Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/court-orders-google-to-pay-1-36-of-adwords-revenue-for-infringing-patents/ <comment><USER2> > Even though there was no evidence of copying—Vringo admitted as much

What a ridiculous system we all operate under. You come up with a mathematical formula for ranking some text on a page (in this case, what ads to show first), and you could now owe $250M/year to some company you've never heard of because they already bought the rights to that formula. It turns my stomach; sorry that I have nothing of more substance to add to this story.

<comment><USER3> The lack of an independent invention defense (or some variation of this) is pretty much 80% of what's wrong with patent law in my opinion. A sampling of the issues an independent invention addresses:

* Obviousness. Patents are required to be non-obvious to a "person holding ordinary skill in the art", but obviousness is highly subjective and difficult to assess (especially for a non-technical jury). In contrast, evaluating whether something was independently invented, while not necessarily simple, is a more objective test.

* Utility. One of the rationales behind the patent system is that we want to encourage inventors to share their ideas with the world instead of just keeping them secret for as long as possible. While the patent system requires publication of the invention, it doesn't require publication in a manner that's particularly useful. If you could only assert patents against people actually using them, then you would have a strong incentive to make them useful (e.g. source code).

* Supply and Demand. The current system grants a flat 20 years to each patented invention, regardless of how difficult or expensive it was to invent. Recognizing independent invention creates the opportunity for a more flexible system. Inventions that are hard to reproduce independently are more valuable to society and should enjoy a longer term than easier ones.

The obvious problem with all of the above of course is how feasible it is to assess whether something was invented "independently". I've addressed that to some degree in this blog post ([http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121011/14171220681/yes- in...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121011/14171220681/yes-independent- invention-defense-patents-is-completely-feasible.shtml)), but I admit it's a hard problem.

EDIT: Typos

<comment><USER4> I'd argue you'd get more economic benefit abolishing patents entirely (not just the software ones, I mean the ones on reproducing someone elses car or gas furnace). You pay a cost in a loss of investment valuation towards invention because it is less economically beneficial if you can't have a monopoly on your patented good, but you benefit economically by letting new inventions reach natural price equilibrium immediately, and the spread of new inventions would propagate more inventions, even without a major profit motive - you still benefit being "first out the door" on a new idea. Which we see all the time in software, and then run into this problem where first out the door has already made a bunch but is now suing me for trying to do something even remotely in the same problem domain because I see demand there, but I won't be able to meet it because I'm artificially locked out of that market.

That applies to all economic domains. Patents worked back when it was extremely hard to sell your goods to its entire market, because you were either distance limited, communication limited, or production rate limited. In the first two situations someone could just take your idea, set up half way across the country, and made all the returns.

Today, I can invent anything I want and have it on ebay overnight and ship it anywhere in the world. I can advertise on most major ad services if I want, with an audience of the entire first world. The only limiting factor for me is demand, but that just means I have to be safe when bringing inventions to market, but it is good for the economy overall because it means if I can't meet demand, someone else will pick up the slack.

It is still, like I said, advantageous to the first to market with an idea, enough so that I wouldn't predict much of a drop in novel ideas. Like I said, I would expect more if technology and designs were more open and people could cheaply iterate and extend past concepts more readily.

<comment><USER5> Being "first to market" only matters when you're building things like Facebook or Windows, where network effects are relevant. If you're making consumable or durable goods, being first to market is irrelevant. India will clone your drug within a few months of its release, but there is no way you'll make up all that capital investment by then.

Without patents, the rational thing to do is not invest any more in an invention than you can recoup in the short window before someone clones it and undercuts you on price. Moreover, it diminishes inventors and elevates manufacturers. The smart strategy in a world without patents is to build up massive overseas manufacturing capacity, because you can always quickly copy designs and then undercut the original designer with your manufacturing muscle.

'Andrewfong has a good point about independent invention being a defense. The idea of inventing something on your own only to have someone else claim they patented it is most of what bugs people about patents. In engineering circles where that is much less common, you don't have an anti-patent sentiment. When I was studying aerospace engineering in college, nobody I encountered perceived patents as anything but a good thing.

<comment><USER6> Not disagreeing with your point, but I chuckled a bit at your examples. I wouldn't qualify either Facebook or Windows as being "first to market".

Though I think this mainly just points out the squishiness of the term.

<comment><USER7> Mentioning the term "first to market" was unfortunate, but the key phrase in that sentence was "network effects", and Windows, Office, and Facebook all great examples of the advantage of network effects.

<comment><USER6> Agreed!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow the Microsoft angle is pretty corrupt. They paid the plaintiff a million bucks plus 5% of the judgement they get against Google, effectively bankrolling their lawsuit and putting a patent troll on commission.

There's near-endless bitching and whining about Google being evil these days, but even today nobody sinks as low as Microsoft.

<comment><USER9> I read it as Microsoft paid a million dollars and will pay 5% of what Google pays. I dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy, but it seems like they believed the patent would win in court and wanted the cheapest way out.

<comment><USER10> This is it, not sure how you could read this another way. When reading the article it hit me that this was a great bit of business from Microsoft.

A million dollars isn't much for MS to pay to make this go away... and then only paying 5% of Google will be forced to pay if they lose in court.. Microsoft's legal advisor must be happy with himself today

<comment><USER11> Well I don't see how it is a Win for MS when their ad revenue is ~3% that of Google. In a sense, aren't they paying more ?

<comment><USER12> > _Well I don 't see how it is a Win for MS when their ad revenue is ~3% that > of Google. In a sense, aren't they paying more ?_

How do you figure?

Microsoft earned $3.2 billion in the Online Services division in fiscal year 2013. According to Microsoft's annual report, advertising accounted for "nearly all of" that division's revenues.

$3.2 billion is about 5.6% of Google's trailing 12 months revenues of $57 billion. Subtract out Motorola, and it's about 6% of Google's ad revenues.

What's more, the settlement _locks in_ Microsoft's liability at 5% of Google's. If Microsoft were to grow its share vs. Google, then it would get to pay less than the proportional amount.

<comment><USER11> I was using these([http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Microsoft-Takes-Small- Share...](http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Microsoft-Takes-Small-Share-of-US- Search-Ad-Revenues/1009939)) numbers for reference. More specifically the second table.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing to consider is if Vringo is bankrolled by a steady $200+million revenue stream, they are most likely going to turn around and use that money to buy up patents all over the place. I doubt the money will be used to create any products. We'd be looking at the next Intellectual Ventures, backed by a massive hundred million dollar guaranteed revenue stream.

Even if you hate Google, this is a pretty raw deal for the industry.

</comment><comment><USER14> So called "intellectual property" is an other way to decrease the value of manual work and increase the income of pure "possessions".

By making creative work "property" that can be owned and making minimal creative acts "possessable" in a way, that other creativity is inhibited or at least "billed", actual work is diminished for pure "property" holding.

The only way, non-possessing people can climb up "from rags to riches" is by their work. But working is less and less valued in this system.

And with the patent system, the true inventors are getting very limited money (in big companies, it is most often just a fixed amount per patent) -- the rest of the value goes to lawyers, the companies investors and the buyers of the patents when the company goes bankrupt or looses interest. Thus creating a system, where part of the mobile phone or the software or whatever gadgets price must pay the royalties for the patent owner (not the inventor!). Thus this amount goes away from the money that can be paid to workers and inventors. The whole system improves income generated by possessions, but reduces income possibilities for workers and creative people.

<comment><USER15> What if manual work is required to produce this intellectual property? And isn't the intent that the rights belong to the inventor or creator?

<comment><USER14> Yes, it is.

But that is not the point. The point is, that the manual labor gets less and less earnings, but the possession of the properties. How many creative products with high value are in the hands of their creators?

In reality, the high earnings are not made by the inventors or creators of things, but by those that have acquired them in any way. In corporations, it is normal, that inventors just get some small fixed amounts for their inventions. Even in the music business, the musicians have the smallest part of the earnings. Often time, the musicians have to sell the rights to the companies, so the companies are earning most of the money. Only very few musicians can make extra-deals and get rich.

To answer your second question: No, it is absolutely not the intent! By making "intellectual property" the same level as other property, the intent is not, that the inventors should have them (as normal copyright once was intended), but the intention is, that it is a trade-able good, that can be accumulated by the wealthy and used against those that are creative (something, that money is not, so creativity must kept cheap).

<comment><USER15> Makes sense.

So what is the alternative? Reformation of patent laws, or no patent laws in general?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good.

There are few things which can effect change better than billionaires in fear of losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year. When it happens to small fry you lament because they can't do anything to change and end up settling to save themselves or losing and losing everything. When it happens to the 55th largest company you rejoice because they have the power and motivation to change the rules.

<comment><USER17> I remember thinking exactly that, when Microsoft was hit by the $100M Stac Electronics judgement in 1993. "Surely large companies will understand now that they have a lot more to lose from software patents than they could possibly have to gain," I said to myself. "I'll bet they're calling their pet Congressmen and writing checks this very minute."

I've been wrong before, but not usually _that_ wrong.

<comment><USER18> Instead they played that same game and are now part of the big software patent companies. In a selfish perspective, it does make sense.

I fear Google one day understands that they should join this mafia and start suing for their patents, under the pressure of their shareholders.

<comment><USER19> The Googlers would revolt.

