America's top earners are Asian men - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/01/the-group-that-seriously-out-earns-white-men/?tid=pm_business_pop_b <comment><USER2> Asian immigrants are the top earners because they come from the top talent pool in their home countries.

If you are in India or China, you can not just board a plane to US. The best way to immigrate to US is to perform well in STEM education, then go to US for higher studies. Since it is difficult for them to get a US visa, most of the people who are able to go through the whole process are usually the top performers who work very hard.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand this "selection bias" argument at all. How is it that in all other countries in the World with a significant minority Asian population do Asians always top the rest with respect to earning? I'm sure not all countries in the World have as strict an immigration policy as the USA.

<comment><USER4> You're only accounting for one form of selection bias when in reality there are two.

The first form of selection bias is inside your country. If you don't already have status and wealth, then you won't even be able to overcome the cognitive/emotional load that's required to leave your country.

The second form of selection bias is when the Immigration Officer says yes or no.

The first form of selection bias is far more effective at weeding out the "low" earners and ensuring the top earners are pre-selected for immigration.

There is a third form of selection bias but that may not help with this conversation, and that's geographical. Crossing an ocean has historically been seen as riskier then crossing land, so that weeds out the risk averse.

<comment><USER3> These do not fall under "selection bias" when you take this article into context. According to the definition of "selection bias": "Selection bias is the selection of individuals, groups or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby ensuring that the sample obtained is not representative of the population intended to be analyzed."

> The first form of selection bias is inside your country. If you don't > already have status and wealth, then you won't even be able to overcome the > cognitive/emotional load that's required to leave your country.

But what you said doesn't reflect reality. Many of those who migrate to the US (or equivalent developed country) are either through scholarships/grants or already have a job offer. They do not have any sort of cognitive/emotional load. I'm sure every country allows a greater portion of immigration for competent people (irrespective of their social standing or economic stability) as opposed to those who have wealth/status and not contribute back to their society.

> The second form of selection bias is when the Immigration Officer says yes > or no.

How is this "selection bias" and how does it apply to the context of the article we are discussing?

> The first form of selection bias is far more effective at weeding out the > "low" earners and ensuring the top earners are pre-selected for immigration.

Why would a "top earner" want to go to the US if he is already a "top earner"? This makes no sense.

> There is a third form of selection bias but that may not help with this > conversation, and that's geographical. Crossing an ocean has historically > been seen as riskier then crossing land, so that weeds out the risk averse.

I think you are confusing the term "selection bias" as applied to this article with issues faced during immigration.

My question has nothing to do with the problems one faces during immigration. It has more to do with those who have already immigrated and earning substantially more than the natives (according to the article about 117% more). My question is why this gap between the immigrated vs the natives with respect to median income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The gap b/w Asian men and white men is the same as the gap b/w white men and white women.

Clearly the only explanation for this is institutionalized racism, gender bias and bigotry. Could you imagine affirmitive action covering white men to close the gap?

<comment><USER6> IIRC, The UC system has changed its admissions policies in a way that reduces the proportion of admissions based on the metrics that Asians do most well on:

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30393117/ns/us_news- life/t/asian-a...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30393117/ns/us_news-life/t/asian- americans-blast-uc-admissions-policy/)

A few decades ago, UC schools were investigated for allegedly being biased against Asians in admissions:

[http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-18/news/mn-452_1_uc- berk...](http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-18/news/mn-452_1_uc-berkeley)

<comment><USER7> In practice, many parts of the rhetoric of "diversity" and "inclusion" end up using the same tactics as the jewish quotas that were implemented a hundred years ago in the name of white supremacy.

Resentment and discrimination towards a successful minority is nothing new, only now the resentment is in the name of a rainbow coalition rather than just white people from western europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Despite the lack of content in the article, this post seems have to attracted a few comments. Before everyone comes in here with explanations of "oh it is because Asians work harder, are smarter, and have better culture" argument - thus not only further propagating the harmful model minority stereotype but also implying that certain other races aren't as smart or don't have 'good' culture - I'd like to propose it is simply because of socioeconomic status and selection effect.

Your adult income levels is heavily correlated to the socioeconomic status of the family you grew up in. Asian Americans have the highest average family income out of any major immigrant groups because Asia is a huge place with many wealthy and educated citizens who then decide to immigrate over to America. The selection effect comes from the fact that the people who do immigrate from Asia are usually either wealthy or well educated or both, because the lack of these factors prevent poorer families from doing so. These families then have higher than average socioeconomic status and their children go on to become well educated and get better paying jobs (1). As for why Asian Men are specifically higher earning, we still live in a non post gender world. For an example of institutionalized sexism in tech I would recommend this recent documentary that just came out (2). As a last point, income isn't everything. Asian Americans, though facing less severe issues than other minority groups in America, still have to deal with everyday issues such as the model minority stereotype or with being perceived as the perpetual foreigner.

(1) Education and Immigration - [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0745648320](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0745648320). This is a great read about how basically everything people associate with immigrants comes down to socioeconomic status.

(2) [http://www.codedocumentary.com/](http://www.codedocumentary.com/) \- Documentary about females and minorities or lack thereof in tech.

<comment><USER9> I'm afraid the 'asians are smarter, work harder and have better culture' makes a whole lot more sense.

Let's leave US and look at Asia instead - compare performance of Japan/Korea/Taiwan (can also through in Singapore and HK) and more recently China to other countries (Indonesia/Philippines/Malaysia/Thailand etc) post WW2. They all started out dirt poor yet some countries have made tremendous progress while others are still pretty undeveloped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh boy.

Asian Men in america are a anomaly. Its strong selective bias.

Open your borders to all of Asia an see what happens.

<comment><USER11> I wonder if they're counting the thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds?) of Asian men who work manual labor or the shipping industry in areas like Manhattan's Chinatown or Brooklyn's Sunset Park. Probably not as they're mostly likely paid under the table, but they'd skew results quite a bit.

<comment><USER12> Yet a disproportionate number of sons of daughters of these laborers are attending Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.

<comment><USER11> Yep, I am dating one :-) Well, she went to Brooklyn Tech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Out of curiosity, by Asian males, do they also include Indian men? It drives me crazy why Indians and people from other nationalities from the subcontinent do not get counted as "asians" in the US.

<comment><USER14> Interesting... subcontinent is definitely part of Asia, but I would have expected criticism the other direction, that "Asian" lumps together too many really distinct groups, not concern that it was not inclusive enough.

Hmong households have slightly lower median incomes than the total US population, for instance.[0]

[0] [http://www.hndinc.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/dlc/HND-Census- Report...](http://www.hndinc.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/dlc/HND-Census- Report-2013.pdf)

<comment><USER15> >" _that "Asian" lumps together too many really distinct groups_"

So does white/caucasian, and probably all the other race "colors" as well. I.e. They lump together many different geographically-isolated/defined peoples and cultures into one singular entity for simplicity. And then we're led to believe statistics that are somehow indicative of something regarding that "race".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From now on, I'm going to downvote any article that exploits shallow politics and clikbait titles. If the writer thinks his work needs such tricks to gain attention, it's not worth reading.

The article itself is very shallow, and compares people by skin color AND home continent. Apples and oranges. Except, 'Asian' is a whole casket of different fruits.

<comment><USER17> > 'Asian' is a whole casket of different fruits

White isn't?

Edit: ""White" refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race(s) as "White" or reported entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Arab, Moroccan or Caucasian."

"many of the ethnic groups classified as white by the U.S. Census, such as Jewish-Americans, Arab-Americans, and Hispanics or Latinos"

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> >> All groups trail white men in earnings — except Asian men. They made 117 percent of what white men earned in 2015:

Why not just say:

>> All groups trail asian men in earnings — They made 117 percent of what white men earned in 2015

<comment><USER19> Your version provides less information - it does not say that there are no other groups between Asian men and white men on earning scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As others have pointed out, Asians in America benefit from a sort of selection bias, if you're looking at East Asians whose families immigrated as doctors/academics/etc. Other Asian groups don't benefit as much, AFAIK. My own family came over as war refugees, which is a sort of survivor bias but not the same...it took me awhile to figure out why none of us kids were particularly great at school growing up.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you want break it down further Indian American's are the highest earning group in America. Probably because so Indian American especially 2nd generation one are doctors, dentists, etc.

