel like if this is part of the official record some pro bono lawyer will be looking for a decent payday.

I feel like there should be some personal penalty for those unborn government who willingly engage in acts that are not in the letter of the law and cost the taxpayer money.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Providing public access to the state's laws and related legal materials, > Georgia's lawyers said, was part of a "strategy of terrorism."

Incidentally, "copyright terrorism" is an expression the Church of Scientology lawyers have used against critics nearly 25 years ago:

> The church said that it supports itself through donations for these > services, and the former member was engaged in "copyright terrorism."[1]

* * *

[1] [https://www.rcfp.org/church-scientology-sues-critic- seizes-c...](https://www.rcfp.org/church-scientology-sues-critic-seizes- computer-over-copyright-claim/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I do not understand this story. How can law be "under copyright"?

<comment><USER16> It technically isn't. The annotations in question are expert's analyses of the law, approved by the state.

The defendant was told he could publish the actual law, and his own analysis. However it gets really murky when "Georgia's courts have cited to the annotations as authoritative sources on statutory meaning and legislative intent."

I can see the argument against this being freely publishable. If I wrote a textbook which explains some badly written and archaic laws really well, and lawyers and judges started to look to it as the de facto law, should that void my copyright? On the other hand, the public should have free access to the interpretation of the law as enforced.

<comment><USER17> >If I wrote a textbook which explains some badly written and archaic laws really well, and lawyers and judges started to look to it as the de facto law, should that void my copyright?

Given copyright only exists under the law, in the rare case that this happens, a sensible fudge would be to make a compulsary purchase of the copyright for the assessed market value, so it can become public domain. Much in the same way as you would do for any other property when you need to build municipal infrastructure through it. The law is essentially municipal infrastructure anywazy, so it isn't that much of a legal stretch.

<comment><USER18> This is not a "rare case" at all. Judicial opinions frequently cite private materials such as the Restatements, law review articles, Black's Law Dictionary, paywalled scientific literature, and so on.

<comment><USER17> Are the Restatements, law review articles, Black's Law Dictionary and the paywalled scientific literature cited then 'de facto law'?

<comment><USER18> The Restatements and Black's are, yes. Law review articles - maybe, depending on context. Scientific understanding rarely gets encoded in the law as such, but see _Roe v. Wade_ as an example - the trimester-based legal framework has given legal effect to a particular understanding of fetal viability.

Side-note: I don't really care that my above post has been downvoted, but it seems pretty counter-productive to the HN cultural goal of intellectual discourse for people to downvote input from actual practitioners in the field just because they don't like the answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is poisoning discourse. Accusing Malamud of 'terrorism' is a kind of terrorism, using the power of the state and law to demonize dissenters by using emotionally charged hyperbolic language.

But delving into the details the failure is judges and other referring to annotations of laws as the interpretations of the laws which then build history and are held precedent, without first making sure any such interpretations are freely available to the wider public.

The judiciary is a specially empowered part of democratic process and has powers but also responsibilities, and has a primary responsibility to uphold the democratic process and free access to the the entire process of laws and their interpretations, and a deviation from this calls into question an individuals suitability for such an important role in the democratic process.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why would there be any issue at all with putting the law online?

Serious question.

What do, say, reporters in Georgia do when they write a story about court proceedings or what-have-you? Is the state code just never referenced? Or explained? Or even just written out so that people can see what happened and how it worked?

Is the general public simply not allowed to know what laws they live under? Or is it that only people authorized by the government are allowed to tell people what the law says? (Which, to me, sounds even more problematic.)

<comment><USER21> This is addressed in the article.

<comment><USER20> No it doesn't.

It says that court decisions are always public. As are statutes. You can't, to my knowledge, render your court decisions "not" public, by simply referencing an annotation and then saying, "well, we have a contract with a publisher".

This legal obligation cannot, to my knowledge, be contracted away. So what kind of contracting was done to make this happen? This is my question. How did they manage this so that a take down notice is suddenly legal, as opposed to explicitly illegal?

<comment><USER22> So, the gist of it is that while the court decisions are public, things written about the court decisions, like news articles, may be copyrighted. The state of Georgia claims that this is the status of the annotations written by Lexis-Nexis.

