Apple – Live – September 2014 Special Event - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept-event/ <comment><USER2> First no video, then constant mixing between the TV Truck schedule, a video of the crowd, a video of the presentation screen showing the apple logo, a message showing apple copyright.

Refreshed a few times, got 'access denied to server' page a few times. Then got video with Chinese translations talking over the presenter. Then it suddenly stopped, I pressed 'resume' to get the TV truck schedule again.

On an iPad.

<comment><USER3> A whole bunch of people don't have a job in the morning.

<comment><USER4> Or maybe a whole bunch of people don't live in the same time zone as you.

<comment><USER5> ??? I think the parent's implication is that people will lose their jobs tomorrow morning, because of today's poor production.

<comment><USER4> Okay, I might have misread. From where I come from, when people watch something, say en Apple show, instead of working we say "some don't have work". That's what I misunderstood. I also assumed (wrongly ? I haven't checked) it was in California which meant it was morning already.

The parents say "don't" not "will not". Even though there are trouble I very much doubt people are fired on the spot, they're too busy fixing it. But sure, some might. Later, in the future.

Anyway, the comment was out of line an the downvotes deserves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Summary:

2 new iPhone models: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. iPhone 6 is 4.7", iPhone 6 Plus is 5.5". Power button on right side. A8 chip - 13% smaller chip, 25% faster CPU, 50% faster GPU, 50% more energy efficient than A7. Battery a little better on the iPhone 6; iPhone 6 Plus has amazing battery life. VoLTE (Voice over LTE) - make calls over LTE internet instead of using minutes. Camera is still 8MP...

YouTube video stream is working: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxCbIjAg6mg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxCbIjAg6mg)

<comment><USER7> > VoLTE (Voice over LTE) - make calls over LTE internet instead of using > minutes.

That's would have been a killer feature if it had occurred when smartphones were new enough that providers were selling plans with limited call minutes and unlimited data, but now that virtually every carrier has smartphone plans that are unlimited phone minutes/unlimited text and limited data with surcharges for data overages, who is looking to move from using voice minutes to using data?

<comment><USER6> This could be a significant feature if one can make international calls for free.

<comment><USER8> I doubt VoLTE will make any practical difference in day-to-day usage, unless carriers allow customers to default to a custom SIP/IMS registrar -- which won't happen for a long time. Calls (signaling) are still routed through the carrier[1], and your carrier still has to interconnect with the other end. While most backbones have been all-IP for a long time, the copper/cellular last mile is still mostly circuit-switched, even more so internationally.

[1] I'd be very surprised if VoLTE traffic, including media, was sent over the public Internet at the same QoS as the rest of your data. Voice-over-LTE is a nice technical achievement -- IIRC reliability was very difficult to ensure, especially during 3G/2G handoff -- but to consumers, VoLTE means nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm watching it using VLC. Media > Open Network Stream... > Paste this link:

[http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pijnadfpv...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pijnadfpvkjnfvpijhabdfvpijbadfv09/m3u8/atv_mvp.m3u8)

<comment><USER10> Works just as bad. Actually managed to crash VLC somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Right now i'm at:

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "[http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept- event/"](http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept-event/") on this server. Reference #18.2d2f0660.1410283131.13b065e3

<comment><USER12> Right now there's no even access to apple.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone else seeing the TV Truck schedule instead of the keynote right now?

<comment><USER14> Ok, got video, but am getting the Chinese Translator speaking over Tim Cook. I can barely hear him.

<comment><USER15> Getting audio of the Chinese Translator over Tim, but no video. "Watching" via Apple TV...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it just me or the iWatch "looks" really ugly, at least when compared with Moto 360 which looks beautiful. iWatch may win out on functionality and user experience etc., but it just looks funky.

<comment><USER17> The crazy part is the Gold 'Edition' Version. It's not like a Swiss watch, which is sold to be passed on to new generations, since your children won't be happy to get such outdated tech. What will they do with old Gold versions? Smelt them?

<comment><USER18> Regarding the watch to be 'passed on to new generations', this is well worth reading:

[http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/11/luxury_branding_the_f...](http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/11/luxury_branding_the_future_lea.html)

<comment><USER17> Thanks! Great insight into how watch marketing works...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This website says that live streaming requires OS X or iOS.

Why would they only allow already-customers to watch their presentation?

Locking out non-customers seems not the best way to get some.

<comment><USER20> They probably use [https://developer.apple.com/streaming/](https://developer.apple.com/streaming/) , an HTTP streaming mechanism that's implemented by Safari that didn't get adopted by any other browser.

<comment><USER14> Ever since Apple originated consumer computer video with Quicktime back in the early 1990s, they've done a great deal to make it better, first for CD Roms and in a proprietary fashion. But when the net came around they opened up their proprietary format to become a standard-- the Mpeg4 file format is the old MOV format. They've also proposed a lot of improvements along these lines for other people to adopt.

Like Bonjour, I really don't understand why other companies don't adopt these open standards. They don't benefit Apple particularly. It's not like Apple has some competitive advantage in HTTP Live Streaming. Meanwhile these competitors rush to copy everything else Apple does.

Frankly, I think its appalling that youtube, for instance, is still running on flash. How many years ago did they first trial MP4 streaming? Why I can't I access all the videos over MP4?

Why would you want your browser to be bad at streaming video?

<comment><USER21> Serious question: what is the state of the art for in-browser live streaming to date ?

Twitch, Google Hangouts, any "live" sport event what protocol/technology do they use ?

A mix of HLS and flash ?

<comment><USER22> Twitch uses HLS with a Flash front end. No idea about the others.

HLS is nice because it doesn't require any new servers or protocols -- it uses vanilla HTTP, and can be served up by basically any web server. As a result, it's much easier to make it work with a CDN.

<comment><USER21> Thanks.

I guess the reason of having such poor support outside Apple browsers, despite the benefits, has to do with licensing issues and the complications of embedding ads, as someone pointed out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm getting older, so maybe my desires don't match up with the majority of tech people's anymore, but does anyone really _want_ an iWatch (or whatever it ends up being called)? I am just not sold on the usefulness of such a thing.

<comment><USER24> Many moons ago I ran a research study for Microsoft on their SPOT watch initiative, and despite countless focus groups among many different consumer audiences, absolutely no one wanted a smart watch. Granted, their smart watch had some fairly large deficiencies due to the lack of mobile tech infrastructure available at the time.

I'm very intrigued to see if Apple can pull it off...

<comment><USER25> That's the weird thing about fashion, which is precisely what this is. If Apple can make this thing fashionable so that people want to show it off, it will take off.

It's incredibly hard to predict whether they will succeed or not (although after the fact most people will say what happened was incredibly obvious beforehand). They'll bomb or they'll take off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Solid black screen for me. Now, I have video, but why in gods name is there a Chinese translation?

Wow, this is an utter failure. Now video is skipping around.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Sorry, your browser doesn't support our live video stream."

My browser supports live video just fine. It's -your- streaming software that lacks support for my browser.

This illustrates why I never have, and never will own a Apple product.

<comment><USER28> It's really ludicrous to be this picky about browsers when you're trying to reach new customers. I presume that Apple want to market to people who aren't Apple users already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> ApplePay: I do this every day and have been doing this every day for the last year with my Android phone in Australia!

 _edit_ Admittedly the integration of all different types of cards with Passbook is good stuff!

<comment><USER30> Exactly. I do it in the US with Google Wallet + NFC chip in my phone.

It's very surreal to see all the fanboys lose their shit in the audience as if this is a brand new technology.

Edit: Would have been nice if you could pay with the Watch instead of pulling out the phone

<comment><USER31> > It's very surreal to see all the fanboys lose their shit in the audience as > if this is a brand new technology.

That's pretty disingenuous. Everyone knows NFC exists, they're probably just happy it's finally coming to _their_ platform of choice.

> Edit: Would have been nice if you could pay with the Watch instead of > pulling out the phone

You can!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The video started for me a few minutes ago, anyone else notice that there seems to be two songs playing in the background at once?

<comment><USER33> I'm guessing that the mics are picking up the hall music, and some technician had instructions to play background music on the web feed.

<comment><USER32> Sounds right, I just heard a voice over the PA system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Restricting this to Safari only? Fuck you Apple. I'm on a god damned Macbook.

<comment><USER34> I hope this isn't a sign of things to come, they really seem to be clamping down on third-party competitors on their platforms.

<comment><USER35> I'm not even sure what the strategical advantage of limiting the stream in the first place. People who can't access it still want information about Apple, and often resort to 3rd party blogs, or someone else streaming the stream. I understand why apple has a closed door stance on technology, but limiting people from participating in a live event about Apple seems foolish and with no obvious benefit

<comment><USER36> Reduce server load?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Lessons so far: fragmentation is only bad when it's a criticism you can apply to other people.

EDIT: Additionally, losing Steve Jobs really was as damaging as many feared then.

</comment><comment><USER38> Apple.com/ has been redirecting to apple.com/live for about ~20 hours now. They're very confident about what's about to be presented.

<comment><USER39> They've been using a '301 MOVED PERMANENTLY' redirect, meaning they are extra serious about this.

<comment><USER40> Correct me if I'm wrong. IIRC, there isn't a status code for temporary moved *with a timeout. If you use 307, it means the browser will always still check the original apple.com first, then get redirected to apple.com/live. Using 301 would make browser go to apple.com/live directly which improves response time. When the event is finished, they can do a 301 on apple.com/live back to apple.com to overwrite the rule.

<comment><USER41> 302 is a temporary redirect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Well someone's going to get fired after this is over. What complete shambles so far.