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

</comment><comment><USER21> And suddenly 85% of the content of left leaning blogs and media is outdated :)

On a more serious note - lumping coastal white males and mid-country ones into a single group, while it is obvious that it is a bi-modal distribution is not properly conducted statistics.

It will be interesting to see white v asian male showdown by geographic areas and professions - and then you can claim outearning.

</comment><comment><USER22> Do they even out-earn people of Jewish descent? Honest question. I thought 10% of billionaires are Jewish, or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER23> It would be interesting to see the geographic distribution of Asian population in US. I assume that there aren't that many people of Asian descent in US and I'd expect they're mostly located in big cities. That would certainly affect the median income.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Keep this up and the villains on Lifetime will be Asian men instead of white men.

<comment><USER12> Yeah but that would involve being willing to cast Asian men in leading roles and romantic interests on TV and in movies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Spoiler: Asian males, who have higher IQs and commit less crime than white males, earn more than white males.

As no white male on HN has ever worked with an Asian male, this will of course be a total shock to all readers.

<comment><USER25> Quit trolling. You know its selection bias.

<comment><USER26> It's pretty well established that East Asians have significantly higher average IQs than Europeans. High IQ predicts low crime rate. Ashkenazi Jews and high-caste Indians are other examples of demographics with much higher IQs on average and also lower crime rate and higher average income. Selective immigration accounts for some of this but is not the whole story.

<comment><USER27> I'm sorry, but I've never heard this. Can you provide a source? IQ as a test has been criticized for cultural bias:

[http://wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceCulturalBias.ht...](http://wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceCulturalBias.html)

[http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2013/09/intelligence- testi...](http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2013/09/intelligence-testing- accurate-or.html?m=1)

Additionally, the very measure of IQ is based around the performance of the mean (where 100 is legged as standard)

How can groups be measured across race with a culturally biased test and NOT have the validity of the measure questioned?

I've got a lot of trouble believing there are any real studies that would make such a claim as you've made.

<comment><USER26> First, we have culture fair IQ tests. Raven's Progressive Matrices is entirely symbolic: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_MatricesIt's) very hard to see how it could be culturally biased, and if it is, why do Europeans do so poorly compared to Chinese and Japanese people?

Regarding differences in average IQ, Ashkenazi Jews are the most stark example. It is indisputable that they score roughly a standard deviation above gentiles:

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028960600033X)

[http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...](http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=458389&fileId=S0021932005027069)

Some claim this is purely cultural. But I think genetics is a much more parsimonious explanation. Ashkenazi Jews are about 2% of the population yet 22% of nobel prize winners are Ashkenazi:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence#Evidence_for_a_group_difference_in_intelligence) The difference in culture between secular jews and gentiles is just not enough to account for that.

Also note, I think acknowledging this fact prevents racism. Antisemites love pointing out that jews are overrepresented in many high status occupations, postulating crazy conspiracy theories for why this is the case. But once you acknowledge the IQ gap, we have an entirely benign explanation and it's evident that these conspiracy theories hold no water.

<comment><USER27> > First, we have culture fair IQ tests. Raven's Progressive Matrices is > entirely symbolic: > > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices..). > very hard to see how it could be culturally biased, and if it is, why do > Europeans do so poorly compared to Chinese and Japanese people?

So one hypothesis is that the test is unbiased and that Chinese & Japanese people have a higher IQ than Europeans?

Perhaps another hypothesis is that Kanji based languages with a high number of glyphs and characters gives a lifetime of practice to Chinese and Japanese people who are then more adept amd practised at specially rotating random or nonsense glyphs.

While the Ashkenazi Jews' IQ differences are interesting, your conclusions remain spurious and based on correlation & epidemiology.

One of the studies you cite for example examines a cohort of Jews who settles in Britain from Germany between 1908 and 1940. Wealth and connections could account for a massive "selection bias"

Additionally "high caste Indian" would also speak to other possible confounding variables.

For example: a very high socioeconomic status appears to be a common thread to all your examples which don't point to race as the dependent variable.

It's all interesting, but I'm not sure the interpretation you're presenting really stands up.

<comment><USER26> Raven's Progressive Matrices aren't really based on spacial rotation, but an interesting point. One thing we might look for to test this idea would be Raven's Matrices tests of illiterate Chinese farmers. They were developed in the late 30s, so it's possible such studies were done. Though we'd need to be wary of the Flynn effect.

We see similar IQ differences in Ashkenazi immigrants to America and Canada, and these differences have persisted over multiple generations. You would expect regression to the mean if it is purely a selection effect. Also, selection effects can't explain 27% of United States Nobel prize winners in the 20th century, 25% of Fields Medal winners, and 25% of ACM Turing Award winners, for obvious reasons. 10x overrepresentation isn't something selective immigration can explain when the the global Ashkenazi population is so small.

Wealth is tied with cognitive ability. Look at Jewish immigrants in the 1930s, most of them were extremely poor, but their children grew up to be disproportionately successful. Most people desire wealth. Intelligence is your ability to realize your desires. Intelligent people will tend to acquire more wealth than less intelligent people. As intelligence is highly heritable, this has class implications that can't be ignored.

<comment><USER28> Regarding Progressive Matrices, you could try comparing Japanese and Chinese, who use kanji; Koreans, who use hangul, which is derived from kanji; and Vietnamese, who use the Latin alphabet (albeit with a lot of diacritics).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Please change the clickbait title to "Asians are the top earners in USA now" or something.

<comment><USER30> That is the title though. We don't normally change titles when they are correct.

<comment><USER31> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

"Otherwise please use the original title, _unless it is misleading or linkbait_."

<comment><USER32> And sadly it seems like half of the titles these days are linkbait. And this article is from the Washington Post! We aren't even talking about nautilus or one of those sites.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Get better sleep – wake up fresh, fully charged - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/post/get-better-sleep-wake-up-fresh-fully-charged-73f6bffdea <comment><USER2> There's very little information here and not much of it scientific... I suppose someone giving their personal anecdote is fine, but I feel like this post severely lacks substance

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an experience rather than scientific. It worked for me.

There are many scientific posts about improving sleep, repeating a few common recommendations, which didn't help me.

I wanted to share something that not many people have talked about, and not repeating the common points like avoid caffeine x hours before sleep, keep low light, etc.</comment></comment>


Show HN: ReactJS – Select Component - <AUTHOR> https://codepen.io/mjunaidi/pen/WNNzaro <comment><USER2> I like that it automatically adds a filter for long lists but it's a pity it's not accessible via keyboard or for the visually impaired.</comment>


Show HN: Sschlib SSH Library for Java - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sschlib/sschlib <comment><AUTHOR> Ssclib is a pure Java implementation of SSH2. It is a fork of JSch from JCraft. Pull requests welcome!</comment>


Ask HN: What are you working on? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious to see what HNers are building/working on?<p>Particularly things in the consumer space. <comment><USER2> * A robot that does gymnastics. <http://fairlypre.posterous.com/robot-gymnastics> It's a final project for a class on computational control of nonlinear underactuated dynamical systems.

* A system that automatically finds features in fly embryos and spatially aligns them. Once they are spatially aligned, one can build a model of how they develop, and map those dynamics back to the properties of the genome that caused them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a product designer that does graphic and interface design and HTML/CSS. But lately I've really wanted to build something that _works_ , not just static stuff. So..

Installed node.js, the Express framework, and are now messing around in Jade templates. Also installed the mongodb driver via npm (node package manager), but have zero clue how to make a database and hooking it into my node app. Next step is to follow along a blog engine tutorial to learn some more.

<comment><USER4> If you don't want to grok SQL you can always try NoSQL which is basically (for most engines) documents made of key-value pairs in collections.

<comment><USER3> I'd need a really basic tutorial, how to do something (like a blog engine), with Node, Express and NoSQL. Do you know of anything like that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just released a new version of beets, an open-source CLI music management tool for nerds: <http://beets.radbox.org/>

It's supposed to be an extensible and fast alternative to iTunes, MusicBrainz Picard, and other tools. It's getting there.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm working on a Flight Simulator for Windows Phone 7.

It's a civilian Flight Sim, build in C# with XNA. I've been working on the PC version for 7 years as a side project...

Release in a couple of weeks if we get rid of the last few bugs in time.

</comment><comment><USER7> Making tablet computers the ultimate device for a kid:

 _Kongoroo_ (<http://www.kongoroo.com>)

This is the mvp but we will have a much nicer beta version in the coming weeks.