Clearly, this shouldn't be possible: a work contracted by the state is a work by the state (ie a work for hire), and should be public domain. But there's money involved, and that tends to be the deciding factor in legal decisions in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of Chinese government's method of censorship by accusing people of "causing harm to state security"

</comment><comment><USER24> Your country is broken

<comment><USER25> I don't know if we can recover. There seems to be a strong trend towards the breakdown of large societal systems, and no appreciable efforts towards reformation. If very basic things like posting the laws of the state on your website receives this kind of response, then what hope do we have of tackling major problems? I used to be much more of an incrementalist, confident that the hard, slogging work of slow political activism could lead to a surprising amount of change over the long term, and I was dismissive of catastrophists who just threw up their arms and declared that everything was futile. But now, half of my life I have just seen the political process in the US grind to a complete halt, with no realistic path towards any major reforms. This kind of stasis is not sustainable in a world that is changing as much as it is, and I fear that the resolution will not be the un-gumming of the political system... it will be the collapse of US society into something unrecognizable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is baffling to me. IANAL, but I was under the impression that any documents created by the government were automatically in the public domain and couldn't be copyrighted (with the exception of classified documents, of course).

</comment><comment><USER27> Usually, when reading about Georgia, a glance at the article provides enough context to determine whether it's about the American state or the former Soviet bloc nation. Not in this case, it would seem.

</comment><comment><USER28> Previous discussion on similar topic: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19617073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19617073)

</comment><comment><USER29> Actually, xe wasn't.

The legal brief from the plaintiff, hyperlinked from the _NYT_ article, dated 2015, actually says:

> _Defendant's founder and president, Carl Malamud, has indicated that this > type of strategy has been a successful form of "terrorism" that he has > employed in the past to force government entities to publish documents on > Malamud's terms. See Exhibit 2._

* [https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/ga/pro_v_georgia/gov.us...](https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/ga/pro_v_georgia/gov.uscourts.gand.218354.1.0.pdf#page=11)

It is purporting to quote _M. Malamud xyrself, describing xyr own acts_. To see whether that is actually true, one follows it to exhibit 2.

* [https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/ga/pro_v_georgia/gov.us...](https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/ga/pro_v_georgia/gov.uscourts.gand.218354.1.2.pdf)

* [https://archives.cjr.org/campaign_desk/carl_malamud_public_p...](https://archives.cjr.org/campaign_desk/carl_malamud_public_printer.php)

... where we find that it is a 2009 article from _Columbia Journalism Review_ that says:

> _It was a threat to commit "standards terrorism," as Malamud later put it;_

... with "later put it" hyperlinked in the original _CJR_ article to [https://museum.media.org/eti/](https://museum.media.org/eti/) and the court exhibit containing that same URL explicitly. So the question is whether M. Malamud indeed described xyr own actions as "terrorism" there.

Indeed, xe did:

> _While Tony certainly sympathized with my goals, I wasn 't quite sure how he > was going to react to this form of standards terrorism._

* [https://museum.media.org/eti/Prologue01.html](https://museum.media.org/eti/Prologue01.html)

So: Back in 1992, M. Malamud _describes xyr own actions_ as "standards terrorism". That's picked up by Clint Hendler of the _Columbia Journalism Review_ some 17 years later and directly ascribed as M. Malamud's own words; and 6 years after that, the plaintiff points out that that is how M. Malamud characterizes xyr own actions. Then the _New York Times_ , the _Los Angeles Times_ , the _Atlanta Journal-Constitution_ , and others misreport that as the plaintiff accusing M. Malamud of terrorism.

And the falsehood that _the state of Georgia_ claimed that M. Malamud was a terrorist becomes the accepted truth to such a degree that even Wikipedia's article on Carl Malamud has stated it for the past 4 years.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carl_Malamud&diff...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carl_Malamud&diff=673548316&oldid=673483360)

<comment><USER30> In case 'xe', 'xyr', etc. confuse anyone else, they're genderless pronouns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It cannot happen under the Japanese copyright law. I really can't understand the US law system in general.

</comment><comment><USER32> Very simple solution to this. Pass a federal law that makes it illegal to copyright a law.

</comment><comment><USER33> And now Georgia is yet another state on my don't-move-there list.

</comment><comment><USER34> There is so much confusion in this thread as to what this is about, I think we should bring out our famously flawed tech analogies. Say the IEEE writes a standard for a networking protocol. It's full of arcane acronyms and technical details, as well as some ambiguities here and there. So then I (as a private person, nothing to do with the IEEE) write a book explaining the protocol in usable terms. I also take some liberties to provide advise on 'best practices' on some of the ambiguous parts. My book is so useful and successful, that even most implementors of the protocol refer to it. Because of that, most implementations behave mostly the same in the corner cases.