</comment><comment><USER33> As far as live feeds go, this is one of the biggest screwups I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER43> Lest anyone blame local networks or non-Apple hardware for the streaming problems:

I was on IRC with other iOS developers viewing the streaming using Safari on Apple hardware with fully updated software all around (I know these people), in different parts of the US, people working at different companies, using different, very fast, geographically diverse networks, and all of us were seeing the same catastrophic problems at the same times: a mix of simultaneous multiple audio streams sometimes in sync, sometimes slightly out of sync, stopping and starting video, truck schedules for 5-10 seconds every minute or so, English over Chinese, audio temporarily resetting to beginning of stream while another track of audio continued at the current position superimposed over the let's-start-over audio, access denied errors, pause/continue buttons not working, refresh not working.. this went on for at least 40 full minutes as the problems started before the broadcast and didn't stop until after 30 minutes. And no, we were NOT madly hitting Refresh or pause/restart all the time, although we did try invoking them a few times and calmly waiting, usually to little avail.

I want to emphasize that when I saw a TV truck schedule on my screen in San Francisco, at that very same moment my buddies in other parts of the country started seeing the TV truck schedule on their screens as well. If we can say one thing for this broadcast, it is that the screwups were very well synchronized for many if not all viewers.

The mind boggles as to why the didn't have someone dedicated to be listening to a dog food channel of their own stream on a remote network, and report the problems back earlier, and whether they did or not, why they couldn't fix it sooner.

</comment><comment><USER44> Wall Street is going to be disappointed if there's no Singularity.

</comment><comment><USER45> Wow, they're going all out for this one. Lots of new things they haven't done in past keynotes. Can't wait to see what they show off.

<comment><USER46> Gruber has a spot on wrap-up: [http://daringfireball.net/2014/09/prelude](http://daringfireball.net/2014/09/prelude)

<comment><USER47> How can it be a wrap-up, or judged to be spot-on in advance of any actual confirmed facts?

I'll admit he's probably mostly prescient, but we won't know for another hour or two.

<comment><USER46> We'll see after the event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Yes apple, I want to buy your products! Why? Well, because you showed such engineering prowess with your streaming service, that I am sure you know what you're doing!

</comment><comment><USER49> Can anyone see this right now? My video is seriously messed up. I have both VLC and Safari running the stream. It's freezing, jumping around from the iPhone 6 release back to the beginning video. The audio is a combination of glitches, Chinese, and skipping english.

</comment><comment><USER50> How can I watch this on windows if I don't have Quicktime installed?

<comment><USER51> Even better, use VLC: [http://9to5mac.com/community/how-to-stream-apples- sept-9-iph...](http://9to5mac.com/community/how-to-stream-apples- sept-9-iphone-6iwatch-event-on-windows/)

<comment><USER52> Dead

EDIT: Nvm it worked after waiting for a couple minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Call me dull, but I'm looking forward for a new iMac 27". Apple recently renewed the 21" version, but I'm just waiting for a new 27" to come out.

<comment><USER54> The new iMac 27" should have a nice 5120x2880 screen. That would sure justify the hype.

But I bet we'll just get a 4.7" iPhone, Apple catching up to where Samsung has been for three long years now with a medium sized phone instead of a tiny chiclet. (I love the chiclet, but bigger would be better.)

And we'll probably get another lousy "smart" watch that needs charging every day and doesn't do anything you can't do by pulling out your phone for a second. Maybe fanatic runners like Apple's CEO will find it almost as useful as a fuelband or fitbit.

 _Note_ : Downvoters really hate the idea of a retina iMac.

<comment><USER14> Do you think Apple's been desperately saying to itself for the past 3 years "gee, I wish we had the technology to make a larger phone!"

<comment><USER54> Everybody knows the future of technology is bigger everything. Just look at the giant iPadds on Star Trek.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Anyone hearing Chinese commentary?

<comment><USER56> Yeah I am. This stream is also super low quality… what is going on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am hearing Tim Cook and some Chinese translation in the back.

Go figure.

<comment><USER57> Yes, super annoying!

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Pretty sad, on my iPad I had it for a while first with the Chinese translation and then that faded out, then the video stopped but the 'live blog' updates kept going, and then Safari crashed. And now three versions: access denied, a plain text non-stylized page, safari crash.

Amazing that this isn't a solved problem by now.

</comment><comment><USER45> Guess: The building outside is actually a stage where Dre will perform.

<comment><USER59> Announcing Apple Records and iLabel. They will also announce their first album to be Detox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Question that I didn't hear addressed anywhere in the talk or online yet.

Will the NFC capability be exposed to third party apps through the SDK in any way?

I'm curious because they started talking about the apps for iWatch right after talking about its features, but they didn't discuss NFC in any other context but its use via Apple Pay.

What do you all think?

</comment><comment><USER61> I can't watch any of the video (using Chrome) so I'm just watching the live updates on the website instead with bullet points...which is apparently a lot more useful than the video feed. 200 comments and nobody is discussing the technology, what a shame after all that build-up.

Anyway the new iPhone looks more like a Samsung in terms of size, screen resolution etc. but presumably with a significant Apple technical edge. It seems like a really beautiful product, and I say that as someone who doesn't care for Apple's stuff in general.

I'm sad that the launch of multiple new products is being overshadowed by the clusterfuck of the presentation, but it's a great example of execution > ideas that will probably be taught in business schools for years to come :-/

<comment><USER62> The hardware decisions of the iPhone 6 (and especially 6 plus) closely follow what Android manufacturers have been doing for years.

<comment><USER63> Mostly but not quite. The iPhone 6 is still low res (720p-ish) compared to top tier Android phones (Galaxy S4 from last year is 1080p). The only HD iPhone is the iPhone 6 Plus, but that starts at $750.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> People will get used to iPhone6 size, though many of iPhone5 users will feel like unfarily forgotten. I was betting on iPhone6 being same size as 5s and another on just a tad larger - I was wrong.

Apple Watch does not bring anything exceptional to wrist devices world, though overall functionality and UX is much better than those of Android. It's just an accessory for iPhone. One thing they got right - wristwatch is personal, so it should be able to be made look personal and different.

I can't say much about Apple Pay. Payments via iPhone look nice (fingerprint as authorization method) but paying via Watch just does not look very secure to me - how are you going to add that one factor? Also, it's another proprietary way of paying for stuff, which just does not feel right...

</comment><comment><USER65> The livestream of this event, both browser and Apple TV access, is an unmitigated disaster. I'm not sure I've ever seen something go _this_ poorly, and I'm certain I've never seen an Apple event go this poorly.

</comment><comment><USER66> I was really hoping the watch would be able to track gps for runs without needing an iphone. Am i supposed to wear the watch and then still have my iphone in my hand when I go for a run? Terrible user experience.

</comment><comment><USER67> OUCH! This is on a MacBook Pro running Safari:

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "[http://www.apple.com/"](http://www.apple.com/") on this server.

Reference #18.342f0660.1410282543.baf7bd

<comment><USER68> Server quirk.

<comment><USER69> I think Akamai is dropping the ball today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> quite a disgrace for a tech company of this size: either a black screen, an access denied error, stalling stream with a chinese (?) voice over…

but hey, the iphone 6 has rounded corners! B|

</comment><comment><USER71> This article explains pretty well what went wrong with the stream. It wasn't Akamai, it was Apple. The interactive JSON-based elements that had on their page prevented it from being cached which resulted in the issues we were seeing. [http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/09/why-apples- livestream...](http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/09/why-apples-livestream- failed.html)

</comment><comment><USER72> Aaand japanese translations ???

<comment><USER73> It sounds like Chinese to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Is anyone else getting Chinese crosstalk on the audio?

<comment><USER74> Yes it's incredibly distracting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Who wants to see the mac mini revived? ;)

<comment><USER14> Apple has a pattern before keynotes where they push out the less glamorous products. They keep them ready to go in the keynote in case something happens with a glamorous announcement they have filler. But when they are confident that they can announce the next iPhone, or whatever, they push out the minor rev of the iMac or whatever.

I'm worried. This is the machine I want to buy next. A modern mac mini would be ideal.

They should have shipped one early this year but didn't. That's ok, the mac pro took a lot of resources and is a major redesign.

So, then the next expected time is last week.

So, either the Mac Mini is significant enough to talk about today (with two phones and an alleged watch? that seems doubtful)... or it might be effectively cancelled.

<comment><USER76> Or they decided to skip Haswell, and are now waiting on Broadwell, which is substantially delayed. I'd say a Mini early next year might be a good bet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Are the top comments really about the livestream problems and not about what they released? [http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/9/6125873/apple-watch- smartwa...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/9/6125873/apple-watch-smartwatch- announced)

<comment><USER70> well yes, this thread was / is actually about that…

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> For those not able to see the video, text updates [here]([http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2fwmcl/apple_special_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2fwmcl/apple_special_event_9914_live_updates/))

</comment><comment><USER79> I'm getting

"You don't have permission to access "[http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept- event/"](http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept-event/") on this server. Reference #18.520fd717.1410283069.16b78ac2"

How come?

</comment><comment><USER80> Gizmodo's live blog here has been working well for me: [http://live.gizmodo.com/our-new-iphone-liveblog-starts- right...](http://live.gizmodo.com/our-new-iphone-liveblog-starts-right-here- on-9-9-at-1pm-1629704968)

</comment><comment><USER81> This site has the most and best comments on the disaster by Apple. I am a fan of Apple and use many of there products. To my disappointment I was not able to hear or watch any of the broadcast. I agree with many of the comments...fire the bad guys!

</comment><comment><USER82> Apple's web site has a curated set of "live" posts giving details. [http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept- event/](http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept-event/)

<comment><USER82> These highlights (with pictures) are coming in real-time and save the bother of trying to watch video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Off by 1 error in the new Fitness app. Apparently you can be 101% done with a run.