</comment><comment><USER8> Working on a domain management tool for entrepreneurs, especially the domains that you own but are not using for a startup (yet). <http://ParkedAvenue.com>

<comment><USER9> Love it, will be parking my unused domains there now.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, I appreciate the support!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Groupie (www.groupie.mobi), social network that connects people who share interests. Currently on the iPhone, building out the web portal over the coming weeks.50k+ users, 15k+ groups

</comment><comment><USER11> Well, let's see: \- <http://www.tether.com/> \- <http://www.compilr.com/> \- <http://www.wakeful.com/> \- <http://www.spyreveal.com/> \- And a video game!

Yes, I'm still sane...

<comment><USER12> Wow - 5 things at the same time... makes me reevaluate my lethargy not to start working on a second project at the same time... How do you cope working on 5 different things? Any project that gets time priority?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unscatter.com <http://www.unscatter.com> \- A search site (not engine) still in major product development. My TODO list includes simple things like fixing a bug for blekko searches that return 0 results throwing an error page, all the way to build a realtime engine using zeromq and multiple tornado parsing engines to dump into mongodb for the tornado front ends.

What it will likely be is a process of fix the bug, make a new logo (got a great idea for one), add more apis for the raw search, then get to real time processing.

I'm also considering trying to write a caching reverse proxy using tornado and zeromq ( or maybe make it an opportunity to teach myself erlang ) while on vacation to replace nginx. Mainly to keep my mind busy as I'll be in location where I don't think I'll have internet access. Seems like a good time to write a proxy and possibly learn a new language.

</comment><comment><USER14> <http://deftserver.org/> tornado clone running on the JVM using raw java nio

</comment><comment><USER15> A physically based renderer that will be able to calculate photosynthetically active radiation and usable radiation in aquariums. I'm into planted tanks. Currently I'm mostly programming the render part and decided that a stochastically progressive photon mapper is good enough and will make it easy to calculate the intensity and reflector efficiency and also get a photo realistic render of the tank. I'm using Java3D to grab/create the geometry and parts of pbrt in my own sppm-implementation. Here is the latest result: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/defdac/5513265646/>

Don't know if it is startup material though? It's a hobby but I would really love working with light calculations or combine my knowledge about plant physiology, electro magnetic radiation and graphics programming.

</comment><comment><USER16> A real-time chan/anonymous community. We want to explore the potential in the privacy aspect that it does have. Chans are known to be hard to break- even(server cost wise) and they look... bad/ugly.

So using node/socket.io and with a nice execution, in that "adventure" we want to create one that can scale cost-wise and basically own the market. We are developing a lot of cool features(and useful) and it's looking good now. Beta in july/august.

We want to change that narcissist/egocentric facebook culture that the web is built upon. Contributing to something and not getting credit for it is good. Altruism is awesome. We want to change the "crazy/sick" reputation that chans do have today.

<comment><USER17> That's a great idea, hope it goes well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm making a game for Android that's Tamagatchi meets the Sims meets Civilization. I'm using libgdx as the foundation and building off of there.

Initially the game will be available in two modes, "Challenge" and "Freebuild"; the challenge mode will be time-limited or resource-limited challenges to take your tribe through. The Freebuild mode will just let you grow your tribe in a set environment like a tamagotchi/sims game - get them foraging/hunting for food, building shelter, etc,.

Ultimately I want to add a third mode, "PvP" where you will play in a large world populated with other players and you'll need to cooperate and coexist or crush them depending upon your play style.

</comment><comment><USER19> Putting the real Multiple Listing Service back in the hands (literally) of real estate professionals and combining it with tools that helps them make sense of the real estate market. It's part listing syndication, analytics and social networking.

<comment><USER20> It's all politics and people desperate to keep their cushy desk jobs. If you're already coding, I'd recommend getting out there now to find your hurdles, because there will be A LOT of them.

<comment><USER19> This is _extremely_ true. It is all politics and there will be a lot of hurdles. It is what it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm working on an open-source framework, and a series of command line tools built on top of the framework, for symbolically manipulating context-free grammars, non-deterministic pushdown automata, and non-deterministic finite automata. All of it is implemented in C++. I have done some neat things like implement CFG production pattern matching using an EDSL that lets me express foreach loops in C++. I'm currently looking for people interested in contributing / using the code.

The project page is <http://www.grailplus.org>.

</comment><comment><USER22> Working with FAMiLab on creating a low cost sensor battery for classrooms as part of the Element-14 Great Global Hackerspace Challenge.

Otherwise, trying desperately to get out of a recent spout of burnout, loss of motivation, and chronic perfectionism. I have, arguably, one of the best job situations in the world right now but I'm not enjoying it. The work I do is just not profoundly satisfying, despite being able to do weeks of it in a couple hours with minimal error and rework. Taking suggestions on that if anyone has any.

<comment><USER23> I feel your pain in just about every respect. Having personal projects can help. From what others have said having a solid non-programming hobby and getting back some balance is a key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Interesting and somewhat related blog article: <http://heycarsten.com/employment-the-hard-parts/>

Also, another article i found really interesting on the topic: [http://gamasutra.com/blogs/JoelChristiansen/20110110/6763/Pa...](http://gamasutra.com/blogs/JoelChristiansen/20110110/6763/Path_of_the_Perfectionist.php)

<comment><USER22> Thanks. Hit me up off HN if you ever need someone to share your frustration. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am working on my start-up: <http://pagekite.net/>

PageKite aims to make it super-easy for people to self-host websites or other servers by solving all the problems caused by IP address shortages and unfriendly firewalls.

At the current early stage it's mostly useful for making prototype web apps or web designs visible to coworkers or customers without having to go through a deployment step, but there are numerous ways this could develop into a consumer product as it matures.

</comment><comment><USER25> Recently I've found twitter to be a drag because I'm following way too many people.

I want to start following less people so I'm writing a web app that will tell you who tweets the most out of the people you follow.

I'd have it finished but I was going around in circles trying to solve a problem that I just realized I don't really need to solve yet.

I keep thinking of other features I could add, such as who retweets the most and who talks to other people I follow the most which doesn't help.

<comment><USER26> Are you aware of <http://proxlet.com/> \- similar but not the same - trying to cut down "twitter noise"

<comment><USER25> I wasn't. Finding twitter apps is really difficult, I never know what to search for.

This looks interesting. I'm going to try this out. It may replace the need for my app but I'll be finishing it anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> We're building a new music discovery/sharing service for iOS and web (eventually Android too :). Features new songs in an HN-style ranking for each genre, with recommendations based on your saved favorites, and the ability to browse/share favorites between friends.

Our basic website is up, but we're still a couple months from launch and working with artists and labels now to get some initial content in place.

<http://www.band-o-rama.com/>

</comment><comment><USER28> <http://getrunrate.com>. Better double-entry bookkeeping software for small businesses. Collecting beta invites and validating features.

</comment><comment><USER29> Edit Room: <http://editroom.splatcollision.com>

Visual CSS Animation Design Web App, with pre-launch access to my development prototype. It's going to be the best way to build CSS animated websites! No more building keyframes by hand in a text editor, and no more web layout and design using desktop photo manipulation applications. Design and animate directly in the browser*

*requires CSS3 Animation support, for now...

</comment><comment><USER30> TweetHit (<http://www.tweethit.com>) - Tracking the most popular products on Twitter

And PerformanceEngine, the layered storage library (local instance cache, memcache,datastore) that powers TweetHit. (<https://github.com/ocanbascil/Performance-AppEngine>)

I'll probably submit it as a Show HN thread but until then, any early feedback would be helpful.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm learning Ruby and I'm working on an app that gives you email alerts on CrunchBase updates, my first taste of Rails. And I'm also working through SICP, albeit slowly.

I'm also waiting to get my Firefox add-on fully reviewed by Mozilla, which I built a while ago. Check it out, the Web Startup Toolbar - [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web- startup-t...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-startup- toolbar/)

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm trying to learn more about RoR and it's ecosystem by modifying the twitter example to be a neighborhood social network using GMaps, etc. It's a WIP with no effort put into the front-end yet ( <http://neckowoods.heroku.com> )

It seems that a _lot_ of folks have attempted to capture this space without anyone being dominant. If you'd like to help out with whatever, let me know :)

</comment><comment><USER33> Digital Signage with a focus on local events and information. It will be a centrally managed network of LCD TVs that are playing local news feeds, weather, realtime updateable ads. The host business will also be able to add content of their own. All of it is played back in glorious 1080. I'm also planning to incorporate SMS coupons and advertising as well.