Something like this happens quite a lot, to a greater or lesser extent. Nobody (well, copyright abolitionists would, out of principle, but I'm talking people who just want to get stuff done and get on with their life) would argue that I would lose copyright to my book, because it's so successful.

Now the IEEE pays me to write said book. This is where things become murkier (maybe). Because now, has my book become an extension of the standard? Does it depend on the relationship between me and the IEEE? Say, if I have access to drafts of the standard, and I provide feedback, does that make my book closer to being part of the standard? If my book just has clarifications and no opinion in it, does that make a difference? I would still say that, as long as it's _possible_ to implement the standard without the book, it's not 'part' of the standard. But as the standard gets less clear, at some point, it becomes impossible to implement something in an interoperable way _without_ having the book. Should I lose copyright my book in such a case? And does it still matter whether the IEEE has paid for it?

One difference between the IEEE and legislators is that one can say 'screw the IEEE, I'll just make my own protocol'. You can't do that with law. Is that sufficient a difference to make someone lose their copyright? Or should the IEEE just have paid me outright, as a contractor, to write the book, so that they can give it away for free? But then why bother with the book at all? After all, the book is just for making things easier, it's not a 'source' as such, regardless of how much easier it makes implementor's lives.

I don't think this is as clear or as outrageous a case as people are making it out to be here. We don't want to discourage people from making annotations, summaries and explanations. Maybe legislators should just write more clear laws to begin with. But the more you do that, the more you open yourself up to 'backdoors' and 'hole in the law' trickery. Not to mention that it becomes even harder to get political will to support a text in the first place - making perfect the enemy of good enough.

</comment><comment><USER35> This hyperbole on the part of the state is dangerous. It reminds of of lifetime flagging individuals as "sexual predators" and then learning that some state will use this for people convicted of public urination.

It makes going to the source very important as my previous reasoning used to be "Are you against Terrorism/Sexual Predation? Yes. Cool, here's how we deal with it."

Now is much more labor intensive as it's now "are you against Terrorism/Sexual Predation? Well, that depends on the particulars..."

<comment><USER36> The word "terrorism" was used by Malamud himself to describe his own actions, see [1]. The state is quoting him. The title and contents of the NYTimes article are misleading on this point.

[1] [https://museum.media.org/eti/Prologue01.html](https://museum.media.org/eti/Prologue01.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Really the abuse of "terrrorism" so blatantly even by the standards of a government should qualify for some pretty damn harsh defamation law to the officials trying to hide behind the state. Those sorts of abuses of power are the kind of thing where we actually do need to be "tough on crime" for if we wish to be remotely free.

<comment><USER38> I'm not sure on which law this whole fad is based on. Is it an old law?

> [...] The last time the Supreme Court addressed the matter, in 1888, it > ruled that "the whole work done by the judges constitutes the authentic > exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is > free for publication to all."

A solution to how ridiculous old laws are is automatically expire them. That way, the politicians are forced to reevaulate them.

<comment><USER12> > _A solution to how ridiculous old laws are is automatically expire them_

This sort of legal amnesia has major drawbacks. Hand politicians the opportunity to make crisis and they'll take advantage of it. Do we really want debt-limit style brinksmanship around murder statutes?

Moreover, cleanly sunsetting laws within our common law system is hard. Case law builds on statute. Regularly wiping away vast portions of case law will have unanticipated consequences.

<comment><USER39> > This sort of legal amnesia has major drawbacks. Hand politicians the > opportunity to make crisis and they'll take advantage of it. Do we really > want debt-limit style brinksmanship around murder statutes

Yes. Presumably politicians don't want to be murdered by their opposition. It wouldn't lapse more than once.

<comment><USER40> Because the first time it did lapse, you'd probably crash society. I'd rather not make the attempt.

<comment><USER41> Think of pro and anti civil rights laws switching in and out of law, divorce, women's rights child labor, workers rights. If these hard fought civil rights expire they wouldn't come back automatically in today's world of ALEC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The state is saying Malamud called his own actions "terrorism". I think it's irresponsible how the lawyers worded this in their suit. I also think it's irresponsible for the NYT to print this without this context.

