Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done - <AUTHOR> http://www.theminimalists.com/internet/ <comment><USER3> I haven't dealt with my laptop based computer addiction, but I have solved my cell phone addiction.

It's important to understand how much behavior around technology is based on ingrained habits. My goal with dealing with my phone was to "short-circuit" the habitual/addictive behavior.

To do this, I did two things.

1\. I turned off all automatic notifications on my phone, as well as all background updates of apps/email/etc.

2\. I created a simple rule: I can use my phone whenever I want, but I have to wait five minutes after 'thinking of using it.'

Combined, these two rules have been effective in short-circuiting the addictive properties of my cell phone. The five minute wait time gives me the chance to have deliberate/conscious thought about my phone use. The lack of automatic updates happening in the background gives me a chance to catch myself, if I unconsciously start using my phone. For example, it takes 20-30 seconds to load email. If I unconsciously open the email app, nothing has changed. Sure, I can tell it to load the email, but the time it takes to load the email gives me the chance to realize I'm breaking my five minute rule.

I feel like I'm able to use my phone as a tool again. After around a month of this, I'm no longer scared of my phone's power over me.

Sadly, I haven't figured out an effective system for my computer yet.

<comment><USER4> The "set Do Not Disturb for 12:00AM - 11:59PM" trick has been amazing for me the past month or so I started the experiment. I set it to allow texts and calls from my Favorites through (e.g. wife, mom, dad) -- but essentially every other type of notification is non-urgent and likely even non-important.

By far the best app to silence has been my email. I consider it a luxury that I can come home and not worry about it. I highly suggest it to anyone who thinks they have a screen addiction.

<comment><USER5> I have my Android set as "Do not Disturb: forever", while allowing calls to still ring. Since people don't call me unless it's something urgentish, it works well, and notifications never distract me when I'm with others any more.

<comment><USER6> I do the same, and in addition the phone sits face down on my desk, to prevent me getting distracted by the notification led.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh man, oh man, this is so close to my experience. I went lo-fi since the beginning of 2017. Real testimonials of a drug/facebook/internet addict who has the problem out of control here.

I killed my Facebook account 3 months ago, and switched to a dumb phone (from a Pixel phone ;-) since the beginning of the year. Now I'm rocking a webOS phone and no IM account except for hangouts which I check on my computer when I want. I no longer reach my pocket to check for message or anything when I enjoy my meal or go travel somewhere. There is no push or anything I can play when I wake up in the middle of the night to keep me up. Also, looking up and navigating to places by instinct sucks, and is fun at the same time. I no longer have any idea how highly rated any place is before I walk in, and I had plenty of surprises since then. Just last weekend I traveled somewhere and interacted with the locals because the only place in town was closed - <USER2> wouldn't have if I had a smartphone to "OK Google." Without the smartphone, I now carry a big, beaten up mirrorless camera in by bag, so I am more or less have to do more "proper" photography now, instead of disposable instagram stuff to get likes (this I have to credit the Pixel, it was an incredible camera for how thin it is). Learning photography with a camera is super fun, although the end result seems to be the same.

I'm an immigrant. Other than the Trump stuff my liberal friends were talking about here, there was another alternative flow of stressful/irrelevant celebrities news from my home country. I realized that without Facebook, I actually extremely rarely check or care what's going on, about who is fucking who and who is getting fat. The amount of stuff getting in my brain is dramatically reduced. I thought I would miss Facebook, and it turned out I don't. The benefits far, far exceeded the negatives.

Without Facebook and a constant smartphone influence to consume, I write way more, about what I like and what actually matters to me, not to get likes from my friends and to appear intelligent. I get downvotes from Hacker News when I say something stupid, which I don't get from Facebook. It's alright :) I honestly feel I learn everyday.

I get so much better sleep, way less stress and I have so much free time since then. It was like an enlightenment for me to be taking control of my life. I will try to cut back the internet also as the author suggested. Now excuse me, I have to get back to work on my writing.

<comment><USER8> Sometimes things just get ingrained as impulse and habit. I tried a lot of things before finally deactivating Facebook. Downgraded to a dumbphone briefly but it just wasn't feasible with work - especially the hotspot for when I'm on call. Tried scheduled site blockers like Freedom.io but the problem is I know how they all work so it was easy enough for me to disable them for a second. Tried blocking news sources that were usually associated with political-rant- shares but the algorithm just keeps roping you back in.

I generally try to stay off the web after work unless there's something I NEED to do after hours (right now I'm just finishing a database upgrade) and that easy enough. Killing Facebook ended up being the real cure for me. Any other sites I check I'm generally done after about 15 minutes...for the day. Facebook is just constant though. It's just such an easy go-to. Like the author of this post, I find myself reading books a lot more (for a really interesting read, check out The Undoing Project btw).

I see some other comments on here being critical of the decision but the real key is just identifying an acknowledging when you have a real, legitimate time sink problem. When you do and you can get to the bottom of it, it's like a weight off of your shoulders. Some people are better at moderation than others. Others are much better at quitting cold turkey.

When you really identify how much time you're wasting per day / week of something that's in short supply, especially when there are things you keep wishing you could find time for...the decision to do something like this gets really...really easy.

And once you do it, it feels pretty great.

<comment><USER7> >The Undoing Project

I heard about it on Freakonomics. I will check it out as I have time now ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> brian-armstrong Some people are alcoholics. They can't exist near an open can of beer without their life going to shambles. But most people aren't and don't have the urge to binge drink.

I'm not sure how this is any different. The author of this article is an Internetaholic, therefore I should cut my tether to the Internet? And what of my LTE connection?

<comment><USER9> I see it a lot particularly with regard to facebook. People take "I have a problem" and turn it in to "this thing is a problem".

<comment><USER10> One big difference is that alcohol was not engineered to be addictive. Whereas at Facebook and many other companies there are a lot of smart people continuously trying to improve metrics like DAU, UAM, response frequency, etc. And they do it with no apparent regard for the impact on users' lives. Heck, many game companies proudly advertise how they are the most addictive thing you can get right now.

<comment><USER11> Well okay sure, but engineered or not, alcohol is _very_ addictive. There are probably more addictive substances, but alcohol really is up there on that list. You could probably engineer a better addictive substance, but not one nearly as pervasive in global culture.

There's something truly unique about alcohol that isn't true of any other addictive substance on the planet.

<comment><USER12> > There's something truly unique about alcohol that isn't true of any other > addictive substance on the planet.

Except nicotine, sugar, caffeine, etc.

Honestly I'd say your argument is a much better fit for sugar.

I'm saying this as someone who went off it for a few years, and now back on it, trying to quit.

Tremendously addictive, and it's EVERYWHERE.

Birthday? Cake. Meeting up with friends? Drinks. Easter? Candy. Date? Chocolate. Did something good? Reward with cookies.

I sound like I'm on some bandwagon, but I'm not trying to argue that honey or agave or anything else is better, but there's very little sugar naturally in any real food, and we can't escape it.

Alcohol is at most gatherings, but it really isn't nearly as pervasive.

<comment><USER13> Aren't fruits full of sugar?

<comment><USER14> The problem with sugar is, IMO, glycemic index. With glucose being an index of 100, no sugar being an index of 0, and something that takes a moderate amount of time to convert from starches/etc to sugar being 50, things that are higher than 50-60 tend to spike your blood sugar and cause insulin to scavenge the sugar out and store it in fat. Doing that often causes things like insulin resistance and obesity as you get hungry again when your blood sugar drops.

Fruits have a surprisingly low glycemic index because they aren't processed and you have to get through fiber and digest the cells before having access to all of the sugar. I've changed my diet to avoid sugar and notice that I very rarely feel actively hungry/crashy vs. before, and most fruit is just fine.

[http://www.glycemicedge.com/glycemic-index- chart/](http://www.glycemicedge.com/glycemic-index-chart/)

<comment><USER15> I checked the table you linked and:

Apple: 38 Banana: 51 Pineapple: 66 Watermelon: 72

vs.

