Microsoft launches Office for iPad - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/03/27/microsoft-unveils-office-ipad/?utm_medium=Spreadus&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=social%20media&awesm=tnw.to_s3Js0 <comment><USER2> MS is changing, and make no mistake, this has started with Ballmer. If you watch(ed) the press conf, it's quite apparent. App store for Android, Office for iPad, AD for Azure.. quite nice stuff, that's what we expect from a software giant: just release stuff for everything, everywhere, and make things be able to work with each other nicely.

Good to see that, competition is always good for the users, and Apple, Google and MS all seem to be quite strong on their fields (although Google is the most fashionable nowadays).

<comment><USER3> It's not changing, expensive subscription for editing is the proof. Same greedy corporation which cares about its cash cows.

<comment><USER4> Microsoft is a software company, and Office is one of their biggest products. Why would they make it free? While they do give out OneNote for free, it is not a major part of Office. Making Word, excel, and PowerPoint free would hurt them much more than it would help them.

<comment><USER5> The same reason a friendly drug dealer would offer a first hit free: to get you hooked.

Once you have a bunch of important documents locked up in Office file formats -- which Office is the only app guaranteed to be able to read reliably -- you have a great incentive down the road to start sending money to Microsoft so you can continue to access them.

<comment><USER6> I believe that's what they're doing, with the "free to view, pay to edit" model.

<comment><USER7> maybe it should be free to edit, pay to share?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if they aren't a little late on this. I assume that I'm not the only one that found out I can get along just fine without Office on an iPad (or in my own personal case, get along just fine without Office at all). If the free Pages/Keynote/Numbers doesn't do it, I probably need a "real" computer anyway.

That was always the real danger I saw for Microsoft as they delayed supporting iOS. Folks buy the devices anyway, despite their lack of Office. Then folks find out that they can do what they want to do despite that lack of Office. Maybe they've been using it by default, not because they really need it. Then Microsoft comes out with Office for iOS and there's a collective shrug and a "meh".

<comment><USER9> I have yet to see any iOS app doing a reliable job in even just displaying Excel and Word documents.

A long time ago I thought that LibreOffice or Pages were close enough, good enough to not need Office, but in reality there is still some random document once in a while that has the history messed up, or the layout hides a part of the text, or images are not at the right place. It might be 98% OK, but you can't always afford to give up on the 2% of information your are missing.

Forcing Office users to give a sensible version of the files when sharing is the best solution, but having a native iOS version of Office for when that's not an option is invaluable.

<comment><USER10> _but in reality there is still some random document once in a while that has the history messed up, or the layout hides a part of the text, or images are not at the right place_

We really should get a campaign going to persuade people to keep their Word and Powerpoint formats simple. Usually interop problems only happen when people do weird formatting things that look terrible anyway.

<comment><USER9> IMO the issue is more with the document format than what people are doing with it. The most recurrent problem I've seen was with text that was deleted at some point appearing instead of the current version.

What I'd really want in the first place is people to care if what they are sharing is in the right format.

When a non technical clients asks a designer to see some early drafts of a site's UI, they will usually receive rendered jpg or png files, not Photoshop or Illustrator files. Most school teachers would be pissed of if students were to turn in home assignments in tex. I find it inconsiderate to send me docx files for documents that are read only on my side, just send me the PDF instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The pricing structure is interesting: Free to view, requires an expensive Office 365 subscription to edit.

Seems like they're missing an opportunity to drive adoption of Office as an online platform. Why would I want to publish using Office instead of Google Docs when I can't assume that people I send the Office doc to will be able to edit it? Sure, Office is better, but not better enough to overcome that.

If it was free to edit, but $$$ to publish, Office 365 would be much more compelling. Especially since the situation w/r/t mobile looks much better than Google Docs.

Edit: My point here is about network effects, not whether the subscription is worth it. Office previously benefited from them, but it's vulnerable as a cloud platform given the free alternatives from Google and even Apple.

<comment><USER12> Apparently lots of people (still) don't know about it but there have been free browser versions of Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote since 2010. They were recently rebranded from Office Web Apps to Office Online, along with easier access directly from office.com. Here's the relevant HN thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7302221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7302221)

If you publish/upload the document to OneDrive (7 GB is free) you can send the link to anyone and then they can view and edit the document for free in the browser, just like with Google Docs.

<comment><USER13> That office suite looks nice, much like most of Microsoft's web presence. I'm tempted to use it.

I can't help but wonder, however, how would you expect Office Online to compare to Google Docs in terms of privacy (including in the long run)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some comments here refer the potencially high cost of the membership for Office 365. It seems like there will be a new plan for $7/m ($70/y) supporting 2 devices[1]. Like the previous plan, it also seems to include 1h of Skype calls.

[1] [http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing- office-365-per...](http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing- office-365-personal-a-new-way-to-access-office-365/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Excel and PowerPoint are live already. Excel: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for- ipad/id5...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for- ipad/id586683407?mt=8)

PowerPoint: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for- ipa...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for- ipad/id586449534?mt=8)

<comment><AUTHOR> And Word: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-word-for- ipad/id58...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-word-for- ipad/id586447913?mt=8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Before anybody thinks this is weird, or unusual. Microsoft has quite often been more pragmatic about the platform offerings for their office suite than elsewhere. After all, Office exists and has existed on Apple products for a very long time. It's more unusual that it _hasn 't_ been on the iProducts than anything.

