Ask HN: How did you learn to code? - <AUTHOR>

I'm fairly new to HN, and have recently started teaching myself to code. So far I've used Codecademy and General Assembly's DASH tool. I've also heard good things about One Month Rails.<p>What would you all recommend as far as inexpensive online resources? Or would you suggest I save up the money for a hacker bootcamp? Thanks! <comment><USER2> I apologize for the length of this post, I post this only because this might bring a perspective that might be a bit new here: of Linux in India way back then.

If its not appropriate here I wouldnt mind at all if its downvoted so that it does not take visible real estate. This is from a mail I wrote some time ago.

\--

As you would know my background is not in EE or CS but in manufacturing where we had very little hands on experience with computers. We had a course where we learned FORTRAN and that was about it. In those days, a pc magazine used to distribute redhat in a CD. I think the first one I got my hands on was version 5.2. The mighty 486s in college used to command a lot of respect, and as lowly undergrads we weren't allowed to touch them. I owe Linu[x|s] and Stallman a lot of gratitude because much of what I learned about how a computer works was not from a course but actually digging through the linux and GNU system.

This was also quite normal for all linux users then. The whole point of using Linux was to figure out how things work and change things to your liking. "Change" meant editing a file and compiling, not pushing mouse buttons. If you wanted a system that worked [or not], there was always windows. It was very confusing to hear anyone complain that not everything worked right out of the box on Linux. The whole point of Linux then was then to poke around and re- tool it, it was not even expected that everything will work. It was a rudimentary car, that came with an excellent set of tools, a workshop and a manual.

If I were to choose a single word to desribe the linux user base that would be "curiosity". A lot of that has changed, now many use linux not because it allows them to learn and tinker, but because its a better windows. I dont begrudge the fact, it shows Linux has matured.

One of my first forays into personal programming was because of a printer. Printing would always make me cringe because I could not get economy mode or two-up. I barely new C. Over multiple trips to the printer room to check if the patch worked, I finally got it to run. In the process I learned the the entire path from the point one types "lpr filename" to the bits dumped on the network. I also learned how pretty code can be. Deutsch's ghostscript code is one of the most beautiful C code around, atleast to me then. I think only way to pick up good coding style is to read good code.

To give an example how bad the scenario was then: if you wanted to install something that was not on the CD, doing an apt-get install (or rpm) was out of question over the 2B/s dialup we had then. So I had to hack up a p2p file distribution system for rpms. It did signature verification and multiple parallel downloads of the same file broken up into chunks. All I can say is that it did not become napster :) But I learned a lot. Till before that I did not much know what a network even was.

I wrote it in TCL (writing that in C would have been way beyond my league) and contributed a patch for TCL's FTP client. Given that I was a complete novice, and that this worked at all and that I, a complete clueless newbie could actually contribute anything was unimaginably gratifying for a manufacturing engineering undergrad.

TL,DR Was taught quite a bit by the GNU and Linux sources

</comment><comment><USER3> I think I learned to code by having login on slovax. slovax was a VAX 11/750 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during a time when there were a ton of hackers there. Many of them went on to Sun.

slovax was the machine that had the 4BSD source on it and somehow, I have no idea how, I got an account on it.

Blah, blah, blah, all my memories don't mean shit. What is maybe interesting is how you might learn from reading source. Most of it is pretty boring, <string.h> I'm looking at you, the kernel source is getting more interesting, but for me the place where the light came on was the bowels of libc. At the time I was too dumb to get the kernel stuff, that was over my head, but I could figure out libc. Until I came to popen(). It called fork(). My head exploded - I had never ever thought of creating a subprocess to do my bidding. Yeah, I'm old, all you guys got this, but at the time (.5MHZ VAX was what I was reading the code on) the idea that you would spawn a process to do something in libc was out there. It was the first time I realized that you could do pretty much anything with a computer.

Same tl;dr: as the other guy. Read the source, lots of good stuff there.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hate to be "that guy", I think that taking courses online is a waste of time.

1\. What do you want to learn? Web development? Systems programming? Native application programming (whatever the platform)? Figure out what your target is.

2\. Go to your local book store after you solve no. 1, pick a book up that involves that general topic, and read a few pages to see if it works for you. Don't buy a "learn x in y hours/days" book. Buy something you can use as a reference.

I've found that it is easier for me to focus and understand things when I am not actually trying to do them at the same time.

3\. Specifically about Rails: I'm not hugely qualified to speak about Ruby, but the friends I _do_ have that use Rails daily have always told me that Rails has grown pretty hard for newbies to jump into immediately. Of course, I could be wrong. I wrote a small project using Sinatra, which is a really easy way to jump into using Ruby & writing a web app at the same time.

I wouldn't recommend putting any money into bootcamps. You can teach yourself everything you need to know. The majority of bootcamps I've seen are fairly expensive for someone without any real understanding of what they're getting in to, and I would go as far as to say I have seen 0 that would teach anything useful beyond "learn language x", which you can do on your own - every popular language has excellent documentation. You should want to learn the fundamentals, and try to figure out how to apply that knowledge to any language or situation you come across.

(Hope that helps a bit.)

</comment><comment><USER5> My school exposed me to HTML, VB, and later in high school, C and C++. I got interested in website development, so I started with ASP, but quickly moved to PHP because it is easier to get free hosting (I was still a kid with no money!). I learned everything from my school library books, and free online resources.

I was exposed to Java and C# in my computer science engineering course, but I never actually learned much apart from the basics which I needed for the course itself. Ironically, I didn't pick up on the very things which I was thought formally.

I learned basic javascript and more PHP stuff (MVC, OOP, templates et all) when I got a chance to intern in a small start up. I did a few small freelance jobs after that.

I learned some basic Python and Ruby by myself, and learned advanced Javascript when I got exposed to Node.js. I learned more Ruby when I got a small Ruby/Sinatra gig. More Node.js when I got employed as a Node.js developer. MongoDB/Redis/everything else was mostly on the job.

Linux/Bash was a lot of experimentation, and a lot of practice.

As you can see, the pattern is that I learned mostly by myself: By trying to do things, and by using online resources. I never read a full book (apart from the Javascript the Good Parts), and never finished a full online course. I learned as I worked.

I am not condoning this method, and I don't know if its the best, but it's what worked for me.

</comment><comment><USER6> I spent a lot of time teaching myself (in the 70s). Then college courses, where I learned about data structures, algorithms, structured programming (all the rage, back then, a precursor to objects), and many other subjects. Then grad school, and more research, and then a few startups. I kept improving through all of it.

tl;dr: Do it, study it, do it some more. Do it a lot.

P.S. "One Month Rails" sounds like something you'd want to do later in your career. If then.

</comment><comment><USER7> The best way to learn is to have a need to learn. What made you initially want to learn to code? Is it a business idea? An idea you had for an app or game?

There are many different types of programming; as well as many different levels.

Web programming isn't going away for a while, and it can be useful for doing quite a lot of things. I wrote a quick start guide for beginners like yourself [1] a while ago, that you might find useful.

I didn't even know HTML six years ago, and have been working full time in the industry for almost three years now. I started out trying to force a piece of forum software into being a community-based website. I quickly got into writing custom add-ons for that forum software. I just kept moving further and further up the food chain until I got to where I am today: being paid to build multiple, complex web applications.

The toughest part about learning something _completely_ new is not knowing the right questions to ask. It can be insanely frustrating at times. But if you can stick with it, all the anguish, self-doubt, and sleepless nights will be worth it. If you really want something, you can do anything.

[1] [https://degreesofzero.com/article/70](https://degreesofzero.com/article/70)

</comment><comment> alok-g While I did not learn programming this way [1], I highly recommend the following book to beginners of programming:

"Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs" by Niklaus Wirth: [http://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Structures-Prentice-Hall- Au...](http://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Structures-Prentice-Hall-Automatic- Computation/dp/0130224189/)

While example programs are in Pascal programming language (that the author created), it is still a very well written book that teaches how to connect real world problems to programming from a beginner's standpoint. It assumes the least out of the reader of nearly all programming books I know of. Check out the reviews at Amazon.

[1] My story: I started programming at the age of 11 when my father gifted me a computer, and its manual. That manual was so concise and precise that I learned something new from it each time I read it. It ended with a chapter on writing machine code, which led me to write short programs in machine code straight by age 15!

</comment><comment><USER8> Since the question is looking for recommendations on how to learn now, I'd say try out an environment where you can see results that excite you the most. If you want to see objects on a web page moving around, learn JavaScript. If you'd like to see fancier graphics, look at Unity and one of its languages. And if you like text output, you got a huge world of languages you can explore - just find a topic and problem you want to work on. Being motivated to solve something was what got me the most excited when beginning to program.

As for how did I personally learn to code?

HyperTalk in HyperCard. It was the best way to quickly see how different logic constructs worked, since I could manipulate graphics onscreen rather than just print out text. Shortly thereafter, Learn C Programming in 21 Days.

But once I learned what I could, I took some of the concepts from C and tried to find some similar way to accomplish that in HyperTalk... which worked for quite a few shareware projects.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not sure why you're learning to code, but getting into a positive feedback loop of (have idea, create, tune) is a great thing if you're doing it for more than 'just a job'.

I'd get proficient with linear flow programming, then functions, and build some things before worrying about object oriented programming.