</comment><comment><USER84> Direct stream for VLC:

[http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pijnadfpv...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pijnadfpvkjnfvpijhabdfvpijbadfv09/m3u8/atv_mvp.m3u8)

</comment><comment><USER69> Now redirecting directly to cdn (akamai) at [http://www.apple.com.edgesuite.net/live/2014-sept- event/](http://www.apple.com.edgesuite.net/live/2014-sept-event/)

</comment><comment><USER85> Does anyone know whose network is delivering the streams? Is it Akamai?

<comment><USER86> One of the links posted to the stream is hosted on p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net and a little googling shows that Edgesuite is an Akamai product.

</comment></comment><comment> shawn-butler The translation voiceover is pretty distracting.

Not sure what Apple is trying to do.

</comment><comment><USER87> Little onions love to disco. With Chinese translations. And the TV Truck. Maybe they have an augmented reality product coming? Bringing back the rainbow logo? This is terrible.

</comment><comment><USER88> I like working and having the text feed. I use:

[http://www.macrumors.com/](http://www.macrumors.com/) feed of the event. It autorefreshes which is nice.

</comment><comment><USER89> Reddit live link [https://www.reddit.com/live/tjm08vw836vc](https://www.reddit.com/live/tjm08vw836vc)

</comment><comment><USER90> hahah.. from all videos player i think apple video player sucks!!. I hate that.. not to say Apple event last night (MY time). I think youtube or google services are better video player. hmm.. why apple always wanted to create and use their own video player but they denide to develop it. I cannot play video in some websites. Sucks!!! Apple should change this. BTW Im apple fan though.

</comment><comment><USER91> Oh good, charts with no Y axis. How informative.

[http://i.imgur.com/4UZk0MH.png](http://i.imgur.com/4UZk0MH.png)

<comment><USER92> I like how there is a trend line that interpolates between different iphone generations. That's probably meaningful somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> WOW their streaming choices here have made me loose another notch of respect for apple WTF, safari only? This is 2014 apple grow up.

<comment><USER94> This has always been the case. Either setup VLC so http live streaming (which is JUST a m3u playlist of mp4 files that get downloaded in succession) or install safari.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> tl;dr: they made a bigger phone and a watch

</comment><comment><USER96> Can anyone recall if iOS goes GM / public release on the day of this? Or do we have to wait a week?

<comment><USER97> iOS major versions are usually released soon after the actual phone is released, so still another week or two to wait.

<comment><USER96> That rings a bell - thank you. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> So the smart money is on:

\- iWatch with less features, possibly just tracks your every move and becomes part of quantified self

\- a new record label or Dre inspired mood

\- two new iPhones

Possibly some or all put back till they are perfect.

Is this a correct reading of what has to be a record 150 HN posts in five minutes flat?

</comment><comment><USER73> Yay! The Chinese translation has stopped!! It took only 26 minutes to achieve this.

I hope someone gets fired for these goofs. I expected better from Apple.

</comment><comment><USER99> getting translators for...mandarin? korean? over the sound of tim cook...

</comment><comment><USER100> How much will an unlocked version be of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+? If you buy full price from Tmobile.

</comment><comment><USER101> This presentation looks like it's going to be on another level.. even for Apple standards.

</comment><comment><USER102> Any chance we can keep all Apple discussion on HN contained in this thread?

<comment><USER54> Half the stories on the front page will be Apple stories within the next two hours.

The ranking algorithm will drop them off soon enough. Maybe the time coefficient should be stronger for days like today, though.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "Maybe the time coefficient should be stronger for days like today, though."

I disagree. The reason the front page becomes full of Apple is because Apple launches all their stuff at once. There are only maybe 2 or 3 times a year that Apple releases new stuff. The discussions of these things are important. They shouldn't be penalised for happening at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> Can't wait to see the new iPhone 6, time to change my old iPhone 4 :)

</comment><comment><USER104> [Off-Topic]: The 12:44 pic might as well be a Starbucks ad (8:44 PDT)

</comment><comment><USER105> I'm getting an access denied page trying to refresh the stream

</comment><comment><USER106> The live stream is a disaster. Anyone experiences a homepaga crash?

</comment><comment><USER107> did anyone catch if apple devices can do peer-to-peer payments via apple pay? (e.g., one phone acting as a reader, à la square, another as payer)

</comment><comment><USER108> Wow they seriously messed this one up.

</comment><comment><USER109> iBeats smart headphones with voice-only UI. "Wish we could say more".

</comment><comment><USER110> whats up with the Chinese translations?

</comment><comment><USER111> seventeen songs at once are playing

</comment><comment><USER112> anyone else getting access denied?

</comment><comment><USER111> why am i getting bars

</comment><comment><USER112> now no audio?

</comment><comment><USER113> I wonder if they started working on the bigger iPhones while airing this ad.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY4c2mh15Yk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY4c2mh15Yk)

The new "reachability" feature is an interesting way to try to minimize the problem though, if a little cumbersome.

</comment><comment><USER46> Honestly very excited about this... very excited.

</comment><comment><USER114> Getting 'Access Denied' now

</comment><comment><USER115> WTF per minute world record just got smashed to peaces

</comment><comment><USER116> Get it together, jeesh.

</comment><comment><USER117> I can't believe I'm actually tuning in to watch this.

<comment><USER111> so silly, could really make or break my opinion of apple's future

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> Streaming seems to be better from the iPad than the Mac... weird

</comment><comment><USER100> The timer doesn't display for me. Is this happening with anyone else?

</comment><comment><USER119> The new iPhone 6000 SUX. Big is back! Because Bigger is Better! (c.f. robocop)

<comment><USER119> Maybe you all are too young to remember the 6000 SUX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> "Our live broadcast begins at 10 a.m. PDT."

Considering that the entire world uses GMT, and that _only_ US citizens use PDT, they could have bothered to use GMT.

Or better still, they could have detected your location/system time and just put a countdown or your own local time.

<comment><USER121> Uhmm, did you not notice that HUGE countdown timer? That pretty much covers entire world.

And, no, whole world doesn't use GMT (talk to Indians and Chinese about what time they use). Also, entire US doesn't use PDT time. You know, some people live on east coast.

<comment><USER120> > Uhmm, did you not notice that HUGE countdown timer? That pretty much covers > entire world.

It want's there when I visited. :-(

> And, no, whole world doesn't use GMT (talk to Indians and Chinese about what > time they use). Also, entire US doesn't use PDT time. You know, some people > live on east coast.

But they must most certainly know their GMT offset, since it's the worldwide reference.</comment></comment></comment>


Secure Boot in the Era of the T2 - <AUTHOR> https://duo.com/labs/research/secure-boot-in-the-era-of-the-t2 <comment><USER2> > Apple should be lauded for trying to bring their laptop and desktop lines > into the same defensive posture as their mobile offerings.

I think this can't be stated enough. The fact of the matter is that pre T2, evil maid attacks were ridiculously easy. Now they're at least as secure as iOS -- which also means that shared vulnerabilities can be patched and detected. By no means is it perfect security, but it's a heck of a lot better than "stick boot disk in and gain keys to the kingdom."

For so long we've gone by the mantra that physical access means you have root. Now we're a step ahead of that -- which is great for data privacy.

<comment><USER3> _which is great for data privacy._

...and absolutely horrible for freedom. It used to be the case, and still widely accepted for a lot of other products, that physical ownership actually meant something beyond just being a consumer. Now companies are turning the security against users, lest they also be attackers. From the point of view of the DRM-advocating media corporations, the user _is_ an attacker. Locking down the platform to allow only "trusted" (not by _you_ , but by _them_!) code only benefits when their goals align with yours; you may agree with them on not wanting things like ransomware, but not on things like them not allowing you to share a file between two apps or even run code you wrote yourself.

It's scarier than any security attack to see what used to be an open and free platform turned into a walled garden of corporate control and obedience.

(Insert famous Benjamin Franklin quote.)

<comment><USER4> > _It used to be the case, and still widely accepted for a lot of other > products, that physical ownership actually meant something beyond just being > a consumer._

It still does. The only thing is we've distinguished physical ownership and mere physical possession.

It is a _feature_ that if I leave my personal laptop at my desk at work while using the bathroom, my IT department can't rootkit it. It is an _improvement to my freedom_ \- both my computing freedom and my physical freedom - if I can leave a laptop in my hotel room while seeing tourist sights. It _protects me from the government_ if a border control agent looking through my bag, or a cop who's seized my laptop, can't get in. (The iPhone is an existence proof that such defense against the government is possible, and it's weird that the usually pro-personal-liberty free software crowd hasn't decided that a free software implementation of the same thing is critically important.)

Of course software freedom requires access control. My freedom over my possessions involves other people's lack of freedom over my possessions. I can't make sure my computer is running the code I want it to if everyone else can make my computer run the code they want it to. This control is essential liberty; pretending that anyone with physical access is an owner because it's easier than crypto and key management has been decades of temporary convenience, and I'm glad it's coming to an end.

I can turn secure boot on and off with an admin password, which I set when I first booted the machine because that's what demonstrates physical ownership and not mere possession. (And systems that don't permit me to do so, like Microsoft or Apple ARM devices, are in fact an affront to software freedom.) But nobody else can.

<comment><USER5> Even if you turn secure boot off you cannot grant for love or any amount of money permission for software of your choosing to access the built in storage which is pretty much required for normal people to be able to run software of their choosing on the machine.

Few people will buy equivalent external ssd storage for 300-500 and carry it around with them to have access to a second OS.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that they will ever act to increase your ownership of your own device and every reason to believe that you will ultimately have about the same privileges as someone using their employers machine at work while being expected to fall full freight.

It's especially bemusing when you understand that evil maid is almost nonexistent in reality while your actual loss of freedom has real effects now.

<comment><USER4> What software of your choice have you attempted to use, where did it fail, and what's the stack trace?