<comment><USER16> I may be remembering wrong, but isn't the fact that Office existed on the Mac for so long also a result of the deal that Microsoft and Apple struck back in the 90's? Microsoft would keep making Office for the Mac and in exchange Apple would drop it's patent suit against them.

<comment><USER17> No, Word and Excel started out on the Mac and came to Windows later. I think what you're referring to is, there was a deal in the '90s where Microsoft helped out Apple, which included investment and maintaining an Internet Explorer Mac port (this was a much bigger deal back then). This gave the company some breathing room. At the time Apple was circling the drain and everyone assumed that they would be out of business in a matter of years if not months. This was the same era as Microsoft's antitrust suits, so what Microsoft got out of it was a (very weak at the time) competitor that they could continue pointing to as evidence that they weren't a monopoly.

<comment><USER15> According to WP, it started as a Xenix application, made its way over to DOS (to compete with WordPerfect or WordStar IIR), then Mac, then a few other platforms before finally ending up on Windows in 89.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A review comparing the Apple apps (native and cloud), MSFT Office (native and cloud), and Google Docs compare would be interesting. Specifically usability (touch as well as external keyboard attached), on and offline modes.

Playing up the ribbon in the presentation? Curious as ribbon really has triggered a love it or hate it reaction.

<comment><USER19> Considering Apple's Cloud apps are still in beta, that would be unfair. I can't edit my KeyNote presentation in the cloud at the moment, so yeah.

<comment><USER20> I don't think it would be unfair. If we're competing in the same space and you have a solid, mature app and all I have is a buggy beta, that means you're winning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm really hoping MS becomes a company that offers consistent and great experiences no matter who's walled garden you're in.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's great to see Office on iPad - hopefully it'll encourage Google to improve their terrible Drive app.

Our company moved entirely to Google Docs about 5 years ago. Being sent a Word file is like being handed a CD ROM - a brief moment for a 'Oh, one of those' mental gear change and a few minutes rummaging in the dead tech box for an external drive. Or in Office's case something that can reliably parse the file

</comment><comment><USER23> Finally. Yes, there are alternatives to Microsoft Office for the iPad, but make no mistake, none of them even come close to that of Microsoft Office. I just downloaded Word and Excel, couldn't find a flaw in either of them. The subscription part for editing sucks, but subscriptions are fairly cheap.

We are witnessing a new Microsoft that began when new CEO Satya Nadella took the helm. This is his first of many acts to turn the company around, instead of the previous closed door approach Balmer preferred.

It's good to see Satya doesn't appear to be full brainwashed by the Microsoft cool-aid. This isn't 1998, Windows is no longer the dominant platform and it makes sense to open up your products to other platforms, especially given Microsoft's failure to break ground in the mobile market.

Now all Satya needs to do is bring back the start menu in Windows 9, get rid of that horrid Metro tile interface for non touch devices (or at the very least give users the option of the new Metro interface or classic desktop) and I'll be ecstatic.

<comment><USER24> You realize that this had to have been in development for months if not years prior to this release, right?

<comment><USER25> There are been rumours saying that it has been ready for months if not years.

The decision to release it is Nadella's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Nadella said "Let me go to my iPad"! I bet that wasn't allowed at the time of Gates and Ballmer.

<comment><USER26> Well, Ballmer was famous for his enrage moments when someone show up at some meeting using an iphone [1]

[1] [http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/ba...](http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/ballmer_spots_microsoft_employee_with_iphone_at_company_meeting.html?page=all)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> As a long time MS customer their pricing strategies and product segmentation still bother the heck out of me. I get it, but I don't. I wish they'd flatten the offering to one OS and one Office suite and be done with it. Here's what's happening with the tablet versions of Office:

        A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to edit and create documents.
        Qualifying plans include:

        Office 365 Home
          $99.99 PER YEAR

        Office 365 Small Business Premium
           $150.00 per user per year

        Office 365 Midsize Business
           $180.00 per user per year

        Office 365 E3 and E4 (Enterprise and Government)
           $264.00 per user per year

        Office 365 Education A3 and A4
           Students: $36.00 per user per year
           Teachers: $72.00 per user per year

        Office 365 Pro Plus
           $?????

        Office 365 University
           Same as educational license?

Not sure how to think about this. If I had to pay for my Office 2003 and 2007 Office Pro legal licenses every year it'd amount to a large pile of money. I don't have any issues licensing software at all. You could buy a couple of top of the line German cars with the various licenses for engineering and office software we have.

That said, monthly subscriptions I avoid like the plague. Why? All is fine while business is good. When things aren't great subscriptions bleed much- needed capital. If cancelling your subscriptions means taking away such things as Office and email you are screwed and have to take money from some other part of the business to keep them going.

That's why I've always run our own email servers and always purchased licenses of software like Office Pro. We don't have to update the software every year. When things are good --and if it makes sense-- you upgrade. During lean times you have the option to not spend any money on upgrades and still have full usage of your software. Having experienced this a couple of times over the years I don't like the idea of any mission critical service being tied to a monthly per-user licence, it's a bad idea.

