Official KISSmetrics Response to Data Collection Practices - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kissmetrics.com/official-kissmetrics-response-to-data-collection-practices/ <comment><USER2> Their explanation of the universal cookie ID issue is rather silly. If you're a client of Kissmetrics, your visitors have a cookie scoped to your domain with the visitor's universal Kissmetrics ID. All of the database segregation in the world won't prevent any two or more Kissmetrics clients from collating visitor data on that universal ID, sent in every header on every pageview. Whether any clients are actually doing that, I have no clue. But claiming that permuting that universal ID into client-specific ones rendered when the clients view data actually protects visitors from said collation is just wrong.

See Wired's screenshot here: [http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/epicenter/2011/07/Screen-S...](http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/epicenter/2011/07/Screen- Shot-2011-07-29-at-11.52.29-AM.png)

<comment><USER3> I don't see what's silly about the explanation considering it's about efficiency and performance. As a KISSmetrics customer I can tell you the focus is on funnels and key data; not on an internal cookie ID so that we can collude with other companies.

<comment><USER4> So you'd decline to collude with another company who approached you? What if they offered to pay?

<comment><USER3> Of course not. Customer data isn't something I would ever share.

Companies that choose to do so will do it regardless of whether they're directly paid for it. It's not a tech problem and it's not something they need a 3rd party vendor for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know Hiten personally, and I know that Kissmetrics operates in a most ethical fashion.

I would trust them over most any analytics company any day.

It's a shame that this meritless lawsuit even exists.

<comment><USER6> Trying to prevent the deletion of cookies used to uniquely identify and track their customers' users is ethical?

<comment><USER7> Yeah as far as I'm concerned, the cross-site tracking thing is a straw man.

They used evercookie-ish methods to track people who don't want to be tracked. That's unethical, full stop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If the report "significantly distorts our technology and business practices," why are they making such significant changes to their technology and business practices as a result?

<comment><USER5> To assuage folks who don't understand technology and will assume they are guilty until they "make big changes".

<comment><USER8> I understand technology, and I'm pretty skeezed out by their use of Etags...

Also, if they truly think they're innocent, why wouldn't they just educate their userbase? Seems odd to make such drastic architectural changes just because of a perceptual problem.

<comment><USER5> Ah, but it is all about perception. The same thing happened at reddit a few times.

The mob decided someone was guilty, we investigated, found absolutely no wrongdoing. Told the community, they didn't care. They would only be happy with swift, visible action.

<comment><USER8> Comparing the relatively thoughtful discussion on this topic among the web development community to the reddit mob is not particularly fair or accurate.

<comment><USER5> I would have to say you're naive for thinking the two are much different.

Any group, no matter how civil and educated, can dislove pretty quickly into mob mentality.

<comment><USER8> Your cynicism is not well borne out on this message board.

<comment><USER9> This board is a very rare exception on the internet, and even it descends into its own form of lynch mobbery (with a more elevated tone than most lynch mobs).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hiten is a standup guy, a friend to startups everywhere, and a class act all around. I look forward to him kicking their asses in court.

</comment><comment><USER11>
      Mr. Soltani also claims that it is somehow improper to use
      any technology other than browser cookies to track website
      activity. In fact, countless online companies, including
      other major analytics providers, use a variety of different
      technologies to provide these services, including the
      persistent technologies Mr. Soltani targets in his paper.

That's not a justification for doing it too. It's merely a lame excuse for unethical behavior.

Also, I don't care if the guys at KISSmetrics are nice, kitten-loving jolly good fellows - that has absolutely zero relevance to the case at hand.

</comment><comment><USER4> They don't deny recreating cookies.

<comment><USER12> Is that illegal now?

<comment><USER13> No, but unethical for most applications, don't you think?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _These articles are based entirely on a paper by Ashkan Soltani, who works closely with the lawyers who filed these cases, and who published his paper on the same day that the first lawsuit was filed._

<comment><USER15> So what? Does that automatically make everything he exposed false?

<comment><USER9> It makes his objectivity suspect.

<comment><USER4> How does Hiten's working for KM affect _his_ objectivity?

<comment><USER9> He's not posing as an objective third party.

<comment><USER4> That's a strange way to establish someone's credibility!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Who should be CEO? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The CEO is the business guy. As a CEO, you don't get to code. Instead, you'll get to do the paperwork, answering phones, making cold calls, a lot of meetings, and a lot of traveling. It's fun at first, but gets boring quickly for technical people. You have to be comfortable with that role and must be a good communicator and marketer.

It's a fancy title, but don't let that tempt you against your good judgement. The founders of a lot of technology startups go out and hire an outsider to be the CEO. Google is a good example. Even Steve Jobs hired a CEO in the early days of Apple.

If you're in the very early days, then just put Founder as a title for all founders. You don't need to get into conflicts too early.

<comment><USER3> For us, giving the ceo title actually helps. I think even for startup you need that one guy who gives constant thought to the big picture. At the same time, you don't want your chief coder to be day dreaming too much about all the non- technical issues.

So having a ceo as the guy who brings together everything is a good way to establish responsibility and SOME structure in the startup.

I will say that while most ceos of big companies don't spend much time coding, for 2-3 person startups it is very common to find the ceo doing coding and/or designing IN ADDITION to business work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes perfect sense for a 2-3 member startup, where all the founders wear multiple hats and structuring the different efforts seems like an important undertaking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suggest outsourcing CEOs: [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/09/opinion/09orlow.html?ex=1307505600&en;=8926f03224ff1d65&ei;=5088&partner;=rssnyt&emc;=rss](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/09/opinion/09orlow.html?ex=1307505600&en=8926f03224ff1d65&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)

</comment><comment><USER5> In my first company (founded 9 years ago) we were three founders and I was CEO. The decision was easy - the other two were better technologists, and I had better people skills. In my new start-up the first thing I did was bring in a friend I trust, with business experience relevant to the venture (but no technology experience) as partner and CEO. So, what gives? It was fun holding the title back then, and I didn't do a bad job, but eventually I realized that the technology is more interesting for me, and as CEO you simply don't get to deal with that. Now that I'm a much better techie than I was back then, it was just obvious to me that I shouldn't be CEO.

</comment><comment><USER6> Being CEO has its downsides like any other job. It means you are the one that shields everyone else from verbal beatings if customers are unhappy.

You're the guy that takes the heat if something is not going well. Especially at a small company, if someone is going to get chewed out by the customer, its going to be you. It often means you have to stay later and work harder than everyone else.

So. With power (the final say) comes alot of responsibility.

So who should it be? It probably depends alot on the business but lots of styles could work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Usually the guy who is handling the business side of things--such as incorporation, running the marketing etc.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How did you guys decide about this? A very important and sensitive question, but if you guys can give some insight on this, that would be great!!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How much of a role do investors have in deciding the CEO?

<comment><USER2> If you're in an early stage and seeking seed funding, then you should have everything thought out before talking to investors. Don't ask investors to help you decide which of the founders should be CEO because they'll take it as a sign that your partners and you can't work things out on your own. Investors want confident people who know what they're doing and go for it; they can smell fear and they'll disappear before you finish asking the question. Remember, it's YOUR company and it's YOUR responsibility. Investors help you with funding, introductions, and, maybe, some advice; but don't let them run your company for you. On the other hand, if you're in a later stage and seeking big VC funding then it's a whole different story. Talk to experienced entrepreneurs or close investors about the specific details of your situation; they'll give you great insight. Although the key princeples are the same: it's your responsibility and you're expected to have strong leadership.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Me.</comment>


Stephen Fry under police investigation for blasphemy in Ireland [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/stephen-fry-blasphemy-god-utter-maniac-ireland-gardai-rte-meaning-of-life-atheist-a7722081.html <comment><USER2> The reason this law still exists is because blasphemy is included in the Irish constitution and so to remove it would require a referendum which "would rightly be seen as a time wasting and expensive exercise" [1]; the law is effectively a dead letter. With this becoming popular, we'll probably get a referendum moved forward with the result being overwhelmingly in favour of removing it. The person who reported him claimed he/she was not offended[2]; it wouldn't surprise me if it was done just to highlight the silliness of the law.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_Republic_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland#Defamation_Act_2009)

[2]: [http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/garda-launch- blasp...](http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/garda-launch-blasphemy- probe-into-stephen-fry-comments-on-the-meaning-of-life-35684262.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> the article links to a post from the Irish Independent Online which gives more detail:

[http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/garda-launch- blasp...](http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/garda-launch-blasphemy- probe-into-stephen-fry-comments-on-the-meaning-of-life-35684262.html)

Reading between the lines, this looks more like an attempt to challenge the blasphemy law than to punish Stephen Fry. From the link above:

"[The complainant] said he was asked by the garda if he had been personally offended by the programme and If he wished to include this in the written statement.

I told the Garda that I did not want to include this as I had not personally been offended by Fry's comments - I added that I simply believed that the comments made by Fry on RTÉ were criminal blasphemy and that I was doing my civic duty by reporting a crime."

Atheist Ireland responded by republishing a list of blasphemous statements on their website, atheist.ie, in solidarity with Stephen Fry. They note:

"If we are prosecuted, we will challenge the constitutionality of the blasphemy law. If we are not prosecuted, it will again highlight the absurdity of this law, which should be repealed immediately. We again call on the Irish Government to honour its commitment to hold a referendum to remove the ban on blasphemy from our Constitution."