My am installing my first display on Friday at the local bowling alley.

</comment><comment><USER34> "Which one will I buy"? How many times do you go though a review or read recommendations of someone before it gives you the final push to buy something? ... We are making a product + marking app based on consumers + twitter feed .. but not like others star rating product review.. people can see how many users are happy , sad , angry .. People's emotions with any product that can help you :)

<comment><USER35> The saying that a picture says more then a 1000 words is true. In our case our pie chart alone says more then 100 000 words if you look at reviews like of Twillight. Feel what 1500 reviwers on amazon felt in 1 button press and share this with your friends

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Dell Stage: <http://www.dell.com/us/p/stage/pd>

It's very much a consumer-facing product, built on technology somewhere between a game engine and Flash.

edit: Also working on learning Google Go and OpenCL in my spare time, as well as recovering from a burnout phase and trying to get my programming mojo back.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm helping build a new search interface and implementation for a casual game company based on Apache Lucene/Solr. I always wanted to participate in a Solr implementation, and I was really gratified to work on this project. I think marketing had given up on improving search, so this was a grassroots engineering effort that releases officially later this month.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm making an application for small businesses to select, edit and print their own gift certificates:

<http://www.giftcertificatefactory.com>

I'm spending an awful lot of time writing content as a SEO strategy. It does take time to climb up the ranks of Google but it's a worthwhile investment!

</comment><comment><USER37> We are building web iPhone & Android apps that consume and filter the social media content bars/restaurants are pushing. Ultimately we'll be combining this with a bunch of location based services, recommendations and group communications. --> <http://www.barbird.com> (also free on iPhone/Android)

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm working on an iphone/ipad app for kids. It's a silly thing just a coloring book but we're trying to make it better than anything else out there interface-wise and we're experimenting with in-app purchases and a bunch of other ios features. It's my first app that i've worked on from concept to execution so its pretty exciting to me.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm working on a new-car research site that's intended to make researching new-model-year vehicles suck less. Right now, it sucks. Sifting through MFR sites looking for info / styles / colors that set vehicles apart is time consuming and boring.

The site is <http://autoswatch.com>

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm building a SaaS offering to develop test data and validation tools for the ediscovery market. There are no mechanisms in place at present to show that an ediscovery process worked as expected. Courts require testing of all sorts of other processes that produce evidence, but not so ediscovery. We think we've got this solved.

</comment><comment><USER41> I posted it up here a few weeks back, but my current project is <http://resumatic.net/>

It's a(nother) online resume-hosting app influenced by about.me and such, with an emphasis on presentation and individuality. I hope. Basically, it's a pretty frontend for LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER42> I am working on my first RoR's page. We have 2 admins that post weather related questions, and users vote on which will option will be correct. monthly totals and question voter break downs, etc. I work for a weather company so this is a small, very niche website. But a fun way to get my hands dirty in Rails.

</comment><comment><USER43> I am working on an MVP for a staff scheduling application to help small-to- medium businesses schedule and communicate with their employees and I am looking for a collaborator or cofounder

See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2417022>

</comment><comment><USER44> Reading Bruner's "Toward a Theory of Instruction" and Piaget's "The Child's Conception of Number." Sawyer's "Vision in Elementary Mathematics" is next.

Trying to get over my distaste for Objective-C so I can translate some of these ideas to the iPad.

Teaching Scratch in Oakland.

</comment><comment><USER45> Work: Making www.iegallery.com more functional.

Personal project: Tinkering with the Emotiv headset & emokit's hack. ( <https://github.com/daeken/Emokit> ) (If there are any other emotiv hobbyists here, email me!)

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm working on a literature community, I have an alpha copy deployed at <http://beta.singleforest.com/> Not sure if I'm going to bother trying to make money off it. (It doesn't have ssl yet, so careful with your passwords)

</comment><comment><USER35> [http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_207474292616003...](http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_207474292616003&ap=1)

We as applicants have thought be cool to set up a FB Group to stay in touch. So click above and feel free to join

</comment><comment><USER47> Trying to figure out if a metagame is more important or transparency to increase competition and sharing.

Also trying to find vendors to sign up and create triviatisements (have 5 in the works).

Also adding stats for admins so we can see what people are actually doing

</comment><comment><USER48> Emulsion ( <http://emulsion.me> ), which will allow photographers to create beautiful, simple portfolios in about 15 minutes.

We felt someone needed to kill the slow, Flash slideshows everyone was using.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm currently working on my startup's first product, Interstate (www.interstateapp.com) :)

<comment><USER50> Let me help you there: <http://interstateapp.com>

It looks great and I can't wait it to try it out myself ( _hint_ ).

<comment><USER49> Thanks :) Hint understood and invite sent ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Hubski, a thoughtful content forum built on the HN code. Much more to do, but you can follow people and topics, and a bunch of other things. <http://hubski.com>

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm making a program that can take any common kind of file and convert it into any other kind. I find this is a fairly common need for people I know, but there isn't any good simple answer right now.

</comment><comment><USER53> A platform to address some of the most challenging problems in machine learning & artificial intelligence. Just started prototyping and don't want to be more specific at this point.

</comment><comment><USER54> <http://twitter.com/YCnews>

Tiny side project to get Hacker News over Twitter with comments. Click on a link in any tweet to see.

<comment><USER55> Neat work with the sidebar :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> A collection of core machine learning and natural language processing modules. I still have a gig for nearly two years, and am using spare time to gear up for my first startup ;).

</comment><comment><USER57> UpOut: Discover and share awesome things to do. Discover, post and follow stuff to do in your city.

<http://www.upout.com>

</comment><comment><USER58> I am working on <http://www.updatesitenow.com/> Updatesitenow helps you update your website using your phone.

</comment><comment><USER59> Working on <http://OneSong.me> \- an app that lets you describe your friends in one song, just like ThreeWords.me.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'm creating an ebook and software combo for computer/technology educators. Hoping to market it to school districts, but individual teachers as well.

</comment><comment><USER61> Fllix : <http://fllix.com> \- Browse, build and share the movies you have watched and want to watch.

</comment><comment><USER62> SaleLocator (<http://salelocator.com>) - A local retail sales aggregator and search engine.

<comment><USER55> Really cool idea! The homepage is immediately showing me sales around me. Will be using it more :)

<comment><USER62> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Researching and playing with different crowd sourcing options like Mechanical Turk to see what all I can use them for school, work and life.

</comment><comment><USER64> <http://mavenn.com> \- collectively monitor, share and discover information.

</comment><comment><USER65> im new to the hn forum; im building a website called Faceless, user-verified community posts, news, links, events aggregation. hopefully in real-time one day: here's the link to my little design work so far. <http://faceless.com/qa>; were going to launch to scu next week!

</comment><comment><USER17> <http://gethirely.com>, getting ready to open up soon.

</comment><comment><USER66> I'm working on solving how to make the Web serves families better.

</comment><comment><USER67> We are working on Ad Serving and advanced metrics tracking.

</comment><comment><USER68> a "classifieds" plugin for vanillaforums and a "motivational" ios app

</comment><comment><USER69> My next idea is one I'm going to work on for StartupWeekend.

It's killing me NOT working on it, but I don't want to 'cheat' by showing up with a previously-worked-on product.

<comment><USER13> Work on it. It's not cheating. There's a good chance that you'll walk in with the idea of working on it and end up working on something completely different. When I did the DC Startup Weekend I walked in with a product and then ended up getting an idea from a comment someone made, went up, pitched it and ended up with a team to work on that.

In the end we didn't win, primarily because we were told to keep the pitch down and then the didn't do questions and only comments. Most of the comments were about things that we did have answers for but didn't have time to mention in our pitch so... There's a lesson in there too :)

But if you have idea, work on it. In the end I'm back to working on the product I was working on before the event anyway.

<comment><USER69> You _may_ be right, but 1) if _feels_ like cheating and 2) I specifically asked the event organizer, and he said:

"you should really just be bringing your ideas and not a product-in- development."

So that's why I'm holding off. I mean, on the one hand, I'd happily commit to the idea, whether StartupWeekend was on or not, but since I'm going, and my team agrees that it's a great idea, I really want to see how far we can get in the time allotted.