Beyond that, I wish MS would stop this nonsense of having so many layers to their products. One Windows and one Office, none of this "Home", "Home Premium", "Pro", "Pro Plus", "Really Really Pro Premium Plus", etc.

</comment><comment><USER28> It goes to show a lot about the situation in Microsoft that they didn't manage to ship this last year for Surface RT, where it might have done the platform a lot of good.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think that it is cool for Microsoft to release Office 360 for OS X and iPad.

I do a lot of writing (I am pretty much addicted to writing books). I use my iPad for lots of casual writing using a good text editor and markdown files in Dropbox (target is leanpub.com). For some writing I like having Pages on both iOS and OS X with iCloud storage.

If Office 360 ends up being a compelling product for iPad and my MacBook Air, then the $99/year is a no-brainer decision.

<comment><USER10> Is Office 360 a version of Office 365 for the XBox 360?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Looks like the non-tablet iPhone/Android phone versions of Office Mobile have gone free to use as well, forgoing the previous requirement of an active Office 365 subscription:

[http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office- you...](http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-you-love-now- on-the-ipad/)

</comment><comment><USER10> While we're talking about Microsoft, it strikes me that of the big players in 2014, Microsoft are the most diversified, even if they're no longer in the lead in most areas. Will that diversification (Office, Windows, Enterprise, Azure, XBox, Phones) give them more longevity? Or are they really in danger of fading into insignificance?

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm wondering what would happen if, without paying for the office 365 subscription, I try to edit a document stored in the cloud. Will it open a Safari tab with the free office.com online Word/Excel/Powerpoint ?

In other words : Is there an "Open with Word Online" button for non office 365 subscribers?

<comment><USER32> full disclosure: I work for Microsoft on the Office Online team

I do not believe that feature is in Office for iPad and you should be able to point your browser to OneDrive.com/office.com to get to your documents using Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote Online in the meantime.

This is a really interesting idea though so I'll bring it up with the team, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if Apple gets a cut of the subscription pricing.

I also bet any other company would not get away with a model like that. Apple requires that you make payments through their AppStore or in-app Payment systems so it can collect its cut. Good luck trying to publishing something with the same model on the App Store.

<comment><USER34> It looks like Office 365 subscriptions are available as an In-App Purchase (seen on the sidebar here : [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel- for-ipad/id5...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for- ipad/id586683407?mt=8) ), so Apple get their cut of the revenue and Microsoft are above-the-board in terms of App Store regulations.

Naturally if you buy a subscription from outside the app, Apple don't get a cut - that's how everything works and as long as you don't give the user a way to get to the non-Apple subscription payment system from inside the app, Apple is fine with that.

<comment><USER35> Sidebar: Apple does not allow you to provide a link to a website where you can market or upgrade a SaaS app that does not use the app store subscription model. Does anyone have any experience with denoting features which are locked to paid users without running afoul of this rule?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If it means we will have an actual word processor on iOS, all the better.

I for one am deeply disappointed with the direction Apple has taken with iWork.

Not least of which is the (a) removal of features and (b) incompatibility with recent versions of their own software [this has rendered large portions of my documents unreadable]

<comment><USER37> They have put the removed features back in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It is with a certain amount of amusement that I note that this version of office (which looks really cool) is significantly more optimized for touch than the version of office that I have for my MS Surface. That is some what disappointing.

<comment><USER39> No it's not. Its encouraging - Microsoft is putting their muscle where the market share is, not based on some religious belief.

<comment><USER38> Nice... But lets look at the facts. 180 million ipads (of any generation, not all will be able to run this new version of office) currently in circulation. 110 million windows 8 PC's active as of sept 2013.... so yes I agree that microsoft should put their money where their market share is... THEIR market share not apple's, with the decline of xp that number of winodws 8 users is expected to sky rocket... so ya it would be nice to have an updated consistent version of office.

[http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/there-are-now- over-110-mil...](http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/there-are-now- over-110-million-windows-8-users)

[http://ipod.about.com/od/ipadmodelsandterms/f/ipad-sales- to-...](http://ipod.about.com/od/ipadmodelsandterms/f/ipad-sales-to-date.htm)

<comment><USER40> But what is a Windows 8 PC?

Just because a PC is sold with Win8 (because prior versions aren't available) doesn't mean people are using it as such. They had to bring back "boot to desktop" as a configuration option, and 60% of win8 machines launch metro less than once a day ([https://www.soluto.com/reports](https://www.soluto.com/reports)).

<comment><USER38> so case and point, metro is a pretty cool in function but lacks the apps to make it truly useful... So maybe the company trying to push it should make some. also you cited a link to a 404 page.... and additionally only someone not on windows 8 would believe a statistic like that its not possible to use many of the features of the OS without going into the metro interface... I am hoping that maybe your quote is that "60% of windows 8 machines launch metro apps less than once a day" but that seems like a statistic without a method of measure...

<comment><USER41> All Metro apps are launched in a hosting process. Thus, the Soluto software would simply look for that particular process EXE to determine if Metro apps are launched.

However, most OS features do not trigger a new hosting process. For example, connecting to a Wi-Fi network, or opening the charms. (Control Panel would get detected as a Metro app, but how many people open Control Panel every day?)