Given that Windows works, it's hard to believe that any issues accessing internal storage are a result of permissions. It just sounds like nobody's implemented Linux support for the hardware. Why don't you?

If you're not able to either spend time writing a driver or hiring someone to do so, you have no meaningful ability to exercise your software freedom. You might be lucky if someone else implements support; you might not. But that's always been true.

<comment><USER6> Windows works on the new MacBook not because it has special drivers for NVMe- via-T2 but because Apple trusts Microsoft's EFI key.

So no, stop it with all this "Linux works if you just disable Secure Boot" nonsense. It doesn't. You can run Linux from a USB key, sure, but it can't access the internal NVMe SSD!

<comment><USER7> Judging by this post:

[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/479544](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/479544)

It looks like some kind of driver issue, not an intentional lockout.

To corroborate this, while I don't have personal experience running Linux on T2 devices, I do know it's possible to build xnu from source and boot the resulting unsigned kernel (in "No Security" mode) without the disk disappearing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > We believe the T2 platform is a leap forward in platform security in the > Apple ecosystem, and it begins to bring exciting security properties like > Secure Boot capabilities to the mass market.

So the vast PC-market with UEFI secure boot which predates this by 6 year was somehow _not_ the "mass market", but the relatively tiny MacBook market is?

With factual errors like this present already in the introduction, it's hard to take anything which follows it seriously.

This just comes off like fanboy-fluff.

<comment> X-Istence You are missing the bigger picture in your attempt to immediately discard the original articles premise because you feel like it comes off as fanboy-fluff.

No other device on the market currently provides a secondary processor that runs full validation of the UEFI firmware before allowing the processor to start booting.

It's not just secure boot, which has been around for a while, it's everything around it.

On almost all other devices you could write new data to a flash chip and that now becomes the UEFI boot loader that is used (and can bypass secure boot). There is no verification of the UEFI boatloader that is possible because it's sitting in NVRAM or Flash... and you can't trust it to self-verify because it may have been tampered with.

<comment><USER8> > On almost all other devices you could write new data to a flash chip and > that now becomes the UEFI boot loader that is used (and can bypass secure > boot).

Let me see if I understand you completely.

What you're saying that if an attacker is willing to physically dismantle the machine, he can then, using SPI-flasher HW, replace the UEFI firmware on the machine with a custom UEFI firmware which does not enforce secure-boot...

And thus the machine's security is compromised?

If so, let me just state my _opinion_ : If that's the kind of attacker you are trying to protect against, no matter of security measures is going to keep you fully secure.

And if we're going down that lane: what prevents an attacker this sophisticated from doing the same with the T2-chip's firmware?

What Apple offers with the T2 chip, for most people, has almost zero value, while providing lots of drawbacks over traditional UEFI Secure Boot.

This is all about Apple extending their platform lock-in to no longer only apply to mobile and tablet-space, but also to their traditional computer-line of products.

There's nothing noble being done here. It's just a plain-in-sight money-grab.

<comment> X-Istence > What you're saying that if an attacker is willing to physically dismantle > the machine, he can then, using SPI-flasher HW, replace the UEFI firmware on > the machine with a custom UEFI firmware which does not enforce secure- > boot...

Yeah, that's kind of the classic evil maid attack, and it is not unheard of for various spy agencies to dismantle devices to gain access or install bugs.

> If that's the kind of attacker you are trying to protect against

That is exactly what the T2 chip is designed to protect against, and more.

The T2 chip also runs all of the encryption/decryption for the integrated storage, this way all data on the flash is encrypted at all times.

I can imagine that the T2 chip over time will be able to do much more to help provide extra verification and security to the device and help keep users safe.

> And if we're going down that lane: what prevents an attacker this > sophisticated from doing the same with the T2-chip's firmware?

Because the firmware on the T2 chip is signed and the way the chip is designed the only way to get firmware on it is to decap it because it is stored internal to the chip itself.

With your stock standard x86 motherboard that is not the case because the firmware is loaded from an unencrypted and unverified flash chip.

> What Apple offers with the T2 chip, for most people, has almost zero value

We'll have to agree to disagree, because the T2 chip also does full line-rate encryption/decryption of the storage with no OS involvement at all. This means if your laptop falls in the wrong hands, now people can't get at the data even by reading directly from the flash chips.

\----

You are the one that claimed that the article was fanboy-fluff, I just described a feature that no other machine has... and you immediately consider it a money-grab rather than something to laud Apple for. Yet SecureBoot is good enough? Why not keep improving upon the status quo? Why not make it easier for people to keep their data private and secure?

It's all about defense in depth, and Apple added one more depth to their platform.

<comment><USER8> > Because the firmware on the T2 chip is signed

So is pretty much all UEFI firmware too though. It may not be encrypted, but it is certainly verified. Feel free to ask the Coreboot people about details here.

> We'll have to agree to disagree, because the T2 chip also does full line- > rate encryption/decryption of the storage with no OS involvement at all.

But for people who has been using BitLocker or LUKS transparently (because it's built into the OS) for half a decade+, there are absolutely zero new things offered, and no visible improvements offered.

The only effective change is restrictions in end-user freedom.

> Yet SecureBoot is good enough? Why not keep improving upon the status quo? > Why not make it easier for people to keep their data private and secure?

If a security feature which can easily be implemented (securely) in the OS is moved to firmware, I could be willing to consider that a good thing, but not it comes at the cost of end-user freedom.

And here it certainly does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article reinforces my disappointment in Apple. First they use an Apple variant of Intel EFI 1.10 forever, even well passed the time UEFI incorporated Secure Boot. Instead of writing up a critique and proposal to fix any problems/limitations with UEFI Secure Boot, Apple has to go do a damned proprietary thing. Again.

Also, the latest Macs do not contain the Microsoft UEFI signing key, only the Microsoft Windows and Applel signing keys. So the only way to boot Linux is to disable Secure Boot, leaving people less secure.

</comment><comment> sudo-i Does this have any bearing on running linux on macbooks?

<comment><USER8> > Does this have any bearing on running linux on macbooks

Unlike on PCs, on T2 Macs Linux will only be bootable with Secure boot disabled making the system much less secure.

To make matters worse, the T2 chip administers access to the built in SSD, so it will be completely inaccessible for Linux to use for anything.

When Apple stops supporting this machine, you won't be able to keep it chugging by loading another OS.

I could say Apple is trying to _terminate_ the only remaining computing platform which respects end-user freedom and ownership, but I'm not sure if it would be a joke or not...

<comment><USER10> > the T2 chip administers access to the built in SSD, so it will be completely > inaccessible for Linux to use for anything.

This isn't true. You can install Linux on this, providing you disable Secure Boot. You can't currently access the SSD, but that's more the result of a driver not existing than it being inherently disallowed.

<comment><USER11> > You can't currently access the SSD, but that's more the result of a driver > not existing than it being inherently disallowed.

That's not clear yet. There is a NVMe driver available in Linux which works fine with pre-T2 Macs. On T2 Macs however the whole platform resets a few seconds after initializing the NVMe controller. The question is: Is that a bug in the driver or NVMe implementation of the T2 chip or something Apple does intentionally?

<comment> X-Istence Let's not attribute to malice what can easily be attributed to incompetence.

<comment><USER12> In a chip that has "secure" in its name, it's quite likely that a sudden system shutdown is intentional..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The T2 does so much, essentially running an OS comparable to iOS. The author even suggests it might allow apps.

It doesn't seem like it's a gain in security. Instead of attacking the "main system", you can just attack the T2; it's similar in complexity, meaning it will have similar vulnerabilities.

<comment><USER14> Try pulling data off my iPhone with physical access. Now, try pulling data off a pre-T2 Mac. The T2 brings many security improvements to the Mac.

<comment><USER13> It's not because of the T2 though - it's because of the Secure Enclave holding the keys for disk encryption and firmware/kernel signatures.

They might have bundled them together, but the layer around the secure part is just another system - it doesn't make anything more secure. All it's functions could have been taken up by the main system.

The only possible security win is by making BridgeOS simpler and less likely to have vulnerabilities.

<comment><USER15> I'd still say it's a net gain overall†, although the Great Bundling is questionable and definitely concerning in terms of attack surface, yet the synergies when finding and _fixing_ vulnerabilities should not be taken lightly.

† It's overall a good thing evil maid/law enforcement/whatever doesn't get to have trivial access to the user's device anymore.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


PingMergency aim to fix the public safety hazard in calling 911 in a cell phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.pingmergency.com/

<comment><USER2> Honestly, I have no idea how the situation is in the US, but here in Germany 112 operators automatically get precise location info for landline phones and best-available-quality pinpointing for cellphones.</comment>


How Fortran Was Developed - <AUTHOR> http://cycle-gap.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-fortran-was-developed.html

<comment><USER2> The paper by Backus to which this post links is one I had not seen before. I read through the whole thing, and it struck me instantly as a classic which every hacker here should read. It is surely one of the best things Backus ever wrote.

Interspersed among long-obsolete technical details are gems of insight about software and programming languages that are worth their weight in gold. The final paragraphs articulate Backus' critique of "Von Neumann languages" in a way that even his (much better known) masterpiece on FP doesn't achieve.

I had no idea that, prior to Fortran I, the very possibility of a workable compiler had already been widely rejected as impossible because of grandiose claims made by vendors. In other words, vaporware is older than high-level languages.

And behind the dry academic tone one gets a feel for the the brilliant design work, all-night debugging sessions and camaraderie of one of the greatest teams of all time - as well as, to judge by his consistently humble self- effacement, one of the greatest team leaders.

So to the chorus of chicken littles incessantly bemoaning the decline of Hacker News, now's your chance to redeem yourself: shut up and read this paper!

<comment><USER3> Would have passed over it if not for your comment.