<comment><USER13> Gotcha.. either way be prepared for a fun high stress no sleep weekend. It's great. One other hint I can give you, bring something you can tether to for internet. Not sure if it was just the location where it was held here, but I ended up tethering my phone to get to the internet because the attendees pretty much swamped the wireless network where we were at.

Oh and if Stephen Douglas is at your startup weekend, ask him to do a one handed keg stand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I'm in the preliminary research stages of building a series of stock tools that allow users to do arbitrary searches on the intarwebs and then correlate the data with historical price data on equities. I registered tinystocktools.com but nothing is up there yet as I'm just tinkering with what sort of free API's I have available to me at the moment before I start seriously building it.

There will be social aspects to it but I'm so tired of "social" being the main focus so it's definitely going to be more of a research/monitoring tool that begrudgingly lets you tap into your FB and twitter networks as part of it.

There will be a consumer-facing interface but I'd also like to create a nice streamlined API so people can leverage my platform as well.

<comment><USER71> So your tool correlates historical trends in search results with historical equity price trends?

<comment><USER70> That might be where it goes. I started out by looking at news alerts on stock charts and thinking that I'd like to be able to define my own search terms for certain equities instead of just looking for news stories that mention the company or the ticker symbol directly. If I actually manage to get something serious up and running it will eventually turn into more of a data-mining service.</comment></comment></comment>


A guess of new iPad Pro, what are you most looking forward to? - <AUTHOR> https://thingsreview.com/ipad-pro-rumors-2018.html#top <comment><USER2> Not much... If it had usb-c or an sd slot that'd be pretty neat, but instead I'm guessing it's going to lose the headphone jack.</comment>


Amazon echo next version - <AUTHOR> http://amazon-ec.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> Can there be any battery problems if i install KB on my phone, as it is always listening in the background for my command.</comment>


What the Tortoise Said to Achilles - <AUTHOR> https://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/HowManyAngels/Achilles.html <comment><USER2> Wrong title. The linked piece is called "What the Tortoise _should have_ said to Achilles." In this case in particular, this makes a huge difference.

<comment><USER3> Actually, the piece is called "What Achilles should have said to the Tortoise" still a big difference though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Come a little bit closer and I'll tell you. Come just a little bit closer still and I'll tell you..."

</comment><comment><USER5> The actual "original" by Lewis Carrol:

"What the Tortoise Said to Achilles," Mind 4, No. 14 (April 1895): 278-280

is available online, and should be read before the linked article:

[http://www.ditext.com/carroll/tortoise.html](http://www.ditext.com/carroll/tortoise.html)

 _Solvitur ambulando_

</comment><comment><USER6> In other words: you can hand someone a proof, but you can't force them to read it. If the tortoise is unwilling to tell you what exactly a proof must entail, then he's effectively not interested in being a rational agent who is compelled to agree to facts logically derived from premises.

</comment><comment><USER7> The logical conclusion of this is Achilles inventing tortoise soup.</comment>


AllThingsD parting ways with Dow Jones - <AUTHOR> http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/09/19/allthingsd-parting-ways-with-dow-jones/#!

<comment><USER2> Probably explains why they never put any love into the allthingsd app for ipad</comment>


How to Better Remember Spring and Resistance Equivalent Constant Formulas - <AUTHOR> https://abidsikder.com/blog/y-xp.html <comment><AUTHOR> I've been trying to improve my writing, so feedback on the clarity and style of my writing would be awesome, thank you!</comment>


NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

<comment><USER2> Wanted to take yet another opportunity to mention the nationwide Restore the Fourth demonstration _happening this week_. [http://restorethe4th.net](http://restorethe4th.net) I hope everyone reading this attends their local rally.

It also needs to be said that another leak is coming soon that details a program that collects/stores the _contents_ of 1 Billion cell phone calls every single day [1]. I submitted the link earlier but it got buried after only a few upvotes.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/greenwald-nsa-store-calls- eve...](http://www.businessinsider.com/greenwald-nsa-store-calls-every- day-2013-6)

<comment><USER3> These protests have not been well organized. From the outside it looks like a handful of Redditors who are thinking of hanging out together - and there seems to have been no PR or outreach to folks beyond Reddit. Most of the nation does not use Reddit.

My page for my New England city has nothing except a link to a conversation with half a dozen folks planning a preliminary meeting, with no follow up info posted. I could drive to Boston, but what's the point: the Boston group is only predicting an attendance of 40. I doubt it will get media coverage, and at that size I honestly hope it doesn't.

<comment><USER2> > I could drive to Boston, but what's the point: the Boston group is only > predicting an attendance of 40

This defeatist attitude is _why_ the predicted attendance is so low.

<comment><USER3> No, the predicted attendance is low because _no one has heard about this._

Only organizing among Redditors, not bothering to reach out to people with more experience organizing protests, and not partnering with affiliated organizations (Tea Party, Occupy, various student groups) who might all come together to rally around this is why predicted attendance is so low.

Update: Added first sentence to emphasize point.

<comment><USER2> And yet we have armchair critics like yourself declining to get involved and help out, opting instead to bicker and put down the efforts of people trying to actually make a difference.

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry this has devolved into a back and forth. I was trying to offer the perspective of someone who believes passionately about this issue and is looking for ways to get more active, but who cannot get excited about these protests in my area. I do hope there are bigger protests in other cities and they make some impact.

I believe we are both frustrated that more is not happening, and unfortunately that frustration is being directed at each other instead of the real issue. I do applaud your enthusiasm and stepping forward to help advertise this.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for your support :) Please don't take my direct tone personally, I've been following Greenwald's twitter a lot recently and emulating the way he responds to critics. Generally it's been very effective at rallying support but can tend to alienate folks who disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _The supervisor must endorse the analyst 's "reasonable belief," defined as 51 percent confidence, that the specified target is a foreign national who is overseas at the time of collection._

US citizens make up less than 50% of the world population. So given any target I can be more than 51% confident that they are not a US citizen, knowing nothing about the particular target whatsoever.

<comment><USER5> The 51% threshold sounds to me like something set by some manager(s) who didn't actually know anything about statistics or probability.

<comment><USER6> Yep. If all analysts would target addresses with exactly 51% confidence and no higher, and their confidence is the exact statistical probability they're foreign, that would mean 49% of targets are US citizens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the article:

"The program is court-approved but does not require individual warrants."

So does this mean that the number of government requests released by Facebook, Microsoft, etc. within the last few weeks are essentially meaningless in regards to PRISM and most likely other top secret government spying programs?

<comment><USER8> This was known prior to the PRISM disclosure; they're (most likely) referring to the FAA 702 process, in which a court certifies a target for which multiple directives may then be issued. The certification establishing the target is reviewed in the manner of a FISA warrant, but the individual directives that flow from the certification aren't. Certifications have a 1:many relationship with directives.

The reasonable expectation one would have about statistics released by (say) Yahoo pursuant to this process is that they would capture every _directive_ received by the provider, since providers don't get the certifications.

Just a quick reminder: the USG does not need and has never needed and probably will never need a warrant to spy on a foreign entity not on US soil. I'd be interested in hearing about any country that had a signals intelligence capability (Germany, France, Israel, UK, China, Japan, Brazil, &c) in which a warrant was required to conduct foreign intelligence.

<comment><USER9> > the USG does not need and has never needed and probably will never need a > warrant to spy on a foreign entity not on US soil

The older i get the more these artificial boundaries of nationalism bother me. Nationalism is cultural racism. I'm convinced that people will at one point look back on it the same negative way we perceive genetic racism today.

<comment><USER10> There is an internet generation gap here. It's more important to be a citizen of the world than any particular place, and more important to think about the influence of multinationals on government than to think about the influence of one country on foreign policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The FBI uses _government equipment on private company property_ to retrieve matching information from a participating company, such as Microsoft or Yahoo and pass it without further review to the NSA." (emphasis mine)

Is it just me or is this a fairly bold claim? I don't see anything about government equipment on private company property in the slides... wondering if this is additional testimony from Snowden, or info from supplementary docs that they haven't released.

Also: "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court does not review any individual collection request." Could I get some perspective on this statement? Is this as bad as it sounds? Or are they saying the court approves monitoring on an individual and doesn't need to give approval for every single collection request on that individual?

<comment><USER12> > I don't see anything about government equipment on private company property > in the slides.

Given the interface already laid out in what we knew about PRISM before, that's mostly an implementation detail. Maybe the company didn't want to have to send the data over the open Internet on their own (even encrypted) and wanted to pawn off that responsibility to the NSA?