What is troubling is that, though the law was designed to be unenforceable in Ireland, it has been used as a template for corresponding law in theocratic countries such as "Pakistan and other repressive states".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yesterday I would argue this is unimaginable, someone being investigated for blasphemy in 2017 (in the west). We are dropping the ball on free speech. We chipping away on our liberties bit by bit. This is why hate speech laws are dangerous.

<comment><USER4> it's ireland...

abortion is still illegal in nearly all circumstances, divorce was only legalised in 1997 and only in very specific circumstances

<comment><USER5> Abortion aside, Ireland is in fact much more progressive and liberally minded than the US and most of southern Europe.

These comments were made during an interview on the Irish public broadcasting network; just for a comparison, in Italy nobody would have even dared to speak their mind so clearly about God on tv, or the show would have likely been cancelled. Twenty years ago the sitcom "Father Ted" became the most popular show in Ireland, and it would be still considered too blasphemous to be aired by any of the major tv networks in Italy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is troubling. This a legitimate philosophical problem that dates back to Epicurus, Hume, Kant. It's something theologians since Aquinas have wrestled with, and that modern philosophers such have taken up. It applies as much to Christianity as it does to Judaism and Islam. There's no reason for this to be covered by blasphemy laws, even if you accepted blasphemy laws as legitimate.

<comment><USER7> It is legitimate but it is also of the sophomoric category of questions. As for Islam that you mention, there are no such issues in Islam.

Stephen Fry is arguing the same position that Satan does in the Qur'an, pointing out 'errors' in God's judgment.

The Angels question God too in the Qur'an, but they do it very politely ..

<comment><USER8> Hmm...

>Those who annoy Allah and His Messenger – Allah has cursed them in this World and in the Hereafter, and has prepared for them a humiliating Punishment...

>They shall have a curse on them: whenever they are found, they shall be seized and slain (without mercy). [Quran 33:57–61]

You could argue calling Allah "stupid" and an "utter maniac" might annoy him, hypothetically.

<comment><USER7> "Allah and His Messenger" is a technical term. You are likely misreading this as indicating 2 distinct points of view as in "A and B both think X".

> You could argue calling Allah "stupid" and an "utter maniac" might annoy > him, hypothetically.

It depends where you do this. In general Allah claims, very much like Krishna, to have perfect 'detachment', so arguably IT does not give a fig.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is a link to longer clip of that exchange than shown in article. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a trial I'd like to watch.

<comment><USER10> Indeed.

Apparently the most powerful entity in the entire universe needs government protection from the opinion of Stephen Fry.

Doesn't seem like a fair fight to me.

<comment><USER11> Fry should make a statement similar to what Colbert made recently for his remarks against Trump "I've got the jokes, he's got the launch codes so it's a fair fight"

<comment><USER12> Homophobia isn't excusable no matter what position the target holds.

<comment><USER11> Don't think Colbert's statement was homophobic though, don't want to fight genuinely want to know what made you think it was?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No one expects the Irish Inquisition!

<comment><USER14> I find Monthy Python unimaginative and boring. Your comment was hilarious in the context, though.</comment></comment>


Exploring TimescaleDB as a replacement for Graphite - <AUTHOR> https://nbsoftsolutions.com/blog/exploring-timescaledb-as-a-replacement-for-graphite <comment><USER2> There is a patch for telegraf to support writing to postgres ([https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/pull/3428](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/pull/3428)). Grafana 5.3 (currently in beta) has support for filling in previous values for postgres datasource.</comment>


FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/03/fbi-director-comey-backs-new-feinstein-push-for-decrypt-bill/ <comment><USER2> From his perspective as the head of the FBI whose job it is to achieve outcomes within the law, of course Comey advocates encryption backdoors. He would likely also advocate allowing the FBI to suspend the bill of rights for any suspect during the duration of an investigation, and he'd quite likely prefer that the FBI be legally allowed to torture suspects if extreme techniques were viewed as likely to result in useful information. To law enforcement, the rights of a suspect are a barrier to many convictions.

How did we get to this point? Nobody would reasonably argue that extreme surveillance measures, patriot act, etc., is necessary to stop the vast majority of crimes from occurring, so why is it so easy for seemingly serious/intelligent people to think this nonsense is reasonable?

Members of our government are so indoctrinated about stopping "terrorism" that they have lost all sense of perspective. Terrorism is a political word to describe political enemies of the state, yet the patriot act and surveillance machinery has been used in enforcement of many other kinds of (less serious) crime.

I am surprised anyone can still use the word "terrorism" with a straight face anymore after it's become so clear that there is no large existential threat (merely the occasional zealot who acts out due to his/her own mental health issues). And in spite of a historically unprecedented global surveillance system there have been no attacks thwarted.

Comey is a symptom of the kind of cowardly, authority-respecting society we've become. I look forward to the day when our FBI director is not someone whose gaffes and judgment calls we read about in the newspaper on a regular basis.

<comment><USER3> Oh please whatever your opinion might be saying

""" surprised anyone can still use the word "terrorism" with a straight face anymore """

Is quickest way to shut down conversation. Especially given horrific events in France, Ohio, Florida. Your argument is not only ridiculous its counter productive to anyone offering a balanced saner approach.

<comment><USER4> You're more likely to die from a lightning bolt than a 'terrorist' attack. You're thousands of times more likely to die from bad driving habits or being overweight, so why is the terrorist bogeyman given so much concern in the political conversation?

<comment><USER5> Because a lightning bolt is a much more random occurance. It doesn't have agency, an agenda or a trajectory within society. A lightning bolt isn't looking to instigate more lightning bolts.

In 10 years time the death stats for lightning bolts will be similar and for road accidents will probably have declined. Which way do you think the terrorists stats will go?

<comment><USER4> Given the trends and the fact that it's a low probability event, I'd expect it to stay about where it is, about one death per year, or about as much as a chance as I have of getting killed by a piece of furniture: [http://uk.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics- terroris...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrorism- disease-accidents-2017-1?r=US&IR=T) [http://www.globalresearch.ca/the- terrorism-statistics-every-...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-terrorism- statistics-every-american-needs-to-hear/5382818)

<comment><USER5> Terrorism is less likely to remain a low-probability event because it contains the intention of death spurred by a toxic ideology that wishes to spread.

The comparisons given are accidents and happen through negligence or plain bad luck.

<comment><USER4> If your premise is true that it will grow because it wishes to spread, then why has it empirically remained constant? Why isnt it more successful every year as it pushes growth?

<comment><USER5> It has the strong potential to grow but right now there are enough people opposing its spread.

Even so, terrorism may have cumulative political and social effects. People don't like to know there are others out there who wish them harm. Once a certain threshold of resentment is reached within an affected society then suddenly massive unrest could erupt.

Some politicians are trying to mitigate this by suggesting we should just get used to the occasional terrorist attack and treat it like a lightning strike or a piece of heavy furniture falling over.

<comment><USER4> You must not live in the us. Every politician here is hyping the threat well beyond proportion to the life loss potential. But humans are irrational and scare prone, so why not exploit the cognitive bug, for votes and profit?

<comment><USER5> Yes, it's hardly surprising that some people use the threat of terrorism for personal gain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm confused about this. I'm hurried at the moment, but this seems to a bill that orders tech companies to provide a solution to encryption without having a backdoor?

Isn't this like legislating a violation of mathematics or something?

<comment><USER7> As I just put it in my open letter: "Let me be clear. This distinction that the Director makes has no basis in fact or science. Any imaginable key escrow system that would by design provide routine access to encrypted data is a backdoor that will be able to be hacked. Any such system of so called lawful intercept is an unfixable, mandated security vulnerability that will make Americans less safe both at home and abroad." ([https://rietta.com/blog/2017/05/03/americans-access-to- stron...](https://rietta.com/blog/2017/05/03/americans-access-to-strong- encryption-is-at-risk/))

<comment><USER8> I wrote a similar letter: [https://medium.com/@flukes1/my-letter-to-amber- rudd-on-encry...](https://medium.com/@flukes1/my-letter-to-amber-rudd-on- encryption-19afd4834ae5)

<comment><USER7> Excellent read. Thank you for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, the NSA and the CIA were recently hacked, yet these numbskulls think we can create a system that will only be accessed by "the good guys" How many hacks, leaks etc will it take for them to understand that if this passes, that will be the end of online security?

New Rule: If you want to propose cybersecurity legislation, you need to pass the fizz buzz test.

<comment><USER10>
      they think we can create a system only available to them

Because there are civilian consumer systems, and state apparatus systems. The civilian consumer systems just leave shit out in the open, all over the place, and make a mess, with no obligation to common, clueless people.

Everyone knows that no effort is made to retain military operational security for sloppy, undisciplined non-combatants.

Anyone with clearance to actual hardened systems, sees a clear difference from the other side of the wall, and questions why the charade must go on, when it'd be so much easier to dispose of the pretense that there's "privacy" to be had, and see investigations forced to prosecute with so much parallel construction.