<comment><USER20> You may be overestimating a lot of googlers

<comment><USER19> I'm sure there are a lot who wouldn't care, but MANY would leave (including myself), and recruitment would dry up. It would be a disaster.

Despite what hacker news comments would have you believe, Google is (in my strongly held opinion) a force for good in the tech world, and very genuine in what it tries to accomplish.

Becoming a patent troll would undermine that sentiment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What's also terrible about the patent system is there is simply no way for any of us to tell, when we develop something, if we're infringing on patents or not. We're all subject, at any time, to being subject to some massive infringement lawsuit.

What I do not understand is why the big companies do not all get together and lobby to abolish software patents. Do they think that if they acquire enough patents, they will win? They all seem to be losing as many patent suits as they win. Pyrrhic victories all around.

<comment><USER22> As a programmer, this is exactly what I fear.

It is also why I will not create a startup company, and have my dream crash because of a failed and corrupt system.

<comment><USER23> Assuming this goes through with no successful appeal Google will have to pay 1.36% of their revenue related to a particular infringing product to Vringo for a period for which they were well aware of this patent until it expires in 2016. This example gives nothing to indicate that any business you start will be crippled by patent issues.

Now legal costs and/or Lodsys like trolls might be a real threat to a fledgling business but they seem to have gone quite quiet for the moment.

<comment><USER22> Good point.

It's no indication, but it would generate fear and doubt when I code. What if the code I'm writing right now is patented by some company taking advantage of a system, with resources searching everywhere just to sue? I probably wouldn't, but I could become paranoiac because of this, looking on the internet to find if I am infringing patents, instead of being productive.

It's true 1.36% seems like nothing, but for a small company, it could mean a lot. Plus, it would be heart-breaking (or even outraging) to know that a program I made on my own, with no knowledge about some software patent, nor ill intention, gives money to someone that has nothing to do with it.

And, as you mention, legal costs, time wasted and stress could easily be real threats to a startup.

<comment><USER23> I really wouldn't let it worry you, there are many more things likely to make you fail than patents unless you are going into an especially patent heavy field (such as video codecs).

Patent holders generally need to target big players to get worthwhile payoffs so unless you are big (in which case you have already won) then it is only the Lodsys type scum you need to worry about trying to extort you (in which case your paranoia and research won't have helped because the accusation doesn't have to be valid to cause you problems). Lodsys and their ilk seem to have gone quiet (I don't know why) but I suspect that if you don't look like an easy target they may ignore you.

You also fear your emotions, try to look logically at the situation. Making $1M and having to pay out $13K to someone you feel is unworthy is annoying not heartbreaking. Making much less and you are hardly worth targeting.

I'm not saying that you have to like the current situation but that it isn't bad enough that it should be a major driver of your life. There are many reasons not to do a startup but I wouldn't let this be one if I were you.

<comment><USER24> > _Patent holders generally need to target big players to get worthwhile > payoffs so unless you are big (in which case you have already won) then it > is only the Lodsys type scum you need to worry about trying to extort you_

Uh, yeah, exactly. I don't know what you think Lodsys is that's not a "patent holder", but that's exactly what they are, and they're a great example of patent trolls going after small businesses. This happens all the time.

In this whole thread you've also ignored the fact that this is 1.36% of revenue _for one small aspect of a product_. Now consider the fact that your product is also highlighting certain parts of data returned from a database, or you have a a certain type of UI interaction when you scroll past the bottom of a widget, etc etc etc and you have a whole lot of companies ready to claim their 1.36%.

I don't know if it's enough that it should stop people from wanting to start at all, but it is a very real problem that is very much affecting real people. For instance:

The Patent, Used as a Sword

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/patent-wars- amo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/patent-wars-among-tech- giants-can-stifle-competition.html?pagewanted=all)

<comment><USER23> Fair points although I didn't say Lodsys wasn't a patent holder ('generally' meant 'mostly' not 'universally') I think you overstate the density of patents in general software (at least of valid ones without prior art).

I agree expense of the US legal system that makes settling vexatious (Lodsys etc.) suits financially attractive is a real problem.

The 1.36% of revenue is for an aspect of the product that Google were not happy to remove or change sufficiently following a loss in court and includes an increase for willfulness. If I understand correctly it includes the key revenue maximisation process. It is not just for a minor UI feature and that is presumably why Google didn't just work round it. Yes the stacking of percentage royalties could be a real problem but that would mostly happen on standards if FRAND wasn't enforced and everyone stayed outside patent pools and claimed 2.4% of final retail price (Motorola/Google).

Regarding your article that does sound troubling although a large part of the problem seems to have been a dependence on winning some big deals. I do suspect that speech recognition is one of the patent heavy areas along with codecs as I mentioned, probably autonomous cars, audio and video tagging, watermarking and recognition. In these areas I would definitely want to be careful and perhaps apply for patents before proceeding too far (this would both mean patent searches were conducted and give something to defend attacks with). Alternatively I would be studying the literature and material that was 20 years old and documenting the process of obvious steps when combing approaches. Most software is not in these patent thick areas.

A proper list of dangerous areas for patents would be really quite useful...maybe an Ask HN topic?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The Microsoft settlement for the same was interesting:

"Vringo also sued Microsoft over ads in its Bing search engine. Microsoft settled that case in May, agreeing to pay $1 million plus 5 percent of whatever Google ultimately pays."

It's strange agreeing to pay 5% of Google outcome on the same and quite clever the more I consider the pros/cons.

<comment><USER26> They're arming patent trolls and aiming them at google. This isn't the first one (rockstar).

<comment><USER27> I don't understand why people keep coming to this conclusion. To me it just sounds like MS ducked faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I tried really hard to understand the 2 patents in question in this case. I can see that both patents relate to a method of assigning value to search results based on how long a user spends looking at the result, or number of clicks, etc. But I am sure I am missing a bunch of nuances. Could someone with Patent background explain these to patents:

[http://www.google.com/patents/US6314420](http://www.google.com/patents/US6314420) and [http://www.google.com/patents/US6775664](http://www.google.com/patents/US6775664)

Or maybe link me to the explanation. I am interested because from what I have understood this sounds really obvious, just application of good business practices to the internet. If customers like a particular product (click on one link a lot), you get more of that product (show the link more often), so you can sell more. Is there more to it? There has to be, right?

<comment><USER29> _> just application of good business practices to the internet..._

That's the foundation of nearly _all_ software patents these days. Its business, but _on the internet_.

It seems to work because of the built in novelty factor. When there was no internet, it was impossible to do business on it, now that there is, its suddenly possible and so seems novel. It _feels_ like a new invention when in fact, its really just an application of the technology to the same old same old.

<comment><USER28> I wish I could travel back in time to the early 1990 and patent "a method for making profit by buying and/or producing products and selling them at a higher price.... on the internet."

<comment><USER30> "A method for taking existing existing techniques and patenting their usage on the internet."

I call it "the meta patent troll".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The money is going to the guy who patented a crucial part of Google's AdWords algorithm which neither they nor Bing can apparently design around.

The guy got crushed in the market, being just a little fish, he was gobbled right up. But he bought back his patent, and took the fight to Google and Bing and won.

You can argue the percentage calculation is a too rich by an order of magnitude or two (and I think it is), but you can't argue whether the patent is valid or whether they infringe. A judge and jury said it is, and they did, and that will stand until a higher court says otherwise.

Did Google invent it first? Nope. Did Google find any prior art? Nope. Was the patent obvious? Nope.

I don't have a problem with large companies paying large sums to inventors who actually produce a product, patent their invention, but get crushed by the market a few years later.

This is actually kinda how it's supposed to work. If this is an example of what is "wrong" then there there must be no patent that is "right".

<comment><USER32> _The money is going to the guy who patented a crucial part of Google 's AdWords algorithm which neither they nor Bing can apparently design around._

 _Was the patent obvious? Nope._

These comments seem to be at odds with on another. If the patent covers an algorithm that is a natural solution to the problem multiple companies are trying to solve, doesn't that mean the solution is 'obvious'?

Is that how we want software development to work? I solve a technical problem in an application, but because someone I've never heard of on the other side of the country happened to patent that solution first, I can be sued for money? Sure, it benefits the people who file patents, but I don't think patents should exist solely because they can profit a revenue stream to the people who file them.

<comment><USER31> I think 'natural solution' is a play on words. My understanding is that all the search engines (including Google) spent many years figuring this out, failing many times along the way. PG's patent on Bayesian anti-spam is another example of something which seems obvious in retrospect, and now everyone does it.

'Natural' to me means a product or feature which just fits perfectly within the system. A natural solution is the most valuable and often hardest to come by. They also tend to seem incredibly obvious in retrospect, and yet examining history will demonstrate that others suffered for years for lack of that exact functionality.

For example, the intermittent wiper, or the teleprompter, or maybe even the paper clip. It's the ideas that seem the _most_ obvious in retrospect which need the strongest patent protection. But only if you can show it's novel.

One way the patent office will let you demonstrate something is 'non-obvious' is if you can show something is both novel and actually solves a large existing problem in the market. The novel, simple, elegant solution to a large problem is by definition non-obvious, or else someone else would already be doing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Disgusting, what a broken system. Can anybody actually defend such a system and explain how it promotes innovation?

<comment><USER34> It seems to be pretty well established now that this system does not support innovation (at least not in the software business.