Ice Cream (premium): 37 Sponge Cake: 46 Frosted Flakes: 55 Snicker's Bar: 55

Fruits really are very high GI compared to regular snack foods. They're relatively healthy for other reasons though.

<comment><USER10> A perhaps better measure is glycemic load, which takes mass into account. 400 calories of frosted flakes is about 100g. 400 calories of watermelon is 1.3kg. Watermelon's glycemic index is worse, but at reasonable serving sizes, fruits generally end up being way better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A less extreme idea embedded in here, that I'd like to try, is writing things down that you'd like research instead of impulsively Googling stuff. I think this wil have at least two benefits. 1. This will prevent you from impulsively interrupting what you're doing (like work or eating dinner) 2\. Will filter out things you don't actually care about. When you sit down to go through your research list, you might discover you don't actually care about half of them thus saving you time and effort.

<comment><USER17> I really wish I could do that, but the problem is that note-taking/text-entry on current smartphones (i.e. the only item you're likely to have with you at all time) is such a dreg.

How do you solve that, by carrying a notebook and pen with you everywhere?

<comment><USER18> Have you tried Google Keep? If not I would definitely recommend it vs built in notes apps.

<comment><USER17> I know Google Keep and use it, but I'm talking about physical text input. Virtual keyboards for non-daily-vocab are awful, and devices with physical keyboards are getting rare, plus they're not getting better -- I've tried multiple Blackberry models, what a disapointment, it's hard to believe they had such a following for so long. I miss my Nokia E70 and Droid 3 :-/

And before someone weighs in with the inevitable "but virtual keyboards are totally cool, bro": I get it, they can be quick, but no they're not. Not when you switch between languages, not when you use a lot of technical or uncommon terms, and not when you appreciate a low typo-oops-correction rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting how I never considered this option. It never even hit my horizon. I'm actually in the process of increasing speed since faster speed equals faster access and better productivity. Right? After reading this article, I suspect I'm wrong.

Thinking about how easy it is to get distracted when I'm online 100% of the time, no access is probably a good choice. It's going to hurt but this is something I'm going to try. Good article.

<comment><USER20> But if you cut off your internet access, how do you keep in touch with your coworkers after hours?

<comment><USER21> What do you mean? If they are your friends, they can call you. If they need to talk to you about work... well that's not what "after hours" are for!

<comment><USER20> Sorry, I forgot to append /s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Cute. Kind of like a paleo diet. Check back in in 2018, let me know how that's going for you.

I mean, I get it, you have to rebalance, which sometimes calls for going overboard. Just don't get too excited about it being the One True Way. 50 years from now?

<comment><USER23> Just so you know, this was written in 2011.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> In college I had tried to get into programming (including taking a CS class) and had, each time, bounced off (not because I couldn't get it, but tutorials seemed boring and a passion wasn't ignited).

Fast forward to after college, I found myself at a career-y job I disliked. Each lunch break I loaded up my (shiny new 2011) Macbook Air with a few tabs- worth of chapters of How to Think Like a Computer Scientist [0] and headed to a Wendy's that didn't have an internet connection. So, for 45 minutes I could eat my spicy chicken nuggets and apply what I was learning from the book in console at a Python command line. It was so simple and fun, I was hooked. Within a month I was taking on programming-related responsibilities at work, soon thereafter auditing a class at Uni (I specifically chose cause it interested me), and within 4-5 months was being paid by my professor (from audited class) for web dev grant work, and a few more months and I was being paid as a developer by the University directly. The rest is history.

I think one key part of why it stuck the _fourth_ time was because my routine allowed for 45+ minutes of time away from the internet _each day_ with learning materials. The satisfaction of learning is incredible but more of a "slow drip" compared to the kind of instant satisfaction one can get by opening Netflix, Facebook, or whatever. Going without the latter during a key period I think changed my life.

[0] - [http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english3e/](http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english3e/)

<comment><USER25> > tutorials seemed boring and a passion wasn't ignited

> job I disliked ... How to Think Like a Computer Scientist [0] ... and apply > what I was learning from the book in console at a Python command line. It > was so simple and fun

I'm struck by how the right guidance was also helpful. Actually making something new happen is rewarding (py console), you _experience_ your progress. But it can be tricky to divide a topic into bite-sized things, that _can_ be experienced. That's where guidance helps.

Unfortunately, some topics have so many layers, they're difficult to break down into these learnable, rewarding chunks (e.g. computational fluid dynamics).

So (if you don't mind a reframing) while the slow drip of a consistent routine over a long period was crucial, each drop gave fairly quick (though not immediate) gratification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> May I suggest that the problem is one of quality much more so than of quantity, and that a solution that takes a more fine-grained approach than just shutting off your ISP altogether can give you the best of both worlds?

"How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist"

[https://journal.thriveglobal.com/how-technology-hijacks- peop...](https://journal.thriveglobal.com/how-technology-hijacks-peoples- minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3)

Once you see how subtly dark patterns borrowed from advertising and casinos tap deeply into your subconscious impulses without your knowledge, you will likely jettison any cavalier conception of things like Facebook, smartphone notifications, etc., and begin to treat them like the subversive, profit driven intrusions that they are.

Let's as well not forget that just about 100% of the web used to look like it would today if you disabled all Javascript and CSS. The change is not a coincidence, and it's important to recognize who benefits from the intrusive web, and what we lose when our scenic view of the historic part of town has been blocked by the new casino development.

<comment><USER27> A really good comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > I need the Internet for ...workwork...

> You probably don't, and maybe it's time to look in the mirror and be honest > with yourself.

That's where I stopped reading as obviously this article is not directed at me.

Unless there is a way to troubleshoot and fix remote servers in the middle of the night without internet.

<comment><USER29> Yes I agree with you and I think, for people with our type of needs, a more sensible approach would be to switch from smart to dumb phone, in fact I have been thinking about that for a while now.

<comment><USER30> That would be throwing out the good with the bad. The phone isn't just an internet portal, it's a music player, a navigation system, an audiobook player, a book reader, etc.

<comment><USER31> Yep. I've deleted Facebook and it's reduced my time wasting. I still pull my phone out, swipe left, swipe right, realize there's nothing for me to do and then put my phone away. (I have most notifications turned to minimal/off)

But LOVE my audio books and podcasts and google maps and digital note pad and dictionary and wikipedia... And never feel guilty about those things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> But... but... I need the internet for online gaming and aimless browsing!

It's true. This stuff is addictive, and I've known that for over two decades now. And I've been addicted ever since my older brother told me about the Internet when he went to university. I don't fool myself that I can stop anytime; I clearly can't. I don't want to. But it's true that it's sucking up way too much time.

I don't read books anymore because I read HN and Google+. I have trouble of focusing on boring administrative chores because there's always this info- driven dopamine boost within reach.

</comment><comment><USER33> That's what i don't like from theminimalists.

I'm a minimalist but it doesn't mean that i have nothing in my flat. I enjoy watching stuff on netflix or playing computer games.

Being a minimalist and have basically nothing is just another form of 'hi i'm peter and i did something to an unnecessary extreme, please look at me'.

No internet at home no one will do this. Lots of people will try it but will stop doing it and haven't learnt anything from it.

Being a minimalist means having that mindset and evaluating all the time but being content with the status quo. If you have the feeling that you are using the internet too much, reduce it somehow but not by removing it completely.

It is the same with diet: No one will keep there weight when dieting. Change your eating habbits instead.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wish there were better ways to regulate your own access. It's easy enough to make good decisions about where you spend your time when you're in a good frame of mind, but it's almost impossible to do that every minute of every day. It's a bit like eating I think. It's not too hard to buy healthy food when you're at the grocery store, but it's hard to say no to a plate of cookies every time you walk past when they're sitting on your table.

I wish there were good software solutions, like a way to schedule a blacklist of websites on your phone and computer that you simply couldn't get around. Almost everything I've seen is set up to block access for children, or is easily bypassed. I feel like it's an area that could be a huge benefit to a lot of people.

Completely killing your home internet is extreme. I'd have to change careers, hobbies, and it would even interfere with friendships. But there's no reason why it has to be all or nothing.