Read, worthwhile, archived. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the problems FORTRAN was trying to solve (from Backus's paper): "The cost of programmers associated with a computer center was usually at least as great as the cost of the computer itself." Interesting how things change; the ratio would be more like 100:1 now.</comment>


Re-creating the Real World - To what extent do we truly experience reality? - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=re-creating-the-real-world

<comment><USER2> No point in clicking unless you're subscribed to Scientific American.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ouch, my bad, sorry! Didn't notice it when submitting, likely due to institutional access.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who have the best paying (tech related) affiliate programs? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I think OP is asking for products/businesses who are providing an affiliate program. The word 'best' should probably be translated to: "who pays the highest commission".

</comment><comment><USER3> You might want to look through ShareASale's catalog - they have a lot of tech- related affiliate programs running through their system, and you'll be able to compare them.

</comment><comment><USER4> You're not going to find a successful affiliate marketer willing to share his or her niche.</comment>


The tech industry has a problem with "bro culture" - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/opinion/sunday/jerks-and-the-start-ups-they-ruin.html <comment><USER2> I love the fantasy that this is in any way unique to tech. Tech's problem is that they are less adept at hiding it -- partially because they eschew normal corporate bureaucracy which does a fantastic job masking these issues. The underlying reality is this is behavior that is seen when you have people with large amounts of wealth and power (and guess what, it happens to people of every gender!).

<comment><USER3> It's not unique to tech, but it's particularly prevalent in tech, and should not be dismissed on the grounds that it's not unique.

<comment><USER4> People keep saying it's particularly prevalent in tech. Which I don't believe at all.

<comment><USER5> I'm skeptical too, but very open to change my mind, so I'd love to hear how we're wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree with the pretext behind the article of inexperienced, reckless CEOs creating toxic culture but it is incredibly poor journalism and I'm laughing that this made it past NYT editorial board. What came to mind is the scene from Idiocracy "Wanted: for being a dick". There have been much better pieces on excoriating these companies individually and using them as a vehicle to discuss systemic problems. This one is just a bandwagon hack job.

Also "none of the 15 biggest American tech companies valued over $1 billion has a female chief executive." er, what about the most successful tech company of all time, IBM?

<comment><USER7> It's an opinion piece, not journalism.

<comment><USER6> That is completely orthogonal. Journalism includes developing and editing articles to meet expected standards, and you can evaluate that independent of agreeing or disagreeing with the message. Being factually incorrect in the case of the top 15 CEOs is not excusable just because it's an opinion piece. I tend to think of NYT as a high quality paper and was surprised to see this filler.

<comment><USER8> >"That is completely orthogonal"

No its, not. An Op-Ed is a specific format as distinct from regular journalism, it is not edited other than grammatically:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed)

<comment><USER6> Touche

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Look at Uber, the ride-hailing start-up. It's the biggest tech unicorn in the world, with a valuation of $69 billion. Not long ago Uber seemed invincible. Now it's in free fall, and top executives have fled. The company's woes spring entirely from its toxic bro culture, created by its chief executive, Travis Kalanick._

This is a big assertion. There are multiple forces at play regarding Uber's erosion. The culture is a significant aspect of it, but not the entire reason. Other forces include regulation, Uber's floundering self-driving play, and Uber's inability to continue paying drivers the same rates without running out of money.

<comment><USER10> I suppose you could stretch it to say:

1\. Their optimistic / misguided (or is it? Can we be sure yet?) foray into self-driving cars was a result of arrogance stemming from their toxic bro culture

2\. Their problem with subsidizing rides and losing money is due to a win-at- all-costs competitive attitude that demands they run Lyft into the ground, stemming from toxic bro culture.

3\. Increasing regulation is due to their arrogant tendency to flout local taxi laws and run Uber anyway (this I might agree with, though I'll note that Uber is often wildly popular when it disrupts a local taxi market, and they have been able to get their way in part due to asking Uber riders and drivers to actively support regulation change in their area)

But, no, I agree with you. The idea that everything Uber's struggling with is directly the fault of the toxic bro culture that Kalanick has (seemingly single-handedly?) created is absurd.

<comment><USER11> The win-at-all-costs culture is not "bro exclusive". For example, look at how Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are copying stuff from each other in the hope that users do not leave the walled garden.

Or what Google did with gmail and now AMP.

<comment><USER10> Oh I agree, win-at-all-costs is definitely not bro-exclusive, since it's been around a lot longer than this concept of bro-culture has been.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are the following statements true?

"despite many studies showing that women run companies better than men" and "none of the 15 biggest American tech companies valued over $1 billion has a female chief executive"

The first seems to suggest I could find studies saying the opposite, or that perhaps increased diversity is the best option and who is CEO isn't as important. Would love to see the source they used for this. For the second I thought HP and Yahoo were both run by women CEO's and as CEO why are they being ignored? Or is it just referring to unicorn startups? On spotty connection so hard to check.

Edit I previously mentioned AMD and IBM having female CEO's but edited out as I was getting downvoted. Not trying to push any agenda just pointing out the statements seemed wrong.

<comment><USER13> IBM CEO [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Rometty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Rometty) AMD CEO [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Su](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Su) former HP CEO [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Whitman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Whitman) former XEROX CEO [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Burns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Burns) (still chairwoman, tho)

<comment><USER14> also worth noting that these are exceptional companies with TONS of companies that aren't unicorns that are highly valuable and well run. Whether women run unicorns better perhaps was not what the stat was about and instead was probably about whether in general women run companies better. Since there aren't that many unicorns that popup annually, wouldn't be surprised if there aren't statistically significant sample sizes to determine which gender runs a company better, assuming you subscribe to gender binaries and agreed upon 'better' conditions of course...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is an article about nothing. People used to fall for articles like this, not anymore.

Lets deconstruct it.

(a) Select for examples where white men (who the tech media has generally decided are evil and always are a problem) have failed in business (b) Now we will identify these people with a codeword (tech bro) because we can't actually say "aggressive white men" without being overtly racist (c) Now lets generalize and blame all the problems of the entire industry on these evil white privileged males who the media has decided to demonize (d) Conclusion: White men aka tech bros are the root of all problems in Silicon Valley and must be controlled and stopped because they are bad human beings, all of them!

Once you see through the superficial dressing the underlying logic is hilarious.

If you read a lot of media you start to see the patterns. Over and over again the urge is to blame the nearest convenient white male CEO for whatever problem just happened. Donald Trump got elected? Lets blame Zuckerberg for fake news. Then lets blame Peter Thiel and then Sam Altman. Note: All white men in positions of power.

In reality:

People get rich frequently in Silicon Valley by being assholes, taking other people's property, customers, business, employees. We call this system "capitalism."

YouTube grew enormous on the back of pirated content. Alibaba and Amazon profit tremendously from counterfeit products. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates spent their careers suing, back-stabbing and stealing ideas form one another and those around them.

Don't even get me started about Larry Ellison.

Capitalism is not really nice, get over it.

<comment><USER16> "People get rich frequently in Silicon Valley by being assholes, taking other people's property, customers, business, employees. We call this system 'capitalism.'.... Capitalism is not really nice, get over it."

The name of this fallacy is "The Naturalistic Fallacy".

<comment><USER17> And the name of that fallacy is Libertarianism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anybody else get the sense that the NYT's role in reporting about the tech industry is that of a gossip rag?

<comment><USER19> You do realize this is an opinion article right

<comment><USER20> Whoever wrote it, NYT chose to publish it.

<comment><USER19> Opinions pieces do not carry an implicit approval of the publisher, that's their entire point. Just because the NYT allowed an op-ed reflects little on their journalistic standards.

<comment><USER5> This does show how perhaps the 'op-ed' doesn't quite work in its current form on this new-fangled internet thing.

I've talked to more than one person who assumed something written on the main domain was a 'proper' article, when in actuality it turned out to be an op-ed, blog (some new site did/does this) by essentially a random person, or something like that.

Maybe people made this mistake before and I'm only noticing it now?

<comment><USER19> I feel like this is only an issue with people who only skim the title and fail to actually read the article. The page itself makes it very clear that it's an opinion article, and if you're drawing conclusions from the url or title itself it's the fault of the person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I also don't like bro culture, but I don't think VCs are going to push it out. Venture capitalists are bros. Finance has a bro culture. This is a pervasive problem, not just a tech problem. Zenefits' downturn was because of fraud, not the bro culture. Despite all the recent bad press, I don't think Uber is close to going up in flames.

<comment><USER22> End of the day, this stuff happens because people prefer do business with their friends, and those friends tend to come from college, so the friend funnel looks like the college recruitment funnel.

That probably also accounts for the dearth of women.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "...they're boorish jerks who don't know how to run companies."

Theranos.

Congress.

Office of American Innovation.

We're celebrating an era when skills like "manipulation" and "rhetoric" are more important for success than a passion for doing things exceptionally well.

</comment><comment><USER24> Only when I finished the article did I notice that the author was Dan Lyons, who also wrote the _Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble_ , chronicling his time at HubSpot.

I'm surprised that this article itself makes no mention of it.

<comment><USER25> Huh, I'd almost call that a 'material omission' considering the context. Usually prior work is a calling card. Well, unless it's something more convenient to ignore. Not saying I'm immune from this, just that I can understand it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm surprised no one has mentioned the real reason. The reason is schools.

Elite prep schools to elite Ivies to elite starter jobs to elite opportunities to elite companies. "Elites" tend to be, ancedotally, more bro-ey.

Like all of the social problems on Earth, here's another education parity can solve.

</comment><comment> nommm-nommm The author of this piece is a white male who, at 52 year old, spent a year working for HubSpot after being laid off by Newsweek magazine. He wrote a book about his experience.

In this article - [http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan- lyo...](http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyons/) he gives a lot of information on exactly the kind of culture he is talking about.