If the benefit of society as a whole is the objective then inventions are only worth protecting if they would not have occurred without such protection. An idea clearly does not fall into that category, it's worth is in the execution and not in "having it".

<comment><USER35> > It seems to be pretty well established now that this system does not support > innovation (at least not in the software business.

Back when I was actively studying this stuff, it was noted that there are four specific industries where intellectual property just doesn't work as intended. Software was one, pharma was another, and I forget the other two but a quick Google ought to surface them with more credibility than I can drop here.

That's not to say it works much better outside those industries, but it's not _completely_ pointless.

<comment><USER36> > pharma was another

I thought pharma relied on patents to offset the massive cost of regulatory control over the product. (FDA fees, cost of running patient trials, etc)

<comment><USER24> Yeah, Judge Posner wrote an excellent post about how pharmaceuticals and software were basically polar opposites in their needs for patent protection:

[http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/09/do-patent-and- copy...](http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/09/do-patent-and-copyright- law-restrict-competition-and-creativity-excessively-posner.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I agree with the comments on Ars.

This sort of 'litle parent that could' story are the post child for pro patent folk.

No, that's not how it works. No, small one-time inventors to not benefit from the current parent system. Irritating as anything seeing it being played out this way.

This is a commercial patent trolling company, from the inception it was so, and it remains so now. These are the people who the current patent system benefits.

</comment><comment><USER38> FUCK PATENTS. The old system (copyright, IP, etc) needs to BURN TO THE GROUND.

<comment><USER34> Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Fuck software patents... Absolutely. Copyright... Not so much. That is actually useful. Open source and free software would not work without copyright law. Copyright only triggers when you copy somebody else's work, I.e. a specific expression of an idea. Patents trigger when you merely happen to have the same idea.

<comment><USER39> > Copyright... Not so much. That is actually useful. Open source and free > software would not work without copyright law.

Not true at all. Copyleft licenses as currently written wouldn't work without copyright law; all-permissive licenses like MIT and BSD would become the default state. I'll happily take that trade, and several folks at the FSF and other FOSS organizations are on record saying the same.

<comment><USER34> I am not a lawyer, but even even MIT/BSD licenses only work because of copyright granting the originators the right to release under any license and restrict certain things, such as liability, usage of the originators name, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> So is the tech industry as such not interested in changing this system? I find it inconceivable that the entire tech industry is not able to change the law about just software patents, not all patents, but just software patents. All the old laggard companies have invested a lot of time and money and hoarded a bunch of patents and so they do not care enough. Eventually the companies that are hurt in this are the small ones.

</comment><comment><USER9> Google is already appealing, but what happens if Google loses ? Would the supreme court agree to hear this case ? If so, the silver lining might be that the supreme court overturns this decision and in doing to comes up with something useful like the 2007 decision which limits a patent troll's ability to get an injunction to knock out a product.

</comment><comment><USER41> Sometimes I wonder if I am witnessing America's greatness in action, or the unraveling of it.

<comment><USER14> It is clearly America's downfall -- and America is pulling the world with itself.

<comment><USER42> Oh come now. Patent trolls are a massive nuisance, but they don't represent an existential threat to this country - let alone all of human civilization.

<comment><USER43> Lol, it's probably hyperbole.

But think about it - what exactly does American produce these days?

Yes, they still have a heavy manufacturing base - but that's declining and fast.

If you stifle innovation, you've basically shot yourself in the foot.

<comment><USER44> Hollywood, Wall St, Apple, Boeing... Yeah the US doesn't produce anything... they just make up that 15 trillion dollars of GDP (double what the next biggest economy makes - China).

<comment><USER45> Firstly GDP is not a measure of what an economy "makes", it is a measure of its throughput. Remember that every dollar the US government "borrows" out of thin air and spends on military hardware adds to that total, so I wouldn't regard a high GDP as necessarily a sign of economic health.

Secondly, of your haphazard list, only Boeing does any manufacturing. Maybe instead of knee-jerking with "America is great" you should read a bit more carefully?

<comment><USER44> I was responding to "America doesn't _produce_ anything"...

All of those industries produce, and all of them make significant money, and the GDP backs that up. Producing stuff while going into debt, is still producing stuff, so your reasoning about debt has no relevance.

So maybe you should take your own advice?

Just for the record: I think America is a shit hole, and I'm generally anti- capitalist. But it's nonsense to pretend they don't produce anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is largely a showcase of stupid economy in United States. If you look back past 20 years, there really isn't any meaningful economy growth except the high tech industry. In most cases, you simply higher price for the same house, transportation, education, healthcare, food, lawsuit, and other BS. Instead of encouraging people and companies to do great things that actually improve living quality, the current economic and political system simply drags everything down.

American voters stuck too much with personal values and elect a congress that does not do anything and gets 10% approval rate. Now we have to deal with this kind of stupidity. #thanksobama

<comment><USER47> iirc the finance industry grew a ton over the same time period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> 1.36% of AdWords Revenue? That is a lot of money. I don't see how they are entitled to that amount in any way.

<comment><USER49> Also, why an ongoing 1.36% cut? What's the significance of that number? Might as well peel back the layers on this farce.

<comment><USER50> Read the article, it explains the percentage calculation.

<comment><USER49> I did, still seems kinda arbitrary..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Here is what two economists at the St Louis Federal Reserve have to say about patents (tl;dr they are bad)

[http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2012/2012-035.pdf](http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2012/2012-035.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER49> Is there any push right now to enact legislation that makes patent litigation available only to entities that actively participate in the relevant marketplaces? It doesn't seem like there is, but maybe I'm not that informed in these affairs.

<comment><USER52> No. Just stop granting patents on software or business processes. Copyright, yes, patents, no.

<comment><USER53> You can grant both but for no longer than a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> We need a numbers based study that shows patent trolls retard innovation and consequently weaken national security. Regulators, senators, and Presidents (in the US) prioritize that stuff.

How can I, as a small start up, produce a new mobile phone? Every concept from the hardware to the software is layered in patents. What other things are small companies not bothering to produce because of the patent minefield? At every turn and corner you may be stepping on another patent troll waiting to take a percentage of your earnings as well as drain your bank account on legal fees.

</comment><comment><USER55> > US-based revenue from AdWords, Google's flagship program

Given Google's structure and revenue recognition, I'd be surprised if they had to pay out anything significant.

<comment><USER56> Google's corporate structure is designed to hide and move profit, not revenue. If this ruling is upheld we're talking a super-massive quantity of money going to someone who did nothing.

And the patent system will still not get reformed.

<comment><USER24> It's also not even designed to hide or move _US_ profit, so it's doubly irrelevant. Double Irish Dutch Sandwiches don't do anything for money made in the US.

<comment><USER57> Is it because Google operates servers and whatnot in the US that they couldn't sell all their ad inventory at $1 to their Ireland division or another company or something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> "While publicly-traded Vringo" \- hum, somehow they have a market cap of $332.30M.

<comment><USER59> Almost 334 now; it was the first thing I checked after reading that story.

A hostile take over might be cheaper than paying royalties.

<comment><USER60> So if Google took over the company and settled for paying a massive amount to them, this would in turn force Microsoft to pay 5% of that. Except anything Google paid, would essentially go back to Google. Could you bankrupt Microsoft this way?

<comment><USER58> No, the judge would alter his ruling because of a Microsoft appeal. Judges are remarkably unimpressed with such attempts to use their rulings like that.

<comment><USER57> What if Google had bought Vringo after the settlement with MS but before the judges ruling? Then it'd be a private contract?

Sort of the inverse of the Mosaic licensing, where Spyglass got a royalty off of IE revenue, and MS proceeded to give it away for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> What does this mean for ad-supported startups? Does anyone have specifics on the patent issue here? I didn't get it from the news coverage.

<comment><USER62> I haven't read the patents yet. According to the original article and it's comments, looks like there are two aspects are infringed: auction model and user re-targeting model.

It looks like the auction model based on the number of hits is pretty obvious now, but it was not quite obvious in 1999. The re-targeting model is definitely novel in 1999.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Software patents need to be abolished for good.

</comment><comment><USER64> I´m a peacefull and calm person, which despites violent but the more I read about US patent law the more I want to set a torch to the trolls and kill them with fire.

I know that this is not very constructive. I know that violence is not a solution. But seeing what these [insert insult here] do to our industry I just can not help myself.

</comment><comment><USER65> They are pretty clear on what they do: "Vringo, Inc. is engaged in the innovation, development and monetization of intellectual property and mobile technologies"

[http://www.vringoip.com/cgi-bin/index.pl](http://www.vringoip.com/cgi- bin/index.pl)

</comment><comment><USER66> With a market cap of less than $350 million, shouldn't Google just buy them? I realize that they'd pay more than that, and that there might not be enough stock available to get a controlling share, but it would be an interesting strategy if they could pull it off.

<comment><USER67> It's about $425m as I write this. Yes, Google should probably try to buy them if they can. The people that control VRNG might consider that they'd rather have a billion in cash from the payouts, that they can then push into more patent gains, than to sell right now for, say, $800m.

I think people in that type of position frequently tend to get over-confident after winning, and rather than take one big payday, they keep rolling the dice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> As long as clueless fucking judges allow this shit to keep happening, America is going to keep losing its tech edge. These patent trolls make creating anything in the US risky for businesses.