<comment><USER35> I tried living totally without internet access, and while I felt a lot better overall, I eventually had to give in. Nowadays phone books aren't usually delivered to homes anymore, so if you want to get in touch with a store or find a doctor's office, you need internet to search for it. Since I wasn't driving at the time, I couldn't just head out to an internet cafe when it was something important.

For similar reasons, I've had trouble detangling from Facebook. 10 years ago, if a friend was getting married they'd send out announcements -- now they just "announce" it on Facebook, and if you don't log in that week, you don't find out about it.

So part of the reason it's hard to disconnect is because the previous methods of staying in touch have atrophied in favor of these new, more toxic systems.

Nevertheless, I'm trying a couple of things (with varied success -- I really do much better cold turkey):

\- Trying to reward myself with internet time after I score enough points in Habitica (aka HabitRPG)

\- Trying to turn off the modem at a certain time of night like 10 pm (I find I sleep better too -- might be coincidence but I've noticed the difference many times)

Ultimately what would help me would be a pay-per-use internet plan versus an "always on" internet plan. If I know that my plan fee increased after 20 hours / month, I'd have access when I needed it, but then I'd have to "save up" for special occasions like streaming a show. As of yet I haven't found an external limit that doesn't also make life too logistically challenging.

<comment><USER34> I lived without internet for a while too and had the same experience. There's benefits, but it's not practical long term.

Pay-per-use would is an interesting idea, but if you live with other people it gets a little more complicated.

The best tool I've found is an app called Self Control. It puts rules into your hosts file and either blacklists certain websites or blocks all of them and whitelists the ones you want. It uses an external timeserver so you can't get around it by changing your computer clock, and it runs regular checks to make sure you don't just edit your hosts file yourself. It's really pretty good. And in theory you could set up scripts that would start up certain blocks at a scheduled time every day. The one huge problem though is that it's Mac only.

I don't think there's a way to completely fix the issue externally, but having some powerful tools for limiting yourself would go a long way in making it easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's so sad to see such techniques just because people can control themselves. Ok, a life with a full list of friends on facebook is fake, but the opposite is fake too. It's just another hypster minimalist move. Some tortured guy looking for meaning in his life, as all of us, but with enough paternalistic arrogance to pretend he knows better than us what's good for us, usual story.

</comment><comment><USER37> People of my generation around me, myself included, tend or tended to boast how we are living without any TV at home compared to our parents or the time we spent watching TV when we were younger. Now, people in my flat sharing were watching series on their own laptops most of the evenings, otherwise spending their time on internet.

In retrospective, I wonder if we will have the same "relationship" with Internet our parents have with the TV, and if our children will behave the same with Internet as we do now regarding our pride not to use a TV anymore.

<comment><USER38> If something better comes along, sure.

This is hardly new. People complained about individuals wasting their lives reading books all day too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think I should do something similar to my addiction to HN. I find myself glancing HN feed several times in the day with insatiable need to know the shiny new things. I'm going to try to restrict myself to one time a day visit to HN. Lets see if that can get my lazy ass to finally make more contributions in GitHub and do something more productive.

<comment><USER40> Check noprocrast in your profile.

From the FAQ:

In my profile, what is noprocrast?

It's a way to help you prevent yourself from spending too much time on HN. If you turn it on you'll only be allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours. You can override noprocrast if you want, in which case your visit clock starts over at zero.

<comment><USER39> Ah cool. I updated my profile with noprocrast. Now going to check back again after a while to see if it works ;-)

Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Hmm.

Not sure I agree with this entirely.

Sure, facebook/twitter/social media et al are obviously utter dross, but why cut yourself off from learning & knowledge like some sort of troglodyte?

People say books are great - and sure they are, but I have yet to find a book that 100% answers every question I have right there on the page as I am reading it. I frequently find myself thinking "hmm interesting - I wonder...." and look up stuff on the internet for more background/context/history/examples/whatever.

In my opinion curiosity is something that should be encouraged and not put on a rationed list of "things to do later, if you have the time"

My advice would be: \- delete all social apps \- star your immediate family contacts so that all other calls/notifications etc are silent \- stay observant and curious, and embrace the pursuit of knowledge & learning

<comment><USER42> Exactly, I have vast wealth of contextual knowledge because of browsing Internet regarding multiple stuff from philosophy, computer science, history etc.

This has resulted me to find and appreciate connections between various stuff, things I never would have in a analog fashion of only reading books(which I do as that deepens the knowledge).

The internet expands and augments our perspective with that of so many others in a searchable fashion with element of serendipity & discovery to it.

Social media may contain lots of irrelevant noise, but that doesn't define the internet, like reality shows don't define existence.Te web in general has been a extremely positive gift to me, and to spurn it is not a option for me at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I total agree with the sentiment. I stopped using facebook for about 3 years. It was almost instantly obvious how much time was wasted on people's whining, fake news and dog photos. It is easier to do when it only affects yourself.

However it is a whole different story when things, like a cable tv, affects every member of your family. I was faced with fierce objection when I brought out the idea to cut out cable tv, and removing all TV from home.

It seems to me that the market value of "media" is how much time people are willing to waste instead of doing other stuff. For instance facebook now worth about 400B. What happens to global economy if facebook doesn't exist and people divert their attention to do whatever they interested in?

</comment><comment><USER44> I don't think this is the correct solution. It's like chopping off your nose to avoid cold. Rather, try more self restraint or self control.

\- Install a nanny software to block time-sink sites at specific time (chrome nanny was an awesome tool)

\- Schedule appointments in advance with your friends/relatives to keep the relationships active

\- Enroll in social events to be around with people and work for a cause you care

\- Go for group studies/writing workshops/book clubs etc to rekindle your passion of reading/writing

There're a hundred other hacks which you can use to ensure you're productive/social !

<comment><USER45> A famous author once made the following observation - When faced with the option of either doing more exercise or less eating for losing weight, take the option which requires you to a) spend less time and b) not add anything new to your life (i.e. the cognitive overhead).

Apparently, people who tried to eat less were also more successful in losing weight.

Cutting off home internet is the option of less eating. Seems more drastic, but is actually more tuned to how our brains work.

Your suggestion is similar to doing more exercise. It can also work, but it is just a whole lot more work and cognitive overhead.

Besides, its not like the author is asking people to go off the grid.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be fair, the amount of exercise you need to overcome even small amounts of excessive eating can be disproportionately difficult and time consuming—but while the example may have some logistic holes, I still generally agree with your idea :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I really like the idea. But I think the author needs to be super transparent to his audience and be honest about when he re-enables his internet connection. Otherwise it is just socialmediaing the audience with nice pictures of his "life", building a façade that is not truthful.

</comment><comment><USER47> I keep my internet off most of the day (via kernel firewall). Have a command that gives me a few minutes of internet so I can look up docs, then shuts everything back down.

<comment><USER48> Can you say more about how you set it up? This sounds like a balanced solution: you avoid the long time sucks but can still look up needed info.

<comment><USER49> Sounds like a script with iptables. I believe many consumer routers also support time based internet access

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Implementing this exact solution probably won't work for most people, but I found the idea of digital fasting a productive one. Try some less extreme variation of this like getting a dumb phone or switching to a paper magazine for your general interest reading for sometime. I found I built better habits offline that also translated online.

</comment><comment><USER51> I just wish our devices were designed with the recognition that we users of them, yes, even adults, may want some help limiting our usage of them. Something like granular parental controls, but for the average adult user. I'd love to be able to set a time limit, at the system level, on my ability to use my phone or computer. Or limit what apps and programs and sites I have access to. I.e., I want my computers, tablets, and phones to be mostly TOOLS, with reliable limits on how addicted I can get to 1) reading news, 2) watching YouTube, 3) watching Netflix/Prime, 4) browsing the web. Of course this is not going to happen because there's a lot of money in peddling addiction. Apple and Google make a lot of money serving ads, selling games and content, etc. So we really need another option who builds a really good TOOL which has limited entertainment potential.