Folks I've worked with have had good luck with perl but there's certainly a strong argument for javascript between web dev and node.js...

Or if you want to go old school fire up BASIC and play with some programs from [http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/](http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/)

Not suggesting you should stay at that level (BASIC, perl, etc) but building the feedback loop of liking the process/having fun can be great to get at the beginning of the learning process.

</comment><comment><USER10> I learned to code by reading lots of books, writing lots of code and getting involved in a local user group.

If you want to learn Ruby and Rails a couple of good resources are Learn to program by Chris Pine (an intro to ruby) and the rails tutorial by Michael Hartl [http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial- book](http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book)

Some other books I would recommend: \- Practical object oriented design in ruby \- Computer science programming basics in ruby \- Agile web development with ruby on rails 4 \- Eloquent ruby \- Design patterns in ruby

If you get on the [http://oreilly.com](http://oreilly.com) email list they regularly have 50% off ebook sales.

</comment><comment><USER11> The title is a bit misleading :) I guess you don't want to hear about my experiences with GW-BASIC :P

I think that, whichever choice you take, being motivated and actually doing stuff will be the best :)

You have to decide on what you want to do first (do you have a startup in mind? working as a programmer? why do you want to learn to program?).

With programming, just taking classes definitely doesn't cut it, the joy is wanting to make the computer do something and overcoming the obstacles to get there (and hopefully getting several "aha" moments along the way).

I think that if I had to start today, there are lots of awesome online resources (but I don't know them, so I can't recommend any). No idea about hacker bootcamps.

</comment><comment><USER12> Heh, "programming for dummies". That told me about how to run QBASIC from my windows disk, which was a pain. Where I really got started was when the aforementioned book told me how to do web programming, based on local files. At that point, I was feeling the power. Someone told me about C++, and I got "C++ For Dummies" for my thirteenth birthday. I wanted to do games, which led me to DirectX and then SDL, and also gamedev.net, from which I learned a metric crapton.

I stumbled on python a few years later, when I started playing with Blender. The online tutorial for that was pretty good (at least for me, having programmed before). If you want advice, you might start there and see how far you get.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wanted to make things. First I wanted my own web page; so I learned HTML. Then I wanted to make AIM robots, so I learned perl. First I modified the source of programs that already worked, then I read the Llama which magically filled in all the blanks (oh, that's why that keyword is repeated all over!) Then I wanted to make Facebook apps, so I learned PHP. Then I wanted to get a job, so I learned ruby, CSS and JavaScript.

I also went to ACE computer camp where I built crappy versions of Tic Tac Toe in BASIC and completed numerous factorial exercises.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would start with a skills test, try to use vloopup in a spreadsheet. If you can get to grips with vlookup, then look for something that fits with how you learn, a book, an online course or even making small changes to programs you find on the web. Java script is probably a good c hoice, as there are online example around that you can try. But as others have requested, please say why you want to learn. edit:I started with games, changing code in simple games created by others. But I was 13, games are important to a 13 year old ;)

</comment><comment><USER15> apart from actual coding, suggest a foundation like in CS 101. ie algorithm books (eg O(n) binary/sort) kind of things, perhaps Design Patterns. for lower level, Kernighan and Ritchie c language is a bible. structured and functional (eg python) type programming are good to understand. there are tonnes of cookbooks on the technologies you decide. LAMP and thin b'ends seem effective for most web systems initially anyhow.

rails an phython are sometimes thought of as next generation languages. Java/C+ suffer greatly from the amount of scaffolding to do something simple like have a object used between layers. Python and I believe rails, says it will do stuff like setter/getters (scafolding), you concentrate on the logic. php also has some great use, they are untyped languages. typing for java/c++ can be argued as not as necessary as one may think, thats where python, php, and I believe perhaps Rails (dont quote me on that) say again, concentrate on whats needed and not having to type everything. if the web results in a string, then no need to declare that throughout your stack.

anyhow, my 2 cents. not the fastest path necessarily, but over time you may want to have good code, useable by others and designed reasonably so its not as hard to get to next steps like scale...

</comment><comment><USER16> Buy and read "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" aka SICP. Download a Scheme environment and do all the exercises. Use the multitude of resources to make sure you actually understand how, why, what.

Hacking with Ruby, Python, C#, Java, Objective C, etc, etc is fun, exciting but you won't learn the foundation stuff which sooner or later comes up as a stumbling block.

</comment><comment><USER17> I learned basics by understanding html + then I dug deeper in dhtml. I remember looking at demo source files to learn how they worked. I studied simple code that I could implement. I did this for a couple years. Rather than read books, I read code then figured how to write my own.

</comment><comment><USER18> The for dummies or Head First Series are good. I generally pick a technology, have a feel of it(meaning, just learn it on the surface by poking around it) then learn it in depth if i really need it. Most IMPORTANTLY, NOTHING, I REPEAT NOTHING BEATS PRACTICE.

All the best.

</comment><comment><USER19> My level of programming is really low but I've learn to code by having the need of solve things. I just started to read and practice to solve an idea I had.

</comment><comment><USER20> The most important part was reading "learning perl" in 1997.

</comment><comment><USER21> Codeschool and/or Treehouse + reference books will help out most.

</comment><comment><USER22> rsearles, are you me? Seriously, this post blew my mind. I'm new to HN, and have been using codeacademy and DASH (finished full html/css tutorial last week). Already looking into that One month rails thing and reading the replies here!

My question would be the best way to plan for developing an iOS app? Should I be bothering to learn the basics of JS or just skip to jquery tutorials? C++ basics important? Thanks!</comment>


Live where your heart takes you – without sacrificing your career aspirations - <AUTHOR> http://twintechs.com/live-where-your-heart-takes-you-without-sacrificing-your-career-aspirations-2

<comment><USER2> As someone else who lives in a small town and works remotely, I have to agree it's a beautiful thing. I lived in San Francisco for a while, but I'm just not a city person, and it was hard to be so far away from my family and friends back east. 10 years ago, I would have had to choose between optimizing for my career or optimizing for happiness in my personal life. For the first time in history, it's not hard to actually have both.</comment>


For Hackers, Anonymity Was Once Critical. That's Changing - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/technology/defcon-hackers-privacy-anonymity.html <comment><USER2> If anything, now that the internet has effectively become mankind's long-term memory, anonymity feels more important than ever. If you got into a regrettable flame war on some mailing list back in 2001, it's still out there, waiting to be used against you, out of context and in a different era.

People need to be able to make mistakes - or voice uncomfortable truths, blow whistles etc - without having to worry about repurcussions in some unknown future.

<comment><USER3> In the circumstances you've described, I feel as though anonymity is just a work-around for a larger flaw of mankind. The underlying issue is that humans tend to lack empathy, are too judgemental and just generally overly critical of others.

It's 2018, but we're still quick to grab the pitchforks and torch the place - metaphorically speaking.

<comment><USER4> People are unlikely to fix that any time soon so we'd better keep that workaround as long as possible. Just look how fast racist attacks come after a news or political event. Or the succession of attacks on the innocent because some thug mistook paediatrician for paedophile.

In older days if you escaped the actual pitchforks you could move 20 miles away and start over. Now every moment of teen foolishness, those naive political beliefs at university, and that joint you smoked but "did not inhale" are either photographed or documented in perpetuity against your real name.

That seems a massively foolish gift to everyone with a pitchfork, or looking to spend an amusing hour assembling a lynch mob, or even a short sighted potential employer. God help you if you want to run for office 30 years after your foolish teen excesses.

<comment><USER5> Random thought: alternatively, could we fast-forward to a day and age where everyone can find "teen foolishness" photos on everyone else, and thus nobody is blackmailable? Sanity through MADness, not unlike the current geopolitical situation.

<comment><USER4> One can hope. I'm put immediately in mind of Dave Eggers book The Circle.

Everyone else unless you are rich enough, or powerful enough. Thus in 2045, humanity's second great period of serfdom commenced.

Also don't be a future person that embarrasses easily.

<comment><USER6> The second great period of serfdom has already begun. Look at the current crop of startups and what the average millenial (and older) is doing to make money... Uber, contract employment, renting, leasing.... nobody owns anything anymore unless you're doing well, which is increasingly rare

<comment><USER7> Given you can't buy a house under $1M in pretty much all Silicon Valley by now, how rare it is? There are tons of houses and somebody buys them. So unless that's a dozen people who are buying all the houses - which I don't see the evidence of, e.g. lots of empty houses or massive rent/own ratio shift - somebody is doing well enough to buy those $1M houses.

<comment><USER5> Investors using them as store of value / for rent income, instead of a place to live?

<comment><USER7> There should then be people that a) can afford $1M investment and b) can afford rent prices that justify $1M investment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe _psudoanonymity_ \- using a single handle for years and years and building up an identity is dying off... but anonymity certainly isn't.

I registered this handle via Tor. I don't use it on any other sites. I'll probably ditch it after a year or two, since on a long enough timeline little bits of info slip out when making substantive comments. An astute observer can suss out what times I post, what topics I comment on, and make educated guesses about my identity.

I have a "real" identity - a public persona. It has a cutesy nickname, a twitter handle, and all the other online presence. But it's all incredibly carefully curated, since as the article points out, one slip up and you're done. The feeling when posting with it is so suffocating I rarely do.