</comment><comment><USER69> > Smart people invent things. Then they get to protect the intellectual > property on what they invents.

Then all previous knowledges we get from ancestors should be protected. The dead also deserve a share.

</comment><comment><USER70> Article makes no mention of the validity of the patent. Does the court not take that into question?

<comment><USER71> I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, the validity of a patent, and the infringement case, are handled by separate courts, each on its own schedule. You can get an infringement judgement against you for a patent that is ultimately invalidated, and the judgement still stands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Repeat after me: the patent system cannot be reformed -- the only real way to fix this is to abolish patents completely. Patents no longer serve any other purpose than wasting our time.

</comment><comment><USER73> Yeah, just get rid of patents. They serve no purpose any more today.

</comment><comment><USER74> Just hundreds of millions? Is that only going forward or is it retroactive? If it's the latter, I'd expect that number to be much, much higher.

<comment><USER24> It's only retroactive back to 2012 and the patent expires in 2016.

<comment><USER62> I was wondering Google started to use Adwords from 2012? But I heard about re- targeting in 2012 though. It is said Google knew it from 2005, but didn't buy it or failed to buy it. Not sure. Interesting story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Why can't they simply incorporate outside US in some country where the patents are milder ? Or is it that they have to pay royalty even then...

<comment><USER76> It wouldn't have any effect on business they do in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Wouldn't it be cheaper and safer for google to just controller interest in the company? A hostile takeover if you will...

</comment><comment><USER78> If you infringe, you have to pay.

</comment><comment><USER79> google got shafted...or was it the other way around...? Good day!

</comment><comment><USER80> Wow! As a patent agent, those patents are pure MONEY patents, incredibly broad, especially to have been published in 2001 (but with a priority date of 1996) Here is the money claim:

A search engine system comprising: a first system for receiving informons from a network on a continuing search basis, for filtering such informons for relevancy to a query from an individual user, and for storing a ranked list of relevant informons as a wire; a second system for receiving informons from a network on a current demand search basis and for filtering such informons for relevancy to the query from the individual user; and a third system for selecting at least one of the first and second systems to make a search for the query and to return the wire or demand search results to the individual user. </comment><comment>====

here is the money claim for the other patent:

. A search system comprising: a scanning system for searching for information relevant to a query associated with a first user in a plurality of users; a feedback system for receiving information found to be relevant to the query by other users; and a content-based filter system for combining the information from the feedback system with the information from the scanning system and for filtering the combined information for relevance to at least one of the query and the first user.

man, that second one is a pretty broad patent.

</comment><comment><USER81> Vringo isn't your average patent troll and actually has a fascinating back story and history behind it. Here's a good link to understand the background.

[http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/31/why-google-might-be- going-t...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/31/why-google-might-be-going-to-0/)

<comment><USER24> Note that the author is an investor in Vringo.</comment></comment>


Obama Spurns Silicon Valley Vets, Names Virginia's Secretary of Technology As CTO - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/17/obama-spurns-silicon-valley-names-virginias-secretary-of-technology-as-cto/ <comment><USER2> I doubt that the skills necessary to make stuff happen in tech land lend themselves well to being a bureaucrat. If anything, they are likely a hindrance.

</comment><comment><USER3> > he drove the state's partnership with Google to become sitemap compliant

It definitely doesn't sound too technical...</comment>


What they don't tell you about event sourcing - <AUTHOR> caveats of event sourcing: https://medium.com/@hugo.oliveira.rocha/what-they-dont-tell-you-about-event-sourcing-6afc23c69e9a <comment><USER2> do you have a bot to present this link every 3 days?</comment>


Free to Choose ebook deal reveals the programmer zeitgeist - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/11/free-to-choose-ebook-deal-reve.html <comment><USER2> I don't know if I would read too much into this. Maybe programmers already have books on subject X so only buy subjects Y and Z during this deal.

</comment><comment><USER3> One point from the comments I did find interesting, it says as much about what areas oreilly is still the top tech publisher in (case of python).

However from any perspective I found the fact a data analysis book was #1 very telling. I find big data interesting and see it discussed here a fair bit, but I never assume the hot topics here hold interest in the wider developer community. Guess I was wrong this time.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd be very interested in seing the raw numbers, I'm guessing there is probably some wide differences between 1 and 25.

It's cool to see Land of Lisp on the there. Good book, get it while it's cheap.

I also got, Algorithm in a nutshell and Real World Haskell. I had a lot of the other books on the list already.

Anyone care to share their list of purchases?

<comment><USER3> I grabbed Making Software. All the other stuff I know of from OReilly I've gotten on prior sales (especially the big all ebooks $9.99 sale a while back). Though Hadoop 2nd ed came out but I haven't made it through first ed yet there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> for me it was programming ios4 as i recently picked up Clojure in Action and The Joy of Clojure (MEAP) at Manning for a like wise good deal

I used the code: clojure35 (35% discount code) for that and paid $37.37</comment>


Digital immortality, true AI and the destruction of mankind - <AUTHOR> http://fakeguido.blogspot.com/2010/06/digital-immortality-true-ai-and.html

<comment><USER2> The reason this isn't the accepted ideal method for building an AI is that it -doesn't build an AI-.

A decision tree attached to your incoming email doesn't constitute an AI; its only automation. It isn't making decisions, and a structure of these decision trees, even complicated enough to perfectly mimic a person, is not an intelligence, its a philosophical zombie.

Yeah, it is theoretically possible to build a model of me that mimics me entirely by clearly defining the decision trees, but that's not the problem of AI: Its easy enough to teach it to do something, but hard to build something that actually learns.

<comment><USER3> A philosophical zombie is not a decision tree incapable of learning. A philosophical zombie is something that is exactly like a human in every way except that it lacks consciousness. The concept has more than a few problems - see <http://lesswrong.com/lw/p7/zombies_zombies/>

If a decision tree (or a clever algorithm or whatever) REALLY did perfectly mimic a thinking human (including our ability to learn), do you still think it wouldn't REALLY be intelligent? That there's some sort of important, qualitative difference between being shifted through a decision tree and sensory inputs and feedback loops building up neuron action potentials? That may be true, but the evidence is heavily stacked against such a worldview.

That said, I agree that this is a bad approach to AI. It's not like people haven't been trying to stitch together various subproblems of intelligence for the better part of 50 years.

<comment><USER4> But 50 years is hardly a long time is it?</comment></comment></comment>


Greenspan says Bitcoin's a Bubble. - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-12-04/greenspan-says-bitcoin-a-bubble-without-intrinsic-currency-value

<comment><USER2> Serious question - can you short sell bitcoin? Is it possible for someone with large amounts of currency to do what Soros did to England / Thailand?

</comment><comment><USER3> Central bankers screaming is a tune to dance to.</comment>


Show HN: Email open rates are stupid. - <AUTHOR> http://mirapost.com/engagement_time

<comment><USER2> This is why I block graphics, run mail in a separate browser instance etc. GTFO of my business.

<comment><USER3> ... but for the other 99.999% of people on the internet, this is more information to glean from email marketing campaigns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How do they determine engagement time or whether the email was deleted?

<comment><USER5> I have no idea (didn't find out from a quick browse through the site), but the first thing that came to mind was an image in the mail, pointing to a server that slowly trickles a response without ever finishing so it can measure how long the other end is listening.

<comment><USER4> I guess that could work if mail clients don't have timeouts for images.

I still can't imagine how they would detect deletion though.

<comment><USER5> They're just calling "viewed for <x seconds" a deletion, it seems...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll be grumpy and say I'm surprised of how fast it reached first position on HN. However, I have to agree that there's a huge difference between deleting an email and opening it :p Great idea, good luck with it.

</comment><comment><USER7> "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." - Bill Hicks

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo>

</comment><comment><USER8> I need something like this. Great idea! Run with it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Let me know what you think. firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lies. There's no way to determine if an email got deleted (unless you somehow buy data from GMail, hotmail, yahoo mail, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> Lie. If it was read for only a couple seconds, it's effectively a delete.

<comment><USER10> I would think that can be a wildly inaccurate statistic. Some people may click into the email, scan it within a second or two, and click out.

That would count as a delete?

<comment><AUTHOR> If they "click out" and move onto another message, they'll probably never read your email again. So for the marketer it's the same as a delete (and likely is an actual delete).

If they click on a link inside the message, that shouldn't get counted as a delete.

Feel free to ping me with more questions - email@example.com. Always looking to chat with others in the email world :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Breaking Spotify DRM with PANDA - <AUTHOR> http://moyix.blogspot.com/2014/07/breaking-spotify-drm-with-panda.html? <comment><USER2> Post author here! I wanted to make it clear that the original technique for breaking Spotify DRM is not mine - it was developed by Wang et al. in their excellent paper, Steal This Movie: Automatically Bypassing DRM Protection in Streaming Media Services. I just thought it would be a nice showcase of PANDA's capabilities. In particular, we can avoid the crazy optimizations in that paper because we can operate on a replayed execution rather than doing it live.