</comment><comment><USER52> I have an unpopular opinion about this, but here it goes: I think the whole article is based on false premises. Mostly two of them:

      - Productivity is the be all, end all of life
      - It's somehow wrong to "waste your time" with things like Netflix, Gaming, etc.

What does "productivity" even mean? To be able to work more? I don't want to work more. And what is wrong with gaming, or watching TV shows on Netflix? I would consider some games and TV shows as works of art, and to me there's nothing wrong with experiencing more art in one's life.

I do agree with some of the less extreme sentiments here on HN that it's good to be more conscious about how you use your "internet time". I quit Facebook, and it has gained me more time to use for other stuff, and it strengthened the most important relationships in my life.

</comment><comment><USER53> I did something similar when I was in college to fix my bad grades - I didn't have a laptop or a computer at home, and didn't own a smartphone. I did all my school related work at labs in college, and this made me much more productive at home - instead of mindlessly surfing the internet, I actually did the school work. As a result, my grades shot up to summa cum laude levels and there is a distinct step function between my freshman/sophomore year grades and the junior/senior year grades. Unfortunately, living with a girlfriend who adores Netflix, I am back into my procrastinating self when I am at home.

<comment><AUTHOR> If your girlfriend is at all receptive to it, maybe you can try to move things in that direction—sounds like you appreciated a bunch of aspects of that lifestyle!

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I get this, I really do. I wish I could dump the Internet for some of my home life. But unfortunately my home life is polluted by work. I'm a web developer who maintains an entity with multiple domains. One of them is a 24/7 uptime service. So I'd love to follow this advice, but I don't think it is applicable to many viewers at HN, as many of us need to follow our job.

What good advice would any viewer give to a life I just described? How could anyone (I) separate the Internet from a home life when being off that grid for a weekend could cause catastrophic failure without the dev leader their to fix it?

<comment><USER55> I struggle with some demons when it comes to the internet, mostly in terms of distractions and time wasting. Alcohol problems run in my family, and while I have no problems with it now or in the past, I find my addictive tendencies come out in regards to the internet and its content.

I've learned that I am very sensitive to physical spaces in my life, and I have made an effort to set "space boundaries" for myself to help with my tendencies. For example, I got rid of my desktop computer, replaced it with a laptop, and got rid of my desk in my room. It was calling me every day to sit down and use my computer for hours on end. It's been that way since childhood - the habit is deeply ingrained.

Now, I use my room for relaxation and I try to keep it that way. I'm not perfect, but when I have to work from home I make sure I don't do it in my room. I sit at the dining room table most times, and that has become a "work space" for me. I've trained myself to not work in my room, and, while I still use my computer and the internet in there, I only use it for personal things.

This solution is still in flux for me. So far it has been successful in turning my room into a relaxation space, which was a real lack in my life before. I hope that helps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I did this last year and it was amazing. I got so much done. I became way more fluent in git, started using syncthing to back stuff up, and began printing things I wanted to read.

<comment><USER31> Are you still doing it, or?

<comment><USER57> Aside, you don't need to end a question with "or". It's assumed.

It's a non-committal way of writing that I've been seeing lately. As if you need to pre-empt and soften the possible "no" answer to your yes or no question.

<comment><USER31> Actually, it's more of saying "This is NOT a yes/no question, if it's "no", I want you to elaborate." Think of it as "..., or what happened?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> his suggestion to hide my modem would just drive my phone data use through the roof :(

I remember the days before the internet and mobile phones. They weren't better (well, apart from being young and fit and knowing I was immortal, obviously). We like these things for a reason.

<comment><USER59> I used to watch a lot more tv before I had 24/7 Internet access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> The votes indicate that people like this idea, it's just that it's impractical for most people whom like it.

</comment><comment><USER61> > Earlier this year I made the conscious decision to remove all Internet > service from my home. It ended up being the best productivity decision I've > ever made.

Yep, can confirm that. I haven't had any Internet in my student flat in the past 1 1/2 years and am thriving on it :-) I have Internet at university and when I go home for the weekends, so I'm not cut off from the world; but I do need to much more deliberate in how I spend my time online.

One of the biggest advantages: I have time to read books again. As a kid I was a voracious reader, but that decreased in high school, partly because I was spending the time on the web instead. Giving myself the opportunity to go back to books has been tremendously satisfying. (HN and the Internet is great, but you learn so much more through books.)

</comment><comment><USER62> I recently (2 months already!) closed my FB account and I have a mixed feeling about it. Part of the time I spent on facebook now I spend on things I want to do, but other part now I'm using HN and Twitter more, so maybe declaring internet-free time would be a good idea for me too.

</comment><comment><USER63> My ISP (Chunghwa telecom) delivers such terrible service that my life basically works this way.

I spend much more time in the office, because the Internet connection works. But that makes me use office time to live my online life, instead of doing company work.

</comment><comment><USER64> dude is milking the minimalist marketing.. there is only so much stuff one can eliminate..

killing the home internet is an obvious click bait.

<comment><USER65> I don't have a source for it - if you're interested enough, you're welcome to verify it independently, but supposedly a fifth of the country no longer has wired internet anymore.

<comment><USER21> "No longer" or "never had"? Because I can certainly believe that a fifth of the country simply never had wired internet to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> What the author suggests is highly impractical, and makes adopting this way of life all the more challenging.

I suggest for people who have a serious problem, to try out time-managers and site-blockers.

When I was going through a highly unproductive phase, I used ColdTurkey. The software's not too good and if you're really craving for a fix, you'll find a way to get past it. But, for the regular procrastinator it does wonders for productivity.

Don't be rash and cut out one of the most important utilities there is just because you're having _some_ issues.

Do be intelligent and work around the issue.

<comment><USER67> The author suggests that if you assume that not having an internet connection at home is highly impractical, you should take a moment to really think about whether you're assuming too much.

I agree. As for me, I'm a remote worker but I rent a desk in a coworking space, which means I can use their high speed internet for hours every day. That's a lot of time to acquire information and do chores.

So the consequence of not having internet at home would be, basically, that I'm offline between 7 PM and 9 AM, or whatever. When I've lived without internet before, I've spent a couple of hours on weekend days in cafes checking my websites.

It's not necessarily a horrible austerity. For me, I've always experienced an offline home as very relaxing, nice, and peaceful. (Of course there are many factors which can make it impractical, e.g. family.)

<comment><USER66> > The author suggests that if you assume that not having an internet > connection at home is highly impractical, you should take a moment to really > think about whether you're assuming too much.

Perhaps it is my young age, but all the people I know are effectively lepers if they're not, atleast, connected to the internet.

 _I_ was rash in assuming everyone was similar. Now that I think of it, there are older people that wouldn't miss a beat if they took time away from the internet.

<comment><USER67> Maybe being a bit of a leper wouldn't be too bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I'm having a similar experience travelling through Melbourne as almost all of my internet access is metered. My mobile plan has 3GB/month and is almost my sole source of internet.

I just discovered the public library which is great for getting work done, but I have to leave my room to get there. Most cafes either don't have wifi or impose a time limit w/ a user/pass login (so changing mac address won't defeat it).

I'm mostly finding it makes me more productive, though it's sometimes frustrating if I need to search for a quick Stack Overflow answer.

</comment><comment><USER69> I scratch around passing time on the internet, but then if I'm not doing that I'm passing time watching cable tv, passing time playing chess, passing time smoking pot, passing time reading novels, passing time playing golf, passing time laughing frivolously, passing time sleeping, passing time day dreaming, passing time eating, passing time shopping, passing time chatting on the phone......

Basically, I pass my days in my idle ways, and I don't think it matters what the medium. I can say that I don't pass my days on social media, its tedious.

</comment><comment><USER70> This definitely will not work for Software Engineers, especially developers. We constantly go online looking for solutions to problems we face in everyday work.

</comment><comment><USER71> I watched the documentary on these guys; my takeaway is that they have some sort of environment control OCD issue. Their minimalist tendencies are extreme.

</comment><comment><USER72> If you have kids and ever go to some sort of school function like a play etc. Look around at all the parents watching the play through the phone screen recording instead of just putting it down and looking at their kids as they perform.