<comment><USER9> If you use one anonymous handle long enough, a neural net will eventually be able to connect your subconscious mannerisms to posts made by your true identity.

<comment><USER10> Maybe. But that's supposition today.

<comment><USER11> Data from today will be logged for tomorrow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This larger narrative is disingenuous, as it's still rooted in this tired mischaracterization of using an "alternate name" as "anonymity". Presumably because anonymity == scary and non-birth-given non-state-registered name also == scary.

From a technical perspective, using an additional long-standing nym isn't much different from just using a single one! The people they're _profiling_ (!) are essentially microcelebrities - notable in their circles, presenting in meatspace, being photographed, etc. I'm sure their [stated] nyms are still serving many purposes, but preserving privacy they aren't!

Meanwhile (and this is why I take issue) there most certainly is a type of "working" anonymity that _all kinds of people_ rely on, which is in the process of being involuntarily destroyed. It's almost inherently impossible to report on without resorting to indirect narratives, primarily based on some kind of disempowerment. But I think what they all really boil down to is our individual self-determination over the scope of our own relationships.

It's a parallel _je ne sais quoi_ to dragnet surveillance. _I_ personally don't have anything to hide, and if a government agent wanted to get up in every aspect my life I would be powerless to prevent it. BUT we all benefit from keeping the unnotable generally unnoted, rather than cataloged, characterized, and used to presume to _know us_ removed from our personal context.

(I know I haven't done a great job describing this - it's awfully tough to describe the indescribable/unenumerable. But someone is going to have to, in some very persuasive universally-appealing words, if we're to retain any of it).

<comment><USER13> If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. - Cardinal De Richelieu.

Regarding your latter point, re. self-determination, I'll try a stab at making it more relatable. Let me know if this approaches that ineffable problem.

Our presentation of ourselves is essentially plastic; with few exceptions, changing social or temporal variables change our self-expression. We do not act around our family as we would around our colleagues or around our close friends. We did not act as a child as we did as a teenager, or young adult, or elder. It is socially acceptable and even expected to modify "who you are" to fit the situation you are in.

The internet and mass surveillance has crystallized that plastic nature. You are not just the person you are now, but also the person you were ten years ago. You are not just the person in front of your employer or parent, but also whoever you are to your friends or romantic partners. You are no longer allowed to pick and choose how to represent yourself to another person; your entire history is available for their perusal. The best representatives for the downside of this, I think, are teens. Everyone can remember stupid things they said or did as a teenager, and for the first time, none of that history will ever be erased. The words you spoke at one of the most irresponsible and impulsive parts of your life will forever be a Sword of Damocles hanging above your head.

(Oddly enough, I think this is not, fundamentally, an awful thing, but for the fact that social understanding has not advanced past the monkey-brain thinking that the perusing in front of you will act according to the sum of information you have about them. In the old days, you would see that they were a decent enough worker and that would be it. But now you know they like to, I don't know, drink a lot or smoke weed in their own time and that colors everything else about them in your eyes. I can't help but feel that within a few generations the old way of thinking will die out, by necessity if nothing else, but agree that for the present it represents a significant problem)

<comment><USER7> > Cardinal De Richelieu.

They key here is that the Cardinal can hang virtually anybody just by willing to do so. The justification is secondary, just for appearances' sake - if the Cardinal wants somebody hanged, they'll hang (unless they find a more powerful ally, of course), and "finding something" is just a formality, like signing the documents in proper places with proper name. Wielding this power is the key, and that key would decide whether your past words would be your doom or a justifiable youthful digression. If you look at how it happens, you can see the power currents of the society the same way you can see the magnetic field lines by watching metal dust affected by it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've always adapted a policy of using my real name as a moniker on social sites.

It prevents me from writing harsh things. I figure that anonymity is temporary, that real identities can always be determined if someone digs hard enough. I don't want something I say in the heat of the moment to come back to haunt me years later.

It's not for everybody. I've probably made some secret enemies that know my name. But for me, it seems to be the best way.

<comment><USER15> My biggest worry would not be about today or even next year, but rather ten years from now.

In 2010, I could have said "women do not have a penis" and faced zero criticism. But if I say the same thing today in the ultra SJW woke society of 2018, it's grounds for instant allegations of transphobia, sexism, and a whole bunch of accusations that result in social and professional ostracizing without any sort of verification or context. All it takes for this is one person who dislikes me enough to dig through $age years of online history and finds that one statement that does not hold to this instant's ultra progressive intersectional social justice standards.

Put simply: I do not trust society at large to remain rational enough to want to attach my real name to anything but the most mundane of statements.

<comment><USER16> But 'to be able to talk (and write) about everything - is just the beginning'... Some years ago, before the polarization-outrolling started countrywide (in Real Life -and of cos in my personal view of what happen ^^) this seems to be the 'Motto'. Jet one takeaway seems that censoring added the need for even censoring more, and for the country's digital-agenda (away from industry-production for environment protection to the production of more virtual 'goods') there seem to be shiny low-hanging-money in, while the disturbed people seem to reject regulation with much impulsive behavior as a result. And so the saga of action reaction effect continues...

Plugins please, maybe tor-browser run out of the text-based-web-speeder 'request policy'-plugin -and no, 'ublock' is not an option (-;

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Pretty strong selection bias here. Hackers that have showed up at an IRL conference are probably not on the more paranoid end of the spectrum.

Meanwhile pseudonym hacking continues (e.g. Phineas Fisher) and interesting data dumps make their way to journalists ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers))

<comment><USER18> Just commenting on this thread is enough.

The NSA / MI# / [Military Intel of Country X] know me. I know them. I don't do shit. They don't do shit beyond some pranks and exchanging banter. What are people so paranoid about?

When you get to meet the boogeymen, they have amazing tech developed by someone else, but the people who use it are stupid, incompetent, paranoid military average joes who more often than not shoot themselves on the foot or cause the problem they were trying to prevent because they never de-escalate.

Secrecy, violence and a carefully-built media reputation just hides how ineffective they are despite mass surveillance and infiltration of all public online communities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> We'll surely have the option to stay anonymous for a many decades to come, while a real name policy becomes more established as well. The two serve different purposes and only in edge cases is it really unavoidable to create a link between them.

What is still lacking AFAIK are services that can guarantee anonymity for the average user without jumping through a ludicrous number of hoops that ultimately looks suspicious.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's just career progression. New blood needs to fill those shoes who move to corporate.

<comment><USER21> Blood that fills shoes is a metaphor that carries some unintended meaning.

<comment><USER22> Are you saying that filling shoes with blood _sounds gross_ , or does that metaphor refer to something more specific?

<comment><USER23> It's not one metaphor. It's an unfortunate-sounding "mixed metaphor": [https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/mixed- me...](https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/mixed-metaphors)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this is confusing anonymity with pseudonymity. Anonymous hackers don't want anybody knowing about them, pseudonymous ones do want it very much, they just don't want everybody to know their legal name and address and so on, but very much want to know their handles and what they do. These are different modes of operation.

I also think there's a bit of survivor bias here - yes, many old-times hackers came out of the shadows of anonymity or pseudonymity, either voluntarily or involuntarily, either because they grew up and got a family and a business and a personal brand, or because they're not into shady stuff that requires hiding anymore, or because whatever they have been doing became so successful one can't be anonymous anymore, etc. That doesn't mean others still don't have anonymity, just NYT did't got to talk to them - because they're anonymous and don't want to talk to NYT either...

</comment><comment><USER24> This shit is propoganda. Ain't no hackers giving up anonymity.

</comment><comment><USER25> Haven't been to defcon personally, but I use to go to hackerspaces in LA all the time.

I never knew what the meetup organizer's name was. Everyone always referred him with his userhandle and they did not know either.

This reminds me of "malwaretech" from wannacry

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6cmmdf/iama_the_accid...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6cmmdf/iama_the_accidental_hero_who_helped_stop_the/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Now it's critical for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER27> More and more hackers are using Facebook, Chrome and Google.

If even hackers don't care about privacy anymore, how can we expect it from the general population?

</comment><comment><USER28> I would be happy for anonymity to stay an option at least. It's not as important as it was, sure, but it's still very useful.

Anonymity is great for side projects that amount to practice, that you don't expect them to turn out well, or things you might be embarrassed of in the future, like comments on Reddit and hackernews.

</comment><comment><USER29> Story time: I've hanged around hacker/infosec circles for quite a few years. I have a terrible personality where I can't get close to anyone or open up(not a joiner),that meant I couldn't be part of any inner circles. Eventually, over the course of many years I discovered all the ways my IRL identity could be correlated with my online activity. I also discovered groups of hackers(not the nice kind) make a hobby out of deanonymizing people,especially anyone that has remotely anything to do with infosec. I also realized many (not all) of these people had real jobs and that they could affect my life in very real ways.

For example,I am using a VPN now and my browser has strong privacy protections configured. I am very confident that my identity could still be revealed by analyzing my writing style and correlating other behavorial metadata. Although I am not certain,I assume anyone in infosec that is interested in my off-work activity is monitoring my hn posts.

Ways I've screwes up over the years:

* Forgot to sanitize my whois

* Used my regular email when consulting about IT work with IT/infosec people I did not know

* Reused passwords for many years.

* Didn't change reused password after inadvertently posting it on a public forum/chat.