So while it's not perfect, it is possible to make a first stab at measurement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> $119 (in Australia, at least) is too much for me to try editing capabilities. How about you keep the price but only prevent me from saving? I need to know how it feels editing the documents before I commit to such price.

<comment><USER43> The Office 365 website offers a free months trial.

<comment><USER42> Ok, but it may be completely different from using the actual app.

For example, GMail app is way slower and irresponsive in the iPad than accessing directly from gmail.com in Safari.

<comment><USER32> The trial should let you download and use the real app - not sure if the confusion was because the poster above said "Office 365 website"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Wow. Office for iPad actually looks pretty great. This is great news for Apple and the Windows users out there who didn't want to use iPad for lack of official MS Office products.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why does Microsoft offer not only the single apps but also one app with all single apps included? That seems to be rather unusual for iOS apps.

As a side note, App Store search is still lacking: Looking for 'microsoft office' did not result in a single hit related to actual apps from Microsoft. Googling for App Store links to the four new apps was easier in the end …

</comment><comment><USER46> What would be nice if you can read and comment/highlight for free and edit for pay. I suspect one typical use case is to have someone send around a doc to solicit comments and incorporate them subsequent. In fact, this model kind of enforces that flow so you don't have multiple people editing it and forking the original.

</comment><comment><USER47> They've also started using open-source technologies like Node.js and javascript (must be typescript).

Microsoft is finally adopting open source with open arms.

source: [http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over](http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over)

<comment><USER48> Also released MVC/WebApi/EntityFramework to public was pretty big deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> To me, there needs to be a step change in information input for the Office Suite to be something I'd use on an iPad. Word processing and speadsheet manipulation are so text intensive. Interested to try it out though.

</comment><comment><USER50> I was really hoping the "developers" portion would announce a Xamarin acquisition. Maybe at BUILD, but curiously as this talk was going on I got an email from Xamarin telling me to visit them at BUILD.

</comment><comment><USER51> Microsoft releases Office for iPad just looks like that Nintendo publishes Super Mario Bros on Xbox!

So, are they going to discard Windows (|phone|tablet|...) platform and become a pure third-party? It reminds me of Sega.

<comment><USER52> At some point you have to decide whether the the perfect (everyone using Windows phones/tablets and MS Software) is the enemy of the good (a lot of people using MS Software).

Microsoft has for whatever reason never hit the target with mobile platforms. I guess the Windows Phone is decent enough by some accounts but was just way too late to the party.

So they can try to make money selling mobile software for a mobile platform that nobody uses, or they can just accept reality and sell the software on all platforms.

<comment><USER51> In the console game world, softwares(games) can decide the fate of consoles. Dreamcast failed BEFORE PS2 is released, due to Final Fantasy X, XI and XII. Another example is that Xbox survived because of Halo.

In my opnion, Office is the ace software of Microsoft. It is even the de-facto standard. Therefore Microsoft should keep them exclusive on their platform.

<comment><USER53> Keeping Office off the iPad until now hasn't prevented millions of customers from buying them, or pushed any significant number of users to Windows 8 (RT) tablets instead. Microsoft's indispensable programs haven't been sorely missed for the last four years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The issue I find is that spreadsheets are really unpleasant to work with on a tablet (or any touch display). Given that, things like QuickOffice or similar work mostly just fine for viewing.

</comment><comment><USER55> Question - does the equation editor work in Word? When viewing Word docs on iOS previously I could only see about 70% of my mechanical engineering lab reports without it.

</comment><comment><USER56> When will Microsoft launch it's own iPad (or a product as good as it). "Launching something for concurrents' successful platform". That's weird.

</comment><comment><USER57> The Microsoft Office Apps don't integrate well with other iOS apps. There's no open-in in other apps and no support for AirPrint or other printing options.

</comment><comment><USER58> i wonder if it will keep getting regular updates and support too -- what product cycle will it be on? will it have clippy -- the office assistant? so many questions.

<comment><USER59> > will it have clippy -- the office assistant?

Siri integration, obviously. We've come full-circle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> This looks very well done. This is exciting. Honestly, I've almost entirely transitioned from Office to Google Docs. I could see this pulling me back in.

</comment><comment><USER61> If it feel this expensive on iOS, this pricing has no chance on other platforms. And Google Docs is not going anywhere with this pricing for sure.

</comment><comment><USER62> Does this mean Office for linux is in the works? At least for the corporate distros like Redhat, Suse and Ubuntu?

</comment><comment><USER63> They missed the competition for IE _completely_ and were way too late with IE7. They missed the competition from the mobile world and dragged their feet a bit with WP7. They're not going to lose Office too, which is their biggest cash-cow. Without Office, entire corporations will no longer see Microsoft as a "must-have" company.

So yeah, iPad.

</comment><comment><USER64> Wonder how astroturfed this comment section is.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Requires subscription for editing"

This is lame, IMO, and so typical for MS.

<comment> k-mcgrady How is this lame? If you only require viewing docs on the iPad you can do that for free. That's fantastic and most people will probably be satisfied with that. A subscription is only to edit and I believe gives you access to Office 365. For software you use daily a subscription shouldn't be a problem.