Stuff like, "Later I also will hear a story about janitors coming in one Saturday morning to find the following things in the first-floor men's room: a bunch of half-empty beers, a huge pool of vomit, and a pair of thong panties. The janitors were not happy. They get even more distressed when, one morning, a twenty-something guy from the HubSpot marketing department arrives wasted and, for reasons unknown, sets a janitor's cart on fire."

The whole thing is worth a read.

</comment><comment><USER27> Aside from the similarity to others in the way that it collapsed, and the behaviors that happened within the company, do other people get the impression that zenefits actually a Bro-co? I can't claim to be an expert or claim to personally know the founder/leadership - I didn't get the feeling that it was particularly bro-ish.

I bring this up because while it's entertaining and perhaps a more-true-than- not narrative of the Brogrammer startup, it's a bit facile and may lead people to 1) automatically assume brogrammers are going to be a problem and more concerningly 2) ignore problems at companies that aren't run by brogrammers.

</comment><comment><USER28> Here's a randomised trial of how rudeness affects teams. _The Impact of Rudeness on Medical Team Performance: A Randomized Trial_ : [http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2015/08/...](http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2015/08/05/peds.2015-1385)

</comment><comment><USER29> > the point is to get away with as much as you can.

i.e.

> They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter [to VCs].

\-- [http://paulgraham.com/founders.html](http://paulgraham.com/founders.html)

They may just be acting "naughty," but in the long run, sociopaths tend to get caught.

</comment><comment><USER30> NYT should be ashamed they posted this, extrapolates examples from a small sample size to make a fake story

</comment><comment><USER31> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14014993](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14014993)

</comment><comment><USER32> > What is bro culture? Basically, a world that favors young men at the expense > of everyone else. A "bro co." has a "bro" C.E.O., or C.E.-Bro, usually a > young man who has little work experience but is good-looking, cocky and > slightly amoral — a hustler.

> Bro culture also values speedy growth over sustainable profits, and > encourages cutting corners, ignoring regulations and doing whatever it takes > to win.

Doesn't this describe virtually every company that takes investor dollars and then has to focus more on marketing and sales than they do on producing good products or services?

I've been called a "jerk" on numerous occasions, I've also been thanked for standing up to "jerks" on numerous occasions. I honestly don't know what the term means, other than a term that's convenient for the "in crowd" to use to describe someone who isn't a member. Wether someone is a "jerk" depends entirely on where you are standing.

If a sales guy tells a delivery manager, "Buddy, I need you to lower the estimates so we can make this sale..." who is being the jerk? If a manager wants to boot someone off her team because he keeps re-hashing old discussions about technical debt and risks the team already agreed to take on... who is being the jerk? If a tech lead gets bent out of shape on process and rants about how we need to stop doing hotfixes because marketing can't get their work requests in on time... You get where I'm going...

Relationships are complicated, trying to dismiss anyone as a "bro" or a "jerk" won't help you solve the real issue... why did an employee you liked enough to hire turn into a jerk a few months in; is there something wrong with process or culture? (And... do you have bad traits as a manager?) Why does the sales team feel so much pressure... is there something wrong with the product? What is making someone, who presumably is an expert at what they do, gripe and complain so much?

It's rare that a company is successful if the power isn't shared across teams. We horse trade time, scope, and quality all the time to get to launch dates and budgets we need -- if just one person tried to mandate everything the talented people on each team would leave for greener pastures. With transparent leadership, communicative management, and a thorough performance review process in place a consensus can be reached. Without that... everyone is a jerk to someone else.

</comment><comment><USER33> I like how the persistent ills of amoral, toxic businesses are now "Silicon Valley's Special Problem with Bro Culture." It's just Wall St. in t-shirts. If you let sociopaths run everything, you'll always end up with this result.

<comment><USER34> I've seen a trend of the word "sociopath" being thrown around here flippantly. While I understand what this hopes to communicate, the claims are unsubstantiated and it only serves to lessen the argument.

<comment><USER35> I think there is meaning to the use of that word. It's not just an ad-hominem snipe, but it's an accusation on the values of these individuals' motivations.

When somebody says a CEO is a sociopath they are essentially arguing that the CEO has little/no empathy, believes their success is due to their own inherent superiority, views morality/law as an obstacles to their success, and defines success as in personal achievement without regard for collective wellbeing.

Moreover, by name-calling the trait (using a derogatory word) one is collectively reshaping the cultural definition of success away from "Make billions of dollars you have no need for and are going to leave to your kids" toward "Make the world a better place."

So I disagree on every level I guess.

<comment><USER36> The only people the word sociopath has no effect on are sociopaths.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The graphic on the article is quite sexist

<comment><USER38> How is it sexist? It shows the rational people running away from the sociopaths. The graphic thereby puts women in a favorable light. Or is that what you meant -- reverse sexism?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> OH MY GOD, REALLY!? </sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER40> > Toxic workplace culture and rotten financial performance go hand-in-hand.

Implying the culture at top-performing American companies is acceptable.

</comment><comment><USER41> > going to an escort bar with your colleagues, as Mr. Kalanick did in South > Korea ...

So?

> ignoring (unenforceable) regulations ...

So?

> Uber's public downfall began ... sexual harassment

This has really nothing to do with their core business.

> the poor treatment of women ...

What poor treatment of women? Because of the odd sexual harassment case popping up?

> Without "adult supervision" ...

Mr. Travis Kalanick is doing absolutely fine. The issues mentioned, that need to be dealt with, have been dealt with. Next.

</comment><comment><USER11> The author is quite sensationalist and horribly uninformed.

> Bro culture also values speedy growth over sustainable profits, and > encourages cutting corners, ignoring regulations and doing whatever it takes > to win.

> As this was happening, Google's self-driving car unit sued Uber, alleging it > had stolen its ideas. Then word leaked that Uber had been using a sneaky > software tool to deceive regulators in cities around the world. All this is > as much a part of "bro culture" as the poor treatment of women; the point is > to get away with as much as you can.

Blatantly false bullsh.t. This is called _capitalism in its raw form_ , profit first and everyone/everything else be damned. (edit: No, this was not intended as a pun on "America first", but indeed "America first" actually resolves to "profit first" once you dig a bit)

Corporate trickery of regulators ("using a sneaky software tool to deceive regulators"), corporate espionage ("alleging it had stolen its ideas") etc. is nothing new, and it has zero to do with "bro culture". In fact, regulations were created to rein in capitalism. Capitalism needs regulation or otherwise it naturally evolves into a form of "anarchy", but unlike the ordinary definition of "anarchy", this one means "corporations can do whatever the ... they want, and the workers are exploited as far as possible".

Also, excessive partying, going to brothels on company accounts or wasting company funds on stuff like private jets is nothing new. A decade or two companies were even able to _legally declare bribes as expenses_ , it's only a recent development that excesses get punished by the public. And because the public does not want to blame the real culprit (capitalism and individual greed, whereby the greed is the foundation for capitalism), the mentioned behavior got labeled as "bro culture" instead.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'll be risking being contrary to popular opinion saying this, but can we go back to focusing on tech? I'd rather leave these types of 'floor is lava' social discussion to the philosophy majors of the world who enjoy it. I feel like we, as a community, get sidetracked by the bloodlust for drama and the media respondeds to that demand by pandering to the lowest denominator. So- called justice porn has no place in a productive society.

<comment><USER16> Your whole comment is indicative of why SV is now in the situation it's in, where disruptive apps aren't enough to overcome idiocy that the rest of us outgrew decades ago.

"So-called justice porn has no place in a productive society." I'm screencapping this as a warning sign on the road to downfall-by-hubris. Seriously, shake your head. Productive society without justice is every dystopian nightmare we've been imagining since we started wondering what tomorrow might be like.</comment></comment>


At Google, Employee-Led Effort Finds Men Are Paid More Than Women - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/technology/google-salaries-gender-disparity.html <comment><USER2> If a company could pay 25% less for the same talent by hiring exclusively women every company would be doing this.

I hope more companies become more transparent about how they people though.

<comment><USER3> Except we have plenty of historical examples of entire industries studiously ignoring equally as large opportunities for decades out of prejudice.

For example, many large companies refused to advertise in magazines targeted at black people despite the obvious increase in sales it would bring.</comment></comment>


Common Gotchas in Go - <AUTHOR> https://deadbeef.me/2018/01/go-gotchas <comment><USER2> I think only #1 really counts as a gotchya. #3 is literally just "spend at least 2 seconds knowing what a slice is" (which you should do! there's only like 4 data structures in Go built in, so get to know 'em all). #2 is similar.

My favorite gotchya is that assigning a nil pointer to an interface will not give you a nil interface.

Once you know what's going on, it totally makes sense, but usually you don't start out with that deep an understanding of how interfaces work, and it violates natural-looking assumptions about algebraic equality, which makes for very easy counter-intuitive behavior.

Example:

        package main

        import "fmt"

        func main() {
            var x *ErrorX = nil
            var err error = x
            if err == nil {
                fmt.Println("nope, this won't happen ")
            } else {
                fmt.Println("here's my non-nil error:", x)
            }
        }

        type ErrorX struct{}

        func (x *ErrorX) Error() string {
            return "hi i'm ErrorX"
        }

[https://play.golang.org/p/BB1b2_HDb6I](https://play.golang.org/p/BB1b2_HDb6I)

<comment><USER3> > Once you know what's going on, it totally makes sense

Anything "makes sense" from an operational point of view, so long as you internalize the rules. But does Go's handling of `nil` denote anything you ever actually _want_ to express, regardless of language?

> it violates natural-looking assumptions about algebraic equality

No, Go's handling of `nil` doesn't violate anything about equality: everything (besides floats, but you can't fault Go for those) is equal to itself and to nothing else. But the _syntax_ (i.e. using a single unadorned token `nil`) does a very poor job of reflecting the language's _semantics_ (the existence fo multiple `nil` values, all different from one another).