* Didn't use a VPN or Tor for many many years.

* Assumed for a long time that 0days were used by an elite few and that nobody would burn one on a boring person like myself.

* Assumed IT coworkers/bosses would never actively stalk me off-work because I assumed only a serious psycopath would do that to a human they see everyday.

* Assumed my home computers' security without considering how easy it is for anyone to literally break into my place (has happened).

* much more

All in all, acheiving a reasonable level of security and privacy is a very difficult task for an individual.

One of the reasons I got into security is because I kept thinking "I do IT for a living. What about all the normal unsuspecting people? What about my family members,heck pretty much anyone." It feels too much like a one-sided war against the 99% of people who are not tech-savvy. I want to help protect people who don't know how to protect themselves. Interestingly,the most diffult part is making people understand that they are under attack by extremely hostile parties.

Fortunately there are many pros that share my view. @evacide on twitter for example helps women who have had their devices hacked by a stalker/hacker.

For someone who does not work in IT, being monitored by a hacker practically drives them into extreme paranoia. It causes real mental harm. IMO,it should be treated as assault.

I realize most of what I said is about hackers deanonymizing people and not the other way around like the article. I just thought it was important to note how many hackers are part of the problem and that we should consider how much more non-hackers need anonymity,pseudonymity and privacy in general.

Lastly, I'd like to say this to anyone who tracks or monitors people(analytics count): consent is key. Imagine someone looking at you bare naked,this is fine if and only if they have your consent.

</comment><comment><USER30> A better title might be, "For Some Hackers, Anonymity Was Once Critical. Now, They're Corporate Sellouts."

</comment><comment><USER31> For Hacker News, NYT having 2 articles on front page every day was not critical. That's changing.</comment>


Mac App for Generating Obj-C/Swift/Storyboard from Photoshop Design - <AUTHOR> http://www.replia.io/

<comment><USER2> I'm developer of this App. We released Replia today. Now on launch sale.

<comment><USER3> Any plans to get this to work with older versions of Photoshop?

<comment><USER2> Sorry. We have no plan with older versions of Photoshop (CS). We use function of Photoshop CC (2014)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you have plan to suppport sketch?

<comment><USER2> A technical problem has not been checked yet, but when there are no problems, We want to support Sketch early version.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ghost my company? (Updated) - <AUTHOR> Update: will just chill and not give any shits until my time runs out.
Got a solid new gig lined up, but out of respect I gave my company a large notice before leaving so they could replace me.
They're lining up a ton of work for me to do for this 'sprint' before I leave.
Should I just ghost them? <comment><USER2> I keep saying this to people. No one is looking out for you EXCEPT YOU. You felt bad and gave a large notice. What did you expect ? OF course, they will try and squeeze as much out of you as possible. You should have given a standard notice (2 weeks in the United States is the norm) if at all.

Now you are stuck because if you "ghost" them now, it looks bad and you become the bad guy/gal. You can always talk to them and ask "Things have come up and I need to get out early". If they truly respect your time, they will let you go. A few days don't matter when someone is quitting. If not, you brought this upon yourself. Not trying to be a meanie but please, be selfish when it comes to your career. I feel like a broken record repeating the same things over and over on many forums.

<comment><AUTHOR> True

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You could just ignore the pressure and keep going at your own rhythm.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's probably the best option.

<comment><USER4> But what future opportunities can they rescind if you don't accept being exploited?

I always hear people saying something like "I should always be as valuable and loyal as possible to my employer."

But I'm like NO!!! Instead I would hope to live by the idea that "I should always be as valuable and loyal to my personal life as possible."

It's overwhelming for people to have to try to deal with expectations of "negative guidance" from your job, whether that means being overworked or not meeting some stupid evaluation heuristic or being punished by office politics. But still people believe "well if I just keep a smile on my face and work as hard as I can, one day I'll be recognized as more valuable than prior underestimations, and rewarded beyond my imagination" \- but, really, it's often the nature of hierarchies that the unknown downsides can go a much longer way down than the upsides can break through a glass ceiling if you aren't already at the top.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is designed to make you burn out in a matter of weeks because after you quit your wellbeing makes no difference to them. For your employer it's like, "Well, we won't have to worry about any long-term consequences of exploiting your labor down to your last shred of value, so why not increase your burn rate while simultaneously under compensating you for it?"

The respect is evidently one-sided.

Relevant quote: "Never say no twice if you mean it."

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed.. will just stick it out

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > They're lining up a ton of work for me to do for this 'sprint' before I > leave.

I've found that Networks are surprisingly small. How you depart will reflect on your professional reputation for years to come. Push-back appropriately on work-load.

But do make an extra-effort to detail and communicate a thorough transition plan. Stay classy, be helpful to your team on your way out.

</comment><comment><USER6> 2 weeks is standard. i left 2 gigs and eqch time i felt it wasnt enough time at all but both times they were ok with it. they know how business works. even if you are the ceo, 2 weeks is expected.

</comment><comment><USER7> What is your definition of "respect"?

\- enough time to for them to see you physically in the office before you disappear?

\- enough time for them so that they can complete their goals on time before you leave?

</comment><comment><USER8> No. You had some respect for them (for some reason) and made this arrangement; stick to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed</comment></comment>


A practical use of multiplicative inverses (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://ericlippert.com/2013/11/14/a-practical-use-of-multiplicative-inverses/ <comment><USER2> A feistel cipher is a similarly compact yet cryptographically strong pseudorandom permutation.

</comment><comment><USER3> ha! nice trick, I may actually use it for something...</comment>


Forcing consent before selling browser histories violates our free speech - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/20/maine_isp_lawsuit/ <comment><USER2> _All_ privacy constraints violate free speech. HIPAA? Free speech violation. Banking privacy/secrecy regulations? Free speech violation. Protecting the identity of crime victims? Free speech violation.

For that matter, laws against slander? Free speech violation. Laws against false accusation? Free speech violation. Laws against false advertising? Free speech violation. Laws against filing false tax returns? Free speech violation. Laws against perjury? Free speech violation.

So, if free speech is your only lens through which you view the legal system, there are a _lot_ of free speech violations that are currently (and correctly) encoded into law. Privacy violations are one major area. So this violates the ISPs free speech, in order to protect their customers' privacy? Sounds perfectly fine (and normal) to me...

</comment><comment><USER3> The real headline should be that government agencies in the US are too addicted to getting easy data from ISPs via nearly due-processless administrative subpoena (or just by asking) to prosecute their unlawful wiretaps for what they are (e.g. 18 U.S. Code § 2511 federally, various laws at state level), so instead are wasting time and money twiddling around the edges and trying to restrict the selling instead of doing anything that would endanger the collection.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am not a lawyer but the argument in the lawsuit does not look compelling, insofar as the Register describes it. This seems like a tactic to tie up enforcement while the plaintiffs lobby for more favorable laws in Maine and elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER5> Although I am not at all sympathetic to these ISPs, I do agree that privacy protections ought to apply uniformly to all sellers and service providers.

<comment><USER6> > Although I am not at all sympathetic to these ISPs, I do agree that privacy > protections ought to apply uniformly to all sellers and service providers.

ISPs are different because of the lack of competition. If you don't like Google you can use Duck Duck Go. If you don't like WhatsApp you can use Signal. If you don't like Windows 10 you can use Ubuntu (or, if you want to argue Windows is still a monopoly, Microsoft should move to the "monopolists" column and be subject to the stricter rules).

In particular, in those cases the competitors actually do have meaningfully more respect for privacy. In markets where every reasonably available provider snoops and the market has high barriers to entry, that's a different situation.

<comment><USER7> > ISPs are different because of the lack of competition. If you don't like > Google you can use Duck Duck Go.

This is very much not the case both ways. Yes, you could use DuckDuckGo instead of Google. But by the same logic you can always use some local DSL provider for your ISP. That is still a thing in most places. Of course, you will get 1.5Mbps instead of 50Mbps via Comcast, but it is not like DDG provides the same range of service as Google either.

<comment><USER8> This is a bad comparison for 2 reasons:

1\. [Opinion] As someone who uses DDG for 95%+ of my queries, the sacrifice is orders of magnitude less than using the local DSL provider in your example.

2\. [Fact] Switching ISPs has a much higher cost. Switching back to Google for a few minutes if DDG isn't getting the job done is three keystrokes: " !g".

<comment><USER6> There is also a third reason. Having the option of DSL doesn't do any good if the DSL provider doesn't respect privacy either.

The question isn't whether a viable competitor exists, it's whether a viable competitor that respects privacy exists.

<comment><USER9> Further to this, in Canada at least, all DSLs are subleasing lines in bulk from one single backbone provider (Bell). Competition is legislatively required but de facto questionably existent; in addition I would be surprised that Bell doesn't have all the aggregate data on traffic through subleasing ISPs as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This data shouldn't even be collected in the first place.

<comment><USER11> Why not? It's simply too valuable not to be collected.

<comment><USER10> Because collecting it leads to using it, and using it leads to the surveillance dystopia we're just starting to get a taste of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> the other thread on this subject [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22375269](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22375269)

</comment><comment><USER13> A bit of a clickbaity HN link. Full article headline: "Forcing us to get consent before selling browser histories violates our free speech, US ISPs claim". And subhead: "That ain't the way life should be, Maine responds".