<comment><USER3> On the subject of cracking streaming music DRMs, a realization I have been sitting on for a while about what people can do with it... Considering the common wisdom that:

\- storage will get exponentially cheaper

\- data transfer speeds will get higher

It makes me think that eventually there will be illicit torrents of _all_ the worlds music, plus the index, plus the metadata, and plus the interface/app for browsing it. In other words, people would not only pirate individual songs or movies, they would download their own complete copies of Spotify / Netflix. It isn't feasible now but it could be sometime in the next 5-15 years, depending bandwidth speeds.

I'm not sure how many people see this coming or take it seriously but I wonder what the effect could be and what the remedy attempts would be.

<comment><USER4> You can see the remedy attempts already

* push for cloud storage over local storage

* push for locked down devices over general purpose computers

* push for DRM on the open web

* big ISP companies fighting against net neutrality

<comment><USER3> I very much agree. I hope that, capitalism, ironically enough for DRM, is the probably always the solution to overstepped DRM remedies. Regardless of the issue of piracy, which I am not advocating.

For instance there will always be a market for custom computing and "PCs", and so non-locked PCs will (hopefully) always exist in a capitalist environment. That market I think ultimately circumvents any attempt at ubiquitous control of hardware. The same thing is at play with software. And hypothetical new methods of connectivity may be able to circumvent many attempts at central control of the net.

<comment><USER5> _For instance there will always be a market for custom computing and "PCs", and so non-locked PCs will (hopefully) always exist in a capitalist environment._

Unfortunately, that market is slowly becoming the minority, and because those "more free" devices may have limitations that make them incompatible with a lot of proprietary content (which is the majority) and circumventing those limitations could be illegal and difficult, there will be fewer users of them.

Reminds me of this [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to- read.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html) and the old saying "If you outlaw freedom, only outlaws will have freedom."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shameless plug to follow...

Much of the technology here was invented by Brendan and others at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, which is where I work. We have been very lucky to have Brendan join us for a few summers while he was completing his PhD at Georgia Tech and he gave a great showing at RECON. Brilliant guy. If you're interested in reverse engineering his most recent papers are essential reading: [http://www.cc.gatech.edu/grads/b/brendan](http://www.cc.gatech.edu/grads/b/brendan).

In addition to some of the automated RE work, we've also got multi-million dollar research efforts hacking the Linux kernel and reverse engineering/analyzing embedded systems. Lot's of fun stuff. You get to work on really exciting problems and you'll have the funding and the skilled coworkers you need to execute successfully.

If you find this type of stuff exciting, you should drop me a line at firstname.lastname@example.com. We're always hiring^. We've got great benefits too, like a pension, unlimited sick leave, 13 holidays, 20 vacation days, and free classes at MIT.

^One caveat is that because of how we are funded, we are only able to employ US citizens.

<comment><USER7> > One caveat is that because of how we are funded, we are only able to employ > US citizens.

Just wanted to say thank you: just being aware of limitations like this and letting people know up front makes it a whole less annoying. Also the circumstances makes it understandable.

<comment><USER8> I don't understand why being funded has anything to do of only hiring US citizens.

<comment><USER9> From Wikipedia:

Since MIT Lincoln Laboratory's establishment, the scope of the problems has broadened from the initial emphasis on air defense to include programs in space surveillance, missile defense, surface surveillance and object identification, communications, homeland protection, high-performance computing, air traffic control, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

Lincoln Laboratory conducts research and development pertinent to national security on behalf of the military services, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and other government agencies. Projects focus on the development and prototyping of new technologies and capabilities. Program activities extend from fundamental investigations, through simulation and analysis, to design and field testing of prototype systems. Emphasis is placed on transitioning technology to industry.

Essentially, the Lincoln Lab is one of several labs that are part of a strategy to make best use of creative people (who can think up things, but don't necessarily want to productize/weaponize them), industry (who can productize/weaponize things, but don't want to be part of a war effort) and military.

To see why they would not hire non-US citizens, consider the first author of the "Steal this Movie" paper, who now works at a Chinese university (presumably on similar problems to the ones that people in LL and at UCSB are tackling).

<comment><USER10> Interesting. The DoD funds research which enables them to hack into other systems, which means devices and our communications, and in return we get the tools to hack DRM and everything else.

Not a bad trade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're wondering, PANDA is this:[https://github.com/moyix/panda](https://github.com/moyix/panda)

QEMU based recorder. Sounds pretty neat.

Although if you wanted realtime audio decryption, I'd imagine just writing a sound driver or hooking the OS's sound functions would be far more direct.

<comment><USER12> That would miss the point. The approach in the article does not hook the audio driver, but rather the decryptor. This gets you the original compressed audio file, not a stream that has been uncompressed (and would have artifacts when re-compressed).

<comment><USER11> That's fair. Although a lot of BluRay rips are re-encoded and seem quite usable. Even the YiFY stuff at 1GB/hour or so.

Edit: Why can't a compressor perfectly re-compress the decompressed audio? It's obviously possible since the compressed data exists producing that specific decompressed data.

<comment><USER13> > Why can't a compressor perfectly re-compress the decompressed audio? > It's > obviously possible since the compressed data exists producing that specific > decompressed data.

It's not granted that a compressor c1, that given A produces Az that decompress with d1 to A', can easily find any Ax that compress to Az, or equivalently can easily find Az given A'.

Formulated like that it doesn't seem quite so obvious: finding Az from A' amounts[1] to finding A from Az -- ie: lossless compression.

> Although a lot of BluRay rips are re-encoded and seem quite usable. Even the > YiFY stuff at 1GB/hour or so.

Usable at any given viewing/listening set-up != actually remotely "good enough". I always say people shouldn't buy more expensive hi-fi gear than what they can actually tell apart -- the one problem with that (apart from people not being honest with themselves, optioning for the more expensive stuff anyway) is that when you're used to listening to crappy audio, you stop being able to tell the difference.

It's like listening to an FM radio that's slightly off station -- after a few hours, you probably don't notice anything wrong, until a new person walks into the room and adjusts it to be better.

Another point -- while BluRay certainly isn't lossless -- when you're talking the kind of compression/quality differences you mention (not sure what regular bluray films are, but if they max out at 48mbit/s for AV, that's by my calculations about 20GB/h) -- 1:20 -- I think you'd be hard pressed to notice any "additional" artefacts. It would be like comparing a raw/flac audio file compressed first to 320 kbps vbr mp3, and then compressed down to _16_ kbs mp3, versus just doing the compression to 16 kpbs mp3 (well order of magnitude is correct, obviously this is going to be mostly cutting into the video data, but still). Just something to keep in mind.

[1] Ok, "may almost amount to".

<comment><USER9> Lossy compression != lossy decompression/restoration.

With vanilla JPEG, you should be able to redo the DCT and find the quantized values exactly as they were, which means that you could losslessly reverse the JPEG compression not in the sense you get a compressed version that decompresses to the same lossy reconstruction.

With deblocking filters in MPEG2 and later, this is not necessarily the case, because you try to smooth things over in decompression and can't reconstruct the compressed version either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Uh what? Wow, I thought for a minute it said you took a 30-second recording and I was wondering what you were going to do to get the file format right. Use a raw encoding to get close to audio levels? Then I read on, noticed something and had to read back. Indeed, you didn't record the audio, you just recorded and replayed the operating system. Say what!

<comment><USER15> Yeah, it's next-level stuff, here. He said around 12 billion instructions which sounds like a lot, but with our current processors, not that much work for the CPUs.

<comment><USER16> More specifically, a billion instructions is one giga-instruction. A 2 GHz processor can execute roughly 2 billion instructions per second (this is a very rough estimate, thanks to superscalar, pipelining, uops, yada yada). So 12 billion (typical) instructions will take around 6 seconds to run.

This sort of thing is handy when profiling: see a function taking a billion instructions? Half a second of CPU time. And this ratio hasn't changed all that much in quite a while (what has changed, of course, is how many threads can execute simultaneously).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is really cool. Both referenced tools (PANDA and Volatility) seem awesome.

I have some experience with IDA and Olly, but learning about new tools is always nice. Any resources you guys recommend on the subject of reversing?

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't know, perhaps I'm totally wrong, but this just depresses me. I can see the point from an engineering point-of-view, this is a riddle to be solved, but why would you want to help people circumvent one of the (to me) reasonable ways of enjoying and paying for music? I know the author stopped short of giving the full solution to getting it to work, but still.

Is this what we've come to? No one should get paid for anything if we can enjoy it for free regardless of the hoops we will have to jump through to not pay?

Sorry if I am too dramatic. I can often see the point of pirating things, but in this case I just don't get it.

Edit: I would appreciate an explanation of the downvotes.

<comment><USER19> I understand where you're coming from (also, piracy repulses me).

However: it's worth knowing whether content protection is implemented soundly. Contrary to overwhelming popular opinion, there are content protection schemes that work. Generalist engineers mistakenly believe that content protection schemes must be unbreakable to provide value. They don't: all they have to do is cost more to break than the value of the content they protect (across all the users who might subsequently get access to it).

For an example of a content protection scheme that worked extremely well, see modern satellite TV smart cards.

Given that there are ways to implement content protection soundly, there's validity to research that determines whether a given content protection scheme is sound.

<comment><USER20> I generally agree, but I think you're conflating two kinds of content protection.

One prevents the attacker from accessing something they aren't subscribed to, and relies on crypto and secure subscriber identity mechanisms. This is completely possible to implement soundly.

The other prevents the attacker from copying something they can see or listen to, and relies on bizarre mechanisms designed to prevent the user from learning the state of their hardware.