I don't know where the info came from but I remember it being talked about when the news first leaked so it may have been sent by Snowden with the initial leak of slides.

I suppose the question is really how embedded into the company's subnet is the government equipment?

> The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court does not review any individual > collection request

Basically this part from the article introduction: "The program is court- approved but does not require individual warrants. Instead, it operates under a broader authorization from federal judges who oversee the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)".

Keep in mind this is where the US/non-US inequality is at its most severe. Almost the only reason the FISC really cares about this at all is to prevent monitoring of _American_ citizens in a way that violates the 4th Amendment. The program as constituted is less worried about ensuring the right person has their data collected as it is about ensuring that a U.S. citizen does not have their data collected.

So from that perspective such a warrant might appear rational on the part of the court.

That's admittedly a pretty large inequity between US and non-US persons but that's how the existing case law seems to approach it.

<comment><USER13> It's not just the companies listed here. It's the ISPs that provide the treasure trove. The closer you can get to the subscriber wherein they must pass only a handful of egress to upstream connectivity the better. I've personally seen one of the NSAs mobile enclosures of which we were feeding data via the Cisco law enforcement images. The provider I was working for at the time had about 250k subscribers and was 49% owned by Comcast. The enclosure the NSA gear was in was fully locked and encompasses in tamper tape on any panel you could potentially remove. The ironic thing, however, was it was sitting right at the front of the main data center door. Ballsy.

I can't wait until the documents come out showcasing the ties into carriers. I've been waiting years for that validation.

<comment><USER14> I was always wondering why the carriers enjoy such privileged monopoly positions (with it's price, service quality consequences). Deep cooperation with the NSA is a pretty logical reason.

In retrospect, the retroactive immunity thing should have been a hint...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _" On April 5, according to this slide, there were 117,675 active surveillance targets in PRISM's counterterrorism database. The slide does not show how many other Internet users, and among them how many Americans, have their communications collected "incidentally" during surveillance of those targets."_

I think something is inferred there that isn't necessarily true: there being 117,675 PRISM records does not necessarily refer to 117,675 different people being targeted. The slides imply that there would be two different records for the same person's Gmail account and their Facebook account. So the number of individual people being targeted would actually be a good amount less. Yes, still tens of thousands of people... but less that 117,675.

<comment><USER16> "targets in database" doesn't read as "PRISM case numbers" (to me). In fact, it sounds specifically different in order to indicate unique individuals.

But who really knows, I guess.

<comment><USER17> Part of the process is to unify targets across communications mechanisms. That number would very likely mean distinct "individuals," although it could include people using multiple accounts that had not yet been associated with the same person/group.

It's easier when you can associate IP addresses with multiple accounts, of course, but there are a lot of traits (and I'm sure NSA has more than I am aware of) that can be used as similarity metrics to create a probabilistic hierarchy of account agglomeration.

Throwing clique analysis into the mix, which is of course where the most important analysis goes, also helps establish the probability that multiple accounts may be controlled by one person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> grey-area When looking at these new slides with commentary, I find them hard to reconcile with the Google statements about access, but they're not completely contradictory. This line from the slides _commentary_ in particular is new (I wonder if it summarises other slides considered too compromising to reveal?):

Washington Post - _The FBI uses government equipment on private company property to retrieve matching information from a participating company_

The statements by Google seem to contradict this on first reading:

Larry Page - _" Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don't follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users' data are false, period. Until this week's reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users' call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users' Internet activity on such a scale is completely false."_

David Drummond - _" Now, what does happen is that we get specific requests from the government for user data. We review each of those requests and push back when the request is overly broad or doesn't follow the correct process. There is no free-for-all, no direct access, no indirect access, no back door, no drop box."_

The slides and accompanying commentary from the WP imply that these statements above are at best misleading and misdirection, but not necessarily untrue in a strict sense. There are various qualifiers and ambiguities in the Google statements which mean they could still be claimed to be true - the placement of the apostrophe on _users' data_ , which could be taken to mean all users as a plurality rather than just a few tens of thousand, the use of _broad_ , and _on such a scale_ to limit the denial to activities similar to those at Verizon which was reporting all activity. They may well not have heard of a PRISM program as there would be no reason to share the codename with them. Taken together those denials could be taken to be simply denials of participating in complete surveillance (with broad being defined as every single user) or giving access (in some limited sense) to their servers - I'm not sure they've ever denied access to data. The only thing which does puzzle me is that they've claimed their legal team reviews each and every request - that would be hard to do in an automated system or one in which the NSA has their own equipment, though perhaps they do it in bulk or retrospectively.

So these statements could be true in some limited sense, but it'd be nice if Google didn't feel the need to couch their denials in lawyerly evasions. The main reason they have to do this and cannot release more data is that they're not allowed to talk about these secret programs - that enforced secrecy is the most damaging thing here, both for Google and for public debate - we can't talk about them because they're secret, and neither the people affected, nor even the US Congress are given the facts to decide whether they even approve of this behaviour by the NSA/FBI, because the programs are secret. No-one can have a meaningful debate on these programs without more information.

</comment><comment><USER18> The way this is presented really isn't cool. If the Post has evidence to back their annotations, they should cite it or at least say it exists in other sources they have access to.

If the annotations are correct, they basically confirm the worst and most extreme interpretations people could come up with when this story broke. But there's no evidence presented in these slides, at all, to support the notes they've "helpfully" added. Where's this information coming from?

<comment> brown9-2 And why did they hold back these slides from the original story when some of the content is contradicting?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> They also posted a great diagram breaking down the process in simpler language:

[http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/inner- working...](http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/inner-workings-of- a-top-secret-spy-program/282/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Architecturally, it sounds remarkably similar to commercial social media monitoring platforms - not too surprising, since both are essentially about watching and searching the behavior of people around certain topics/groups/keywords.

Queries ('selectors') go in one end, are presumably translated into appropriate queries at each of the external 'data sources' (best-effort translation of the original selectors into whatever the source supports query- wise) and then the results are either alerted on in real-time (surveillance) or kept longer-term (stored comms).

Content returned varies on what the provider can support.

Finally there is a search interface on top (although it looks _very_ basic in this case - simple boolean AND/OR) to provide historic search over the data collected.

</comment><comment><USER21> Facebook blog: "Growing Beyond Regional Networks (June 2 2009)" [https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?topic_id=216284525139](https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?topic_id=216284525139)

Facebook joined PRISM on June 3, 2009.

</comment><comment><USER22> The Washington Post articles keep referring to companies/providers as "participating", but no where in the slides does it say that internet companies are knowingly participating. It seems very likely that the companies listed are unaware of the surveillance, and the dates listed are when the NSA was able to tap and decode their data streams. I would really like to see evidence that companies are knowingly participating, otherwise this may be defamation by the Post.

Tech: All the companies listed have multiple sites/datacenters. While they use SSL/TLS to encrypt client-server connections, they may not be using encryption to protect server-server connections. Most of the database replication systems don't use encryption by default. Companies use circuit switched connections between sites, they don't own the fiber between two datacenters. That fiber is owned by the big telco providers, and passes through equipment owned by the telco providers.

We know big telco providers like AT&T and Verizon are very willing to give the NSA access to _everything_ without putting up a fight. It seems very possible to me that the NSA is surveilling these companies without their knowledge.

For example it was reported that Dropbox was "coming soon" to PRISM. I don't believe for a second that Dropbox is knowingly giving access to the NSA. "Coming soon" may mean that the NSA has tapped Dropbox's communication, and they are working on decoding it, and converting it into a usable format for PRISM.

<comment><USER23> That's an unnecessary conspiracy theory. The companies all say that they comply with all legal orders, and secret FISA orders are legal. These slides all seem in line with what the CEOs and reps have said.

No one is denying PRISM exists, it just needs to be abolished, and all things like it should be subject to public scrutiny. Obviously it's not ineffective when it's not a secret, so there is no reason for secrecy.

<comment><USER22> > The companies all say that they comply with all legal orders, and secret > FISA orders are legal. These slides all seem in line with what the CEOs and > reps have said.

That's not true, the slides describe a system that receives a raw data flow and decodes it. Google and Facebook have both explicitly denied giving access or even receiving a request for blanket or bulk access. They both say the have only received requests for specific individuals, and every request is individually reviewed by their legal team.