<comment><AUTHOR> HN has a 80-character title limit and it's not always clear how to paraphrase a longer title.

<comment><USER14> How about "Forcing consent before selling browser histories violates free speech, say ISPs"?

<comment><USER15> Or perhaps "ISPs say selling browser histories without consent is free speech".

The difference is small, but it eliminates the tangles of who is doing what in the verbs "forcing" and "violates".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2020/faq-fact-finding-report-jeffrey-epstein-0110 <comment><USER2> From the report

[http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT- report.pdf](http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf)

Professor Lloyd's dealings look very, very shady:

> Professor Lloyd remained friends with Epstein after his conviction in 2008. > He visited Epstein at his office in Florida during the period of Epstein's > criminal sentence. Professor Lloyd also visited Epstein's private island, > though for only a few hours for lunch, and he has acknowledged Epstein in > his academic publications. While Professor Lloyd clearly valued Epstein as a > source of potential funding, he also told us he believed that, by continuing > to engage with Epstein post-conviction, he could be part of Epstein's > rehabilitation. Professor Lloyd told us that, in 2005 or 2006 (before > Epstein's conviction), Epstein gave him a personal $60,000 gift to support > his MIT research that Professor Lloyd did not submit through MIT. In > possible violation of MIT policies and certainly in violation of MIT norms, > Professor Lloyd deposited the gift into a personal bank account and did not > report it to MIT.

> Eventually, in July 2016, Professor Lloyd affirmatively contacted Epstein by > email to ask for funding to support his upcoming sabbatical. On June 1, > 2017, Epstein emailed his accountant and Professor Lloyd: "send 125 k to mit > for seth lloyd from gratitude."

<comment><USER3> > Professor Lloyd also visited Epstein's private island, though for only a few > hours for lunch,

I live a fairly privileged life as a U.S. West Coast techie...and stopping at a private island for a few hours sounds crazy. Do non-billionaire people (active academics at that) really lead lives like this? `

<comment><USER4> It is typical for academics to visit both potential and current sponsors to discuss research funding and collaborations. It is not typical for sponsors to own private islands, and I think visiting for a day is common but a few hours sounds short (but for a one-day visit, the discussions themselves would only be a few hours). These visits are generally paid for by the sponsor (flights, hotels).

<comment><USER5> That's pretty interesting, my only experience of the sort was the sponsor (DARPA) visiting the academic's ocean-overlooking mansion (with two teslas in the garage) with very nice hors d'ouvres. Of course this academic was very well known for owning a yacht and doing "experiments" on the yacht (to be fair the project I was on used the results of one of those experiments).

To be fair, my entire life story has been rather topsy turvy in many ways (went to an undergrad with more grad students, went to a grad school with no undergrads).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The report itself is rather interesting:

[http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT- report.pdf](http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf)

> After meeting Epstein in February 2013, Ito conducted what he described as > "due diligence" into Epstein. Ito told us that he performed a Google search > of Epstein and also spoke with certain individuals to learn more. According > to Ito, the "influential" people with whom he spoke included Nicholas > Negroponte, Media Lab co-founder and Professor Post-Tenure of Media Arts and > Sciences; members of the Media Lab Advisory Council; tech billionaires, > including a former LinkedIn senior executive and co-founder; and a well- > known Harvard Law School professor. Ito also met other influential > individuals at meetings with Epstein, including Woody Allen, a senior > executive at the Hyatt Corporation, and a former prime minister of Israel. > Ito explained that these meetings and discussions influenced his view of > Epstein.

<comment><USER7> > and a well-known Harvard Law School professor.

almost certainly Alan Dershowitz, who is up to his eyeballs in epstein dirt.

<comment><USER6> Yes, and the LinkedIn co-founder is obviously Reid Hoffman. Here's a series of Tweets from Aanand Giridharadas talking about discovering some of this information and how they reacted to it:

[https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1169947031806365696](https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1169947031806365696)

<comment><USER8> That was a great and horrifying read. They're circling the wagons.

> Why are the people not connected to Epstein leaving this orbit, while people > connected to Epstein remain?

> Shouldn't it be the other way around?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1) Negroponte responded: "I know him quite well. The person who is his closest friend is Marvin Minsky, who even visited him in jail. I would take Berlusconi's money, so why not Jeff." (By March 2013, Berlusconi, the former Prime Minister of Italy, had been accused of hiring underaged prostitutes and dating underaged girls.)

2)"I've also talked to Nicholas [Negroponte] as well who had met him and he also agrees that we should treat Jeffrey with respect."

3)Negroponte pushed back on concealing Epstein's attendance, responding (in part) "Of course he can come and would be welcome …. I would make absolutely no fuss over his coming and welcome home [sic] 100%."

Wow, just wow, are there no depths too low?

<comment><USER10> I'm really surprise Marvin visited him in jail. It's not out of character of him (he was really a kind human) but I'm surprised he had that close a relationship.

I like Nicholas a lot but some of his remarks do surprise me.

<comment><USER6> Marvin Minsky was accused of assaulting Virgina Guiffre. Virginia had been trafficked by Epstein starting when she was 15.

[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/new-details-in- unsea...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/new-details-in-unsealed- jeffrey-epstein-documents)

> Giuffre also alleges Epstein and Maxwell told her to have sex with former > New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; former Democratic Senate Majority > Leader George Mitchell; the late MIT computer scientist Marvin Minsky; and > MC2 model agency cofounder Jean Luc Brunel, as well as an unnamed "prince," > "foreign president," and owner of "a French hotel chain." Giuffre previously > alleged she had been forced by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with lawyer > Alan Dershowitz and Britain's Prince Andrew.

<comment><USER10> I know several people who were at that island and have discussed this event; one even told me that he remembered it because Marvin came over to him and said "this woman just offered to have sex with me." Also Gloria, his wife, was there, though I haven't asked her about it (and wouldn't). This seems believable to me.

OTOH I did read Giuffre's deposition and she says not just that she was told by Epstein to proposition various people _but that it happened_. I find that very hard to believe having known him so long, but she made that statement under oath. Also I'm not sure Marvin was famous enough to be worth making up a story about (as opposed to, say, a famous heir to a throne).

<comment><USER11> I don't think it's correct that the deposition says that sex happened -- I'd greatly appreciate a reference to that if you have one.

The deposition contains questions like "Where were you and where was Ms. Maxwell when she directed you to go have sex with Marvin Minsky?", which seem to focus entirely on Maxwell's behavior rather than telling us what Minsky's response was.

(For the record I think Minsky's conduct -- in continuing to associate with Epstein after being offered sex by a young woman on Epstein's private island and then continuing to host conferences there after Epstein's conviction -- is terrible either way, but agreeing on which facts are actually known seems important.)

<comment><USER10> Deposition page 204 line 13 (marginally ambiguous).

My point about Marvin not being super famous is if I were making something up I'd make it up about famous people.

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFx...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFxrmNhs/view)

<comment><USER11> Could you check the page? Neither 204 of the PDF nor 204 in red at the top seems to be a deposition text page.

I'm not imagining that Giuffre made anything up. I'm just trying to work out whether, after she propositioned Minsky as she was directed to by Maxwell (from the deposition, as well as Minsky's own account to other attendees), he accepted.

<comment><USER10> Page labeled in black in its footer

<comment><USER11> Thanks, that looks like the one I was quoting. I'm surprised you say "she says not just that she was told by Epstein to proposition various people but that it happened" from that text, unless maybe by "it" you just mean the proposition..?

I'd agree that Minsky agreeing to the proposition would be implied by those sentences in normal conversation, but depositions have carefully constructed and precise questions and answers, so that leaves me unsure.

(Again, I'm not trying to offer a strong defense of Minsky here or claim that any part of the deposition isn't true.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've seen some articles written by former MIT Media Lab employees, and they made it seem like Epstein's involvement and history was basically an open secret that they weren't allowed to mention in emails or documents.

There was a Medium article that said Epstein brought young Eastern European women (likely trafficked) with him to campus. (If I can find it I will edit this comment) I think it says a lot about their culture, that people working there are encouraged to look the other way when a billionaire is involved.

Also, looking at the report, it is obvious that Ito was completely aware of Epstein's history, and the risks of associating with him, but continued to invite him to MIT's campus.

</comment><comment><USER13> You know, I was thinking to myself what it would take to take Epstein money. How much would count? And the truth is that no amount really works. Most of us middle-class folk would probably say no pretty fast if offered the choice because the best way to stay safe from the mob is to not let it turn its Eye of Sauron on you. The instinct that keeps me far is less morality than self- preservation. Epstein himself had billions and he died in a jail cell. I'd take the deal if I were destitute, though.

Interestingly, lots of these people weren't destitute. But these people (more intelligent than I am) fell for a trick I would have fallen for a hundred times faster: the slow drip. "Come visit my island. I'll fly you there". Of course I say "yes". Then when I'm there, everyone is busy having sex with kids. I'm standing there like gawking like an idiot. I have no sex with kids. I'm the only one who will say that. I'm already screwed. Well played, mob, well played. If I whistle blow the kid-screwing then they'll get in front of me. I'll commit suicide because apparently I had this secret paedophilia. The Internet will say "Well, junba wasn't a trustworthy guy ultimately. They found child porn on his computer". I'm not saying that some of the guys were innocent. I'm saying that given the existence of adversaries bent on information manipulation, no one external can determine if you're innocent or not. Better to stay far from the Eye of Sauron.