I noticed I did that and decided to just leave my phone in my pocket and watch it directly with my eyes. You feel so much more connected with the moment and your kids value the eye contact.

<comment><USER73> Next time strap a go pro to your head and you'll be able to record it while you watch it. The fish eye lens will also let you record other people watching it through their phones, and you can feel even better about being more connected in the future too.

<comment><USER72> Only problem with that is that after that my kids wont want to talk to the strange guy at their play with a camera strapped to their head :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> I have recently stopped playing video games. Uninstalled them all. I also cut off netflix, hbo, and tv in general. It was hard at first, but I am so much more productive. Creating things is so much more satisfying than consuming them. I am also getting healthier/working out and cooking better food.

I was thinking about cutting off internet, but the other members of my family would go bonkers.

</comment><comment><USER75> Sure let's go back to the dark ages because we lack the self control to do things in moderation.

No thanks. Removing internet from my home won't make me more productive, in fact it will make me less productive, as I won't be able to get information instantly, like a recipe for the things that are soon about to go off in my fridge.

<comment><USER49> I have to agree with you. Why don't we just lock ourselves away to become productive. At one point or another every little thing becomes distraction and harming productivity.

At what point becomes productivity and efficiency an addiction as well? Don't we already call those people workaholics?

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I haven't had home internet in well over five years and it is absolutely fantastic. I did it while in school so I could focus on getting reading and homework done and found that I really enjoyed it. I still use a smartphone but will leave it in another room if I want to read or focus on something other than tech.

</comment><comment><USER77> Something about the headline nags at me. I don't really like the idea that being "productive" all the time is a positive thing. My brain is for more than achieving things. It is in point of fact okay to use it for watching silly YouTube videos for half an hour, an hour, whatever.

<comment><USER67> During the time periods when I haven't had internet at home nor on my phone (three months times two in different cities) it hasn't made me more "productive", it's primarily made me more relaxed, grounded, and happy.

Coming home to a house without internet is a very special feeling to me, aside from concerns about time management or getting stuff done. It's just peaceful. I come home and can immediately focus on, for example, cooking, reading a book, meditating, exercising, etc.

</comment></comment><comment> jim-jim-jim This almost makes sense for me, but I don't know if I can pirate music on coffee shop wifi.

<comment><USER31> I was about to say "what, streaming services aren't good enough for you?" Then realized you can't stream without home internet >_<. Ah well, I bet you can buy cheap CDs and rip them :)

<comment><USER67> Spotify Premium lets you download something like three thousand songs for offline play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> More to life than productivity.

<comment><AUTHOR> The title is not the greatest, but the article mostly talks about how the guy is living his life more fulfillingly, not a micro-optimization of productivity.

<comment><USER78> Yeah, I guess, but it seems like there's a conflation of the idea of getting stuff done and being fulfilled. Playing games online (or just sitting around and chatting with my wife, for that matter) doesn't really serve to help me get anything done but I derive enjoyment from it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> I forced my phone to use 2G (GPRS/EDGE) which means it still functions as an internet connected communications device, but I'm far less likely to go browsing Twitter on it because of the slowness. I save money too.

</comment><comment><USER80> All that illustrates is the author needed a bit of help with time management and found it difficult to tear themselves away from their on-tap Internet comfort zone without taking firm action to remove the temptation.

</comment><comment><USER81> For devs who want to go offline for a bit I recommend Zeal (offline docs) + kiwix (Offline Wikipedia app that also parses stackexchange/stackoverflow dumps) Check their github page.

The entire stackoverflow dump is about 10 Gig.

<comment><USER82> Is that (kiwix) really going offline? I don't think it's the 'active internet connection' that's the crux of the problem, it's the trawling through pages and pages of stuff, which Wikipedia is very good at allowing.

Obligatory XKCD:

[https://xkcd.com/214/](https://xkcd.com/214/)

<comment><USER81> I mostly use it for offline stackoverflow. Open ended offline wiki journeys have happened but I personally think much less. When online there are many more triggers to send one off on these random walks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> I am still trying to find the perfect balance. Not too long ago I did not own a cell phone - only a landline. Now I have a Nexus 5, but no cell service. I can already feel the addiction setting in.

</comment><comment><USER84> On my iPhone I use the content blocker to block every site I frequent (as I do on my Mac with /etc/hosts). I then allocate 2 hours on a Sunday going through the best articles of the week.

</comment><comment><USER85> I have disabled certain sites in my windows hosts file. It helps as it is a hassle to find it and edit it again.

When I actually do visit Facebook, I use a private window. That way I won't forget to log out.

</comment><comment><USER86> I use Pomodoro Technique (search for Tomato Timer for online version).

</comment><comment><USER87> -posted on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER88> Why dedicate all your life to making money? All these "productivity" things, working 20 hours each day. To show others that you are not "loser"?

<comment><USER89> If I may play devil's advocate:

1\. to retire early

2\. if you are in america, to ensure you can afford to live someplace where the schools are good for your kids. A sad state of affairs but it is what it is.

3\. assuming you enjoy your work, to make some positive difference in the world before you inevitably die.

4\. if you do not enjoy your work, then so you can get your hateful work done sooner, and then have time to do what you actually want to do.

<comment><USER88> But why even give birth to kids? To doom them into the same miserable life of working 20 hours a day?

<comment><USER21> It's not for everyone, that's true. Some of us want to experience the joy of nourishing a new life, even if it's ungodly expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Okay I am reading this and some of the comments and well.....

Have some damn discipline. Grown up and be an adult. Problem solved.

<comment><USER67> I'm curious, do you think you would you have the same reproachful attitude if the author had limited his text to describing his own experience rather than talking about what others should do?

<comment><USER90> Interesting question. Thank you. The answer is maybe. Personally I have a very hard time with people in general that are unable to sort the fundamental things needed to control their life without resorting to this type of drastic behavior (unless there is a proven medical reason). I think a large number of people in the last 2 generations have a hard time with being discipline. I was born in the early 70s.

Also you are right the story was a bit on the "do this now side" of things..

So sure my reaction is a bit of how it was written along with own personal view point.

But you know it could just be me screaming "get off my lawn!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Hard to do when you're a web developer, and you work from home.. but good luck with that..

</comment><comment><USER92> What about self-taught programmers that get all the materials from the Internet?

</comment><comment><USER93> Great idea, but probably won't work for most of us unfortunately...

</comment><comment><USER94> Did they mean "thing" in the title?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, my bad

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> this article is complete new age shit. something works for one person, something works for someone else.

</comment><comment><USER96> Moving to Germany did this for me. Thank you Vodafone! No more internet yay!

</comment><comment><USER95> this article is complete shit

</comment><comment><USER97> s/Think/Thing/

</comment><comment><USER98> Or you could use plain old self discipline and not touch electronic devices past x PM.

</comment><comment><USER99> Sure you can do that.

Or you can just use the Internet responsibly, like an adult.

How old is the author of this article, 16?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you give the average person a bit more credit in their self control than they perhaps deserve—lots of people have issues with addiction to the internet, based on typical Netflix binge habits or the infamous Reddit timesink.

<comment><USER100> Agreed. I'm 42 and I spend more time on the Internet than I probably should.</comment></comment></comment>


Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/business/internet-problems-attack.html <comment><USER2> Is it confirmed yet that so-called IoT devices were the bots?

Bruce was on point if so, arguing a couple weeks ago that accountability needs to happen on the manufacturers:

"What was new about the Krebs attack was both the massive scale and the particular devices the attackers recruited. Instead of using traditional computers for their botnet, they used CCTV cameras, digital video recorders, home routers, and other embedded computers attached to the Internet as part of the Internet of Things.

Much has been written about how the IoT is wildly insecure. In fact, the software used to attack Krebs was simple and amateurish. What this attack demonstrates is that the economics of the IoT mean that it will remain insecure unless government steps in to fix the problem. This is a market failure that can't get fixed on its own.