I find the latter awful, because it's an infinitely losing battle (you can always point a camera at your display in the end) which erodes consumer freedoms and encourages walled gardens.

Satellite TV is a funny example - since the communication is strictly one-way, the hardware state needs to be protected or it can be cloned, but I still think it's fundamentally a question of the transport protection variety rather than the copy protection one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am wondering if someone who understands statistics better than I do could explain conceptually how encrypted data is distinguishable from compressed data. I always assumed that Shannon's paper says that perfectly compressed data should be indistinguishable from random data (which is indistinguishable from encrypted data). Is mp3 compression not sufficiently perfect? Is my understanding wrong?

Thank you!

P.S. This is a really clever trick!

<comment><USER11> Pretty sure you explained it: it's not _perfectly_ compressed data. Even a small bias is enough to give it away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Isn't music available through DRM-free sources most of the time anyway? Just don't use Spotify if you are against DRM. It will also be a vote with your wallet against it. By using it you implicitly support DRM proliferation.

<comment><USER23> Voting with your wallet is much less effective than publicly complaining, unless of course your wallet is worth a lot.

<comment><USER22> My comment wasn't really to the authors of this tool. Their tool is a form of the public protest and is appropriate. It was more directed to those who actually use Spotify. For them, complaining while actually using these kind of services (and helping them to spread more DRM in the process) is strange.

<comment><USER23> What if they like the product but would rather have it without the DRM?

<comment><USER22> I'd say they should stop using it until the product drops the DRM. Otherwise their complaints don't sound sincere. Or at least not convincing.

It's like as if smokers would complain that cigarets industry ruins public health.

<comment><USER11> Smokers complain, and now we have e-cigarettes which may be less harmful while still allowing the enjoyment of nicotine and the fun of smoking.

I'm not sure why it's insincere. I keep buying ThinkPads, but I hate the new designs with a passion. (And they hate me; they literally cause me RSI where the earlier ones didn't.) It doesn't make my arguments against the new ThinkPads any weaker.

<comment><USER22> _> and now we have e-cigarettes which may be less harmful while still allowing the enjoyment of nicotine and the fun of smoking._

So, we can have digital goods sold without DRM, so we could enjoy them without police state methods attached.

 _> I'm not sure why it's insincere._

Because by buying from those who push DRM on them, users support and prolong the usage of the said DRM. Complaints won't persuade DRM Lysenkoists. Loss of profits can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Would it have been possible to figure this out without the statistics by playing something very specific, like a 440Hz tone (yes, there's spotify 'music' that does just that)?

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm pretty sure you used to be able to just copy .ogg files from Spotify's local cache at one point. Am I remembering right? It's a soup of 10-2000kB files now.

<comment><USER26> At one very early point in its history, yes, I understand that was accurate. Then they encrypted them, but the key was easy to find, and then they started doing more complex stuff.

It's of idle academic interest to me. Never used Spotify, but I don't wish them harm either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A very interesting read.

</comment><comment><USER28> this is cool, but for someone who actually wants to rip songs off spotify, why would you do this instead of use audio hijack? is there some advantage?

<comment><USER11> As mentioned in another comment, if you do this you get the original compressed file. If you capture the audio and then want to recompress it, you'll introduce artifacts.

Although, it seems to me that an intelligent compressor could perfectly recompress the audio back to the original form.

<comment><USER29> This presumes that downsampling in either bit depth or sample rate isn't happening somewhere (such as your audio drivers) between decompressing the audio and where you're capturing the audio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I guess I could just google it but isn't breaking DRM illegal?

<comment><USER31> Yes, under US DMCA and EU something or other.

EDIT: here's the relevant wikipedia article [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti- circumvention](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention) (sorry for mobile link)

<comment><USER32> _" Sec. 103(f) of the DMCA (17 U.S.C. § 1201 (f)) says that if you legally obtain a program that is protected, you are allowed to reverse-engineer and circumvent the protection to achieve the ability the interoperability of computer programs (i.e., the ability to exchange and make use of information)."_

Though I wouldn't want to have to test that in court. IANAL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I read this and thought "I am not a true developer, I am merely a journalist- style hack".

Disclaimer: Contractor, native app dev.</comment>


Atom 1.1 is out - <AUTHOR> http://blog.atom.io/2015/10/29/atom-1-1-is-out.html <comment><USER2> I was reading that page until I hit their preview of 1.2 work, and clicking through to the PR for CJK soft-wrap sort of confirmed all my fears about what a bad idea it is to try and write a text editor against a browser engine.

Just from skimming it a bit, to handle Korean, their developer decided that Korean characters have a special unique width from other writing systems and gets that width from the cached bounding rect of a particular char as run through the engine, and then that factors into their wrapping calculations. So now they have a function called getKoreanCharWidth and are basically implementing alphabet-specific text layout in a bad way on their side of the fence. It doesn't even work particularly well, but most importantly it's obviously not a generic solution, and duplicates what the browser engine already does much better by using proper shaping and layout engines.

On the flip side, it sounds like Atom is a really cool project if you don't really know what you're doing yet and want to learn from your mistakes. Reinventing the wheel and noting it hobbles is a good way to acquire experience, and it's not like the world relies on Atom. Perhaps it also creates positive pressure to improve the APIs they're writing against, even though it's sad that happens so indirectly then.

<comment><USER3> The one thing that intrigued me about Atom is that it would actually run in the browser, meaning somebody would create a version you could load up in chrome/safari/firefox and connect to your github account etc. However I haven't seen anything of the sort yet. Does this exist?

Locally, I've tried Atom every now and again and even with the new improvements in 1.1, as soon as you get above a certain threshold in number of lines it starts to slow down considerably (>= 250ms key-press, subjectively) which would only be acceptable if I was running in the browser and even then would be barely useable. Come to mind, the cloud9 ide feels 'snappier' that Atom.

<comment><USER4> That's pretty much the #1 reason why most people still stick to sublime or other text editors. Atom just can't handle large files. It's a shame really because Atom actually looks great and works well as a point and click text editor. But right now Sublime offers everything Atom offers but built on a C++ engine.

In Vim I can just open up a 21mb db dump, do some regex to delete unwanted rows, and be done after a few seconds. Its amazing how vim can handle large files. I cannot imagine doing the same in Atom.

<comment><USER5> > right now Sublime offers everything Atom offers but built on a C++ engine.

Oh come on now, that's really exagerating.

<comment><USER6> Not really. C++ will be much faster than JavaScript. Your battery will last a lot longer on your laptop too.

For many tasks JavaScript might be fast enough but as your project grows and you want to fo more complicated tasks, you'll hit a wall with JavaScript.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Glad to hear they seem to have fixed the fuzzy finder. It was really terrible, and I actually switched back to Sublime because its fuzzy finder is fantastic. The relief in switching back to Sublime's finder was palpable, but I'll give Atom 1.1 another shot.

It's interesting reading about the character measurement problem. That makes me wonder if it's even worth building a text editor based on web technologies. Sublime appears to be based on traditional tech, and a single developer has built it into the cross-platform gold standard. Atom is built on experimental DOM-based tech, and a team funded by a massive company is still jumping through hoops to do things like measure the length of a line. Is whatever DOM brings to the table worth it? I genuinely don't know.

<comment><USER8> > Atom is built on experimental DOM-based tech, and a team funded by a massive > company is still jumping through hoops to do things like measure the length > of a line. Is whatever DOM brings to the table worth it? I genuinely don't > know.

I'm guessing the big win is Atom gets to take advantage of all the advances being made in the active JavaScript, Node and WebKit communities. At the rate things are going (e.g. JavaScript is much faster compared to a few years ago), I'd imagine any problems they're facing now will get solved eventually.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure how much JS is actually faster in the past few years... I mean there's been progress, but a lot of the progress in the earlier days of V8 aren'twhat we've seen lately. Probably 5+ years since huge leaps in JS performance have happened... it's just modern computers are pretty damned fast and have been for a while (on the desktop). Even CPU development has been more about reducing power use, than increasing raw performance for a while.

Most of the advancements/bottlenecks lately in browser tech are in how the DOM and reflows work in the browser in practice. JS has been pretty damned fast, and probably one of the fastest scripted environments all around for some time.

<comment><USER8> > Most of the advancements/bottlenecks lately in browser tech are in how the > DOM and reflows work in the browser in practice. JS has been pretty damned > fast, and probably one of the fastest scripted environments all around for > some time.

That's what I mean though. As Atom, web frameworks, Chrome OS etc. put pressure on the DOM to be fast, it will get fixed by some layer in the stack eventually in the same way V8 vastly improved the speed of JavaScript as there was pressure to make JavaScript faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Atom needs to measure runs of text on screen to absolutely position the > cursor, selections, highlights, and overlay decorations such as the > autocomplete suggestion box. Chrome does not have a text measurement API at > this time, so we need to measure text from the DOM. The problem with > measuring from the DOM is that it forces a reflow, and these measurement- > triggered reflows were a major source of slowness in early versions of Atom.

It's incredible that the web works at all, considering the heroic feats necessary to accomplish simple things native toolkits got right back in the 1980's.