</comment><comment><USER14> > At the end of the discussion, there was a consensus, reached by Morgan, > Ruiz, and Newton, to keep Epstein's $100,000 donation to the Media Lab and > to accept further donations from him so long as: (1) each donation would be > recorded as anonymous, and Epstein could not publicize it; (2) the donations > would be relatively small; and (3) the donations would be unrestricted.

Right, they thought really hard about it and their moral compass told them to sweep it under the carpet.

Then the emails from Ito to Newton and the others at Resource Development are interesting. Here is one, Ito tries hard convince others to let him keep the money.

> I'm actively developing the relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and I'd like > to know your thinking on this. More important than this $100K is what > happens if he is interested in a much larger gift. My previous understanding > was that if it was not accounted or named—or if the gift might be given > anonymously—it was likely to be OK.

He is dangling future bags of money in front of them. "Just think of all the funding we could be getting. And look, we've already hid it as anonymous before, surely we can do it again".

That's some very effective tactics. Epstein did that too, he started giving smaller amounts of money first to see how it goes. Those processed, people made excuses. Once that happened they were hooked into the scheme and ready to be roped in even more. Ito was using the same tactics.

<comment><USER15> this whole thread bothers me, but not for the usual reasons.

1) everyone is up on their high horses pretending that they somehow have an absolute moral compass that would prevent them from doing any wrong. To me it looks like people over at MIT are trying to do the right thing (with this external investigation) and maybe there will be some lessons learned from this whole episode.

2) everyone is outraged (rightfully) at what this guy/monster did but I believe we are missing a bigger point here: people abuse power every damn day. people fuck over people in a weak position - that cannot defend themselves - every damn day. It sounds like some lives are more important than other when it comes to capturing the moral highground. What about minimum wage workers living in poverty, people that deperately need health care or civilians in war zones? Nobody gives a damn about what has become the new normal, but we're outraged that some guy had assistants in their 20s and basically ran a prostitution ring on his island.

3) a subset of the same people that probably visited the island have decided to silence the guy because he probably knew too much. The same people that had no problem having sex with underage, sexually exploited girls, decided to abuse their power once more. And we're outraged that a bunch of MIT professors took donations to pursuit their research.

Honestly at this point I would just let law enforcement do their thing and would focus on preventing/exposing situations such of this vs being revisionists about what should have been done.

<comment><USER16> I agree with 2), but the Epstein case was closely related to the HN bubble, so it's only natural that people get worked up about it.

> Honestly at this point I would just let law enforcement do their thing

I don't think this will happen. Look at the phenomenal outcome of this underage prostitution case, which (from what we know) sounds pretty boring in comparison:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux#Deaths_of_potenti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux#Deaths_of_potential_witnesses)

Something about sex trafficking seems to bring out the hitmen really quick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A large defense contractor in Massachusetts conducted research for the CIA in support of its post-9/11 enhanced interrogation program. Stephen Kosslyn, formerly affiliated with the Harvard psychology department, helped this defense contractor win the contract and served as an academic advisor to the program for the CIA.

Kosslyn was also responsible for creating a position for Jeffrey Epstein at Harvard in the psychology department, according to a recent report published by Harvard's president Lawrence Bacow.

Given Epstein's alleged connection to CIA, one wonders what role it played in helping land this disgraceful $20 million program in in this defense contractor's lap?

</comment><comment><USER18> > In September, in response to revelations about engagements between MIT and > Jeffrey Epstein...

This isn't true, right? MIT knew about those engagements from as far back as 2013. This is the first sentence in the first answer to the first question and it just isn't correct. What _actually_ happened in September is a bunch of fucking terrible press for MIT. This whole thing is just so sad and at the end of all this is a bunch of human beings who were treated so poorly by some, and in some ways almost worse, treated indifferently by so many others.

<comment><USER10> The point is revelation _outside_ MIT. The report is pretty clear that Epstein's presence was discussed frequently internally -- and okayed.

The amount of money he donated is infinitesimal by MIT's standards. They must have been convinced there was tons more to come.

<comment><USER18> I'm not denying the report is clear, as that wasn't written by MIT, but an independent 3rd party. The FAQ is written by MIT and I believe the first sentence is not clear to someone who isn't familiar with the history. The FAQ should stand on its own without the report or else what good is it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Anybody else remember the death of Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz? And what role MIT played in it? And the "conspiracy theories" surrounding his death? It may be a good time to look at that again.

<comment><USER20> Also don't forget that Rafael Reif was responsible for orchestrating the massive coverup of fraud at MIT Lincoln Laboratory regarding Ted Postol's allegations of fraudulent missile defense tests:

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401412/postol-vs-the- pent...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401412/postol-vs-the-pentagon/)

If the Department of Defense had not punted on the investigation, then provost Rafael Reif and his supervisor president Susan Hockfield would be serving time in a federal penitentiary with former dean of MIT Sloan School of Management Gabriel Bitran

[https://money.cnn.com/2014/08/12/investing/mit-professor- sca...](https://money.cnn.com/2014/08/12/investing/mit-professor- scam/index.html)

instead of sending thank-you notes to one of the most depraved child molesters of the 20th century.

Shame on Reif and Hockfield!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What appears surprising to me is how easy the funded researchers apparently got away with it.

\- Profs Lloyd and Oxman, still in service

\- Joscha Bach, who is the VP of research at the AI foundation ([https://aifoundation.com/about/](https://aifoundation.com/about/)), and declined to comment. I don't know whether someone with such track record should be educating on the future of AI?

</comment><comment><USER22> _The report is the product of considerable work involving 73 interviews of 59 people and more than 610,000 documents and emails._

That's 10,000 documents and emails per person interviewed. How is that even possible?

<comment><USER23> Likely - not all 610k documents are authored by those 59 people.

59 people are interesting to look at. 610k documents are related to the investigation probably by search/graph.

Realistically, not all 610k are read manually.

<comment><USER24> Also, the interactions span over 15 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can someone explain to me what harm was caused by MIT accepting anonymous donations from Jeffrey Epstein? As an MIT alum I don't understand what the problem is.

<comment><USER26> They weren't really anonymous. Those who needed to know, knew. The details were just hidden from the general public.

"Really anonymous" might be to set up a trust, interact through a lawyer, where MIT receives no information about the person behind the scenes.

But people at MIT knew, and it helped him make connections with other people.

In addition, the donations were reciprocated. One example (going from memory, so might have details wrong) was that one of the labs was asked to make a gift for Epstein.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Apparently Reif's job was on the line too. I was surprised he survived

</comment><comment><USER26> "Releasing bad news or documents on a Friday afternoon in an attempt to avoid media scrutiny is often called a "Friday news dump" by members of the media." \- [https://politicaldictionary.com/words/friday-news- dump/](https://politicaldictionary.com/words/friday-news-dump/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Why they hired a law firm to begin with?

<comment><USER28> Often times outside law firms handle investigations like this. MIT clearly had some failed policies where they were laundering the reputation of a despicable person for donations, which shouldn't happen. An internal investigation would be strongly biased to find no wrong-doing. Ostensibly, an outside investigation is more neutral (even though MIT is still paying for it so they're clearly biased to be soft too...)

<comment><USER29> I found noteworthy that MIT recognized the risk of bias and attempted to control for it by retaining a second law firm (that had no history of working with MIT, whereas the first firm they retained has been used by MIT for previous tasks).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> After the report on Aaron Swartz I have very low expectations, in fact I expect another MIT whitewash. I'll read it to see if that's the case.

</comment><comment><USER31> There is a good reason why Rafael Reif only appears in public these days flanked on all sides by brutes from the MIT police department.

During the Vietnam War, Dean Epps was placed under citizen's arrest by the students of Harvard University (as he famously yelled back at them: "Unhand me, you mother-fuckers!") for that organization's complicity in what the UN has now ruled a war crime:

[https://www.salon.com/2011/11/11/occupy_harvard_gets_the_old...](https://www.salon.com/2011/11/11/occupy_harvard_gets_the_old_college_jeer/)

Got to wish protesters today the best of luck getting anywhere near that close to Rafael Reif, with the police detail that he needs to hide behind in order to protect his filthier-than-dirt, self-rationalizing ass from those who might attempt to hold him publicly accountable.

</comment><comment><USER32> > Epstein was joined by one or two female assistants who appeared to be in > their twenties, which made some people uncomfortable ... A Media Lab staff > member told us that she was "grossed out" during of one Epstein's visits to > the Media Lab, both because ... and because Epstein brought female > assistants in their twenties with him.

Is anyone interpreting this as "At MIT, it's reasonable to be prejudiced against young women who claim to have a job in the philanthropy field. Anyone actually qualified for such a job would have a different age or a different gender."? If I'm a professor elsewhere and visit MIT to talk about my research, can my female graduate student (who did most of the work) safely visit at the same time, or will she run into the same prejudice? Does the answer depend on her physical appearance?

<comment><USER33> People are, quite sensibly, prejudiced against someone convicted of sex crimes involving the exploitation of young women traveling with young women. The prejudice is against him, not the women. The incident and the reactions of the staff involved has been documented in greater detail elsewhere, you can just google it up.