The state apparatus systems, in their minds, deserve preservation of secrecy, because it puts the owners at an advantage. They seek advantage by crippling consumer civilian systems. This is the line of reasoning from their perspective. Render outsiders defective. Create real systems for themselves. Maintain authority by denying useful systems to unknown quantities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _> "What nobody wants to have happen is something terrible happen in the United States and it be connected to our inability to access information with lawful authority."_

But they're not asking for that. They're asking for the ability to force companies to grant them access to information _without_ something terrible happening.

The only way you could _prevent_ something terrible happening, and have that _prevention_ be "connected to [their] ability to access information with lawful authority", is to have the ability to inspect private data. And the only reasonable way they would do that is to do it _surreptitiously_.

They could try just asking the user to unlock their iPhone, or demand it with a court order (where I assume they can plead the 5th), but either would tip the suspect off. So they have to do it without the user's knowledge. And the only way to do that is if the company has a backdoor, or makes it so incredibly insecure as to no longer guarantee privacy at all.

The only logical way to give the FBI what it wants is to compromise user privacy.

 _> During the session, Comey also made repeat plays for expanding the scope of national security letters (NSL) — arguing that these administrative subpoenas were always intended to be able to acquire information from internet companies, not just from telcos._

The FBI claims that they would always get permission from a judge for invading user privacy. In the next breath, they want to expand NSLs, which is invading user privacy without requiring a judge's approval.

Both Lavabit and Silent Circle have had to close down their businesses after Lavabit was unreasonably demanded by the government (in a gag-ordered search warrant) to give up its private TLS keys, exposing all its users' privacy. But no law enforcement agency gives a shit about privacy; only secrecy.

</comment><comment><USER12> Unbelievable. Just happened to see a clip today ([https://goo.gl/F9XeQU](https://goo.gl/F9XeQU)) where Feinstein was "grilling" Comey about announcing the investigation into Clinton right before the election.

When Feinstein totally let him off the hook I was floored?!? He interfered worse than the Russians - how does he still have a job?

Ahh, she wants his support for the decrypt bill. I'll never understand why the Democrats have zero interest in protecting personal privacy.

<comment><USER13> Some Democrats are fairly strong proponents of protecting personal privacy, as are some Republicans. Conversely members of each party are down right anti privacy. When standagainstdpying.org was still active you would see very little correlation between party and score.

Our 2 party system leads to widely erratic results on issues like this, as we are seeing with this Comey Feinstein partnership.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "I don't think Congress intended that distinction but what it does do us is in our most important investigations it requires us that if we want to find out the subscriber info to a particular email to go and get an order from a federal judge in Washington as part of the FISA court. An incredibly long and difficult process. And I'm worried about that slowing us down — and I'm also worried about it being a disincentive for our investigators to do it at all."

Hurdles to protect privacy are important. If it's not an arduous process we have a problem.

<comment><USER15> >and I'm also worried about it being a disincentive for our investigators to do it at all

How "important" can the investigation possibly be if this serves as a "disincentive"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > saying such legislation would be "better from a public safety perspective"

According to whom, we the people or a bunch of authoritarians who'd like to be able to access every nook and cranny of our personal lives?

<comment><USER17> Forgive me, as this is completely tangential to your point, but it should be "according to whom". A simple explanation: [https://www.grammarly.com/blog/who-vs-whom-its-not-as- compli...](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/who-vs-whom-its-not-as-complicated- as-you-might-think/) :)

Call me silly, but I think grammar is important. I hope you don't take this the wrong way!

Edit: lol, I _thing_ I made a typo earlier.

<comment><USER18> I thing so too, friend.

<comment><USER19> Thing of this as the logical extension of the analysis "you've got another thing coming". ;D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would it be okay to mandate spy microphones in all cars, spy cameras in all rooms, and make it illegal to remove or disable them, as long as only the 'good guys', with a warrant, could access the info?

What if doing this would save N people/year from terrorist attacks?

What other rights should we sacrifice for a 'safer' society? Surely we shouldn't let terrorist recruit people, so there goes free speech. We also shouldn't let them gather together to plot their wicked plots, so there goes freedom of association. And if we could bar people at risk of committing terrorist acts, from vulnerable locations, such as subways, airports, parks with a lot of people in them, well, I'm sure that would save a few lives too.

</comment><comment><USER21> Putting in backdoors is sure fire way to kill US based mobile phone producers. Criminals will just use foreign produced phones and only way to counteract that is to outlaw those phones. Can't wait till they criminalize having certain firmware on your phones.

<comment><USER22> It's already a violation of the law to import and sell routers with unlocked firmware

<comment><USER23> Um. So, if I have a laptop, running Linux, with a built-in ethernet port, and plug in a USB ethernet adaptor, it is suddenly illegal to import it?

Crazy.

<comment><USER22> No

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > We all love privacy, we all care about public safety and none of us want > backdoors — we don't want access to devices built in in some way. What we > want to work with the manufacturers on is to figure out how can we > accommodate both interests in a sensible way

How is this possibly reconcilable?

<comment> white-flame It's not, but notice his wording. He has no clue if it's possible or not, he wants a mandate for the tech companies to "figure it out".

There have been voices from the tech industry saying it's impossible, but Comey doesn't want to hear that. He's literally called that response "emotional" and believes tech lovers simply are clinging to encryption and privacy irrationally.

He's not going to stop until he can hear what he wants to hear. I think the only thing that will satisfy him is a beltway bandit lying to him about their technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Diane Feinstein is old and needs to retire. She is completely out of touch with the needs of her constituency, and comes off more like an old guard republican rather then a democrat that she is supposed to be.

<comment><USER26> > comes off more like an old guard republican rather then a democrat

This is true of most Democrats these days, except when they want to pander to minorities or other disadvantaged groups who could use real, actual allies instead of the panderers. I am amazed and humbled by these folks' perseverance in the face of a two party system in which one party apparently hates them and the other thinks so little of them that their best efforts at being allies generally consists of terrible pandering.

<comment><USER27> Maybe many minorities and members of disadvantaged groups don't like being told that the pressing issues which affect their communities are just "identity politics," which seems to me to happen a lot lately.

<comment><USER26> Of course; it's insulting to have these issues reduced to a phrase like that. It's also insulting to have these issues reduced to a plug on the campaign trail and then ignored for the next year or two until the next big campaign, or used as a weapon by one rich old white lady against an affluent old Jewish guy to score political points (for example).

You want to see the typical Democratic interaction with minorities on a political level? Look at Flint, during the Primaries and general election, and compare it to now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> geeeez, how long is Cali going to foist Feinstein on the rest of the country. The level of idiocy is just beyond painful...

Edit to add: of course the same could be said about the remaining 49 states and their reps/sens as well...

<comment><USER29> Yea, here is Colorado we have Cory Gardner. Rank and file republican in an increasingly deep blue state. Currently leading the pack as most hostile to his constituent's interests:

[https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump- score/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/)

<comment><USER30> Can't wait to vote him out. Incredible that he won't hold town halls. He knows what's coming for him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't know why California Democrats elected Diane in the first place. Were there not any real liberals in California to choose from preferably with some expertise in Californias most valuable export?

</comment><comment><USER7> I was watching the hearing during lunch, had to attend to work meetings, and then saw this article which is what spurred me to post my open letter to Congress tonight and share it here on HN at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14261423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14261423). We have to get this information out there in a format that Congress and our non-techie friends and family understand.

</comment><comment><USER32> Law enforcement is tasked with putting people in jail, not so much preventing future abuses of bad laws by governments. This is why checks and balances must be maintained, for when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.

</comment><comment><USER33> "The high profile court battle ultimately ended after the FBI paid a third party company to gain access to the device via an exploit in the security system."

Why isn't this an acceptable solution?

<comment><USER34> It cost a lot of money, basically (AFAIK on the order of a million dollars to Celebrite).

One funny outcome of the San Bernardino iPhone cracking debate was the Government double speak:

To Apple ...

> We only want to force you to build a custom iOS so we can get into this > iPhone.

To DA's across the country ...

> Send us all your iPhones for ... reasons.

But comedy aside, they really do care about the cost / time of un-encrypting things. They're position seems to be that anything outside of your brain (5th amendment and all) should be available with a court order in a reasonable time and at reasonable cost.

I don't agree with that, because manufacturers should be able to produce whatever software they damn well please. But, they have a logical position if you look from the right angle.

<comment><USER35> > They're position seems to be that anything outside of your brain (5th > amendment and all) should be available with a court order in a reasonable > time and at reasonable cost.

I'm looking forward to the first court cases that deal with somebody who implanted a memory chip into their body and are storing information in it (only accessible through a wirelessly sent password) that the court wants to access. Could the court order surgery to remove it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Can someone call out these alleged encryption back doors for what they are? Junk science.

If Apple and Google aren't legally able to build as secure as devices & infrastructure as possible, the DOJ, FBI, NSA, and CIA sure as hell won't be secure. Merry Christmas to Assange.

<comment><USER37> "Backdoor" is such a loaded term. But it could be done relatively securely with a dual key system. Apple (or you/your device), has one key; the government has some other key. Either one unlocks the phone.

But then you need the government to securely store a few master keys. Given the latest CIA, NSA and OPM leaks I doubt this is possible long-term. However, maybe changing the devices keys based on year of manufacture is a reasonable step to have some sort of safeguard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you want to lose all of your tech monopolies, then go ahead with your backdoors (the ones whose existence will be _publicly known_ , that is).