From the suit[0]:

 _Carl Malamud, has indicated that this type of strategy has been a successful form of_ "terrorism" _that he has employed in the past to force government entities to publish documents on Malamud's terms._

 _Consistent with its_ strategy of terrorism _, Defendant freely admits to the copying and distribution of massive numbers of Plaintiff's Copyrighted Annotations on at least its[https://yeswescan.org](https://yeswescan.org) website. See Exhibit 3._

I wonder what Exhibit 3 is and if it actually shows Malamud referring to his actions directly as terrorism. I wouldn't know how to look that up. Does anyone?

EDIT: It's from the prologue section here: [https://museum.media.org/eti/](https://museum.media.org/eti/)

It's a joke that the lawyers used this as justification for sneaking the word "terrorism" unqualified in their suit.

0 - [https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/ga/pro_v_georgia/gov.us...](https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/ga/pro_v_georgia/gov.uscourts.gand.218354.1.0.pdf)

<comment><USER43> Mods, do you mind fixing up the title? This fact is relevant and leads to confusion among the commenters.

<comment><USER44> Ok, I've taken a crack at it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is what they accused Aaron Swartz of too.

"Misdemeanor Terrorism" was one of the charges I believe.

The lawyer that said that this is 'terrorism' should be disbarred. This is borderline slander.

<comment><USER13> ......misdemeanor terrorism. How does that term even exist? Is that like flying a Cessna into the World Trade Center instead of a Boeing 757?

Agree with you there. Either it's terrorism or it isn't.

<comment><USER46> That scenario has happened:

* [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Tampa_Cessna_172_crash](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Tampa_Cessna_172_crash)

* [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack)

Curiously they both seem to have been described as "not" terrorism (though I'm not totally sure that was the final conclusion).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Note: Georgia's lawyers called it a "strategy of terrorism". Carl Malamud is not being charged with terrorism. This is a copyright case as it pertains to official state law.

Claiming "terrorism" is a significant detriment to the story.

<comment><USER48> They're not accusing him of literal terrorism, no, but it's a legitimate angle to the story to point out that the state of Georgia is using way over the top language to oppose Malamud's attempts to help the people of Georgia.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why are nasty comments more common on HN? - <AUTHOR>

I find that there are more nasty comments here than on other similar websites. I'm not talking about trolling. These comments are thought out criticism combined with pure meanness. Stuff like "This article gave my cancer" or "This is the dumbest article I ever read". Criticism is more common online that in real life, but there is something very decisive, mean and emotional about the comments here. <comment><USER2> I think HN is better than many other websites, but certainly worse than some. Obvious reasons:

1\. Internet disinhibition effect enhanced by pseudonymity - anyone can create an account called 'internettoughguy3' and start talking shit to people; blatant sockpuppetry/nastiness is punished by the mods, but one can get away with it on an occasional basis.

2\. Common interest in hacking-type stuff brings together people whose views diverge on other things, like religion and especially politics; conflict ensues.

3\. Persistence; sort of the opposite of #1, many of us have been here for years and know how to 'push each others' buttons,' so lingering dislike or disagreement between individuals will occasionally boil over into a cutting remark.

4\. Geeks tend to be introverted and so less good at social modeling. [http://xkcd.com/610/](http://xkcd.com/610/) sums this up, though I think the dig at Ayn Rand fans is a bit unfair because such thinking is equally prevalent on the left.

None of the above apply to me, of course. I am perfect.

<comment><USER3> > 2\. Common interest in hacking-type stuff brings together people whose views > diverge on other things, like religion and especially politics; conflict > ensues.

Not just that, but we're also generally quite opinionated and thus argumentative on hacking-type stuff even though it's a common interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you think HN has a large proportion of nasty comments, you clearly haven't visited _any other website_.

<comment><AUTHOR> On other websites it's trolling. Here it's not.

<comment><USER5> I don't really agree, at least not given your examples. "This article gave me cancer" seems like trolling to me, by your definition.

People here are blunt about stupidity, sure, and maybe it has a more cutting effect because it's more likely they're actually pointing out stupid mistakes, rather than just name calling or something.

Here you're derided in a more accurate, skilled fashion.

<comment><USER6> I think the author is questioning whether that is a good thing or not. Do we want to be in a culture of posturing and derision?

I for one do not think it is a good thing or something to be proud of. Criticism and derision are different and being toxic or caustic just brings the level of communication down. It does not reflect well on our industry either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are some people who simply look down at others because they are not as "smart" as they are. Experience has taught me that these type of people spend too much time writing comments on the internet rather than improving their skills (they are already "smart", they don't need it). I sometimes wonder why I even comment on HN, because somebody will get offended and do a crusade against me. Even to the point of emailing me saying how stupid I am (true story). In reality, I'm never ever the smartest guy in the room. But I do work hard to learn and do things correctly.