<comment><USER34> To avoid the appearance of impropriety, should people avoid hiring female assistants? I hope not.

<comment><USER33> To avoid the appearance and reality of impropriety, people should avoid sex trafficking and other crimes. I don't understand what the relationship to 'employing women assistants' is supposed to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > we now see that the donations totaled $850,000

Why would Epstein donate $850k to MIT?

</comment><comment><USER36> Our ruling class is chock full of pedophiles and rapists (Trump, Bill Clinton, Epstein, etc) and because they have all the power and wealth, it gradually filters down to other institutions that depend on sponsorship like MIT. This is what is sometimes called bourgeois decadence.

<comment><USER36> Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking an underage girl in 2008, by the way, long before many of MIT's dealings with him. literally convicted, which is surprising! he got a 13 month sentence and spent most of it on "work release" because that is how justice works for billionaires as long as they don't threaten other billionaires.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Reif should resign.

</comment><comment><USER38> Epstein didn't kill himself.

Video footage "accidentally" deleted and the backup footage also lost due to "technical errors."

His death and a cleanup so slovenly and brazenly done in front of the public eye is a mockery of America as a nation of "liberty and justice for all."

<comment><USER39> This happens MUCH less today than at any time in the past. Only 2 generations ago, stuff like this was happening on a daily basis everywhere in the world. This was basically what justice used to be.

The world is not fair. There is little justice. But it's more fair and just than it's ever been before, by far. Maybe we've taken a step back in the last 10 years. It's hard to say. But compared to even 50 years ago, we are so far ahead it's unbelievable. 100 years, and it's basically a different world.

<comment><USER40> "America" is different than "everywhere in the world"

<comment><USER41> There's plenty of data showing that conditions have improved around the world.

There were way more socialist and right wing dictators in the 1970s. Even in the early 90s than today.

Extrajudicial killings, independent courts, poverty via failed economic ideologies or resistance to adopting modern industry/markets, etc has all significantly declined and conditions have improved.

The world will always need constant maintenance and good things stagnant and need reforming. History has a habit of repeating itself but rarely to the same degree of failure as lessons do get learned and quality of life always increases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is besides the point of the article, but the link is in HTTP (no TLS but available with a correct certificate), and the report site which has the information linked in the article is also in HTTP (but has a bad TLS certificate).

<comment><USER29> Why is this an issue?

<comment><USER43> For an institution that claims to be an engineering leader, there's no real excuse for not having TLS everywhere with proper redirects today. It can prevent ISPs from seeing what you get or injecting their own code into webpages.

<comment><USER29> Are either of those a risk that's practically worth guarding against for this information?

Engineering leaders generally have the skill of choosing the right solution for the problem at hand.

<comment><USER44> The problem is a matter of trust.

The information therein is potentially bad for their reputation, and not "signing on the dotted line" leaves scope for them to come out in the future and say "that's not actually what we said, must have been MitMd" (for example).

An institution of this calibre should be considered viable to pull off something this obtuse to your average person, and thus should not be given the benefit of the doubt. This is just one of many possible effects including SEO penelties amongst others.

<comment><USER29> That risk doesn't make any sense when they can also just edit the page content on their end. Are we taking seriously the risk MIT would try and blame editing their own page on some kind of MITM that successfully masked true page content a) consistently b) for 100% of readers c) applied at an attack location in the network that someone had access to that isn't the same someone as controls the TLS-verified content hosting? This smells like rhinoceros-repellent levels of paranoia.

<comment><USER44> I'm not seriously suggesting this is likely, im just presenting a hypothetical scenario, and it doesn't need to be plausible in order for it to be used as a narrative. Do it properly, remove any doubt, secure your (one's) website so people _know_ the information came from you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I find the whole Epstein thing to be full fledged Puritan Rage Culture.

Start with the crimes of the man himself. He had young women and girls around and gave them money in exchange for sexual acts. This is something society doesn't like to think about explicitly, but might these young females have actually chosen/wanted this? The typical answer is: They were underage and vulnerable therefor anything they did doesn't imply consent. That is a very condescending view. The age of legal consent in the US is 16 in many states and as low as 11 under some circumstances! In the charges against him it says:

"Once minor victims were recruited, EPSTEIN or his employees or associates would contact victims to schedule appointments for "massages." As a result, many victims were abused by EPSTEIN on multiple subsequent occasions."

"To further enable him to abuse underage girls, EPSTEIN asked and enticed certain of his victims to recruit additional minor girls to perform "massages" and similarly engage in sex acts with EPSTEIN. When a victim would recruit another underage girl for EPSTEIN, he paid both the victim-recruiter and the new victim hundreds of dollars in cash. Through these victim-recruiters, EPSTEIN maintained a steady supply of new victims to exploit, and gained access to dozens of additional underage girls to abuse."

[https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/jeffrey-epstein- charged...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/jeffrey-epstein-charged- manhattan-federal-court-sex-trafficking-minors)

These account make it clear to me, that these girls were not helpless victims suffering at the hands of an abuser. That just doesn't scale. 100s of girls agreeing to be scheduled again and again (without use of force threat or violence), and to recruit other girls means that it wasn't that bad. I know this is something "you can't say" hence the throwaway.

I'm not saying that there wasn't any foul play, or that Epstein was a great guy. Far from it. But that he is _very_ different from someone who physically abuses a helpless prepubescent child with violence. In a way treating both these cases as "pedophilic sex offences" is offensive to victims of the latter. My point is that society needs to re-embrace Proportionality.

We wrote this man off as pure Evil, so anything he touches must be Evil too. We don't allow any positive attribution to his actions. Any money he gives is tainted money only used to launder his reputation. Any person that has ever come into contact with him, let alone had any positive thought about him, is also Evil. Why is accepting donations from him frame the person or organization as endorsing child abuse? Why is having a photo with him, or being at a dinner party with him mark you as suspect? Why shouldn't have MIT accept donations from him? Should Apple (or your startup) not sell to "known sex offenders" or other convicted criminals?

</comment><comment><USER46> The best shield for the devious are the innocent and idealists. If you murder someone and burry them in your back yard - invite the police over for a bbq.

</comment><comment><USER47> Sadly, this doesn't answer the most frequently asked question: Did Epstein kill himself?

<comment><USER48> Why do you believe MIT would have this information?

<comment><USER47> I don't, it's just the most frequently asked question.

<comment><USER49> It's not such an interesting question, since most people (even at MIT) think the answer is obviously "no". GP is right to doubt that MIT has any particular insight, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I trust Barr with regards to Epstein's death being a suicide. The scandal there would be _who allowed him to kill himself_ not necessarily who killed him.

What boggles my mind is why they're being so tight lipped about the investigation. The island was swarming with FBI, including scuba divers. Why not a single statement? Nothing!</comment>


EasyCheck, Data Collection and Compliance Management Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.easycheck.co

<comment><AUTHOR> Very excited to formally launch my 3rd startup. Formally being the key. We've been working hard for the last 20 months under the radar and are very grateful to our beta partners. We know many of you will see the same benefit we all see in a solution like this!</comment>


Differentiation Strategy (and the Sea of Sameness) - <AUTHOR> https://cxl.com/blog/differentiation-strategy/ <comment><USER2> For young companies, most advisors love to tell you, "Find out what your competition is doing and copy it. They must be doing it right and they already did the work for you." I cannot tell you how many times I heard that... and from top people too. To start, that may be true to a certain extent, but it can only get you so far as you mentioned. Plus, you started your company to fit a market need that was not being addressed, so celebrate that need and your ability to address it. Competing on differentiation is the only way to actually sustain a new business. Also, I like the Tesla shout out. They constantly look to differentiate any way they can. Great article. Lots of great information.

</comment><comment><USER3> "It's not enough to be just a little bit different. The differentiation needs to be big enough to tilt the decision in your favor.

Adding words like "robust" to your email marketing software description won't do much."

Unfortunately, that's how most of us do it - afraid to be different but still afraid to look as everyone else.

So much value from just one article.

</comment><comment><USER4> Author here. I spent the last winter studying differentiation - reading every book on the topic I could find (surprisingly little has been written about it), discussing it with people, thinking about it constantly.

The article is a summary of this work. Happy to answer any questions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Liked the category creation part. Many of the most succesful products (not the first ones) created their own category so much that sometimes even their brand name serves as a category name today.

</comment><comment><USER6> lots of psychology experiments speak to the fact that very different is good at attracting attention, but people usually convert/engage/choose what's familiar. How does your premise adjust for this known effect?

<comment><USER4> You need to be different in a way that's meaningful to the customer. "Most environmentally sensitive email marketing software" is likely not gonna land, even though you'd be the only one doing that.

If you address my pain, solve for my particular use case that nobody else is addressing, I might choose you. But if you're just like Mailchimp (that Im familiar with), I'll go with Mailchimp.</comment></comment>


What are reasons people use throwaway accounts on HN? - <AUTHOR> I've used HN for a few years as a news resource and only recently started commenting. Now that I'm paying attention (and seeing green usernames), I'm really surprised at the number of throwaway accounts -- many obviously so, including "throwaway" in their name.
I can think of a couple reasons people might want to use a throwaway account:

  1) Mask their identity to espouse a position they are
     afraid to have associated with their "main" account
  2) Troll (variant of 1)
  3) Manipulate voting
 Thoughts on any others? I looked for previous discussion but didn't see much.
(Posted with my one and only account -- not passing judgement, honestly asking the question) <comment><USER2> In the context of user points, #1 has to be the biggest issue, which highlights a big problem with voting in the HN community. Downvoting is a feature given to people with favorable stances in the community, thus shunning others with alternative views.