</comment><comment><USER39> > We have to figure out a way to optimize those two things: privacy and public > safety.

Given how safe the public is, you'd think that this would mean "we need to focus on privacy". That is the _public_ 's priority. The FBI, whose mandate is abviously _not_ to protect the _privacy_ of citizens, is obviously going to advocate for the _public safety_ , or more specifically his organization's degree of visible success in ensuring it.

Obviously the director of the FBI is not who you should be asking for a balanced recommendation regarding safety and privacy.

</comment><comment><USER40> What are the tech companies he has been having a "growing consensus" with? I want to boycott them.

</comment><comment><USER41> Nice bill. Maybe they should finally get around to declaring Pi to be 3 too, two birds with one bill.

<comment><USER42> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill) always makes me smile...

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Is there any good information on what has been accomplished through such access etc ?

What have they stopped using such methods? I think if they wanted to get anything like this moving forward they need to show results. Not too many trust the government these days.

I do not like the idea of "backdoors" but I can see realistic need for such things. I think many are against such things "until" some massive WMD type attack then the tune will change.

<comment><USER44> If it worked, they probably wouldn't tell us (don't want your targets to wise up).

And if it didn't work, they probably wouldn't tell us (just in case it might sometime...)

<comment><USER43> Thats my thinking as well, but I dont think they will change anyones minds if they dont show some sort of results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> There is another big problem with mandatory decryption laws.

If someone want to incriminate you, they don't need to plant a file with child porn anymore: they just need to plant a file composed of random bytes and acuse you of having encrypted child porn there.

Now good luck providing the court an encryption key that does not exist.

</comment><comment><USER46> Your device has private data on it. Who has _final_ say on whether someone can access it?

\- Option 1: you \- Option 2: somebody else

Those are the only two options.

Option 1 protects people from criminals and tyrants, but impedes law enforcement.

Option 2 enables law enforcement but makes people vulnerable to criminals and tyrants.

Any suggestion that we can get the best of both worlds is confused or disingenuous. We have to choose.

Do you get final say on who can access your device's data, or does somebody else?

</comment><comment><USER47> If you're wondering how it got to this point I'd like to remind you that you (If you live in the US) don't own this country. The people in charge don't care about you. They care about money, power, and stability of their system. It's hopeless to resist because they own your home, your bank account, and all your money. The only way we'll ever change it is getting scientists, nerds, and engineers into congress. I don't know how we'll do it but we have to do it to ensure freedom for everyone in the USA.

</comment><comment><USER48> Ridiculous. When will these numbskulls understand that you can't regulate people's use of encodings? It's right there in human language. You can't force everyone to use the same one.

</comment><comment><USER22> Why do California Democrats vote this person in year after year?

<comment><USER49> Because they vote for their party, and california is a blue party state.

<comment><USER22> Is it possible to effectively publicize what candidates stand for and have historically voted for? Or is this impossible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Why is someone who is 83 years old and likely has to call her grandson for help paying a bill online writing law about encryption?

</comment><comment><USER51> I still don't understand. They want to be able to have a court order a device maker to decrypt data, but today they can already get a court to order the device owner to decrypt it. The device owner actually has the password or key. The truth is that they want to do this without the device owner knowing it's being done.

<comment><USER52> Passwords so far are somewhat protected under the fifth. And you have to go trough contempt of court. Firmware signing keys that belong to a third party are not.

<comment><USER51> So what's your point?

<comment><USER52> That it is easier to mandate mandatory decryption to the vendors than to power trough the fifth and get password from a defendant.

All writs on steroids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Right after the Intel security disclosures.

Hmmmmmm.

</comment><comment><USER54> Color me surprised.</comment>


Myequifax.com Bypasses Credit Freeze Pin - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/03/myequifax-com-bypasses-credit-freeze-pin/ <comment><USER2> Equifax has the unique ability to collect the most private information available, even when they have never or will never interact with that person.

I think the entire credit system needs to be changed. If credit bureau's can't be responsible then citizens should get a choice in the matter. These companies have us by the balls and we have no recourse. It's a monopoly complete with price fixing and everything, except the price is privacy and you don't get any options.

It reminds me of an episode of Hotel Hell I saw where the front desk stored all guest credit card numbers, expiration date, and security code in a white lined notebook unlocked behind the counter. Gordon Ramsay walks up to an unstaffed counter, grabs the book, and walks off with it.

Now imagine that the hotel blatantly admits to not giving a shit about your credit card details, and you don't have the option of checking out and taking your business elsewhere.

<comment><USER3> I'm normally not a fan of congressional hearings where everyone is trying to grandstand, but this one was particularly good.

The congresswoman asked the Equifax CEO to provide his birthday and social security number publicly for the record. He of course refused and when asked why, he said because that is sensitive information.

All the while, Equifax attorneys are arguing in court that there is no harm in leaking private data like SSNs and thus they shouldn't be held liable for any damages.

[https://www.fastcompany.com/90312551/watch-a- congresswoman-d...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90312551/watch-a- congresswoman-destroy-equifax-ceo-mark-begor-in-an-epic-privacy-burn)

<comment><USER4> That's all well and good, but what was the concrete result of the hearing? Nothing actually happened and Equifax continues merrily along doing what it's always done.

<comment><USER5> Congressional hearings are about informing law makers (and also for grandstanding). They are not intended to provide immediate results in the way a trial would. The results if any will be in the form of legislation at a later date.

<comment><USER4> Results can come a lot sooner and more incrementally than that. For example, there were congressional hearings very recently involving Michael Cohen and merely days later, document requests were issued as a result of the statements he made during he hearing.

So where are the inquiries? Where are the task forces? Where are the subpoenas? Where are the subcommittees? It's been over a year. Are you confident with "changes will come at a later date"? Seems to me like changes will happen never.

[http://fortune.com/2018/09/07/equifax-data-breach-one- year-a...](http://fortune.com/2018/09/07/equifax-data-breach-one-year- anniversary/)

<comment><USER6> To a non-american, the promptness and lack of even thinking or hesitation with which Michael Cohen answered and the swift "results" it produced make it seem almost certain that the questions from AOC and others were were pre- coordinated "set pieces" designed to provide some kind of "parallel construction" justification for the requests. I wouldn't put much store by these things.

<comment><USER7> Wow, that's one hell of a conspiracy theory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A real-life attack based on this kind of hole was discussed at [https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/ay7aoy/ide...](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/ay7aoy/identity_thief_is_unfreezing_my_credit_freeze/) : someone says that an identity thief who knows all their knowledge-based question answers (because they have a copy of a credit report, no doubt) keeps somehow removing the freeze and committing more fraud.

<comment><USER9> Some KBA questions don't show up on your credit report, that being said, they can still be guessed with some certainty if you know the person.

Some examples either me or my husband have gotten:

-What month was [person] born? [person] was my mom and one option was "I don't know [person]." Luckily they didn't ask the date, because I don't know that, but I do know the month.

-Which of the following people are/were you associated with?, my ex-roommate as one of the answers. Makes sense to connect us if we had the same address at the same time.

-Which of the following people are/were you associated with?, my ex as one of the answers. This one baffled me because we never lived together and never had a bank account or loan together.

Which town did/does [person] live in? Where [person] was my husband's brother. Of course, useless if everyone still lives in their hometown.

I've also been asked about the previous cars I've owned, which are from DMV and insurance databases, not credit reports.

The entire concept of KBA is flawed and pretty shitty all around.

<comment><USER10> I once had a nightmare set of one where I was setting things up over the phone and had to do KBAs, and asked me who held my Auto Loan. A. Who has my loan has changed since I got it originally. B. The options they gave were (Names changed) Wachovia, Ally Bank, Ally Bank Inc, Ally Bank of New York, where the original lender was Wachovia, and I know it got sold to Ally at some point.

I literally have no way to know which one of these they think is correct. At least 2 of them were correct at some point, depending on how up-to-date the data was, and the last three were indistinguishable, even when looking at my actual statements for my loan... So I failed out of my KBAs 4 straight times because they kept giving different variants of the same question, just with different sets of answers, until I could venn diagram out which one must be right because it was the only one that came up in all 4.

<comment><USER9> They really are piss poor low hanging fruit level of effort. I once I got a question asking which car I owned with four answers and I had owned two cars listed...

Then, of course, what if you get a question about your sister when she's toxic and you've cut her out of your life. Or even just naturally lost touch with her over the years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > the data being asked about in these KBA quizzes is culled from public > records

Yesterday, when opening a savings account with a major US financial institution, one of the KBA questions asked for my Zodiac sign. The other two were about a mortgage and the year I was born (±1 year). I do not understand why any competent institution would find these secure and it appalls me that is all the information needed to open an account in my name.

Edit: Here is the screenshot [https://i.imgur.com/Mr8gOOA.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Mr8gOOA.jpg)

<comment><USER12> Zodiac sign? Seriously? I don't know what mine is because that is not a belief system/religion I subscribe to so I had to Google it. Turns out my birthdate must be on the border because different sources have it as a different sign. They might as well ask what color my aura is.