<comment><USER24> Oh, well if the companies denied complying with an order they're not allowed to even disclose _the existence of_ , under penalty of treason, then that's the God's honest truth. Case closed.

There's nothing to see here, people. The participating companies are not actually participating at all, and a damage control press release is absolute, unquestionable confirmation of this fact. Nothing is more truthful than a press release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The old parts of the WaPo's notes don't seem to have been revised. For example, the 'PRISM' name probably doesn't have anything to do with fibre- optic taps, since the You Should Use Both slide indicates that the PRISM name refers only to the Web-company "direct collection" operation rather than the "upstream collection" from the network. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887627) (This Washington Post page still doesn't seem to have any mention of the You Should Use Both slide, probably for the bad reason that it was the Guardian's scoop.) Similarly, the Introduction slide seems to be mostly relevant to upstream collection rather than PRISM.

</comment><comment><USER26> The FBI as the conduit makes sense. They've got a very sophisticated set of private fiber connections to ISPs and phone companies.

So far as I can tell, this article from 2007 is the only comprehensive look at the FBI's private spy architecture.

[http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/08/wiretap?...](http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/08/wiretap?currentPage=all)

</comment><comment><USER27> One question I've been wondering about: did the NSA/gov't ever ask the operators of large webmail providers to _not_ deploy PGP/PKI?

</comment><comment><USER28> So why didn't Apple just take P9?

<comment><USER29> "Think different"?

These slides look to be from the same deck. I wonder if there are more yet to come.

<comment><USER30> Oh, I'm pretty sure there are.

And though I'm dying to know just how deep the rabbit hole is, I'm thankful that the slides are being steadily released. In today's world I guess that's the only way to grab attention and gain momentum.

<comment><USER17> It also helps eliminate the credibility of the government and its corporate collaborators when they disclaim participation based on subset x. When subset y, released the next week, points out that they were in fact aware, then the people who are exposed make stupid statements such as the lovely,"We don't spy on US citizens."

I'm wondering what this theatrical sleight of hand is keeping us from seeing elsewhere. We've probably invaded Iran or sent another trillion dollars to the banking industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> To me the most interesting thing about all this will be the level of integration between the systems and their ability to filter and record information, figuring out who is likely to have done/said/thought what (using very agressive machine learning algorithms) and tying that in to an email address as the key. There is no court order needed from an operative I'm certain to get my Internet history from the fibre optic side; why would they even need to bother requesting info from google etc. directly of they can just start filtering on certain cookies in real time. SSL might be difficult to break, but I can see that you could easily proxy SSL connections at the network level... Maybe someone can explain to me how a man in the middle attack against SSL can be prevented?

</comment><comment><USER32> What is interesting is the cost of the program is surprisingly low compared to their budget.

</comment><comment><USER33> From the last slide it appears M$ pretty much volunteered first, ahead of everybody else.

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting. Some insight, some contradiction and confusion especially when compared to earlier reportings on the first slides:

\- The "direct access" claim is replaced with "FBI interception unit" which is "government equipment on private company property to retrieve matching information from a participating company" that detail isn't mentioned in slides but provided in annotations.

\- The case format notation points to "real-time notification" when a target logs in or sends emails/IM/VOIP etc:

" _Depending on the provider_ , the NSA may receive live notifications when a target logs on or sends an e-mail, or may monitor a voice, text or voice chat as it happens (noted on the first slide as "Surveillance").

The "Depending on the provider" bit is interesting as it suggests that there are potentially different levels of "participation".

\- "On April 5, according to this slide, there were 117,675 active surveillance targets in PRISM's counterterrorism database." can a FISA order cover a target across service providers or each provider requires its own order? the number of targets could dramatically be revises downwards depending on that.

<comment><USER35> I would imagine that the "depending on the provider" bit has more to do with their existing infrastructure than participation per se. A live notification for when someone is on Facebook or even Google would probably be much easier to get (and more useful I suppose) than their iCloud sync.

Edit: Also note that Apple is a late addition on their graph and Microsoft is the first. Don't mean I think that says much about one versus the other, but if MS has been a provider since '07 they probably have much better access either through influence or better understanding than they do at Apple _at the time this was presented_.

<comment><USER34> Obviously there is plenty of room for speculation but what seems to emerge, at least as I see it, is that even the worst case scenario doesn't entail actual "direct access".

In the case of activity timestamps (which I'm sure legally don't get the same protection as content) they would be _sent_ by the companies to the FBI/NSA not have their actual servers monitored by them.

<comment><USER36> There's a line between the provider and the FBI. That linesis explained as pull, rather than push. That nuance notwithstanding, how is this _not_ direct access?

<comment><USER34> You want me to speculate about arrow direction?! alright, generally speaking the access is not "direct" because the "boxes" act as buffers. I can't say if they "pull" the boxes or they just serve subpoenas to them and get the data pushed back.

<comment><USER36> Quite the opposite - no speculation is required. The NSA has direct access. Any discussion that focuses on how is a discussion of semantics, and as such is of anecdotal interest.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A guy tweeted an ingenious hotel-room hack and Twitter responded with their own - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/guy-tweeted-an-ingenious-hotel-room-hack-twitter-responded-with-their-own/ <comment><USER2> Note that these are "life hacks" and "Twitter responded with" refers to Twitter users, not the company.

The trick in question is to use the clips in the hotel's coat hangers to keep the curtains shut. The others are:

* Block blinking lights with electrical tape.

* Avoid dry air by hanging a wet towel next to the heater.

* Get a free phone charger by asking at the front desk.

* Override the hotel thermostat. "[H]old down the thermostat's "display" button, then press the "off" button simultaneously. Keep holding the display button down, but let go of the off button and press the up arrow. Once you release all of the buttons, you'll have free rein of the temperature controls."

* Avoid the germs on the remote control by putting it in a plastic bag.

* Keep the power on without using your room key, by placing any other card in the slot (doesn't work everywhere).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is genius</comment>


A paper trail of betrayal: Google's net neutrality collapse - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/08/a-paper-trail-of-betrayal-googles-net-neutrality-collapse.ars

<comment><USER2> From a comment on the article.

"You can't absorb all those people from Microsoft and not get infected by the same mindset. ".

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this initiative were being driven by an "acquired" (set of) VP s. DoubleClick maybe? Sounds right up their alley.

<comment><USER3> Google's always done what's in its best interest - it's not like they were some pure entity that was contaminated by evil talent they acquired from somewhere else.

<comment><USER4> Actually, most of the criticism aimed at Google for this issue stems from the fact that they _do_ claim to be a pure entity by trumpeting "Don't be evil".

Most people are resigned to large corporations always acting in their self interest, but when you be claim to be non-evil and imply that you will do this regardless of self interest, any infarction, however minor, will be met with criticism.

<comment><USER5>
      infarct    - an area of dead tissue caused by a loss
                   of blood supply; a localized necrosis.
      infarction - the process which causes an infarct. [1]

I think you meant _infraction_ but infarction works too. :)

[1] <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/infarct>

<comment><USER4> Good catch. Firefox's auto-correct is still not smart enough to catch misused words :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What I think is missing from articles like this are clear suggestions on how else to compromise with telcos and the FCC. The latter party has already had significant trouble in their attempts to enforce neutrality, and telcos have fought it vigorously.

It seems clear that some sort of compromise was worth inspecting. Whether or not you agree with the Verizon/Google deal, it is worth criticizing it realistically (I thought the EFF's response is the best so far), rather than using charged language like "A paper trail of betrayal".

<comment><USER7> Why should there be any compromise with the telecos?

<comment><USER6> Why shouldn't there be?

<comment><USER8> Because their goal is to disadvantage internet properties they don't own or tax and turn the internet into something more like cable TV?

<comment><USER6> On the contrary, their goal is to make money for their shareholders. At this time, we are worried that they will do so by disadvantaging internet properties they don't own. But the answer to that doesn't _by neccessity_ mean that some reasonable compromise is a bad thing.

<comment><USER6> I have consistently argued that, although _I_ find these compromises entirely fair, that others are perfectly reasonable to challenge them on their merits.

In general, most of the criticisms that I have read start with the assumption that _any_ compromise is a bad thing, rather than addressing the _specifics_ of this proposal. Such thinking is an entirely unfair, and in many instances begs the question. (Google's compromises are evil because only evil companies compromise on this issue, because compromise is evil).