There is also the belief of the 1%. People seem to think that there are these magical programmers who are better than anybody out there. This makes a lot of those who have drinked the SV kool-aid look down on others. In reality, all programmers are smart. Just in different areas/aspects. There is no 1%. Just a bunch of people trying to write code and innovate.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think part of it is a lack of social awareness. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6968526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6968526)

When people feel justified with their behaviour, they may do or say unnecessary things.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hacker News has also been called depressing:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5744224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5744224)

I think it's generally a cool place but negative and nasty comments definitely seem to get traction. Watch for newer accounts that I'm assuming are harvesting karma. They always seem to start out with some negative comment.

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection)

</comment><comment><USER10> Idk that HN has more nasty comments. I'd say it has more negative comments, but not sure they're nasty. Nasty are the comments on YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER11> Comments on HN are probably as good as comments get on the internet. I doubt that there are websites out there with a better community.

<comment><USER12> I can think of only one exception: LessWrong. Of course, this is quite subjective, and the two communities are definitely not disjunct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Your post is so useless and boring. It gave me cancer, this might be the dumbest article I ever read.

(obviously it's a joke)</comment>


20 Hot Silicon Valley Startups You Need To Watch - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/hot-silicon-valley-startups-2010-3 Click "view as one page" on bottom right if you prefer scrolling to clicking. <comment><USER2> I invested in six of those, would have on two others if I were better organized.

I have a similar hit rate on the NYC list.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Click "view as one page" on bottom right if you prefer scrolling to clicking.</comment>


Ask HN: What's with the conspiracy about EEE and Microsoft? - <AUTHOR> With all of the recent news involving Microsoft, there's plenty of comments talking about how it's just a ruse to EEE. I'm genuinely curious why people think something that happened two decades ago is a valid concern today? <comment> kalium-xyz I'll answer your statement ending with a question mark with a question: Given that Microsoft is in the business of sustaining itself as a business and making profit, what logical motive does it have for its recent moves?

<comment><AUTHOR> That argument could be used against _any_ company. Cases in point: Canonical with Ubuntu, Red Hat with Fedora, etc. Those are companies with profit motives and they sustain open source, but no one questions their motives like they do Microsoft.

Maybe Microsoft is transitioning from a software company to one that provides support for enterprise software, and open source is just a byproduct? Who knows?

Maybe I'm the crazy one thinking that the culture of a company can radically change over the course of two decades?

<comment> kalium-xyz >That argument could be used against any company. No, counter to the basic definition of a company stands that human nature is not so simple.

>Cases in point: Canonical with Ubuntu, Red Hat with Fedora, etc. Those are companies with profit motives and they sustain open source, but no one questions their motives like they do Microsoft. Canonical got heavily scrutinized and is still called spyware by some because they sold search metadata from their OS to amazon (iirc). It doesn't take much effort to find similar sentiment on Red Hat (which is now IBM, which famously gets even more flank than MS).

Keep in mind that Microsoft is simply a bigger company thus gets more attention as a much smaller company would.

>Maybe Microsoft is transitioning from a software company to one that provides support for enterprise software, and open source is just a byproduct? Who knows? Is Microsoft moving away from software?

>Maybe I'm the crazy one thinking that the culture of a company can radically change over the course of two decades? Sure it can, it would be stupid though its system clearly works and there is nothing wrong with applying strategy and clear thinking, doing anything other than that would be a failure to their employees and other people they are protecting and serving.

I hold huge personal respect for large cooperation that manage to sustain over time as Microsoft does. And think there is nothing wrong or evil about applying strategies in a competitive market as long as it remains a competitive market. Even the old directors joke about this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI_xuFA18m4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI_xuFA18m4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Why wouldn't it be? Has anything changed in the meantime?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. There's a new CEO (Ballmer is gone), and the EEE lawsuit was two decades ago. I guarantee you: almost no one from then is still working there.

So why wouldn't the culture change?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really dislike it when things are labeled "conspiracy theory" just because some people don't believe it. For example, everyone thinks it's "fine" to accept that the coronavirus broke out at a Wuhan wet market, though there is no hard evidence of how that happened, yet it's a "conspiracy theory" if some people think it got out of a virus lab, saying "there is no evidence of a leak from the lab". Well, hello - there is no evidence that it originated in a wet market either! In fact, we don't know where it originated.