<comment><USER13> Better than the SS administration who ask "Where were you when 9/11 happened" or "Where were you when JFK was assassinated"...Took a screenshot of these but cant find it now. My method is picking the common questions like "what street did you grow up on" and assigning it a random/not true/or another question such as "I don't know what my favorite street is"

<comment><USER9> These are so called "security questions" for that account; the great grandparent is talking about "knowledge-based authentication," which is a different thing entirely.

The "security questions" you choose your answers, in "knowledge-based authentication" the questions and answers are generated based on the information on your credit reports and other databases, such as insurance databases. You don't make up answers, they already know the answers.

<comment><USER14> > Static KBA, also referred to as "shared secrets" or "shared secret > questions", is commonly used by banks, financial services companies and > e-mail providers to prove the identity of the customer before allowing > account access or, as a fall-back, if the user forgets their password.

Wikipedia refers to "security questions" as "Static KBA".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've literally noticed this myself last month when I went to temporarily lift my freeze to apply for a new credit card. I never got asked for the PIN, which I diligently save and securely store. I remember I was explicitly asked for it just a year ago (last time I had to do the same to open another card). I felt like an idiot.

<comment><USER15> They don't want to make it hard to use your credit report. The worse job they do with security theater the more money they make, and the easier it is for you to obtain credit products. If they actually applied any reasonable security, the friction of getting new credit would reduce new customer acquisition.

For my view, that's ideal: people should put real, explicit thought into obtaining new credit or debt products. It's too easy right now, especially with products like Credit Karma trivializing getting new credit cards.

<comment><USER16> > They don't want to make it hard to use your credit report. The worse job > they do with security theater the more money they make, and the easier it is > for you to obtain credit products.

This is why we need to legislate these companies now, and re-incentivize them to do the right thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can we just shut down equifax already?

<comment><USER18> I will never unfreeze Equifax, regardless of what I do with the other credit agencies. I can't prevent them from collecting my information but I can prevent them from profiting off it.

<comment><USER19> Why can't they profit from the troves of info they have about you, and will continue to collect about you, if your 'account' is 'frozen'?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > SSN and DOB data is widely available for sale in the cybercrime underground > on almost all U.S. citizens. This has been the reality for years, and was so > well before Equifax announced its big 2017 breach.

Again, I find that this only reinforces the fact that SSNs are not a useful identification system because there's nothing secure about them. Can someone explain where attackers obtain SSN/DOB data with such a widespread success rate?

<comment><USER21> So if everybody knows your SSN/DOB, I'd say that makes a very good identity system in the sense that we can all unambiguously refer to the same person. It's just not any use as a means of authenticating that you are the person who has that identity.

<comment><USER22> SSN on its own is sufficient for verifying identity. SSN coupled with a phone verification step is more secure for authenticating than DOB.

<comment><USER19> > SSN on its own is sufficient for verifying identity.

No. It's sufficient for identifying someone, but not at all sufficient (not even close) for verifying someone is who they say they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you require the PIN to lift a credit freeze, some people will lose their PIN and never be able to lift the credit freeze.

So there must be a workaround that relies on verifying identity, based on non- random information (e.g. no PINs, no passwords).

They've made it too easy, but until we can request that a credit agency blacklist an SSN and forget all associated information, this will keep happening.

</comment><comment><USER24> > "We deployed an experience that embraces both security standards (using a > multi-factor and layered approach to verify the consumer's identity) and > reflects specific consumer feedback on managing security freezes and fraud > alerts online without the use of a PIN," she continued. "The account set-up > process, which involves the creation of a username and password, relies on > both user inputs and other factors to securely establish, verify, and > authenticate that the consumer's identity is connected to the consumer every > time."

She tosses around the word security, but really what she is saying is that Equifax decided to make the experience as simple as possible because having people create accounts with them without the need for boosting CSR headcount is more important that securing those accounts.

</comment><comment><USER25> I just made upper management aware at Equifax. Let's see how long this takes until they require the FUCKING PIN number to unfreeze your credit on their website. What a joke.

<comment><USER26> Thanks for posting this, please reply back and let us know their reaction. It might be popcorn worthy, or it might be 'meh' \- either way, it is of interest to me and I suspect HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I lost my PIN since I moved twice after freezing my credit and apparently didn't store it in my computer. I was able to temporarily lift my security freeze without it, and I found it convenient but a bit unsettling. Glad I'm not the only one.

</comment><comment><USER28> My guess is the pin is largely pointless anyway. This new system was put in place because a large number of people forget or lose their pin. This would require a support ticket every time. The new system is intended to reduce support costs.

</comment><comment><USER29> Serious question: what's to stop a startup or 2 or 3 from creating an alternative credit check system that's not as horrendous as the current one, thus displacing the current overlords?

<comment><USER30> Only the difficulty of convincing financial companies to report to and pull info from your system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is there anything a regular individual can do to help get this company shut down?

</comment><comment><USER32> Secure for thee, but not for me!

</comment><comment><USER33> password policy for my.equifax.com is ... not best practice. at least they allow up to 20 characters. must include one special character from a set of ... FIVE. and those are the only allowed special characters.

<comment><USER34> Whenever they limit the number of characters to something small, it makes me wonder if they are storing the password in their database rather than some hash of the password.

I complained about this to my old bank (Wells Fargo) and they told me not to worry about it because I'm protected from fraud.

<comment><USER35> It generally means they're not handling it in a secure way. Worst case scenario is that if the checks you see client side aren't also server side someone might be able to inject things that run as... whatever the server side processes are.

Usually anyplace that has a limit less than 512 characters (often 1024, but some string buffers are small) or on the characters you can use, at all, isn't doing it right.

<comment><USER33> It generally means that yes. But sometimes it also has to do with CSR calls. eg, by not allowing spaces in passwords, you eliminate an entire class of PEBKAC errors.

I don't for a second believe that's why my.equifax.com is doing it. It's certainly not why there's a 20 character limit. (I personally use 64 char passwords wherever such long ones are allowed.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> When can we all agree that nothing connected to the internet is secure. Ever.

?</comment>


The problem with "Big Data" - <AUTHOR> http://evilmartini.com/post/7946263965/prob-w-bigdata <comment><USER2> Author is trying too hard to be notorious. To me it comes off as an un-funny Ted Dziuba.[1]

[1] Yeah, one could argue that Ted himself is an unfunny Ted Dziuba, but that's a different debate.

<comment><USER3> What do you mean "trying to be notorious"?

I found the entire article to be effing hilarious. Great writing style. And useful info too- I work in a place where we encounter this stuff, and it really is all about asking the right questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> tl;dr: Google uses Big Data techniques because they have a problem to solve, unnamed companies X,Y,Z try making a business out of just the Big Data techniques without a problem to solve, and this pisses the guy off.

<comment><USER5> No I don't think that's right. Randall's complaint is that there are people fetishizing big data, as well as cargo culting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sorry, but all I see here is a giant strawman. Which companies is he talking about? What are examples where they've claimed to be using big data in an unjustified way?

<comment><USER7> As a stats person, I've seen lots of job postings for "data scientists" that are along the lines of "We need someone to turn our massive amount of data into profit!" I hesitate to name names, but if you search for data scientist jobs you will see what I'm talking about. My reaction is always, "Great, but what business question are you trying to answer?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> People who are interested in smalldata check smalldata.org and #smalldata on freenode

</comment><comment><USER9> no connection no real reference to anything. this is nothing more than self- adulation of someone who thinks he knows the truth about a certain topic. how foolish and shortsighted!</comment>


Lots of Product Announcements At Google Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/16/lots-of-product-announcements-at-google-today/ <comment><USER2> Google's new timeline search is practically identical in concept to my startup, onetimeline. Compare:

<http://onetimeline.com/timeline?query=hendrix>

and

[http://www.google.com/views?q=hendrix+view%3Atimeline&btnGt;=Search](http://www.google.com/views?q=hendrix+view%3Atimeline&btnGt=Search)

<comment><USER3> Cool site. Are you slowly indexing terms that people have 'voted' for by searching? I noticed that many of the terms I tried (specifically picked because I doubted they'd been searched for before, eg, Australian politicians) had zero results. I also noticed that searching for Hitler pegged one article in 2015.

Sudden and significant competition from Google must cut a bit, but there's at least a good chance that it'll just end up as another cool but abandoned (at least from a marketing perspective) Google product.

<comment><USER2> "Are you slowly indexing terms that people have 'voted' for by searching?"

Actually no, but we do direct our crawl to places where we expect to find the most data.

"I also noticed that searching for Hitler pegged one article in 2015."

If you click on the highest detail level you can see that this is a legitimate event. The copyright of "Mein Kampf" expires in 2015.

"Sudden and significant competition from Google must cut a bit, but there's at least a good chance that it'll just end up as another cool but abandoned (at least from a marketing perspective) Google product."

I have very mixed feelings. It's really too early to say exactly how I feel about it :-/

<comment><USER4> I like your UI better than Google's. This may be an opportunity for more publicity.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What to look for in a co-founder - <AUTHOR> http://wearecontrast.com/2015/02/what-to-look-for-in-a-co-founder/

<comment><USER2> Why even have a co-founder in the first place?