<comment><USER65> It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying for software. The majority of users here are wholly outside the target market.

There's a huge universe of companies more than willing to pay for these, and it's about time that MS take advantage of re-establishing Office as a cross- device dominant platform for the everyday office worker, rather than losing its edge as an office platform because of silly hardware / software politics internal to their own organization.

<comment><USER66> >It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying for software.

Close. We aren't used to _keep_ paying for software with no end in sight. Don't know about you but I subscribe to things I know I will be using regularly. Like daily. Guess were office software falls? Not under the daily usage at home.

Am I supposed to start writing word docs each week and mail them to my family just so I don't feel ripped of cause I am continuously paying for office?

Just wait until the next Windows costs 100 bucks a year. Cause that is where this is headed and apparently people don't seem to have any problem overpaying Microsoft for software.

<comment><USER67> > Guess were office software falls? Not under the daily usage at home.

So don't buy it. I don't own Photoshop, but I don't go to Adobe threads and decry that they charge money for their products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Finally they've accepted the fact that they need to optimize to apple products, the Gates mentality has been blocking innovation in this area and this might be the breakthrough !

<comment> k-mcgrady Huh? What does this have to do with Gates? Under Gates leadership MS has been developing software for Apple since the 90's.

Edit: Fixed possible factual error.

<comment><USER11> They've released for Apple since basically forever. The Apple II shipped with Microsoft Basic for a while, IIRC.

<comment><USER69> IIRC the MS Excel, a cornerstone of the MS Office was first released for Mac, and only later for Windows.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Should Open Source Be Enemy Of The State? Business groups say we should fear it - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/58042

<comment><USER2> > While the IIPA says that [...] open source is evil, [...] because it > "weakens the software industry and undermines its long-term > competitiveness."

What the hell does "undermines its long-term competitiveness" even mean in this context?</comment>


Not all hurricanes - <AUTHOR> http://danielcompton.net/2014/06/04/not-all-hurricanes

<comment><USER2> National Geographic picked up on it as well: [http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/06/02/why- have-...](http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/06/02/why-have-female- hurricanes-killed-more-people-than-male-ones/)</comment>


So you're using S3 to serve your assets, eh? You should rethink that. - <AUTHOR> http://afran.co/so-youre-using-s3-to-serve-your-assets-eh-you

<comment><USER2> It's a bad comparison.

If you're going to serve static assets, you're better off using CloudFront which has better delivery and lets you set proper cache headers so you won't have to use as much bandwidth.

Aside from serving assets efficiently, being able to store them in a permanently cacheable scheme is a huge benefit.

We used Cloudfront Asset Host to build this solution at PatientsLikeMe:

<http://github.com/wpeterson/cloudfront_asset_host>

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised that there aren't any well known resellers of Limelight, Level3, and Akamai. With volume pricing, they are a fraction of the cost of S3 with the same level of redundancy. I've gotten quotes of $.04/GB and I've heard from peers that $.01/GB is possible at sufficient volume. Amazon's services have always seemed overpriced to me.

<comment><USER4> IIRC Rackspace's CloudFiles uses Akamai (having moved off Limelight a while back).

<comment><USER3> If that's true (which I'm sure it is), then I'm surprised that CloudFiles pricing structure isn't more competitive. I'm sure they must be getting a huge volume discount. And their automated provisioning process is the same regardless of the size of the customer. Maybe they just have fat margins on that particular product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if the author was trying to compare S3 costs to running your own Nginx on EC2 (which involves other cost than just bandwidth), or to some private datacenter? (Meaning his reference to "taking a huge load off their application servers")

<comment><USER6> I think he was comparing S3 to serving the image assets from his application servers, where if he uses a CDN like MaxCDN, the app severs are only used as origin servers and the load is minimal.

This assumes you have the disk space on your app servers for ~750gb of data, though.

I actually agree with him - we use MaxCDN/NetDNA at WPEngine and they are awesome (although we don't use our app servers as origin servers).

<comment><USER5> Yeah but I didn't quite get if his application servers were on EC2 or not. The usual comparison is Nginx+EC2 vs. S3 vs. CloudFront. (Now the page is down so I can't check again..)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why would CloudFront double his bill? It's $0.12/gb just like S3.

<comment><USER8> First read from each edge would be two reads. One to get the data from the central S3 repo, one to serve to the end user. But, that's not double... after the first read for each edge the additional read is no longer needed.

<comment><USER7> My point exactly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We've just successfully moved our assets to Rackspace Cloud which uses Akamai's backbone and we couldn't be happier. The pricing (UK <http://lncn.eu/379>; US <http://lncn.eu/bci>) works out much cheaper than S3 and we're experiencing fantastic performance hosting JS and CSS files, especially over mobile networks.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hi Anthony, Go here: <http://friendcameo.com/> Now go here: <https://plus.google.com/>

... friend cameo facebook video chat girl = google plus video chat girl?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out. I'll talk to our designer about that.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What does the iphone actually encrypt? - <AUTHOR> Today I ran across of a recent video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk7GaO_vAW8 ) which shows someone using siri to bypass the passcode and be able to access all photos and contacts. Shouldnt this be impossible according to apple? I thought the only way to unlock this data was with the correct PIN. What other data might also be unencrypted? <comment><USER2> Refer to the iOS Security Guide [1], starting on page 10.