<comment><USER9> Measuring for the width of a text string isn't exactly a typical action in browser based applications/pages. That said, I'm half surprised they didn't resort to canvas controlled rendering to work around the issue, making the editor itself a controlled canvas field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The biggest problem with Atom for me is Sublime Text, it just does everything that Atom does and most important is that my battery lasts about 30% more with SublimeText compared to Atom, never mind performance improvements I get with Sublime Text. I am using latest retina macbook pro 15.

<comment><USER12> How often are you running you Macbook in a non-charger-available environment where you'd run your battery down enough to test this? Or have you specifically disconnected to test this? (Not /s, actual questions)

<comment><USER11> I am working outside (parks, beaches etc) while my little son and my wife play or relax next to me, so it's pretty much every day, with a new macbook I started to get stable 6-7 hours while using sublime text, but with Atom I am only getting around 4 max, so the difference is pretty dramatic for me.

<comment><USER12> That's an awful long time spent at the park for a kid ;)

But, fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Man, I will have to give atom a try again... been using VS Code for a few months now because when I last tried atom it was painfully slow... I really like the inline markdown preview.

Between Atom, VS Code and others, it's really interesting to see all of these tools built around the browser. It's funny because this is heavier than what Mozilla envisioned with XUL apps sharing a runtime.

That said, at least writing apps against a desktop deployment, android, ios, and web being able to reuse a lot of logic is a pretty nice feature to have... Even if you don't like JS. It's a trade off, but kind of exciting just the same.

<comment><USER13> VS Code is amazing speed-wise, I couldn't believe its web-based at all.

<comment><USER14> VS Code shares a lot of code with the IE11/Edge F12 Dev Tools and it's great seeing the performance gains in both over the last couple years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been using Atom for about 1 year now for mostly JavaScript and Python programming. It's great! I've easy to be productive in and performance has been fine for me on a MacBook. It has an active plugin community and I've found plugins for everything I need so far.

</comment><comment><USER15> Have they made Atom portable yet? By portable, I mean I can unzip it anywhere and it is self-contained (everything happens in its own directory structure)?

<comment><USER16> Yes, if you download the zip rather than the installer you can do this: [https://github.com/atom/atom/releases/tag/v1.1.0](https://github.com/atom/atom/releases/tag/v1.1.0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Has anyone tried Atom recently to determine if any of these performance boosts have made enough difference to consider switching back?

<comment><USER18> I just updated to Atom 1.1 on my early 2015 rMBP... still takes upward of 20 seconds to open up a project containing <5 markdown files and a `.git` containing <10 commits.

Once its started, it lags quite a bit. I really _want_ to use Atom, but the performance just kills it for me.

<comment><USER8> You should report this as a bug I think. I've used Atom on a similar machine for large projects with large commit histories and it's never takes more than a few seconds to open.

<comment><USER18> I might do that, I just hate submitting bug reports without being able to really say where the problem is sort of coming from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you were seeing Atom Helper take 100% cpu on launch or when viewing packages (especially with Nuclide), it should be fixed. Please comment or file a task if it is not!

<comment><USER20> Same here. Just keeps freezing and I'd have to force quit. Unusable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Currently using atom and it's package system for a POC for a custom dumbed down editor. I'm really surprised at how much I've managed to accomplish in a week. If we go through with the project, it'll be a joy to work on.

That said, I tried editing the package initially using atom, and switched back to vim on the second day. So it'll suit our purposes, but a terminal based editor still has so many more advantages when hacking on code. (Though if editing a vim plugin were this clean and easy, I'd be outpacing Tim Pope).

</comment><comment><USER22> I can understand the advantage of a text editor written in the world's most popular language. But why did they choose to render text using the DOM?

Couldn't they have at least separated a rendering backend?

</comment><comment><USER23> I've tried that editor year or so ago, and was disappointed that it ever tried to connect to the network to do all sort of stuff. Don't really remember any details, I think there was some analytics, auto-updates etc etc.

I'm certain that it can all be disabled, but is there any ready to use recipe to do so? I mean, I want all the non-network-related software I use to literally never try to do anything network-related (besides loopback connections, okay), except when explicitly told to do so.

<comment><USER24> I don't know why this is being downvoted.

Atom automatically downloads updates and also hits a google analytics URL every time you open it. The latter can be prevented if you disable the metrics package but you can't turn off update auto-download. This is unacceptable for what essentially is a text editor.

<comment><USER25> Unacceptable to you. I'm OK with it -- at least when (like Atom) the code that does the data collecting is open source.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that using the internet to collect data on usage patterns is a sufficiently powerful technique that if web apps were the only apps able to do it, web apps would probably eventually drive out native apps (and I don't think I would like that).

<comment><USER26> > In fact, I'd go so far as to say that using the internet to collect data on > usage patterns is a sufficiently powerful technique

 _No-one_ is saying that's a bad thing. What's bad is that it does this automatically without your consent, so long before you can even disable it, it's already leaking data.

What's even worse is that it also send potentially sensitive data that appear in exceptions to bugsnag.com and AFAIK, there's no way to disable that by disabling the metrics collection. In fact they don't seem to tell you about it at all.

[https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/4966](https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/4966)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How are Atom's regex find/replace capabilities? I use Sublime Text's all of the time...and can't imagine using a modern text / code editor without them.

<comment><USER28> The big thing I miss is multi-line find/replace.

[https://discuss.atom.io/t/multi-line-find-and- replace/10222](https://discuss.atom.io/t/multi-line-find-and-replace/10222)

[https://github.com/atom/find-and- replace/issues/398](https://github.com/atom/find-and-replace/issues/398)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have Atom and Brackets installed but see no reason to use them over Sublime Text.. My preferred text editor would be vim simply because I can code while ssh'd.

<comment><USER30> I love Brackets since they have added instant search. That is the killer feature for me.

Being able to search 10k+ files instantly as you type is really awesome.

<comment><USER9> Similarly, I've really enjoyed VS Code's Git and Search features... Though thinking of trying Atom again after this release noting performance gains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Beware of using vim-mode in 1.1; there are bugs related to paging!

</comment><comment><USER32> The title doesn't explain that Atom 1.1 is a beta test and the main page still has Atom 1.0 for download.

I went to download and got Atom 1.0, there is a special link to click to get the 1.1 beta test.

This may be confusing to people expecting 1.1 but getting 1.0 because they clicked on the wrong link.

Microsoft Visual Studio Code is based on Atom, so I expect it will get updated sooner or later as well with these changes.

<comment><USER33> This is incorrect (possibly updated since you commented). The download link on the main atom.io site will download version 1.1. This is the first release that went through the BETA channel (i.e the beta channel was recently introduced as a way of trying out the latest version) to a stable release.

Although, the header on the blog post does still have "1.0" so it is confusing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Since I upgraded, my Python linters work no more. Tried 1.2, same thing.

</comment><comment><USER35> I second the question: Is it any good?

<comment><USER36> It's good if you have a powerful machine with a lot of RAM and a fast hard drive for IO. But hey, it's free. The alternatives are Visual Studio Code and Brackets.

Brackets is more useful for Web designers and Integrators (support for photoshop projects...)

VS Code has nice Typescript and git integration (makes committing code very easy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Finally I can use FiraCode!

<comment><USER38> Yeah, with current gorgeous themes and FiraCode ligatures, code in Atom looks absolutely fantastic.</comment></comment>


The Indian state, Kerala, flattened its coronavirus curve; lesson for the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/aggressive-testing-contact-tracing-cooked-meals-how-the-indian-state-of-kerala-flattened-its-coronavirus-curve/2020/04/10/3352e470-783e-11ea-a311-adb1344719a9_story.html <comment><USER2> Kerala is in the forefront of most of the social indicators among Indian states [1] and in general has better disaster management. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_model)</comment>


Safecracking for the Computer Scientist [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.crypto.com/papers/safelocks.pdf

<comment><USER2> I'm currently taking one of Matt Blaze's courses at Penn (Operating Systems). It's cool to see one of my professor's papers posted on HN. If you liked this one, he also wrote another cool paper entitled "Cryptology and Physical Security: Rights Amplification in Master-Keyed Mechanical Locks." It discusses the ability to reverse-engineer master keys in the context of computer science. Here's a link:

<http://www.crypto.com/papers/mk.pdf></comment>


Panopticon - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon <comment><USER2> Even if you disagree with his methods or conclusions, Foucault has some pretty interesting thoughts and arguments on the panopticon and is somewhat responsible for revitalizing interest in it in the 1970s.

 _For Foucault, the real danger was not necessarily that individuals are repressed by the social order but that they are "carefully fabricated in it" (Foucault, 1977), and because there is a penetration of power into the behaviour of individuals. (Foucault 1977)._

Kind of chillingly accurate how that is when used to describe social media.

[http://www.moyak.com/papers/michel-foucault- power.html](http://www.moyak.com/papers/michel-foucault-power.html)

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

<comment><USER3> Whenever I think of the Panopticon I default to Foucault's metaphorical embodiment and not Bentham's literal one.

With Shenzhen's new 5G/gigapixel systems rolling out in the subway, grocery stores, cross walks, apartment entries, and even KFC's I realize both can be true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> " The concept of the design is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single security guard, without the inmates being able to tell whether they are being watched."

Maybe I'm weird but my thoughts immediately go to office design and allowing a manager to observe any/all employees without them being able to tell. Maybe THIS is the real point (or at least a "happy" side product) of open-floor-plan offices?