<comment><USER3> Especially when you can probably bring the same or similar person in 6-8 months after funding the company for only 2-3% equity!</comment></comment>


What do you do when Google ignores you? - <AUTHOR> http://www.codethinked.com/post/2010/01/17/What-Is-Wrong-With-My-Blog.aspx <comment><USER2> Google might be flagging your blog for selling links. Under the "Sponsor" area is an ad with live (and not nofollowed) links. Here's what google says:

[http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...](http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66736)

Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as: * Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag * Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

<comment><USER3> I don't really see any way those links are different than the links pulled in by just about every advertising platform out there (including AdWords). The links appear to be being served up with Javascript (except for the "Ads by the Lounge" part), as opposed to being statically embedded like Text Link Ads or the other link brokers do. I'd doubt this is the issue.

<comment><USER2> It's true that most advertising platforms use javascript to generate the ads, but I believe that the "ads by the lounge" link could be the culprit.

<comment><USER3> Google's explanation of these issues is generally that they want to make sure all followed links are editorial votes of quality. I'd argue that this link counts as such with the owner basically saying "I use ad Lounge, it's great and you should too." I do grant though that Google might not agree with my interpretation of their rules. ;)

All that aside if I were the site owner I'd at least nofollow that link, or preferably remove it if it doesn't violate some TOS with the ad service just because I wouldn't want to give my advertising away for free.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually run The Lounge, the ad network in question. I would be very surprised if it was that link as most of my other publishers run the same link and it hasn't affected them in that way. It is also similar to what many other ad networks do, include a simple link back to the ad network.

Of course Justin is free to remove it just to see if it makes a difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Asking the obvious, but I suppose you have also tried the Google webmasters tools? <http://www.google.com/webmasters/>

<comment><USER5> Yep, Google webmaster tools have been leveraged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's worth noting that the Wayback Machine stopped indexing your site on August 22, 2008:

<http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.codethinked.com/>.

Do you remember making any changes around then? Your robots.txt file seems fine. Maybe you implemented an application firewall, or some other filter?

<comment><USER7> AFAIK the WM only indexes 6 months after publication, part of their agreement with Amazon.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> No follow the paid link - not just the 'Ads By the Lounge part' (as keltex mentioned) & add meta descriptions. Meta KWs don't mean much (if anything), but Google will often use your meta descriptions in their results.

</comment><comment><USER9> .aspx, .NET, C# . . . what would you expect otherwise?

<comment><USER10> There are myriad ASP.NET based websites that rank well. Look at the markup on Guthrie's or Hanselman's blog. Both have WebForms artifacts like ViewState, __doPostBack, and generated IDs, but rank well.

WebForms definitely encourages sloppy markup, which I'm no fan of, but that clearly isn't the only issue Justin's having.

<comment><USER11> I think he meant the content of the blog, not the technologies used to run the blog. Still, it's utter nonsense.</comment></comment></comment>


Is American Sign Language a 'foreign' language? - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-sign-language-20100416,0,2337497.story <comment><USER2> Spanish is not "foreign" in much of the U.S. either. I would consider the use of the word "foreign" in "foreign language" to be a meaningless coincidence. The point is not whether people can speak an exotic language. The point is whether people can speak a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) language which is distinct from their native language, whether they have applied themselves to learning a means of communication different from the one they were raised with.

It seems from reading the article that a lot of people still don't get that ASL is distinct from English. That a foreign language chair would say ASL is not sufficient to sustain a culture is absurd. One of the first things my German professor told me when I was in school was that German is not English in code. The same goes for all languages, including ASL.

</comment><comment><USER3> It has its own grammar, distinct from English, its own vocabulary, and native speakers -- what more do you want from a language?

<comment><USER4> I think everybody agrees that ASL is a _language_. The question is whether it qualifies as a _foreign_ language.

<comment><USER5> As "foreign language" in this context means "not English", the answer is _yes_.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Intern's Rape Claim Highlights Struggle to Combat Sex Discrimination - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-14/microsoft-intern-s-rape-claim-highlights-struggle-to-combat-sex-discrimination <comment><USER3> Most of these articles I have read in the past few years always leave me with the same question. Why is there not more focus on the police investigation. Why did they police decide not to press charges? If our police forces are failing to press charges against rapists, shouldn't that be a big priority to change? Aren't the police more accountable to the electorate than Microsoft's internal HR policy. I feel like there are a lot of questions that aren't brought up. Do people believe that the standard of evidence for Police is too high but isn't politically possible to change? If the police standard of evidence is too high, what should the standard of evidence be? What should the standard of evidence be for Microsoft? If someone files a police complain but that complaint is dismissed for lack of evidence, how exactly should Microsoft evaluate that claim?

I just feel like many of these articles stop short of discussing obvious questions, and it leaves me suspicious.

<comment><USER4> _Why is there not more focus on the police investigation. Why did they police decide not to press charges? If our police forces are failing to press charges against rapists, shouldn 't that be a big priority to change?_

I'm a woman. I have been raped. I also have two adult sons. So, here are some issues as I see it:

First, if you lower the burden of proof for rape because it is rape, then you open the door to men having their lives ruined because some woman wants their job, is mad he won't leave his wife for her, or whatever. Women are human too. We aren't all paragons of virtue simply for having been born with different bits between our legs. So if you set a low standard for convicting a man of rape, you open up a different huge can of worms.

Second, human sexual morality is all kinds of messy and complicated. Date rape routinely involves alcohol, yet if you tell women "Play defensively and don't drink and don't get so drunk that you can't drive home and need to crash at some guy's place where he can rape your inebriated, unconscious body," now you are _blaming the victim_. If we told someone "It's a rough neighborhood, so lock your doors." that would be good advice, not victim blaming. But make it about sex and try to give women practical advice, and suddenly you are impinging on their right to do any damn thing they so please.

I mean, I have seen an article where someone was literally quoted as saying "A woman should be able to walk naked down the street and be safe from rape." Is it okay for men to wander the streets naked? Last I checked, the answer was _no_. Why are we making up this ridiculous scenario?

Additionally, because in a court case you can't realistically lower the legal evidentiary bar, going through a court trial after a sexual assault is quite the ordeal. It isn't a sympathetic, hand-holding _oh, honey, you poor thing_ experience. You will essentially be treated like you are lying, because the reality is that you could be.

Another thing that is incredibly hard to talk about at all is that we have things like BDSM and cultural standards that men are supposed to initiate, etc. So there is no bright line between a man pursuing a woman and a man harassing a woman or pressuring her into sex, which could then come back to bite him when she decides it constituted rape. I strongly suspect some men genuinely are surprised at being called a rapist after the fact. To their mind, it was consensual.

There are no simple, easy, straight forward cures for that last issue. I don't know how we are going to fix it. Perhaps the outpouring of #MeToos and multiple cases currently ongoing against powerful men will change the standard, but not without a lot of blood in the water.

I read some of the articles where multiple women have accused a rich, powerful of man of sexual assault and the man often denies it and swears it was consensual. Given my experience of human sexuality, I suspect a lot of these men firmly believe that -- because men are supposed to be the aggressors and rich, powerful men can be oblivious to just how much pressure their wealth and power can represent for a woman they are pursuing.

It's complicated and a desire for a nice simple solution in the name of justice tends to just lead to other injustices, not actual solutions.

<comment><USER5> > I'm a woman. I have been raped. I also have two adult sons.

Firstly, I want to thank you for publicly sharing your opinion and bringing nuance to a complicated and difficult topic.

But secondly, how did we get to the point where we must first give out group identity credentials in order to be taken seriously in a discussion? Shouldn't the actual meat of what a person says hold greater weight than the group(s) that a person identifies with?

I've been noticing this trend a lot lately -- articles in, say, The Atlantic of the type of 'hold on, is this what feminism should be?' \-- but always prefaced by the author first _identifying as a woman_ , perhaps to insulate from criticism.

Please note that this is no way intended as a criticism of you. I find myself doing the exact same thing (prefacing comments with snippets of my bio) -- it just feels weird that 'progressivism' seems to have led to this, which doesn't feel much like 'progress' at all.

<comment><USER4> _how did we get to the point where we must first give out group identity credentials in order to be taken seriously in a discussion?_

I am not really aware of what you are describing.

HN is less "social" than most forums. There are no avatars and the profile is completely free form and can be left completely blank. It is a very large forum, so I cannot assume that everyone recognizes me. It also is overwhelmingly male, so it is common for people to assume that anyone speaking here is male.

I often qualify my remarks here on certain subjects for those reasons. Long experience as a participant tells me that if I don't, someone will make a fool of themselves by accusing me of being _a rapey bastard, as obviously only a rapist man would ever say X_ (or something along those lines). And that is a huge, pointless derail that I hate seeing.

<comment><USER6> I think the parent poster was lamenting that as a man, he feels that it's unfortunate he fears he can't express the points you so eloquently did, because when somebody suggests his motive is sexist he can't so simply refute it.

As far as I can tell you're both on the same side that you share the experience that if one isn't (perceived) a member of the protected group they are at risk for being subject of virtue-shaming or ad-hominem attack for debating progressive ideals.

<comment><USER4> I still get accused of _victim blaming._ I get other ugly attacks. My gender does not 100% give me a free pass to say whatever I want on the subject.

I would like to think that years of study and introspective contemplation have helped me craft an evenhanded and well thought out position on certain subjects.