1\. [https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf](https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: Do you still use Last.fm - <AUTHOR> In the age of spotify and other streaming services are you still using last.fm?<p>What is your use case? <comment><USER2> Yes, it still gives good recommendations of artists and albums. I rarely used radio on it when it was available. It was like a social network years ago but now social features are mostly dead.

There are no music streaming services available in Russia except Yandex Music which is very meh (no usable radio-like mode, poor collection) and semi-pirate vk.com (which is useful for exploring but not everyday listening).

Last.fm for me is one of the best sites from good old days of web, "Web 2.0" era, along with Flickr, it's very sad that we're losing them and moving fast into faceless unhuman mobile-first AI-driven adtech hell.</comment>


Out in Tech: What it's like to be LGBT in an industry struggling with diversity - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2015/out-in-tech-what-its-like-to-be-lgbt-in-an-industry-struggling-with-diversity/

<comment><USER2> I am criticized far more often for being mentally ill than for being bisexual.</comment>


Show HN: CodablePersisit Store and Cache Codable Objects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/engali94/CodablePersist <comment><AUTHOR> A swift framework to store and cache any codable object with ease</comment>


What Does Highly Available Mean? (Riak Comic) - <AUTHOR> http://crudcomic.com/post/19412556727/highly-available-this-is-my-last-retcon-of-an

<comment><USER2> Ha! Very good.

The reason it is sometimes worth saying "highly available" is that most people don't know or don't understand the CAP theorem. Also, the A in CAP is one (very strict) definition of availability and not necessarily the one that everyone chooses to use.

The choice of "yield" as an alternative word for that use was spot-on:

[http://radlab.cs.berkeley.edu/people/fox/static/pubs/pdf/c18...](http://radlab.cs.berkeley.edu/people/fox/static/pubs/pdf/c18.pdf)</comment>


It's been 24 since HubSpot started experiencing issues, still ongoing - <AUTHOR> https://status.hubspot.com/ <comment><USER2> I would like to read a postmortem, should be no less exciting than a gitlab's one</comment>


Ask HN: Would Elon Musk Make a Better President Than Hillary? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> No, let's keep him interested in Science, his advances are better for everyone in this domain

<comment><USER3> +1 for this

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While we're comparing olives and oranges we should also consider if Elon would be a better runner than Usain Bolt.

</comment><comment><USER3> No.

I don't find him diplomatic at all. And given that is such a massive component to that job, I don't think it would work for him or us.

Plus, I would not want to risk missing out on his "throwaway" ideas like the Hyperloop.

</comment><comment><USER5> YESSSSS!

<comment><USER3> Why?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you protect your Mailserver from DDoS Attacks? - <AUTHOR> I manage my own mailserver since several years and i think many others here use solutions like Mail-in-a-box, mailcow, Mailu, etc
Until Corona i never had big problems with my mailserver but in the last weeks i got very big incoming Traffic - that was too much for my server and i had to manually reboot it every time ...
I know DDoS protection solutions for websites like Cloudflare - but as far as i know Cloudflare doesn't work with mailserver because of the reverse DNS lookup which is needed to communicate with big email providers.
So does anyone had the same problems and found a solution for it? (A solution other than just switching to Gmail or other big players)
Edit: i changed my fail2ban settings and found out i was primarily targeted by brute force attacks which i should be able to protect against with tools like fail2ban <comment><USER3> Which part of your email system is being targeted? What specifically are they targeting? Are they just making connections to a port, are they sending enormous amounts of spam, are they trying to brute a password?

Inbound mail traffic should be routed through lightweight MX servers. It's a common mistake to put an MX and a mail store on the same system. You can deploy new MX endpoints all day long and just update your DNS for it and email will still work pretty well.

Although there are perfectly reasonable arguments against it, Fail2Ban or similar can shut down nuisance traffic on a mail store. You should beware though that it's difficult to ensure that Fail2Ban or other active-response log monitoring can't itself be abused to ruin your day.

If your mail store is just getting hammered, it's a tricky problem to solve without a lot of resources. If you're the only user on your system, there's no reason to publish a dns record for your mail store, so move it to a new ip and update your settings. If you can't do that and Fail2Ban can't resolve it, you get to start thinking about things like distributed mail storage. I've been wanting to check out dbmail for years ([https://github.com/dbmail/dbmail/](https://github.com/dbmail/dbmail/)), maybe you can give that a whirl and link a writeup of your experiences with it.

I have experimented a bit here and there with dovecot-on-mysql and multi- master percona and all that and it's not fun or reliable.

If you're getting mind-blowing amounts of spam -- especially if it's newsletter signups -- it's possible you're being mailbombed. That sucks, there aren't a lot of good solutions for that right now, even Gmail users can be victimized by it. It seems to often be associated with some financial fraud, probably because those suspicious activity notifications kinda disappear when you're getting 20,000+ messages a day. I'm working on some software for this, it's in limited testing now but still really rough. Email is hard to write good software for.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are trying to brute passwords and i found out my fail2ban settings are too low - fail2ban detected them but the ban time wasn't long enough

<comment><USER4> You can setup fail2ban to permanently add brute-force tries to a proper firewall, like cloudflare.