"

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/10/security_econ...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/10/security_econom_1.html) ("Security Economics of the Internet of Things")

<comment><USER3> I feel like I hadn't thought of this as a market failure until reading your post calling it that. You're absolutely right about it. That's exactly what it is and the need for government involvement is quite obvious now. Suppliers are going to need to be held liable for the negative externalities their product offerings create, otherwise we're stuck at an equilibrium point where this situation does not improve.

<comment><USER4> If ISPs were treated like a utility and charged per bit, customers would have an incentive to ensure that their devices weren't dumping traffic onto the internet. It's rare that you can see a dashboard showing your usage, even rarer to see a dashboard showing your usage, broken down by device.

<comment><USER5> With ISPs (at least in the US) moving towards data caps, this is becoming a reality. It won't fix the problem.

DDOS attacks via IOT don't have to send much data per request. If my devices are doing an extra 10Mb/hour, I won't notice. 1000 homes is 10Gb/hour and that's just a few blocks in a city. 100,000 homes seems easy to hit, which is a petabyte of data per hour.

It's death by a thousand paper cuts. If my internet bill goes up a dollar per month, it's highly unlikely I'm going to debug my refrigerator to figure out how to stop it.

<comment><USER6> I think this is missing one component though. I agree I wouldn't, you wouldn't, in fact most people wouldn't debug their refrigerator over a dollar a month bandwidth bill.

I would however take into consideration bandwidth bill effects of what I buy. By comparison: today I buy LED lightbulbs and energy efficient appliances because they will have a long term cost impact on my electricity bill.

<comment><USER7> Right, though the IoT manufacturers probably aren't going to factor in internet attacks when advertising bandwidth usage. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Schneier wrote about related attacks just over a month ago in a post titled "Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet" ([https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/someone_is_le...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/someone_is_lear.html))

<comment><USER9> Hopefully it's not related threats about hacking during the election.

Remember that recently Biden openly threatened cyber attack on Russia _if_ they make any attempt to tamper with the election. Which is completely unprecedented, as is the notion that DOD is openly saying Russia was behind DNC and other attacks.

<comment><USER10> Also what amazed me is that he would casually threaten to strike Russia. It seems that no one considers these attacks as an act of war. But that's what they are.

<comment><USER11> It's espionage, not necessarily an act of war. The US government is threatening to strike back with more espionage. (If they haven't already...)

<comment><USER10> Espionage is stealing data. Disrupting utility services is an act of war, whether it is shutting down an electricity power plant, cutting communications, or any other act of sabotage.

<comment><USER12> This is true, but in fun hypothetical talks with various tech friends over the decades, we often talked about in relation to Internet services in particular, taking down services and such can actually help with hacking (i.e. stealing data) efforts. How? Why? Firstly, probing as the article mentions does yield plenty of valuable intel which is the core for espionage.

Secondly, we often joked that companies have such flawed backup and response procedures that triggering these things has a funny effect. More specifically, a lot of times in our experiences, we saw things like backups, up-scaling servers, etc. go noticeably unmaintained or poorly attended. A lot of people, especially years ago never did a great job of testing their backup systems, failovers, scaling, etc. and kept them up-to-date and secured as well as the main stuff. It's more interesting in some ways in this world of containers and VMs. One would assume things are updated, patched, and deployed exactly inline with the mainline stuff, but that's not always the case. It often takes only one slip-up and this is where a ton of people make mistakes for so many reasons. And sometimes it's easier to manipulate the protection systems to be the vector itself than the systems they are protecting.

That is to say, messing around with services sometimes can be a way of creating an open front or back door. Especially if there's malware and things that can be planted that will be less likely to be caught in the panic or otherwise deployed as a result of the panic response.

Of course all of this is more unlikely, but it's fun to think about in the same way stupid schemes that are similar in heist movies are fun.

<comment><USER13> Doesn't seem hypothetical or unlikely at all:

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/symantec-data-stealing- hackers-...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/symantec-data-stealing-hackers-use- ddos-to-distract-from-attacks/)

IIRC this tactic was used during the massive Target data breach in 2014.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Irony alert:

> _" But technology providers in the United States could suffer blowback. As > Dyn fell under recurring attacks on Friday, Mr. York, the chief strategist, > said such assaults were the reason so many companies are pushing at least > parts of their infrastructure to cloud computing networks, to decentralize > their systems and make them harder to attack."_

Pushing your infrastructure to cloud computing is not decentralization - it's centralization, and we're all doing it. Imagine if an attack like this was against AWS... we'd all be screwed.

<comment><USER15> Interestingly, in some ways this is a big selling point of AWS/Azure/Goog. The absolute scale they can handle is way up there.

The downside of course, is that whilst their infrastructure can likely handle it, handling the bill associated with 'just scale up your service' could be worse than the attack itself.

<comment><USER16> If Azure and Google would like to gain a competitive advantage over AWS, then I would suggest this: Build out a suite of tools for fighting DDOS. Enable private consultants and companies to provide this as a service. Do this in such a way, that cloud customers save money and have to worry about less. Hell, let companies jump in structured as insurance companies! Also bring in cooperation with law enforcement and use data gathering to catch and prosecute DDOS-ers.

<comment><USER17> > Enable private consultants and companies to provide this as a service.

If I am an AWS customer I _expect_ AWS to handle/prevent DDoS, same way as they do with S3 to achieve 11 9's availability (the files are saved in multiple AZs in the same region - Glacier IIRC copy files on different regions to avoid data loss in case of physical disaster).

One of the reason for choosing AWS is because AMZ has deep pockets and has the means (financial and technical) to fight against large DDoS attacks, while a smaller provider might _not_ have to do that. Putting clients in a position to have to _buy_ that sort of protection doesn't sound very smart to me.

<comment><USER18> > do with S3 to achieve 11 9's availability

I see so many people confused about this. Eleven nines is their durability guarantee, their availability that they guarantee is only 99.99%

[https://aws.amazon.com/s3/faqs/](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/faqs/)

<comment><USER19> What's the difference between durability and availability?

<comment><USER20> Availability is the % of times you try to access your data that you get it back. So 52.5 minutes of downtime a year is still within SLA.

Durability is the % of your data that doesn't die. Eleven 9s means that if you store 1TB on AWS S3 you can expect to lose 10 bytes and still be within SLA.

<comment><USER21> No, it means that if you store your data there that there is a .000000001% chance that you will lose all of it.

<comment><USER22> Is that true? How can they possibly measure a probability event so small? If every human in the world was their customer, then .05 humans would lost heir data?

<comment><USER23> I don't know much about actuarial math but I think this number is for insurance policies more than anything else. It could be based on something like the rate of hardware failures they experience now amortized over a long period and many customers, and then adjusted to account for redundancy.

As a very simplified example, imagine they are expecting to lose 2 servers every day, this percentage might be the probability of those two servers storing the same exact object (and thus, losing it irretrievably).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We seem to be needing more concerted action on what is a consumer minimum standard for an internet connected device.

Consumer devices have to be _more_ secure because if the low user skill level - and interest.

I am always reluctant to say "there should be a law against it" but frankly if we cannot mandate minimum standards of uogradbility and security for devices we will just keep handing over our devices to the first person to scan them.

<comment><USER25> Or you need to make it easier for the 'black hole' solution to be pushed further and further back to the sources of the bad traffic.

A remote site shouldn't be able to get you banned from the Internet (by it's self); but it MUST be able to say, "This host is being abusive, restrain them from sending me data". ISPs SHOULD use that information to evaluate if a host from their network might be compromised or otherwise a negative player. ISPs SHOULD also take steps to inform, and link to educational resources, customers which are being bad citizens of the Internet. ISPs SHOULD also be financially motivated (punishments to them) for allowing too many uncivil customers online; this might take the form of instead banning that ISP from the Internet as a whole.

<comment><USER26> So, as your ISP, I'm going to be held responsible for the actions of _you_ , my customer/user?

Okay, if I'm going to be liable, financially or otherwise, well, then we're gonna have to make some changes around here.

First off, I'm going to have to heavily filter and restrict what traffic you can send out to the Internet. What isn't filtered or restricted is going to have to be inspected, logged, and retained for a period of time.