My observation is that most people, regardless of which "side" they are on, somewhat ham-handedly speak to only the concerns of their side. This very often comes across as dismissive of the concerns of the other side, even when that isn't intended.

So, if someone wants to speak to difficult subjects, I think good advice is to consider how things impact all parties, not just their own side, and work at considering details like context and how that makes your message look. If you barge into a discussion of rape and all you say is (or sounds like) "what about da menz!", well, yeah, that will go badly.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, was not implying that being a woman makes one immune to criticism. I do think there's a certain level of confusion at this point about who is considered credible or allowed to speak about other groups, and sometimes this policing ends up begging the question itself.

Like take the charge of _victim blaming_ \-- on the one hand, we can all probably agree that victims deserve sympathy and a platform to air their grievances as well as our thoughtful consideration.

Yet it seems that of we as a society offer unconditional trust to anyone who claims to have been a victim, this will eventually encourage all sorts of mischief. Not every person who 'seems' like a victim is in fact one, and not everyone who has been victimized can or will lay public claim to that status.

In the limit, this confusion about who is allowed to say what about whom can actually lead to the behavior you referenced above -- if men have internalized the idea that men are only allowed to comment or judge men, but not other groups, then the only possible response is for men to speak about their own group interests.

<comment><USER4> _Like take the charge of victim blaming_

Sigh. This is perhaps a can of worms I shouldn't open. But here goes:

I was sexually abused as a child. So, in my youth, I very much had the mental model that men are predators and women are prey. It took me a long, long time to sort that out. I think that mental model is shared by quite a lot of people, often without realizing it.

So, if you have internalized this idea that all sex involves a victim and that the woman is probably the victim, well, that explains a lot of the dynamics of discussion that we see, where people implicitly assume that if anything goes wrong in a heterosexual encounter, clearly the man is the perp and the woman is the victim.

I think a lot of people cannot imagine women as having any kind of real power. And therein lies a real huge problem in these discussions, because if you suggest anything women can do differently, you are bad, evil and wrong. Or if you suggest women aren't all paragons of virtue and many would equally take advantage if given the opportunity, this just doesn't sit well with a lot of people.

Someone here mentioned intersectionality, a term I only know from an incredibly toxic environment full of SJWs who claim to want a better world, but mostly crapped all over me rather than being helpful with my problems and also very much are fine with the _Lord of the Flies_ pecking order that is at the root of a lot of social problems. They don't really want to be rid of it. They just want to be at the top doing the shitting, rather than at the bottom getting shat upon.

So if that is your approach, well, duh, the well off white males currently in power aren't going to go along with your plans to make them the acceptable social toilet that everyone gets to crap all over. And when they resist becoming the new victim of our crappy social order, they get accused of all kinds of evil for clinging to the privilege they currently have.

The problems we currently have cannot be resolved by seeking revenge at the societal level. This is an incredibly hard thing to discuss, for a long list of reasons. But the angry, vengeful approach that so many women take helps entrench the problem. It doesn't resolve it.

I don't want revenge. I want constructive change that overall reduces how much people get victimized.

I have been speaking about subjects like rape and women's issues and female empowerment for a long time. It's just a hard, hard subject to have a good discussion on.

I think this one is going incredibly well -- or was. Perhaps this comment will be a thing I very much regret. But it is a thing we eventually need to discuss in the world, and Hacker News has turned out to be the least worst place for me to try to make constructive points on such subjects.

(crosses fingers, hits _reply_ )

<comment><USER7> I just did some profile snooping and I gotta say that your story is both unique and uplifting and I appreciate your willingness to contribute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't understand what is Microsoft's role here. This is a complaint between employees about a potential crime that happened outside of Microsoft's walls, outside of business hours, and between employees that have no position of hierarchy over one another. This seems to me as a simple police matter. I don't think employers should become an out-of-court justice system as long as they are not involved directly. All they can do is to separate the employees in a way that neither is negatively impacted until the legal proceedings are settled which from what I can tell from the article is what they did.

The other thing about tech companies is that it would be interesting to compare their statistics of sexual harassment to other industries. Putting at the front page some stories about sexual harassment don't mean anything. Microsoft has 125,000 employees, google 75,000, apple 125,000, etc. At this scale, and unless they have a special hiring technique that enables to spot criminal behavior that I am not aware of, they are bound to hire some future criminals: rapists, thieves, stalkers, etc. It's just statistically impossible for it not to happen. Is there any evidence that there is more sexual harassment in the tech industry than other industries?

<comment><USER9> Presumably the crime couldn't be proved to the standard that the justice system requires, so getting Microsoft to implement a punishment based on her allegations and public opinion is the next best thing.

<comment><USER10> Getting someone punished for unproven allegations based on pressure from people whose only knowledge of the case comes from a news article isn't a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > In the meantime, she was required to keep working alongside the man. When > she discussed getting a restraining order with Microsoft, HR told her if she > wanted one, she'd need to change teams, her lawyer wrote. She liked the work > and her boss, so she stayed put for the rest of the summer.

It really sounds crazy, but I can understand it. I was sexually assaulted by my boss (and I am a male and so was my boss) and couldn't understand my wife's anger when I said I'd still be working for him. Luckily I came to understand how poor a decision that would have been and I quit.

<comment><USER12> That part of the article fucking boggles my mind.

<comment><USER13> That is bizarre. An HR rep's job is to minimize the company's liabilities, not expand them.

I understand not shifting employee job functions based on an unproven accusation. If there's a restraining order in place, it's not her problem. It's his. He's restrained. He has to go to his HR rep and say "I can't legally work next to this person, what happens?"

That's only one side of the story, though.

<comment><USER14> The article clearly says that HR offered to switch her to another team, but she didn't want to because she liked her current team and her current boss. Other than this it would require switching the guy to another team, but then they probably wouldn't force someone to quit their team without first doing an investigation (or letting the police force finish their investigation), which is what they did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So many of these stories start with 'Coworkers went out for a few drinks...' It is clear that there are persons that behave in a predatory manner when a soon-to-be victim becomes drunk, and social norms even legetimize this behaviour in some ways.

It doesn't say if the victim here was drunk, but some level of intoxication seems likely given the nature of the crime. This doesn't excuse anything.

I wonder how many of these crimes would be prevented if steps were taken to limit excessive drinking. I don't know how this would actually be implemented, or if companies or universities already do have a policy about alcohol and social events.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've counseled many younger people, HR is not there to help you - <USER2> primary mission is to help the company at all times. The same thing goes with college campus police.

She should have called the nearest city's police. If there was proof of a rape from her hospital visit they probably would have charged the guy.

On a side note it absolutely flabbergasts me that Microsoft offered a job to the alleged rapist! Surely it can't be that hard for them to find good employees.

<comment><USER17> At my last job, the HR rep considered suing the company for discrimination. So HR isn't even there to help HR.

Microsoft lost a case a few years ago when a female manager made up allegation to get a male employee fired. One of the employees she tried to convince to lie testified. That case may have influenced their decision to extend an offer.

On second thought, more likely that companies just don't care about a single allegation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> (Deleted)

<comment><USER19> When you stop it there it's awkward.

>, the male intern sexually assaulted her

When you finish the thought from the author, it's less clunky. Its saying "her lawyer wrote that during the night the male intern sexually assaulted her".</comment></comment>


Who's behind the last-minute push to thwart patent reform? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/21/whos-behind-the-last-minute-push-to-thwart-patent-reform/ <comment><USER2> Grousing about oligarchs, special interests, and the political system as a whole is unproductive and misguided. After all, patent reform has already passed with huge bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.

Instead, you should focus on the politician most responsible for blocking patent reform - Harry Reid, and the power he wields as Senate Majority Leader. He might not be up for re-election until 2016, but your donations and votes can help remove him from his position as majority leader in November.

<comment><USER3> Complaining about oligarchs and special interests misses the mark, in my opinion. Last month, the following companies launched a group to oppose the proposed reforms: Apple, Microsoft, IBM, DuPont, Pfizer, Ford, and GE: [http://partnershipforamericaninnovation.org](http://partnershipforamericaninnovation.org).

That's a really broad spectrum of iconic American technology companies. These were joined by a number of research universities as well as groups representing small businesses that employ scientists and engineers.

It's easy to take an internet company-centric view of the world and dismiss the whole opposition as "oligarchs and special interests." But think of it from the perspective of a Congressman or Congresswoman. He or she doesn't know that "Twitter is in, while Microsoft is out," so to speak. What they know is that Microsoft is an American company that employs 100,000 people, more than Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, and Facebook combined. From their perspective, the opposition isn't "oligarchs and special interests." They're a broad swath of what they perceive as the relevant stakeholders: American companies and universities engaged in R&D that employ lots of scientists and engineers and create lots of "next-generation STEM jobs."

The whole political machinery of the U.S., on both sides of the aisle, is committed to the technology sector being an engine for job creation going forward. That doesn't just mean the internet sector, but also pharma, biotechnology, automotive, energy, etc. These are the sectors Washington is counting on to replace the jobs Silicon Valley is automating away. When a list of key companies in each of these sectors oppose reforms, and say that they will hamper job creation, then it will be very difficult to convince members of Congress that the reforms are a good thing overall.