That's how I've set it up. If they try to login 30 times in an 1 hour, then it's definitely not a legit user in any case.

When it's blocked on the firewall level, before it reach your server, then your server don't need to handle the request at all.

<comment><USER5> > If they try to login 30 times in an 1 hour, then it's definitely not a legit > user in any case.

I have

* `exim-usernames` - 10 day ban instantly for anyone trying to login with a specific set of usernames (227 currently banned)

* `exim-aggressive` - 4h ban for repeated failures (SSL, EHLO, etc.) (7 currently banned)

* `exim-spam` - 4h ban for repeated spam rejections. (0 currently banned)

Plus `rspamd` for greylisting, honeypot addresses, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll assume that, because rebooting fixed it, this wasn't a pure traffic problem, but just a general system overload issue. You might want to (1) collect traffic origin statistics and (2) take a good look at some more efficient mail-reception servers (I don't think your outbound SMTP server was hit by DDoS).

<comment><USER7> Exactly this. If a reboot fixed it, it's probably not ddos

<comment><USER8> And probably rebooting the whole server wasn't necessary, just restarting the MTA would probably do it. When I was younger and had plenty of time, I'd spend hours or even days diagnosing the root case. These days, I'd just add one line to crontab and moved on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd suggest using a hosting that include DDOS protection, like OVH or Hetzner. You should then combine that with a proper email gateway, proxmox mail gateway is free and it's very easy to install.

<comment><AUTHOR> My hosting provider advertise it has a DDoS protection ... (but i guess it's not so good ^^)

Proxmox mail gateway sounds interesting - i will check it out :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cloudflare recently introduced a product that seemingly can protect arbitrary TCP-based traffic ([https://www.cloudflare.com/products/cloudflare- spectrum/](https://www.cloudflare.com/products/cloudflare-spectrum/)), haven't used that myself though, it seems to not be part of the standard offering for now.

Some of the simpler DDoS attacks can be mitigated by kernel settings and iptables (see e.g. [https://javapipe.com/blog/iptables-ddos- protection/](https://javapipe.com/blog/iptables-ddos-protection/)), but that won't help you much against larger attacks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cloudflare Spectrum seems to be for companies or good paying customers - <USER2> budget is limited as this is a personal mailserver ...

The article about iptables rules looks very promising :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> DDOS comes in several flavors.

Most common one is just to dump too much traffic, so network can't handle it.

Others are less common but can cause server to become unresponsive due to exhausting some other resource than network (cpu, file descriptors, huge amount of swap, ...)

For the first type of attack you can't do much on your own you have to either work with your isp (or CDN for web traffic)

If your server is still reachable over network but unresponsive that means you are suffering from second type. That you can usually do something about.

You could put firewall with rate limiting (sometimes called traffic shaping), connections to your mail server.

Setting up firewall is not something I can guide you in a comment so google for it.

Good free one is pfsense

</comment><comment><USER11> I have a few mail servers and I have not had your problem but this could be because I use fail2ban, and have it drop requests above a certain threshold in a given time frame.

Depending on how these ddos attacks are getting sent this might help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - my mailserver uses fail2ban too but i think i should check the configuration out.

Edit: found out that fail2ban blocked a known abuser: [https://www.abuseipdb.com/check/126.96.36.199](https://www.abuseipdb.com/check/188.8.131.52)

But my ban time was very low, thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Check if your box has been compromised and if it used as spam relay or amplification box.

Use iostat, netstat, lsof, top, strace. Locate problematic process, incoming and outgoing traffic, unexpected open ports, check mailboxes user and system folders....

In any case use the usual tools to narrow the problems by process, socket status, user, ips, scenarios.

If the problem fade with a reboot you can be the target or being part of a botnet.

</comment><comment><USER13> There's little you can do if you never had such problems in the past. DDOS is hard to battle with; you could get away by moving your box to another provider, but the IP reputation and other misconfigurations & stuff might bite you back causing a huge pita.

We rely on Mailinabox, which has fail2ban but the server being on a DigitalOcean network, they claim to offer some kind of DDOS protection.

</comment><comment><USER14> imho.

* don't reboot a server until its _really_ necessary - like a kernel upgrade etc.

rebooting is never a solution, this is just pointless "panic mode":

if its still possible: investigate _why_ the system becomes slowed down ... a hardware-problem/ram or other resource-constaints or "real" dos-problems like out-of-tcp-connections etc.

* for this: use proper monitoring - mainly graphing - as simple as munin or more complex like prometheus & grafana

hey ... its just a small mailsystem you don't need any of the latest and greatest paid service for this.

* personally i operate a small mailsystem since the ancient times of the internet - aka 90ties - sendmail/qmail/qmail-ldap and atm exim-ldap. around 300 mailboxes - more or less my friends & familly.

for example: i'm using dynamic blocking similar to fail2ban for smtp-auth brute-force - implemented in bash/python; spamassassin & clamav for spam - custom config: mainly blocked most of the "crap" TLDs like .icu etc...

</comment><comment><USER7> Can you explain what you mean by DDoS attack in the context of mail server? Are you just getting a lot of network traffic (for example, just open connections on smtp/imap ports) or are you getting all sorts of spam (like an email bomb)?