For people who lived through the 80's, we saw how Microsoft killed huge companies that dominated their product category, like Lotus, WordPerfect, and Netscape, leading to an antitrust judgement against them for bundling products with Windows to take over markets. I think it feels different to us than it does to a younger generation that has not experienced these tactics first- hand.

But, I don't think Microsoft is unique at all. I think _all_ huge companies try to dominate their category, and have no problem in being ruthless to do that. Amazon acquiring diapers.com for example:

[http://allthingsd.com/20131010/how-jeff-bezos-crushed- diaper...](http://allthingsd.com/20131010/how-jeff-bezos-crushed-diapers-com- so-amazon-could-buy-diapers-com/)

Google does it by making people jump through hoops to enable IMAP access to gmail accounts, making it harder to transition to a different email provider.

Google and Apple do it with their app stores, allowing them to be gatekeepers for who succeeds and who doesn't. If an app gets popular, they have all the metrics to know when to launch a competing app, and can delist the original app, saying "it doesn't add value to the standard phone package". Or whatever other crap they want to do.

Microsoft is a huge corporation. Like other huge corporations, they only make moves that they believe will increase their profits, and they have enough cash and revenue to play an extremely long game, as in, a decade.

Just for example, let's say Microsoft Linux becomes the largest Linux distribution in the world. That gives Microsoft a lot of power and control over the Linux ecosystem.

With their ownership of GitHub, they have a "pulse" like no one else on the software development side, similar to the way Amazon has a pulse on all 3rd- party sellers on it's own site, and uses that to enter product categories, underpricing competitors, etc. What will Microsoft do with that knowledge? We don't know, but they aren't giving everyone else equal access to it, just like Amazon isn't publishing a big list of the most successful products, so apparently it is valuable, or they'd share it.

That's an easy way to look at things Microsoft and other big corporations do: do they allow everyone to have the same access they have, or do they keep an advantage for themselves that others don't have? In most cases, it is the latter.

Another common analogy: boiling a frog. You don't throw the frog in a boiling pot of water; you put it in a pot of cold water and gradually heat it. The frog is perfectly content until it is dies. Microsoft is not going to make a big announcement like "We intend to be the largest Linux distribution in the world within the next 10 years", even if that is their goal, because that would probably freak people out and they would not go along with their agenda. They have to get people to follow the piper to their goal. I'd love to see their 10-year plan for Linux domination.</comment>


Why Public and Private Market Valuations Are Different - <AUTHOR> http://mahesh-vc.com/this-is-why-public-and-private-market-valuations-are-completely-different/?utm_campaign=Mattermark+Daily&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=22252728&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_uVtNM8RBV7Fb8QaQnvCO8YjWcscXYZZvhzPNmfhXR6yWWXwRoIMYCPPTMZ9136W8OELOML8iZimAILWvBBRlEz18ZeA&_hsmi=22252728 <comment><USER2> The title and thesis don't match the data. This has nothing to do with whether a corporation is privately or publicly held, and everything to do with where it is in its lifecycle. The actual assertion made, which the evidence does match, is that younger companies are harder to value because uncertainty over growth and future margins is much higher. Seems pretty obvious.

</comment><comment><USER3> Easier to read as a scatterplot: [http://s2.postimg.org/ysodz3mc9/multiplevmargin.png](http://s2.postimg.org/ysodz3mc9/multiplevmargin.png)

This is great data, and a lesson for where an early stage company's valuation is headed as a company matures.

Also a reminder why VCs have a liquidation preference. At early stages they're willing to pay higher multiples assuming rapid growth continues. But they're protected if it doesn't.

<comment><USER4> The slope of your line is basically (EV/Revenue)/(Profit/Revenue) => EV/Profit which sums up what this article should have been about: P/E ratios are what actually matter. All the other terms just let you thread the needle between a company that's heavily reinvesting (where P may be misleading) versus one that's generating so much cash it can't imagine putting the rest to good use (Apple, Google, to some degree Facebook). Still, I definitely agree that your chart or something like it is what I expected from the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a hypothesis that this is driven by the fact that VC firms are playing with other people's money, which must be "invested" in order to collect fees, and they often sell those assets to other VC-backed firms which are also using other people's money.