The first set of reforms passed because there was broad buy-in from the technology sector as a whole. Any future reforms will require more buy-in from the broader industry than exists right now.

<comment><USER4> _Microsoft is an American company that employs 100,000 people, more than Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, and Facebook combined._

This is a key point. Whatever arguments you can make about the economic efficiency of IP laws[1], favoring the industry that employs a lot more people isn't "un-democratic." It's democracy, good and hard. [2] Those 100,000 people can easily outvote all the other companies. It's exactly the opposite of favoring the oligarchs, which would be the sharehodlers of GOOG, TWIT, YHOO, FACE.

[1] Those latter companies indeed make more with less workers, which to a first order approximation is what you want to encourage in the long term. It's not the final answer and there are good arguments to make the other way, like GOOG needing other people's IP in order to have something to index and put ads on top of.

[2] As my allusion to Mencken suggests, I really don't like populist arguments. But when defending the populists' jobs becomes "defending the oligarchs" I know I'm in some kind of bizarro world.

<comment><USER5> Well it depends on wether 1 company employing 100,000 people is better or 10,000 companies employing 10 each. Of course it's easier to represent the will of 1 vs the not-always-overlapping-voices of 10,000.

<comment><USER3> This is a good point, but remember the small business coalition is split. Congress sees some small businesses saying that troll lawsuits hinder their business, while others, particularly in capital-intensive areas like telecoms or medical devices, saying that patents give them protections from larger competitors and provide leverage in getting funding and or being acquired.

<comment><USER5> Very much agree. Which goes to my point that 10,000 companies with 10 employees each won't ever be able to speak with one voice/have one agenda or one opinion. Much easier to do with a 100,000 people mega corp ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every day, it becomes more apparent that our democracy has been thwarted and overrun with oligarchs and special interests. Each party is beholden to its own oligarchs and the best solution I see is term limits of some sort. Politics shouldn't be a career. Because it currently is a career, our politicians must cater to those who are their bosses. The people are no longer the boss and that is the core problem.

Even if this is an overreach that would "treat every patent holder as a patent troll" (a claim I find highly suspect), doing nothing has the effect of harming the very people that can move our economy forward, the innovators and entrepreneurs. When making a decision between a bill that helps this group versus trial lawyers, it's unfortunate that our leadership chooses the latter to protect.

<comment><USER7> Term limits won't do anything except cycle the politicians faster. There are two systems that need to be cut in DC to change the tenor.

The first is the cycle of government employees overseeing contracts and then going to work as lobbyists or employees for the people they were overseeing. Passing an amendment that says no government appointee or senior staff member can go work for any company they had contact with while holding the position for 5 or 10 years will end the first cycle.

The lobbyist / I need $ for reelection is harder. Some say only government funded campaigns, but I'm pretty sure I don't want the government's current parties making those rules and frankly it doesn't seem to help elsewhere. I am more for an amendment that says groups (corp or union) cannot contribute money to politicians / political parties. Both corporations and unions are gatherings of people and no more deserving of protection than the other. The biggest problem with all that is the news media is run by corporations and the ink is still going to be there. I'm afraid the second cycle is going to be with us for a long while.

<comment><USER8> That seems like it might have some negative effects on the pool of people willing to take those jobs.

One thing that would probably help but will never happen would be to figure out how to make committee chairs service positions that had less influence over the output of the committee than the other members.

<comment><USER7> > That seems like it might have some negative effects on the pool of people > willing to take those jobs.

Good. I think the people using these government jobs in this manner are the people we don't need overseeing those contracts.

<comment><USER8> I don't think you can make enough rules to stop the wrong sort of people. I guess I would prefer amending the overall process to make it less interesting to even try to exploit (rather than enumerating and banning a bunch of different ways of collecting the reward).

Also, a 10 year ban is worth negative hundreds of thousands of dollars to the sort of person that is competent and understands the field they are working in. That's a pretty big disincentive, never mind that 'government job' already sort of has a negative association for lots of motivated people.

<comment><USER7> I think two simple bans will have a huge effect on the corruption. I just don't see it as good for society that a competent person goes to work for the government in a management position then leaves for the private sector to work at a company they were managing contracts. I would rather the motivated people stay in the private sector in the first place and not see government as a stepping stone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The top story on their homepage is about how some Fox News anchor got arrested at an airport bar. I am not convinced that Mr. Reid will be fearing for his job as a result of this little stunt.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting to compare the Partnership for American Innovation with this list: [http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2014-03-12/offshore- pr...](http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2014-03-12/offshore-profits- avoid-irs-reach.html)

And, Apple and Microsoft have previously funded patent trolls (IV). And IBM has more than 50,000 patents and brings in over $1 billion annually in licensing revenue.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if the original framers of Constitutions around the world thought that one day the lawyers would ultimately rule public policy.

<comment><USER3> I don't know about around the world, but about two-thirds of the framers of the U.S. Constitution were lawyers. The rest were businessmen of some sort (counting owning large-scale farms as a business). Doesn't seem like an appreciable change in who sets the tone for public policy, although I think if anything the power has shifted more towards businessmen.

<comment><USER11> I wonder how that lawyer ratio has changed over the years with members of U.S. Congress. I'm guessing not a whole lot. Is it me or is the trial lawyer lobby the most powerful in Washington, D.C.?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's establishment politicians on both sides who receive massive lobbying efforts from big hollywood and the recording industry.

There is some young blood taking these issues seriously though: [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-party- of...](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-party-of- innovation/)

</comment><comment><USER13> "The bipartisan compromise on patents was headed for a markup on Thursday. But Leahy suddenly took it off the table after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) intervened at the last minute, according to multiple people close to the negotiations."

Would these be multiple Republican people? Kill the bill and blame it on Reid! Twofer!

Not saying its true, just awed by the credulity of some of the comments here.

<comment><USER14> That could work... if Reid was stupid. Stupid enough to be manipulated by the Republicans, and then stupid enough to just silently take the blame.

I don't think that Reid got where he is by being politically stupid. Therefore, I don't buy your scenario.

[Edit: I just re-read the parent, and realized the claim was that Republicans did the killing, not that they manipulated Reid into doing the killing. I still don't buy it.]

<comment><USER13> "[It was Reid's fault] say numerous sources".

I'm not saying he did it. I'm not saying he didn't do it. I'm saying the washington post reported unnamed sources said Reid did it.

I think that's a pretty low bar of evidence, is all I'm saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a small business owner, I applied for a patent that could protect my startup's key innovation. I am actually glad that the patent "reform" as shelved. IMO, it is a far bigger threat to small business patent holders that a tech industry giant would ignore / steal their IP, than to fall victim to a patent troll. If the proposed legislation goes through, simply trying to protect your own property could end up destroying you if you are forced to pay for the legal costs of the deep-pocketed industry player.

<comment><USER16> A patent is _nothing_ until it is tested in court; which is very expensive, patent reform or not.

<comment><USER17> But that's completely false isn't it, just like saying that copyright is nothing until it's tested in court?

There is absolutely a difference between a copyrighted image and a free to use image, even if I know the copyright holder is in no position to sue me. Likewise, there is a clear difference between someone's protected invention (if they have passed a very high bar over prior art, obviousness, etc) and the way the problem is always and usually solved. (If at all.)

I can respect a real patent just as easily as I can respect a copyright, and so it is hardly fair to say that a patent is _nothing_ until it is tested in court.

<comment><USER18> But we don't have a system in place that a lay person can use to distinguish between legitimate patents and illigitimate ones, do we?

<comment><USER17> Lay people can't infringe a patent even if you hand them the patent and ask them to create an infringement. Definition of lay. (i.e. if you can create something in the domain you are not lay.)

On the other hand, actual practitioners can use their judgment. The standard is supposed to be non-obvious to someone skilled in the art. For most patents, this is going to be fairly simple, just as most cases where we respect copyright are fairly simple.

<comment><USER18> Er, I meant laypeople relative to the field of Patent Law, not laypeople relative to the field of software engineering.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Monty Hall problem - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

<comment><USER2> Good topic, I posted my take on the Monty Hall problem on my blog: [http://jacobirw.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/the-monty-hall- prob...](http://jacobirw.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/the-monty-hall-problem- explained/)</comment>


Valve: Why the PC is the future - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=160866&page=1 <comment><USER2> my SAT-style summary of a major point:

total viewing minutes :: subscriptions and micro-transactions as page-views :: retail store sales

<comment><USER3> Actually, the SATs don't have analogies any more.

I was very disappointed to learn that.

Apparently the new SATs have a much lower correlation to IQ than the old one. They test 'school learning' (grammar, formulas, etc.) more than 'aptitude.'

<comment><USER4> After officially taking the test for the hell of it 4 times, the time when it actually counted (11th grade for me) they switched to the new format... I had _loved_ the analogies!

<comment><USER5> It would be fun to retake the SAT as an adult (not just online, going to the testing center and all), knowing that it doesn't matter at all to you.

<comment><USER3> I worked for a 'college prep course that shall not be named' for a while as a sophomore in college.

The paid us a fair amount of money to go back and take the SAT/ACT and memorize questions (they called it 'tapping'). I tried once, and I only scored 20 points higher than I did when in HS. Although, both were in the 99.9th percentile, so I suspect they were both within the margin of error of perfect though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>