Next, because I can't be certain that you're RFC3514 compliant and that at least some of the bits you're sending aren't malicious, I'm going to have to prevent you from sending out any encrypted traffic. Instead of allowing you to use any DNS servers you want, you're going to have to use mine (DNS is heavily abused for DDoS attacks). Outgoing e-mail will be automatically redirected to my internal smart host (STARTTLS will be blocked, by the way) and I'm gonna have to log, read, and retain it all. HTTP traffic will be transparently proxied and all requests and responses will be logged and retained.

That's just the beginning. Are you _sure_ this is what you prefer as your "solution"?

As a network operator, I believe that your ISP should be nothing more than a dumb pipe and allow the bits that you send to pass through freely. As an ISP customer, that's how I want my ISP to act. (If something gets reported or I "notice" you for some reason then, sure, I'll look into it. Otherwise, I try to fuck with my customer's traffic as little as possible.)

I'll agree that there is certainly a problem, but it is not because of ISPs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's fashionable to blame Russia these days, but what country manufactures the most IoT devices, and has the type of government that could mandate backdoor access?

<comment><USER28> It's been fashionable to blame China not so long ago.

<comment><USER29> Did I miss it going out of fashion?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > It is too early to determine who was behind Friday's attacks, but it is this > type of DDoS attack that has election officials concerned. They are worried > that an attack could keep citizens from submitting votes.

> Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia allow internet voting for > overseas military and civilians. Alaska allows any Alaskan citizens to do > so.

I had no idea any states allowed voting online. I wonder if the general population will ever get access to that.

<comment><USER31> If they're absent T ballots, they're not counted until several weeks later (unless the total amount of absent T ballots is larger than the margin between any candidate to ballot measure).

<comment><USER32> What does the T stand for?

<comment><USER22> Hillary. Oh no, voter fraud!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This seems so out of the blue, the last attack was targeting krebs for exposing extortionists. Who is being attacked this time and why?

There is a lot of talk of iot botnets but little to no evidence. This seems too vague and up in the air.

If all it takes is script kiddies and random extortionists to generate such large 1 Tbps scale attacks then we appear to be reliant on an unbelievably fragile base.

There is a growing realization of the need for more decentralization of services but these kind of attacks is going to drive more centralization if only Google scale companies can manage to stay up. I think this is drop everything and fix time for the IT profession.

<comment><USER34> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12763501](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12763501)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Wikileaks tweeted:

"Mr. Assange is still alive and WikiLeaks is still publishing. We ask supporters to stop taking down the US internet. You proved your point. "

Link: [https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/789574436219449345](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/789574436219449345)

If their claim is true, does anyone think, it will turn many sympathizers against them? I don't think attacking normal bushiness is a good thing to do.

<comment><USER36> I think this tweet says more about Assange's vanity than anything else.

The motives of the attackers are much less interesting than the fact that such attacks are now possible.

<comment><USER37> "Assange's vanity than anything else" -> Don't get too ahead of yourself. Has there been any instance where Wikileaks had made a false claim?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> So. Can we start talking about changing internet protocols to strengthen the integrity of internet network services against DoS attack?

Currently, the internet is very very open (as long as you don't live in certain countries). A baby monitor in Kansas can send arbitrary traffic to a router connecting a major financial services company in Hong Kong to an internet backbone. The idea, in a very hippy, world peace kinda way, is nice. But... probably not something we _need_ to happen, much less should _want_ to happen or allow, if good sense prevailed.

We have hacks in place that can prevent that particular situation from becoming too much trouble, but if you have enough baby monitors, something somewhere is going to choke. And really this is the point to me: you [as the network service provider] should not have to have carrier-grade infrastructure to avoid this scenario. If Casey Brogrammer wants to prop up a start-up on her DSL line (do people still have DSL?) she should be able to without fear of DoS. How do we do that?

I have no idea. But i'm betting it would require some rearchitecting of the internet and heavily modified protocols. Personally, I think the global BGP tables are gross (and, let's face it people, depending on RAM to perpetually increase in size while simultaneously decreasing in cost ad infinitum is not a realistic scaling mechanism), I think the many flaws in modern tcp/ip protocols are not designed with specific enough use cases in mind, and that the generalist design of the modern Internet has become more of a hindrance to efficiency and progress than a benefit. There is absolutely no requirement that we keep engineering ourselves into a corner, and IPv6 sure as shit isn't going to solve it.

<comment><USER39> This would make an interesting Ask HN (or StackExchange or Reddit) question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Extensive commentary on this topic is in the update from Dyn - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12759697](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12759697)

</comment><comment><USER40> "And in a troubling development, the attack appears to have relied on hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices like cameras, baby monitors and home routers that have been infected..."

Is that really confirmed or just the reporter writing gossip.

<comment><USER41> [https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/hacked-cameras-dvrs- powe...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/hacked-cameras-dvrs-powered- todays-massive-internet-outage/)

 _According to researchers at security firm Flashpoint, today's attack was launched at least in part by a Mirai-based botnet._

Seems in-between. Not confirmed, but not just conjecture either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is this the end of the Internet that news.com predicted back in 1995?

<comment><USER31> Are you talking about this Newsweek article?

[http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be- nirva...](http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be- nirvana-185306)

<comment><USER42> I just remember seeing this article on news.com cira 1995 that predicted the imminent demise of the Internet due to the commercialization of it. It worried that the net just couldn't handle all the traffic from all those 56k dialup hitting and getting email all at once.

So my comment was a bit on the ironic / goofy side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Harold Martin held without bail (high risk of flight) accused of theft of 20 years worth of government (NSA) tools/data, Trump stating he will not concede the election, tens of millions of IoT devices used in DDOS attack, Assange (wikileaks originator) cut off from internet, DNC hacked and exposed.

A conspiracy theorists dream.

</comment><comment><USER44> I wonder why companies affected by these IoT-enabled DDoS attacks don't sue the companies building those devices, as they currently often choose security over convenience when it comes to securing them. If you can forensically prove that a large fraction of the attack was carried out using a given type of device it should be possible to hold the manufacturer liable for the damage, at least if no reasonable measures were taken to secure it (using blank or default passwords on the device could count as gross negligence).

I even kind of wish that somebody would do this, as it would finally provide a strong incentive for the manufacturers to think about security.

<comment><USER45> Poul-Henning Kamp had this proposal on the subject back in 2011: [http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2030258](http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2030258)

I think it's a good idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Kind of makes me wonder - why let up? Can it be mitigated at all? Wouldn't they have done so by now. Be interesting if they just kept piling it on until they've got the whole internet on it's knees.

<comment><USER40> Well because a lot of the companies that went down today, addressed the problem by now running a blend of different dns providers.

<comment><USER46> But it hasn't really dropped off since earlier today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> One of the Krebs articles mentioned an idea of a certification (similar to UL) which could be on products like DVRs and web cams. You can't ever certify something as completely secure of course, but the certification could indicate "firmware updatable", "no hard-coded default passwords" and "where there are passwords they are generated randomly and unique to each specific product" (not family of products). Maybe even "consumer can change all passwords to new randomly generated values". I can't say that all or even many consumers will care, but if ISPs stepped up and started emailing customers about suspicious traffic coming from their home networks indicating one or more devices may have been compromised, maybe a good number of consumers _would_ start to look for that certification when they buy. Which is important because, let's face it, if insecure products don't actually _impact sales_ then a lot of companies aren't going to care at all. You can try to punish bad behavior after the fact, but only if their government cooperates and even then I think many times they'd just fold up shop under one name and open again under another. You really have to address it at the point of purchase to affect company behavior IMO.

<comment><USER7> "if ISPs stepped up and started emailing customers about suspicious traffic coming from their home networks indicating one or more devices may have been compromised" \- I remember Comcast doing something like that back in 2008ish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Worth noting that even of stories such as these (new media, tech heavy) coverage by traditional media end up on the home page of HN. Beyond this observation, it seems that this election cycle brought home the importance of journalism for many people.

</comment><comment><USER49> I wonder, how much electricity do these attacks spend on average? Is it significant for economy?