In an illiquid environment with tons of collusion and principal / agent problems incentivising towards higher prices (and thus greater AUM), you'll tend to see prices diverge from those in a market open to anyone who thinks they can play the game better.

</comment><comment><USER6> The private market for VC backed companies is illiquid -- there's no real market. The private valuations are mostly sales fluff and politicking about dilution.

For conventional companies, reality is different. WalMart is what it is, nobody is going to pay a 100x multiple for it.

<comment><USER7> >The private market for VC backed companies is illiquid -- there's no real market.

If you are talking about a secondary retail market - which is what the NYSE and NASDAQ are - then that is true, but misses the point.

There is an actual market and it's within private finance both primary and secondary. Angels, VC's, LP's and other companies are the regulation sanctioned participants in this market. Just because it's a smaller market doesn't mean it isn't a market.

>The private valuations are mostly sales fluff and politicking about dilution.

Not true. Those valuations are the basis for real cash based investments or mergers/acquisitions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Um, liquidation preferences for one seems like the easy answer.

</comment><comment><USER9> How about the third option, both public and private companies are overvalued. And no, they can't both be undervalued, it's not possible, especially in this market.

<comment><USER2> While this is almost certainly true relative to the (as yet unknown) true value of most corporations, that doesn't change the fact that most people now living will never again see 3% dollar interest rates. So while the dividends you get from investing in any of these things are not worth the capital, you'll probably be dead before the principal is lost, and in the meantime you'll have gotten more than you could have by owning Treasuries.

Overvalued? Yeah, for sure. Only game in town, too, until the revolution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's dangerous and biased to assume a company like Apple had its stock increased because of 'innovation' or 'disruption'.

A lot of it was a consequence of Fed's policies mainly with ZIRP and QE. From that angle, overvaluation of public companies is more likely than the latter.

And, if startups are 'less undervalued'~'more overvalued' than public companies, it only means they're more prone to volatility, busts and bloodbaths.</comment>


Linode's 13th Birthday - <AUTHOR> https://blog.linode.com/2016/06/16/linodes-13th-birthday-gifts-for-all/ <comment><USER2> [Disclaimer: Linode dev here]

I see a few people^W^Weveryone here talking about security. If you didn't read the whole blog post, you might not have noticed the new Linode manager that we're working on being mentioned. Check it out, it's open source: [https://github.com/Linode/manager](https://github.com/Linode/manager)

If you haven't been present in other discussions about Linode security, one of the major factors (in my opinion) is the current manager. It's a large and old ColdFusion codebase, and it's hard to maintain. The new manager is backed by the new Python API and the whole system is significantly easier to reason about with respect to security. I think that the new manager should help ease some concerns, and it's going to be pretty great in other respects too. Hit me up with any questions you have, I'll do my best.

In other news, I run a bunch of Linodes myself and I'm stoked to see these upgrades, even though I get my Linodes for free ;)

<comment><USER3> I think most people are concerned about the response to security incidents around as much as they're concerned about the security incidents themselves.

Improving the manager is certainly a good step but there's a lot of work to be done to regain users' confidence.

<comment><USER2> That's very much true. We've been pushing for more transparency company-wide as a result. It's hard to demonstrate that we'll handle this better without another security incident to be transparent about (and let's all hope we don't get there), but we've been pushing for more transparency overall. On my team this means that we're doing our development in the open, we've switched from an internal Jira to a public waffle.io backlog: [https://waffle.io/linode/manager](https://waffle.io/linode/manager) (it's just been prioritized too, we're doing sprint planning in 10 mins).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats Linode. I have been a customer for many years.

Why could there not be a $5 1 GB plan? I have quite a few instances for which I don't need even 1 GB, let alone 2.

Doubling the RAM is great but what about storage? Why is RAM and storage still coupled? It's a pay for what you don't use system, having to upgrade to a 24 GB, 8 core box just to get some decent drive space. Ridiculous.

I have been with Linode for many years now but it's lack for even some basic modularity will see me leave to AWS soon.

<comment><USER5> Once Digital Ocean launches their block storage feature, it will probably put some pressure on them. Honestly, it's something I've been looking forward as well.

<comment><USER6> Some needs to make a lambda competetor too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Linode has been a monumental disappointment. I signed up with them in 2005, when they were 2 years old and AWS didn't even exist. They were reliable and the support was phenomenal. The Linode Manager was powerful and yet simple to use. I used them for all my personal and professional hosting needs.