<comment><USER2> I'm sure there are uses for it; in this case, since making nil pointers _not_ work would require extra rules, it doesn't seem worth doing. A suggestion I saw on reddit was to use a different word for "nil" for interfaces ("unset" or something), which would make the gotchya have less bite.

And I wasn't trying to say nil-to-interface violated anything real, just that it violated natural-to-make-but-actually-untrue _assumptions_ (which is I guess pretty much the definition of a gotchya):

If we have

        a = nil
        b = a

it's natural (but incorrect) to assume that we have

        b == nil

Basically, I agree with you that the syntax is being poorly suggestive of the semantics. I like the "unset" suggestion because then we'd have:

        a = nil
        b = a

which wouldn't falsely suggest

        b == unset

Too late now, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How do Go programmers deal with the fact that it is hard to reason about whether slices alias?

Go lacks const, so there's no way to prevent your caller from modifying the slice you return, or the callee from modifying the slice you pass it. Also the result of append() may or may not alias its parameter, depending on the allocator's mood that day.

Do Go APIs just defensively copy, or pepper APIs with "do not modify" warnings, or rely on runtime tests? Given the fact that append() may mask aliasing bugs, is there a way to make append() alias maximally?

<comment><USER5> It's rarely a concern in practice. Public APIs should document if a slice may or may not be modified, for example: `io.Writer` says ` Write must not modify the slice data, even temporarily`, and `bufio.Scanner.Bytes()` says `The underlying array may point to data that will be overwritten by a subsequent call to Scan`.

The `append` builtin may allocate a new array and copy, or reuse the same array, but the result should almost always be assigned back to the original variable. The only time you wouldn't assign it back to the same variable is when you are carefully managing the slices yourself for some specific reason, which should never be exposed via an API.

<comment><USER3> Do you also rely on function documentation telling you whether it modifies its arguments, "even temporarily"? Or do you just read the source for every function you use, transitively?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On #3 "slicing", on a related note for Python, remember after a new list is created from slicing, each element/item in the new list is the exact reference to the corresponding element/item in the original list. This is espeically problematic when you try to do things on a mutuable object in either list, but expect the other list remains completely shield from change. You have to do deepcopy (but for immutable object deepcopy has no effect).

Makes sense and probably is a given for most programming languages.

</comment><comment><USER7> My newest two gotchas:

1\. Don't use private attributes for struct types if you ever want to serialize/encode them (exception: Mutex and Channel Attributes). Just had to refactor a whole lot of code just, because I decided I wanted to save the struct to disc. Btw. the type itself can and probably should be private.

2\. Don't use Pointers in map key structs. As nesting maps is a pain the simple solution is to use structs as keys. But if you do so please remember not to use any pointer fields within those structs. Again when you encode and decode maps with pointers within the key structs those pointers will bite you.

<comment><USER8> The private attributes thing has also but me in the ass...encode/decide functions won't touch private variables and won't throw an error if all variables in a struct are private. What kind of issues did you run into with pointers inside of a struct in a map?

<comment><USER7> In my case it wasn't just that I used pointers which might work in some cases. Instead I used a pointer to a global variable containing a function reference (directly using a function reference was not possible as those are not 'compareable'). Therefore, whenever I started the programm the global variable had a different location and therefore it didn't macht the location it had when the file was saved (during an earlier execution).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tl;dr: Understand the difference between values and pointers.

<comment><USER10> There are lots of languages in which values and pointers are different that do not have these gotchas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I liked how this was written. The way this was written sort of reminds me of go. It's as simple as approriate, and written in a way to be memorable. Nice UX trick deadbeef!

</comment><comment><USER12> Syntax critique: [https://play.golang.org/p/CjIDCu5ojru](https://play.golang.org/p/CjIDCu5ojru)

<comment><USER13> In fact, `gofmt` can help simply this. `gomft -s` would simply

        for idx, _ := range zoo {
            zoo[idx].legs = 999
        }

to

        for idx := range zoo {
            zoo[idx].legs = 999
        }

<comment><USER14> A language with a linter, testing, and everything built in? Sign me up!

<comment><USER13> You may want also to watch a talk by Alan Donovan, co-author of The Go Programming Language [0], on static analysis tools [1].

[0] [http://www.gopl.io/](http://www.gopl.io/)

[1] [https://talks.golang.org/2014/static- analysis.slide#1](https://talks.golang.org/2014/static-analysis.slide#1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For #2, the "if len(a) == 0" clause is totally non-sense.

I hope Go supports "append(nil, data[:2]...)", which will make code much cleaner.

<comment><USER16> Not sure what you mean but it seems to work for me

[https://play.golang.org/p/U9Uuy-_sdjn](https://play.golang.org/p/U9Uuy-_sdjn)

<comment><USER15> "[]string(nil)" is more verbose than "nil".

<comment><USER17> Seriously? That's your problem with this construct that otherwise does exactly what you asked for?

<comment><USER15> It is easy for compilers to deduce the type of the nil in "append(nil, data[:2]...)".

<comment><USER17> Sure, and it might just in a future version of the spec if there isn't a good reasoning for not doing that.

Doesn't mean that "it's more characters!" isn't still a really silly complaint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The last gotcha sort of leads to a different gotcha. That copy statement will only work as expected if the destination slice is large enough - thus always initialise it with the length of the (sub)slice you want to copy over. You won't get any errors if it's smaller, but you will surely not get what you desired.

<comment><USER15> the append way is much efficient than the make+copy way: [https://github.com/go101/go-benchmarks/tree/master/append- vs...](https://github.com/go101/go-benchmarks/tree/master/append-vs-make)

<comment><USER18> Not sure it holds any more, I got these results

      $ go test -bench=.
      goos: darwin
      goarch: amd64
      Benchmark_AllocWithMake-4     	    1000	   1626664 ns/op
      Benchmark_AllocWithAppend-4   	    1000	   1574720 ns/op

<comment><USER19> I got nearly the same ratio as the github example. (CPU is overclock to ~4 GHz)

      $ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'model name' | uniq
      model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz

      $ go version
      go version go1.9.1 windows/amd64

      $ go test -bench . --benchtime 10s
      goos: windows
      goarch: amd64
      Benchmark_AllocWithMake-12    20000  870349 ns/op
      Benchmark_AllocWithAppend-12  30000  561120 ns/op

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My Go gotcha: x = append(y, ...) is usually unsafe for x != y.

I want to find/build a linter that catches such cases...

<comment><USER21> Can you explain this in more detail?

I've never used this construct, but I was unaware of its consequences. You've piqued my interest.

<comment><USER22> They may be referring to the idea that the result of that operation is defined based on the y's capacity, cap(y). (Capacity is the total amount of space in the slice backing y whereas length is the number of entries used in y; append will not allocate until the new length > capacity)

If the capacity is less than the new length, a new backing array will be be allocated. This results in x != y

However, if the capacity is sufficient to contain the new values then x == y.

Normal usage of append is overwriting the initial slice variable so you don't need to worry about this, x = append(x, ...). If you use two variables, as here, you can potentially have two different slices used as though they were equivalent in later code.

<comment><USER20> Exactly. The inadvertent aliasing can produce situations like this: [https://play.golang.org/p/XUtyQ6ShYaz](https://play.golang.org/p/XUtyQ6ShYaz) , or more plausibly: [https://play.golang.org/p/Xx8lZWVWgIu](https://play.golang.org/p/Xx8lZWVWgIu)

<comment><USER23> Thanks for this. It gets weirder! The slice grows/doubles if capacity is insufficient. So if you initialize the original slice all the way to capacity (len=4, cap=4), it works correctly. But if len=3 and cap=4, it shows bad behavior. [https://play.golang.org/p/qf3lAoin4dM](https://play.golang.org/p/qf3lAoin4dM)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There was a good post about many gotchas that was on HN a little while ago. Just to share :

[http://devs.cloudimmunity.com/gotchas-and-common-mistakes- in...](http://devs.cloudimmunity.com/gotchas-and-common-mistakes-in-go- golang/)

</comment><comment><USER25> it also takes some figuring that the first character of anything needs to be uppercase if 1) you try to a function outside of the main source file, and 2) use an element from a struct in a template, i.e. {{.element}} does not work...

</comment><comment><USER26> The first one could be mitigated by providing an array of article pointers ([]*Article). That way, article.legs = 99 would work.

Else, the way mentioned in the article, or (&article).legs = 99 (ugly) would work. Take your pick.

<comment><USER27>
      (&article).legs = 99

This would not work actually because it would only be modifying the copy that exists in the inner loop of the for loop. You'd be taking a pointer to the for loop stack variable and modifying it.

If they were already references as you first mention that way simply article.legs = 99 would work yes.

<comment><USER26> Thanks for pointing it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks like a newbie article. The gotcha that got had me a few times is closure within a loop:

for _, ele := range eles { go func() { // use ele } }

Since ele is a loop variable it is not captured as you might think it is. You need to copy it before the closure.

<comment><USER28> Or pass it into the func, especially if its running in a goroutine.

        for _, ele := range eles { go func(ele string) { // use ele }(ele) }

<comment><USER29> It's a shame to have code end up like this when Go is supposed to be anti- "stutter".

<comment><USER23> This might have been done by Go for perf reasons. Why should the Go compiler copy a new variable on the stack every loop iteration?

<comment><USER30> No, not really, it's a natural and unintended consequence of how the spec scopes variables in loops/switches/conditionals:

[https://golang.org/ref/spec#Blocks](https://golang.org/ref/spec#Blocks)

The problem you are trying to solve is, that with a statement like

        for i := 0; i < n; i++ {
            doAThing(i)
        }

you want `i` to be valid inside the loop body, in the for-clauses but _not_ outside the for-statement. Go solves this by saying that an if/for/switch statement has an implicit block surrounding them and that block is what scopes the loop variables. AFAIK no one considered, that this would have this consequence in relation to closures.