<comment><USER50> I don't think so. Modern botnets are mostly made of devices that are operating 24/7 already, such as compromised IP cameras, set top boxes, SOHO routers, IoT devices, etc.

The energy spent for TCP/IP stack usage is negligible at best, even when pushing those embedded CPUs to 100%.

<comment><USER9> > The energy spent for TCP/IP stack usage is negligible at best.

Not true, especially en masse. Even less true for wirelessly connected devices.

<comment><USER51> Power consumption fluctuations need to be up in the billions of watts before power companies generally care and must do something about it. Wifi routers are limited to 1W output power, so you'd need a lot more than just the hundreds of millions of wifi routers bleating out TCP packets at the top of their lungs to take down the power grid.

Also, what the power companies really care about are changes in consumption; once they've adjusted the grid parameters to compensate for an increase in power consumption, they're happy until the consumption drops off. Using wifi or any internet traffic to destabilize the grid is just not going to work because there just isn't enough raw drain available, even if the attackers could get their timing absolutely flawlessly perfect so every wifi model popped on at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Yet another thing to show us that IoT is a can of worms. Yes, the technology is very helpful, but from security perspective, are we ready for it yet? Why not make existing CCTV cameras and nanny monitors more secure before having IoT?

</comment><comment><USER42> If these sites hosted with google cloud, would they be less susceptible to ddos attacks?

<comment><USER53> This attack is on the DNS and niṛ in the sites themselves. The sites are working fine. We need better infrastructure for the internet.

<comment><USER54> Google cloud can host your DNS zones for you.

<comment><USER55> That's also true of AWS, Digital Ocean, Linode, etc. Hell, you can even host your DNS yourself!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Are there any downloadable DNS lookup tables which could be used as hosts.txt or /etc/hosts in case of emergency?

I know that DNS is organized in root zones with hierarchical subqueries. A global hosts file which contains the whole IP space is sort of unfeasible because domain names change within seconds.

However, in face of the current attacks the DNS maintainers should seriously consider to offer downloadable hosts files so that we could use them temporarily to circumvent DNS queries in cases of further attacks.

</comment><comment><USER57> Would longer, say, week long TTL along with some redundancy have prevented this problem? Can it be done now to prepare for next attack? That is, TTL shortened when making updates, etc., but then set to a week the rest of the time. Here's an article that I think could be useful: [https://medium.com/@brianarmstrong/youre-probably-doing- dns-...](https://medium.com/@brianarmstrong/youre-probably-doing-dns-wrong- like-we-were-6625efaed390#.1xnqip9w1)

</comment><comment><USER58> Typical Dark Army

</comment><comment><USER59> How long could this go on for?

<comment><USER60> This particular attack will likely eventually be mitigated (hours? days?). But it seems there is nothing preventing similar attacks from starting at any time, and be less possible to prevent each time.

Personally, I fear we are closer to global-scale, machine-learning-based attacks that find vulnerabilities, exploit them, and change patterns on the fly. We may not have a stable internet any more.

Am I blindly fearmongering? I hope not. But these are new waters. Insecure IoT is growing every hour and there's no clear path to stop it from being exploited more and more.

<comment><USER61> Trying to fight a war purely with defense is usually a dangerous strategy. The only long-term solution is to find the attackers and take them out.

<comment><USER62> That's irony, right? I can't even tell anymore.

<comment><USER61> No, not irony. Our infrastructure is under attack. Why not fight back?

<comment><USER63> Based on what international laws? The source is likely in a country that doesn't play nice with our law enforcement and extradition requests. So what are you advocating?

<comment><USER64> Cut their internet access. Take down their power grid.

If you're being attacked, I'm not sure what international law has to do with it. A country has the right to defend itself -- it doesn't require the UN to grant 'permission.' If you are in the midst of being attacked, waiting for the UN or some other disfunctional body to 'approve' would be like asking the teacher for permission to defend yourself while you're getting your face pounded in. Countries are sovereign. They shouldn't need permission to defend themselves when they are under an immediate threat.

<comment><USER63> Your Netflix stopped working. You're talking about going to war.

 _If you 're being attacked, I'm not sure what international law has to do with it._

That's incredibly naive. Trumpian almost. Even in the midst of real war (you know, when people are dying, not sitting on the couch unable to place a Prime order), we follow international law. Because we want everyone else to as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Wikileaks seem to be claiming the attack for their supporters here: [https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7895744362194493...](https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/789574436219449345)

Any evidence to support that?

</comment><comment><USER57> Would longer, say, week long TTL along with some redundancy have prevented this problem? Can it be done now to prepare for next attack? That is, TTL shortened when making updates, etc., but then set to a week the rest of the time?

</comment><comment><USER66> Given national security interests, we need new laws: 1. IOT devices should not ship with default passwords. 2. Internet infrastructure companies should not be allowed to get "too big to fail".

<comment><USER67> As far as (2) goes, they actually _need_ to be too big too fail. Otherwise, it's plainly impossible for internet infrastructure companies to be able to financially weather ddos attacks like this. These sorts of attacks are very expensive to mitigate, and part of the way we can do that is to centralize under services like AWS and collectively pay for ddos protection (short of the government doing so and separating our network from those of major malicious foreign actors').

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> WL's Twitter has claimed it was WL supporters. Although no one can really confirm what's going on with them since the Ecuadorian embassy events the other day.

</comment><comment><USER69> Since it's impossible to update many permanently-insecure "IoT" devices we may need laws to legalize gov't permanently bricking them.

</comment><comment><USER70> Can't recall ever seeing the NY Times embed tweets in a story, is this a first?

edit: apparently it's because I mostly read the site within the app.

<comment><USER30> I wonder if the embeds break when a tweet gets deleted. That was always one of my biggest concerns when using them: that someone else can change / break your article in the future.

<comment><USER71> The embeds resolve to plaintext when a tweet is deleted. In fact, the standard embed code includes the Tweet text in plaintext, so that at least the content is preserved

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> or Jen just dropped the internet.

<comment><USER73> LOL - I just re-watched that episode last night, as it turns out. Hilarious. The Elders of the internet will be miffed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> could we just move along with ipfs and a distributed web please guys, it's about time!

<comment><USER75> I agree. From what I understand, ipfs is designed to solve this problem (and several others). Maybe this will motivate the big actors to look into it seriously. Anybody disagree?

<comment><USER76> I love IPFS but how exactly does IPFS/IPNS solve the DDOS problem? The FAQ entry on this is not very convincing [1].

[1] [https://github.com/ipfs/faq/issues/171](https://github.com/ipfs/faq/issues/171)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Brainstorming: We should make DNS mines like for Bitcoins

<comment><USER78> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin)

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> The U.S. has changed the rules of engagment to state that any cyber attack can be met with real military counterattack.

If the Russians are behind it, after being emboldened by Ukraine and Syria, the United States has to respond. I'm not saying all out war but I am saying we have to show the Russians that this affects everything we are about. It affects our businesses, our elections, and our way of life.

I am saying there should be military action and if that leads to war then so be it, everyone will think twice about this sort of thing again and we will all be safer because of it.

<comment><USER80> > I am saying there should be military action and if that leads to war then so > be it

I don't think that war with any nation, much less Russia, should ever be such a casual consideration. Measured in human suffering, military conflict is inestimably more awful than brief internet downtime.

<comment><USER79> Of course I agree with you but it's not about the internet downtime.

It's about messing with or elections it's about the invasions. You let it all go on long enough and you will have much bigger problems in a few years time.

<comment><USER81> Your point is completely accurate and critical to follow up on in a considered way. In the real world anyway.

But unfortunately, since Thiel has invited HN to go full /pol/ the answer you're gonna get is that it's a 400lb guy on a couch saving us from the devil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> I think the main problem is that the Internet is decentralized. As it has no single owner nobody is responsible for mitigating the attacks and noone wants to pay for developing and implementing new protocols, installing new hardware.

<comment><USER83> More the opposite, because it's too centralized, an attack can take out the few 'authority' servers and knock off everything downstream.</comment></comment>