Far better critics (see the EFF's rational and reasonable critique of the policy proposal) are being drowned out by the extremists, and, as a result, I suspect they are going to marginalize themselves and (tragically) their more reasonable peers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One thing that came to my mind (and bear in mind that I don't live in the US, so I might not know all the facts):

IMHO wired network neutrality is in fact more important than wireless because, I have a feeling that while you are free to chose a wireless carrier that doesn't do the kind of filtering you don't want, that's plain impossible in many wired cases.

One thing is sure: If your wireless provider begins to, say, block YouTube because they want to push their own video service, then there will _for_ sure be another wireless provider that lists not blocking youtube as a distinct feature, trying to get all these youtube users as customers.

In the majority of areas, there's more than one provider that provides wireless connectivity.

But the landline is different.

Sure you have analog phone everywhere, but that's not really "internet". Is it? If you want broadband, you have one or at most two carriers to chose from, both usually with a very hight business interest to cripple various services on the internet (Youtube for example) and knowing full well that they would get away with that because there are no options (and building them is prohibitively expensive or even impossible depending on the country - if you wanted to lay yet another cable through rural areas here in Switzerland, you'd be blocked for ages by various legal issues).

From this perspective I can understand Google's motivation there: Promise neutrality where there is no competition and allow the wireless carriers to provide the quality of service they need and even allow them to do selective blocking of services because in the wireless space there at least is _some_ competition.

<comment> loup-vaillant The facts contradict you, at least here in France.

Here, we have 3 major carriers. None gives you a public IP, and each block most ports (except http, pop3 and such —smtp is blocked, of course). They may have _Web_ neutrality, but _Net_ neutrality is a distant dream.

On the land line, however, you have your public IP, and some providers don't even block smtp. The situation there is much better. Even if you take the low bandwidth into account.

I can't how this will evolve, but for now, the emergency seems to be the wireless.

<comment><USER9> the wireless carriers here in switzerland also don't provide you with a public IP - at least depending on your location. I think this has more technical reasons than anything else.

The three carriers we can chose from are strangely (and probably illegally - the state is looking into this) similar to each other, but all of them don't make any effort in traffic shaping or controlling.

OTOH, they are pretty expensive for what they provide. When AT&T in the US added that 2 GB cap, I was sighing and looking at my 250MB cap.

Sure, other carriers have better deals (better as in "cheaper bandwidth" but worse coverage), but you basically can't get more then 1GB for a reasonable price.

Aside of that though, they don't care how you use the service they provide.

Not having a public IP I can live with. Paying so much for data is annoying, but if that's the way for them to provide me with unfiltered and unconstrained net access, then I'm fine with that.

Hell, the word "tethering" wasn't even a word here before the iPhone came around - hooking up your notebook to your phone has always been possible (and encouraged - see prices and caps).

<comment> loup-vaillant > Not having a public IP I can live with

You do realize that it forbids your phone (or the computer you tether) to be a server, right? That means you can't receive calls over IP without the need for a third party, for instance.

So I'd say they do care about how you use their service. They wouldn't want to give you the means of destroying their busyness model, now do they?

<comment><USER9> I am perfectly well able to receive SIP calls over that private IP. Sure. You do need STUN, but honestly, I have a feeling that it's ever so much easier to do correct roaming between cell towers with those internal IPs which is likely the reason for this configuration.

<comment> loup-vaillant I don't know how roaming is supposed to work, but I'd be very surprised if your feeling was grounded. Here's why:

(1) You keep the same phone number, wherever you are.

(2) Calls don' end even when you move.

Which means they can keep track of state, and link that state to your phone. Id' be very surprised if the same kind of mechanism couldn't be use on IP technology. My bet is, they do: have you ever noticed having to constantly reconnect when you drive in a well covered area? If not, that most probably mean that they keep track of the NAT table associated to your phone, and of course your private IP. In that case, I can't fathom why they couldn't do the same with a pubic IP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is much ado about nothing. What's more evil: using compromise and negotiation as a means to move the situation incrementally in your desired direction, or sacrificing practical success just to maintain an unyielding commitment to ideology?

<comment><USER11> In what way does the stated agreement move the situation incrementally forward?

Google certainly claims that it's compromise to improve the current situation, but I don't see a single proposal that doesn't have gigantic exemptions, exceptions and loopholes.

<comment><USER12> Having Verizon agree to the consumer protections are a move forward. They are the only telco to have so agreed, and several others have violated them.

<comment><USER11> They've always agreed that the consumer needs to be protected. All the ISPs have. They've just disagreed with the FCC on: 1\. how to protect them 2\. who to protect them from 3\. who decides what's good and bad.

Their previous position was: 1\. trust us with QoS 2\. bad users/apps 3\. the ISP itself

Their new position is: 1\. trust us with QoS 2\. bad users/apps 3\. a consortium of ISPs

Which is worse, if anything. Previously they were pushing an edge-network QoS strategy position that could be countered by competition.

Now they're pushing a position of de-facto collusion across the industry, to implement their brand of QoS end-to-end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing I don't get is, what would be wrong if Verizon decided to prioritize VoIP packets as a group. That's a good thing. What about video content, also a good thing. These are the things that Google I believe is talking about in the exceptions.

That is not to say Verizon would do any of this properly but I still thing net neutrality must take into consideration that not all internet traffic have the same needs.

<comment><USER14> > I still thing net neutrality must take into consideration that not all > internet traffic have the same needs.

How do you know the needs of different internet traffic?

For example, how do you know that a given video stream "needs" higher priority than a given of e-mail? Yes, I'm aware that video is disrupted by jitter and e-mail isn't, but that doesn't tell you anything about the "needs" of specific content.

For example, do you really think that chatroulette "needs" priority over e-mail telling someone how to defuse a bomb?

<comment><USER15> Exactly, my cable ISP is Cox and they have been traffic shaping for years. That means my neighbor's PornTube traffic already has priority over my FTP session to a clients server.

        Its underlying traffic shaping method: at times of congestion,
        all "time-sensitive" traffic – which it defines to include Web pages,
        voice calls, streaming video, VPN tunneling and games – would not be
        delayed. However, less time-sensitive traffic, including FTP transfers,
        network storage, P2P, software updates and Usenet groups, could be.

[http://connectedplanetonline.com/residential_services/news/c...](http://connectedplanetonline.com/residential_services/news/cox- traffic-shaping-method-0128/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why would Google want to put the United States at such a disadvatage?

<comment><USER17> Because corporations are legally obligated to operate in their shareholders best interest. Not to be Captain America.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but what about when the shareholders are also mostly Americans? Big corporations tend to operate in their stock's best interest, and this can still cause serious problems for their shareholders.

<comment><USER19> > _Big corporations tend to operate in their stock's best interest, and this > can still cause serious problems for their shareholders._

Erm, what? This seems contradictory on its face. The shareholder's only interest in a company is its stock performance, be it stock price or dividend payments. What sort of tendencies are you thinking of, here?

<comment><USER20> > The shareholder's only interest in a company is its stock performance,

I think this is where you and he differ.

For instance, I'm a Microsoft shareholder. (2 shares, but still...) Many Microsoft decisions since the mid-90s (when I first started holding MSFT) have made life overall worse for me, even if they may have increased the value of the stock I held.

<comment><USER19> > _Many Microsoft decisions since the mid-90s (when I first started holding > MSFT) have made life overall worse for me_

That has nothing to do with your being a shareholder.

<comment><USER20> You're right. There's no causation there... but that doesn't mean it still doesn't affect me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I keep coming back to this from Wired - "Openness in the mobile market is no longer in Google's best interest"

</comment><comment><USER22> isn't verizon's LTE network bound by Google's neutrality conditions from the auction?

</comment><comment><USER23> From a comment there:

It seems like everyone forgot the meaning of words like "negotiation", "compromise" and "unbinding-agreement", other tech companies weren't fighting with Google for net neutrality, in fact they left them to handle the teleco fury on their own, and now that they have got some sort of agreement on the subject people are ignoring the good bits and feel that Google owes them something, which is ridiculous.

<comment><USER24> I think the anti-google anger arrises because many people didn't expect Google to compromise on something that Google, previously, gave the impression of being so important.

<comment><USER25> Expecting them to be able to get away without any compromise is naive. They are a company, not the supreme ruler.

Thus I fall back on my grandma's old adage; a good compromise leaves nobody happy.

<comment><USER26> So how unhappy are the wireless companies?</comment></comment></comment></comment>