In 2013, the support started going downhill. Then there were a series of security breaches, with absolutely abysmal responses from Linode. I now expect to be off of Linode by the end of 2016 (mostly to AWS, with some DigitalOcean), even though in many aspects I still prefer Linode.

<comment><USER8> I've been a Linode customer since January 2009 (so over 7 years now) and would recommend them to anyone. I have been concerned about some of the security issues, but at the same time impressed with other work from the team (the KVM switchover, large scale server upgrades, support experience has always been great for me).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm gun-shy of Linode's many security issues, but hopefully this further drives down RAM prices of competitors. I'd love a $10 2G DigitalOcean instance.

<comment><USER10> [EDIT] I misunderstood the security issues parent was referring to

<comment><USER11> they've had issues with security around their own systems (payment info leaked, IIRC). And if their systems are compromised, because they have the ability to touch my systems (root password reset, for example), there's a potential breach there.

and they had their own massive DDOS attack which went on for days last winter (dec 2015?)

<comment><USER12> Their DDOS was so bad that we had to migrate all of our servers from Linode to Google, which wasn't particularly fun during the weeks of intermittent connectivity. I think it was on the order of weeks, rather than days.

<comment><USER11> Atlanta seemed to be the primary target. We had something at LA and never had a problem. Servers in Atlanta were down for days, then up for a bit, then down for days again. I do believe in total it was probably 2ish weeks...

<comment><USER13> London was affected too. I have since moved on to other VPS providers and would suggest Linode ONLY for hobby projects. It's not just their security issues, it is mostly their disclosure policy...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Vultr.com seems to be the new guys coming after Linode.

Does any [Linode users] have any experience with them?

For a company so new they have a surprisingly amount of more features than Linode (eg BSD support, more data centers, dedicated instances, etc)

Note: I'm no way affiliated with either company.

Edit: adding clarity and intent. My edit is in brackets. I'm no shill :)

<comment><USER15> I've had a few instances up on Vultr for nearly a year now and have nothing but good things to say about them. The OS images they use for their instances are, in my experience, almost completely plain-vanilla (which leads to fewer surprises) and the custom ISO functionality is great if you need to launch an instance on an otherwise unsupported OS.

Their instance performance is better than DO in my experience, though I don't know how they compare to Linode.

<comment><USER16> IME, DigitalOcean performance is usually a little lower than Linode, but some zones seem(ed) to be particularly bad. However, on the zones I do use, reliability on DO in 2016 has been the best of the three. I can hardly remember any outage at all.

Edit: Vultr has been reliable as well, but I've experienced a few outages (not lasting many minutes I think) in the 6 months I've been using them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, RIP my 1 year of uptime: [http://i.imgur.com/3PYrKtx.png](http://i.imgur.com/3PYrKtx.png)

The migration took 2 minutes and 10 seconds, by the way.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have not checked lately, but there have been two major features lacking in Linode that have compelled me to move away to AWS:

1\. Managed firewall service, such as AWS Security Groups. I really do not want to have to manage hundreds of iptables scripts.

2\. Easy point and click, yet advanced private network management such as AWS VPC. Last I checked, I had to run OpenVPN on top of my Linode setup, which really was not ideal.

Have these things been improved lately on Linode?

<comment><USER19> They have not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really Hope Linode could improves its _image_ on security.

On other front, Why is it the bigger the instance the small the "upgrade" discount. On lower level you essentially get double the Memory. On Higher end you get 30 - 50% only.

And any plan to upgrade to Xeon-E5 v4? I would love to see Compute and Memory Instances.

</comment><comment><USER21> Congratulations Linode! I've had better support from your staff than Rackspace and thanks for the RAM doubling - will make my life much easier.

</comment><comment><USER22> As a student/hobbyist, since Linode doesn't have $5/month plan (and a referral program), I'm staying on DigitalOcean.

<comment><USER23> [https://www.linode.com/referrals](https://www.linode.com/referrals)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Nice - it looks like the finally have OAuth support with their new api. I've been waiting for that for a side-project idea I have.

</comment><comment> anand-kumar Happy birthday Linode!

Now I will wait for DigitalOcean _wishes_ to Linode! :p

</comment><comment><USER25> Great news! I hope DO and Vultr double the RAM too

</comment><comment><USER26> I like the new pricing, halves the cost of running Deis.

</comment><comment><USER27> Linode were superb when I was a customer with them.</comment>