While some say downvotes should be used to deter comments that do not add to the discussion, this isn't realistic. Interestingly, this places those who hold popular opinion in control of the discussion, effectively keeping others' opinions less visible, and status quo strong until tipping points occur in positions where a majority of the community conversely agrees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, watching what's been down voted and flagged has been interesting. I've seen examples of both civil, substantive comments _and_ abusive/empty comments down voted. And sometimes the former don't even appear controversial. Being new to the community, I've tried to pay attention to what is acceptable behavior.

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Question regarding personal work relationship issues that could be traced back to other people that might offend the person.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, this is the useful one. There's no pat HR answer for a lot of questions like:

"I was hired for X money and Y percent equity to do Z but then Z didn't make any money so we transitioned to something else. We were someone successful in that, I got my H1B visa job description transferred over to the new responsibilities, the founder went on strange power trip about redesigning everything so we had to do a fire sale and the Y equity all went away. The new company wants to pay me less than X because of the job description change, what do I do?"

Which, while not an exact story, is the kind of thing that happens in tech a lot. Just so many weird, weird situations.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was one I hadn't thought of, and makes a lot of sense. Thanks, sharemywin and patmcguire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's basically it.

People don't want some inflammatory thing to be associated with them. Which should make those people think about their position, rather than post it here anonymously.

Let me put it this way: when someone's hiring or doing a business deal, they Google your name.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Which should make those people think about their position, rather than post > it here anonymously.

Isn't that the truth! I can see people with honest, good faith questions that they're not ready to be public about, but my impression is that is significantly in the minority.

And it does seem like better quality discussion comes from identifiable users.

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Because of the obvious [and sneakily hidden censorship], I'd imagine</comment>


Designing an Intel 80386SX development board - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lse.epita.fr/articles/77-lsepc-intro.html <comment><USER3> _Its purpose is mainly didactic for students or experienced developers who want to get started into x86 low-level programming._

And that's a noble idea. But this board has absolutely no I/O except for an LED. If you're going to teach embedded development, you really need to talk to some peripherals or understand how to manipulate on-chip registers. Modern SoCs work in a completely different manner than this board.

And, just to add a personal viewpoint, learning x86 low-level programming has very little value in the embedded systems market at this point in time.

<comment><USER4> > If you're going to teach embedded development, you really need to talk to > some peripherals or understand how to manipulate on-chip registers. Modern > SoCs work in a completely different manner than this board

But the site explicitly says that it is intended to teach PC architecture and not embedded.

<comment><USER3> But you can pick up an 80386-class PC at a thrift store for a couple of dollars. And it will have I/O ports, a true northbridge controller (not this mystery FPGA), and probably even a hard drive.

And, if that's not an option, there's QEMU. Which AFAIK is free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really can't work out what the designers are thinking. If you want to learn low-level PC hacking, use QEMU. If you want to do your low-level PC hacking on an actual 80386 machine, go to the PC recycler, and if they still have anything that ancient around they will probably just give it to you for free, to be rid of it. Or you can spend $5 and get some Pentium class machine instead. And if you want to get into embedded development, for god's sake don't waste your time on all the byzantine cruft in the PC architecture - <USER2> get an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi or even some Cortex-M3 dev board. I don't see what's left for this project.

</comment><comment><USER6> Woah.. I used to hang out near those guys 8 years ago (was a student there). I wish they would have teach us things like that. Great project !

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm amazed that the NG80386SXLP20 is still available (in stock at Digikey).

I made a similar design 20 years ago, but with the IDT79R3041 MIPS CPU (sadly no longer available) and XC3030 FPGA: [https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/tree/master/hw/handh...](https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/tree/master/hw/handheld)

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how easy it is to find the old ICE stuff complete with bond out chips.</comment>


Unacceptable Ignorance: Congress must reinstate Office of Technology Assessment - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessment

<comment><AUTHOR> To prevent the next SOPA (or the first one from passing in a modified form) I firmly believe they need a non-partisan group that works directly for them just like the budget office - where they can bounce off the crazy ideas they get from lobbyists before they waste everyone's time and money.

They clearly never call or listen to "expert testimony" so they need it in- house where it's less un-ignorable.

<comment><USER2> I agree the OTA needs to be reestablished, but that won't eliminate the corrupting power of money in politics. Unfortunately that is the real problem. Media companies can continue to push through these types of laws year after year, and until their influence is either countered or mitigated, we will continue to see more SOPA-like laws in the future.

Lawrence Lessig, the guy behind the Creative Commons, realized this and changed his views away from modernizing copyright to pushing congressional reform. His new blog talks more about this (<http://lessig.tumblr.com>)</comment></comment>


Thomas Quick: the Swedish serial killer who never was - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/20/thomas-quick-bergwall-sweden-murder

<comment><USER2> >>> But, of course, if you spend so much time with a client, you always see the person behind the headlines. It all starts with a little boy under a Christmas tree, playing with toys and it ends up very tragic. Somewhere along the line, everyone is a victim

Just depressing.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your wifi setup? - <AUTHOR> I live in an apartment building and have my wifi speeds shackled by the amount of interference around me. I know using ethernet as opposed to wifi makes a big difference, but sometimes I can't be plugged in.. (ie chromecast, cell phone, etc.) What does your home setup look like? <comment><USER2> I periodically use Wifi Analyzer (Android App) to see what's going on and then setup both 2.4 & 5 GHz SSIDs on the least congested channels. You have to remember that 2.4GHz is also used by microwave ovens and Bluetooth devices - those won't show on the analyzer.

Have to watch out for strong signals on non-standard channels (i.e. other than 1, 6, 11, 14). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels) explains the situation well.

In my experience the "auto" channel selection option doesn't always work well. Depends on the make and model of your WiFi A/P. WiFi repeaters might also help if you have low signal in areas that you often use your devices.

<comment><USER3> Most "auto" channel selectors only pick the channel on AP boot, which is not always the right time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I also have home WiFi / lan issues.

I have a Plusnet 2704n router connected by cable to two other rooms with poor wifi signal. The wifi on the router is switched off.

In the two other rooms there is are two TP-LINK TL-WA801ND used to create access points - these run on different channels and have static IP addresses.

On to the problem. Sometimes the internet connection slows to an incredibly poor speed - simple pages fail to load. This occurs with no apparent increase in load (based on the traffic graphs on the access points).

I've not done any setup beyond what's described here.

I have a suspicion that the hub is unable to handle the number of total connected devices (as much as 10) as it sometimes fails to list wired devices on the settings page.

Any ideas on things I might try or buy? I'm aware the 2704n router is pretty basic but I'd still like to work out what the issue is before replacing it.

<comment><USER2> I too use TL-WA801's and I find them Ok. A couple of things I would check for.

\- Assuming you are running 2.4GHz, check for interfering devices, for example, microwave running at the time of slow speeds. Offending ovens could be in an adjoining unit or home. I find some BlueTooth devices can also cause sporadic interference. Cordless phones, less so, but also possible.

\- Run speedtest.net when performance is good and when it is bad. This will give you a sense of the underlying internet speeds you are accessing via your router.

\- Are the different channels 5 channels apart? I would use 1 and 11 if possible.

\- Are the A/Ps configured for different SSIDs? I find it easier to diagnose things when they are different. Check that your device isn't connecting the the weaker WiFi access point.

\- Do you use DHCP on both A/Ps? I would configure each to a different subnet, e.g. 192.168.11.0/24 and 192.168.22.0/24 and yet another subnet for the router.

\- Do you have a system plugged into an ethernet port on the back of the router? I suggest that you do and do some comparison testing from there to rule out issues with WiFi. Especially speedtest.net when the WiFi connected devices are experiencing slowdowns.

\- If possible do a WiFi signal check, I like WiFi Analyzer (Android app). You want to stay away from misconfigured channels. See my other post in relation to this HN topic.

\- Double check that the WiFi is disabled on your router, just in case a power cycle has rest it back to default configuration.

\- In my experience the router is rarely the problem, especially if you have disabled the rather low grade WiFi that particular model has. It is also possible the your internet service provider has some under-provisioned equipment somewhere along the line. In some rapidly growing areas, DSLAMs are connected to low capacity backbone connections or MLPS switches. You might want to check what other users of your internet service provider are experiencing.

<comment><USER4> Thanks so much for this - I'll have a play around this weekend. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you tried using a dual-band wifi access point? 5GHz is a lot less congested and doesn't travel through walls as well as 2.4GHz so you're less likely to get interference.

It helped me a lot when I lived in an apartment and got a dual band Apple wifi AP.

<comment><USER6> Ironically if you're in a modern apartment where everyone is using 5Ghz, you might find 2.4GHz to be less congested.

It's worth scanning the wifi networks with either openwrt or a command line tool and checking out which channels everything is on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> An awful AP my ISP sent me sometime around 2010. Probably has a million security holes by now and I should really upgrade, probably to something openWRT capable.

</comment><comment><USER3> Two APs set to lowest transmit power.</comment>