Performance wouldn't really matter, because compilers tend to be pretty good at optimizing these kinds of things. They already reorder when they check for the condition and how they jump non-intuitively and the naive instruction sequence would involve freeing some stack-space at the end of the loop, reallocating it in the next iteration and then writing the new value to it. Figuring out that you can save the actual stack-pointer operations isn't that hard.

<comment><USER23> Can the compiler implicitly copy i, basically convert it to:

      for i := 0; i < n; i++ {
        i := i
        doAThing(i)
      }

<comment><USER30> Sure. It's an easy problem to fix, now that the team is aware it. I'm pretty sure they'll solve it for Go 2. In the meantime, it would break the compatibility promise, so it's just a kludge we have to live with.

I basically just wanted to point out that the problem isn't so much an implementation question (or about performance). But that no one thought of it and it's now mainly a question of how to best phrase the spec for this :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Yeah the range thing got me too.

At some point I tend to just ignore the second part of the range and only use the index...

and then after that I just switch back to a damn for loop like god intended.

</comment><comment><USER32> Didn't read the article yet but congrats on the awesome domain name!

</comment><comment><USER33> I seriously need a browser extension to not render "characters" in color. How the hell did this happen anyway?

</comment><comment><USER34> I look at stuff like this and wonder why I'm reading it because I'll never use this language.. but i'm glad it's here for people who do!</comment>


Steve Jobs does customer development  - <AUTHOR> http://venturehacks.com/articles/jobs-customer-development <comment><USER2> Seriously, does anyone really believe they "accidentally" put all of the 3D horsepower into the iPod Touch / iPhone without intending it to be a great gaming platform?

<comment><USER3> The iPod Touch has always been good for games. But it wasn't always positioned as a game player. Or a pocket computer. Now it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Was it an iPhone without the phone?"

Well I guess I was the only one hoping for this.

"We don't need to add new stuff"

Well a camera and gps and maybe an unlimited data plan via 3gs such as the amazon kindle has wouldn't hurt either.

<comment><USER5> If they put a 3G chipset in there it'd be the iPhone without a microphone. What's the point of that?</comment></comment>


TRESOR Runs AES Securely Outside RAM - <AUTHOR> http://www1.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/tresor

<comment><USER2> I think this is not as useful at it looks. Most of local attacks that allow you to read arbitrary memory locations also allow you to run arbitrary code which can simply read the debug registers, it's interesting to note that state of debug registers is not defined after reset, which probably means their state is retained across resets.

Also one could assume, that whole architectural state of CPU - including debug registers - can be read out using JTAG test port of CPU (I haven't find any official documentation about JTAG capabilities of Intel's CPUs, but there are commercially available JTAG attached ICDs for x86 CPUs).

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this, or a similar implementation at any rate, was previously posted on HN. It's certainly a good idea, and I think that the more popular crypto libraries (I'm looking at you, OpenSSL) would do well to consider implementing something similar.

The key point being that (and this was my biggest concern), it is fully compatible with AES-NI, the Intel's hardware-accelerated AES instruction set. According to TFA, with AES-NI there is no performance penalty for keeping the AES keys stored in registers and out of the RAM. What's not to like?

<comment><USER4> > What's not to like?

you need to patch your kernel to use it. this isn't something that openssl alone can push.

<comment><USER5> So TRESOR needs to submit an acceptable patch to the nice kernel.org folks, and then it can ship as a distro default.

<comment><USER6> It sounds fairly cpu-specific. I'm not sure it would lend itself very well to being packaged up for general distribution.

<comment><USER7> Linux takes CPU-specific patches all the time, and has numerous modules to take advantage of CPU features. As long as the patch gives it a clean interface and meets the Linux kernel's standards, I don't see any major roadblock.

I don't, however, think that the magic early-boot changes to prompt for a passphrase almost immediately after boot would have much chance. And I don't really see the point of that compared to the usual mechanism of prompting for a passphrase from the initramfs before mounting encrypted partitions. Either way means that you have key material very briefly in memory before ending up in CPU registers, and thus that you must very carefully wipe that key material from memory before proceeding.

Looking at their patch, it would need a major overhaul to become suitable for acceptance into the Linux kernel. They've also re-implemented sha256 themselves rather than using the kernel's existing implementation, and they've used that sha256 implementation for a very simplistic key derivation function (2000 iterations of sha256 directly on the passphrase itself).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This was presented at the 28C3. [http://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/Fahrplan/events/4869.en.h...](http://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/Fahrplan/events/4869.en.html)

Recordings are available at <http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/28C3/>

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a very cool development. I hope the OpenSSL project verifies this method and imports it so that more projects can benefit from this.

Being a FreeBSD fan, I also hope this can be made to work with the "geli" device crypto driver.

Out of curiosity, has there ever been an exhaustive study about the effectiveness against cold boot attacks against various crypto systems on various platforms? I hear much about cold boot, but is it used much in the wild for practical use, like in criminal investigations? I have never been able to find any reputable confirmation that anyone actually _uses_ this attack to any useful end with regard to cracking real crypto installations.

</comment><comment><USER10> While it is nice to see improvements like these, I sure would like to see more work done on ARM implementations, especially given the huge number of mobile devices based on ARM these days.

That said, does anyone know of recent ARM optimizations for OpenSSL or other SSL implementations?

</comment><comment><USER11> This seems like a good idea, I'm curious what OpenSSL or other crypto libraries do to keep secrets from being paged out to disk by the virtual memory machine? That seems like a legitimate attack vector.

<comment><USER12> It is, but keep in mind that on general-purpose computers running AES, if you can extract secrets from virtual memory, you are already in a position to wiretap the AES process directly.

<comment><USER13> A cold-boot attack as detailed in [0] makes it _vastly_ easier to extract secrets from physical memory than to wiretap the AES process, especially if you're not in possession of a privileged user account or a route into kernel space.

[0]: [http://citpsite.s3-website-us- east-1.amazonaws.com/oldsite-h...](http://citpsite.s3-website-us- east-1.amazonaws.com/oldsite-htdocs/pub/coldboot.pdf)

<comment><USER12> I don't know how to respond to the argument that it's "vastly easier" to chill a bank of RAM with inverted compressed air cans or liquid nitrogen and then extract its entire contents than it is to just use a debugger to watch a program run. I guess "No, I don't agree." suffices.

<comment><USER13> When you don't have the privilege level to connect a debugger to the process or the secrets are in kernel space, it's probably easier to just reboot with a cold-boot kit attached via USB than to attempt some form of escalation exploit. Inverted air cans or liquid nitrogen are entirely unnecessary in most uses of a cold-boot attack - they're only a requirement if the machine has some form of boot protection and it's desired to transfer the memory modules for some sort of offline forensic analysis.

As an additional plus, the tools which the authors of the linked paper have written for identifying key data in memory dumps are simpler to use than tracing the execution flow of even a simple application using a debugger. I'd probably use their approach even with full debug access, as obfuscating control flow around functions handling key data seems to be a more common practice than keeping said data obfuscated in memory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone know if this can be applied on Mac OS X Lion?

<comment><USER15> Trevisor yes, because it runs below the OS and the recent MBAs provide AES-NI, if I remember correctly. Without the hypervisor you're out of luck, as it needs to to patch the kernel and Apple is extremely unlikely to do that.</comment></comment>


Prominent Pro-Patent Judge Issues Opinion Declaring All Software Patents Bad - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161005/15280135720/prominent-pro-patent-judge-issues-opinion-declaring-all-software-patents-bad.shtml <comment><USER2> IMO banning patents on algorithms would be a better idea. They should not be suddenly be patentable just because it is implemented in hardware instead of software.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're arguing that "in an FPGA" doesn't make it any more patentable than "in a computer" does? That seems like a reasonable argument.

But it's a big step to get the courts this far. (And, probably, another five years of fighting before this battle's really over.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very welcome by everybody doing actual work.</comment>


I've started building with paper – Haverzine - <AUTHOR> http://haverzine.com/2014/08/06/ive-started-building-paper/

<comment><USER2> This is really interesting. I think I'm part of the generation immediately preceding the "digital natives", but I use paper so rarely that I still identify with the symptoms.

I feel like "maybe I should get a notebook", but I already have `bb` (for brain blast) in my shell for `vi "~/ideas/$1.md"` so I don't feel terribly encumbered by my computer, which I have either open or near at hand for the vast majority of the day.</comment>


Pyro: A Spatial-Temporal Big-Data Storage System - <AUTHOR> https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc15/technical-session/presentation/li_shen <comment> luiz-pv9 I don't have time right now to fully read the paper, but a quick glance at the abstract: "Our evaluations use NYC taxi trace data and an 80-server cluster. Results show that Pyro reduces the response time by 60X on 1km×1km rectangle geometries compared to the state-of-the-art solutions".

Congratulations to the authors.

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks like an interesting paper, but I can't find any source code.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your interests in our paper! We are refactoring the source code, and will publish it soon.

Shen

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Shen - The state-of-the-art spatiotemporal database systems are based on topological embedding and geometric interval computation (hyper-rectangle cell/simplicial complex [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicial_complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicial_complex)).

And while I don't know of any open-source systems based on this design, SpaceCurve is publicly available ([http://www.spacecurve.com](http://www.spacecurve.com) [http://www.jandrewrogers.com/2015/10/08/spacecurve/](http://www.jandrewrogers.com/2015/10/08/spacecurve/)) , and I've heard systems like this exist within IBM and Google.

Have you looked into this approach?</comment></comment></comment>