<comment><USER5> You can see this design pattern in many places. A supermarket chain I once worked at has the managers office elevated above the store with a one way mirror, so they can see out and no one can see in. It works. You never know if the manager is watching. I'm sure it deterred thieves as well as prevented staff from slacking on the job.

The same concept for years here was used in traffic light cameras, although they're really commonplace nowadays, in the past the traffic authority only had a relatively small number of actual cameras, but the camera boxes at intersections were fixed in place. You would never know if the camera at any particular time was in there, so everyone slowed down, took their time, and behaved at those intersections regardless.

Then there are satellites orbiting overhead. Maybe not a concern for you and I, but real-time, high resolution footage of basically any location on the planet is at the fingertips of many countries' agencies. You don't know if anyone's looking at you at any time, but just knowing that up there in the sky could be hidden eyes watching is a massive deterrent if you're trying to, I dunno, secretly mobilise an army, or move piles of drugs to a secret warehouse.

The US government invested a lot of time and money designing blimps that would be equipped with sensitive radio receivers and gigapixel cameras, that can float at high altitude virtually invisible to the naked eye while powerful onboard computers use image recognition to classify and track every moving object within a city (oddly called ISIS - Integrated Sensor is Structure).

The best part is you don't need to actually build and deploy these things, or if you do you don't need total coverage, just the very shadow of a threat of being observed secretly from afar is an really economical approach to getting large masses of people to fall into line. Knowing that it's possible is enough to raise the question of whether or not it's already been done.

From a supermarket to space, the panopticon pattern is nested and stacked under, over and around us in ways that we sometimes barely even recognise or know exist. Probably not a big issue for the most part if you're not up to anything nefarious, undoubtedly in many instances it's of benefit to productivity and society at large. But sometimes governments can turn nefarious, or you get an asshole boss, and then it becomes a problem for people.

So yeah I don't think you're weird thinking that open plan offices resemble a panopticon, though to make it work the boss needs his own side entry and a way of looking out while no one can look in. Add a loudspeaker so they can yell at people on the floor if they think they're being slack, and you have a warehouse I once worked in.

I do seriously doubt many of these workplaces made a conscious decision to build a panopticon, but it's apparently a natural product of a distrusting, cunning intellect.

<comment><USER6> Rather tangential, but the band ISIS had an album called Panopticon.

<comment><USER7> Even more tangential, but that's my namesake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I couldn't figure out how the prisoners were not able to see whether they were being watched or not. Reading through the article though, it is left as an open engineering solution.

I found the following bits valuable -

> By Blinds, and other contrivances, the Inspectors concealed from the > observation of the Prisoners

Since this is also tied up with the surveillance society which we seem to be heading towards, I find the following point very important -

> Bentham's inspection principle applied not only to the inmates of the > panopticon prison, but also the manager. The unaccountable gaoler was to be > observed by the general public and public officials. The apparently constant > surveillance of the prison inmates by the panopticon manager and the > occasional observation of the manager by the general public

<comment><USER9> I guess it's more that someone could just lean over and observe you at any time. You might not see a pair of eyes now, but turn your back and try something against the rules and a pair of eyes might suddenly appear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's a VR game called Panoptic based on the concept, it is worth checking out. The final version is to be released in a few weeks.

[http://panopticgame.com/](http://panopticgame.com/)

(disclaimer: I know one of the person developing it)

</comment><comment><USER11> > The metaphor of the panopticon prison has been employed to analyse the > social significance of surveillance by closed-circuit television (CCTV) > cameras in public spaces.

Or how about the comparison with Google et al tracking our every move online?

<comment><USER12> Missing the point. The modern panopticon is not Google tracking you, or the surveillance cameras that only prevent very grave anti-social behaviour.

I propose that the modern panopticon are Facebook and Twitter, where anything you say, in any conversation and context, stays recorded forever and can be used against you at a later time- so you may damn well be very careful. And the irony of it is that the hidden guards are no one else than our collective selves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> McSweeny's wrote a funny short story about an office switching to a panopticon [0].

I find these designs interesting. I used to want to simulate societies in structures like this. Then I saw stuff like the Real World, and more recently The Circle on Netflix. I realize that people are very different, and the chaos of the hoi polloi is not something that interests me in a way that doesn't bum me out.

It would be cool to run a Monte Carlo of lots of different combinations until I find a mix of people who thrive in this kind of situation. Or at least one where I want to participate.

[0] [https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/our-open-plan-office- fai...](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/our-open-plan-office-failed-so- were-moving-to-a-towering-panopticon)

</comment><comment><USER14> Religion is a panopticon for civilizations who aren't technologically advanced enough to run surveillance by machine intelligence

<comment><USER15> This gets at something significant, but I think there's a sense in which it's backwards.

Religion promises to surveil you _all the time_. This stretches far beyond any one faith: the Abrahamic God is omniscient, karma is a direct consequence of each action, Anubis measures the whole of your life by the weight of your heart. Even Santa Claus, who is absolutely a religious figure to children, "sees you when you're sleeping" and "knows when you're awake".

Panopticon relies on the _threat_ of surveillance. You could be surveilled at any moment without knowing it, resulting in constant self-consciousness. This is the logic of security cameras and secret police. If Santa corresponds to a god, panopticon is more like Elf on a Shelf. That's not just anecdotal, it's made very clear when a kid does breaks a rule behind a closed door because "then the elf can't see me".

The claim made by religion is far bolder. You might commit or witness an unpunished crime and realize that it's possible to misbehave without judgement, but you can't sin sneakily or find an example of someone getting away with sin unpunished. However, religion's claim isn't necessarily more coercive. Panopticon threatens arbitrary judgement. You might commit a venial sin and trust that a life of piety will outweigh it, but panopticon judges you on arbitrary moments. Even a minor, widely committed crime like speeding carries some risk of a harsh punishment.

( _Calvin and Hobbes_ , of all things, takes this on quite insightfully. Calvin theorizes Santa relies on panopticon rather than omniscience, and changes his plans accordingly: [https://imgur.com/VUhe8vG.](https://imgur.com/VUhe8vG.))

Social media is a panopticon, recreating patterns we used to associate with inquisitors and town gossips. (What would Mrs. Grundy say - if she happened to find out?) Mostly, no one's watching closely, and unless someone actively documents what you say it can be deleted later. But anyone tweeting an offensive joke _might_ get cancelled, regardless of their good works, if someone happens to notice.

Data processing is, or soon will be, religion made manifest. A sufficient power can surveil everyone at once, weigh up all their deeds, and choose who to punish. And full-take storage means the end of safety; what's recorded and found blameless today can be evaluated again in 10 or 50 years under different rules. That's pretty much unprecedented, and I don't think we've grappled with the implications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The problem with this, which I learned about in grade school with bullies, is that it works only if the people are rational actors. If they don't understand the principles at work or don't care, the whole thing falls apart. You just need inmates who roll the dice or don't care, or bullies who cannot contemplate mutually assured destruction and your strategy completely falls apart.

<comment><USER17> _Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation._

[https://www.academia.edu/11274021/Cipolla_- The_Basic_Laws_of...](https://www.academia.edu/11274021/Cipolla_- The_Basic_Laws_of_Human_Stupidity)

<comment><USER18> Direct download: [http://www.academia.edu/download/36859613/Cipolla_- The_Basic...](http://www.academia.edu/download/36859613/Cipolla_- The_Basic_Laws_of_Human_Stupidity.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Did I hear Office Concept?

</comment><comment><USER20> Isn't this how some public transport works (at least in the UK)? There's only a limited number of inspectors on the trams in Manchester so I probably won't get stopped but I don't know where they will be. I think the outcome is that the punishment has to be significant enough otherwise people work the probabilities.

(Note I always buy a ticket because I can afford it and want successful public transport.)

<comment><USER21> or any Mass surveillance state like North Korea, China, Stalin-era Soviet Union, DDR (East Germany)

they had limited resources but high enough punishment to keep the population in check

<comment><USER22> The DDR spent considerable resources on internal security.

The Stasi museum in Berlin is well worth a visit. After the Helsinki agreement to limit physical abuse, prisoners were subjected to psychological isolation instead.

Some Stasi jailers wrote academical treastises on how to handle enemies of the state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I always associate this word first and foremost with the device in Asimov's short story sequel to "Marooned off Vesta".

EDIT: Oops, in the story it was "anoptikon" which was a play on the misunderstanding in the first story that the company was talking about "an optikon" when referring to the device.

</comment><comment><USER24> In my country we have a jail with this design, it's weird when you notice the similitude.

[https://goo.gl/maps/xZcMWFsin3p6W6u68](https://goo.gl/maps/xZcMWFsin3p6W6u68) (use the satellite view)

</comment><comment><USER25> I thought this was going to be related to the sculptures in Lancashire

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

</comment><comment><USER26> A while ago I registered a very corny vanity domain: [http://panoptic.online/](http://panoptic.online/)

I'll see myself out.

</comment><comment><USER27> Was playing the game Control last night and got to a mission/area called Panopticon. I thought "huh what a cool made-up word". Cool to know this a real thing.

</comment><comment><USER28> Obligatory (IMHO): [https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/fou...](https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/foucault- panopticism.pdf)

I don't know how you can even begin to talk about the Panopticon without mentioning Foucault.</comment>