<comment><AUTHOR> I get very little spam - so i think it's only a lot of network connections.

Edit: seems like i was targeted by brute force login attacks

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I found a ready-made image with some good insights [https://gioorgi.com/tag/mailserver/](https://gioorgi.com/tag/mailserver/) But DDoS is not easy to manage

</comment><comment><USER16> AWS ELB has some level DoS protection out of the box (e.g. SYN flood), plus you can probably add another layer by manipulating security groups in response to traffic.

You will lose your old IP address, but the DNS should be fully functional.

</comment><comment><USER17> I never had any problems with DDoS of our email servers. If we have one, we're gonna

1) check that our MTA is up to date 2) check that we got fail2ban rules for POP&SMTP failed logins 3) use a haproxy and ban by subnet/country

</comment><comment><USER18> If you're getting overwelmed with bounces for mail you didn't send, setup SPF, DKIM, and DMARC so responsible mailservers can reject spoofed messages early and not bounce things as much.

</comment><comment><USER19> Do you notice any patterns in the incoming traffic? Any pattern you can distill will lead you to your final fix. Otherwise it's just guessing. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not an expert but can't you setup network level monitoring and employ ipfiltering when threshold of network usage is crossed.

</comment><comment><USER21> Use something like ProxMox Mail Gateway to let it take the chunk of traffic</comment>


Why Don't People Return Their Shopping Carts? - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/why-dont-people-return-their-shopping-carts/ <comment><USER2> By not returning my cart, I can have the store hire someone to do that, and pay them out of the profits I pay the store, thereby helping the economy and increasing GDP!

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of the Candlemaker's Petition

[http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html](http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html)</comment></comment>


Show HN: UbiShell – from Ubiquity a new way to use the Web - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Svalorzen/UbiShell <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I'm the maintainer of UbiShell. It's a fork of a series of ports that brought Ubiquity, a very old Firefox extension, to WebExtension.

The original goal of Ubiquity was to provide a natural language way to interact with the web. With UbiShell, my goal is to provide a simple but effective shell interface, that is able to join all the various services and APIs that are found on the web.

I really believe that this approach can be incredibly powerful: it gives back control to the user, and increases immensely the speed with which you can search/parse/manipulate web entities. Even better, it's completely customizable, so you can make up your own commands!

This project is still in its infancy, but if you like it feel free to give some feedback!</comment>


Mockup-Driven Development - <AUTHOR> http://timeless.judofyr.net/mockup-driven-development

<comment><USER2> I like the term "Mockup-Driven Development". This is a problem I've been thinking about for quite some time, and I think the author describes it well. There's clearly room for progress in the integration between client-side HTML/CSS designers and server-side programmers.

I've found two things help integration greatly: "Super Templates" and "Logic- less Templates".

 _Super Templates: e.g.: building a single page template for the entire site_

This a technique I learned from Nicole Sullivan's "Object-Oriented CSS" <https://github.com/stubbornella/oocss/wiki/FAQ> (see the section: "Why have a single template?"). A colleague of mine has nicknamed them "super templates".

Building everything in a single template provides essentially an "integration test" for your HTML components. CSS conflicts are made visually obvious.

Most likely, you would build each HTML component in isolation, and stitch them together into such a "super template" via {{< include}} or similar. To avoid CPU overload, you toggle on/off HTML/CSS as needed for a given test.

 _Logic-less Templates: e.g.: {{mustache}}_

<http://mustache.github.com/>

Mustache templates are language-agnostic. You only have to build them once, and you can use them everywhere.

Mustache views provides a Mustache template with content. So within one app you might use the same Mustache template server-side (with a Ruby view), and client-side (with a JavaScript view).

Because of this flexibility, the Programmer and Web Designer can use _the same mustache templates_ , using a view appropriate view for their needs (either the real view or a "stub").

The Web Designer would use a "stub" view. It has fake data structures, dummy lorem ipsum. Just enough to build a template.

The methods of this "stub" define an interface which can later be implemented in the real view, at the Programmer's convenience.

This results in the same "Mockup-Driven Workflow" the author describes, with no additional libraries required. The Web Designer works (in the browser) on the templates, using JavaScript view stubs. The Programmer uses the _SAME_ templates, coupled with his server-side views, in the actual application.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually, your designer shouldn't be continuing to work on your mockups in the first place. After the mockup is complete, it gets turned into a template and then everyone works on that. The mockup was just a proof of concept to the customer. It wasn't meant to keep being used.

Also, be careful with your mockups. If you're demoing functionality, you don't want the looks of the site to be pretty, and if you're demoing the visual appearance, you don't want the site to work at all. If you mix the 2, the customer will get it in their head that most of the work is already done, when it's not even close.

<comment><USER2> I agree with your arguments when the purpose of a mockup (Photoshop or otherwise) is for visual concept / art direction / client presentation.

But when you move past that stage, and begin to integrate HTML/CSS with server code, things get messy real quick, and that's the problem I think this article is proposing to solve.

I think the terminology may be confusing. For example, in the vernacular I'm familiar with, "mockups" are in Photoshop, "templates" are static HTML, and "views" run on the server. And even so, I find these terms are often used interchangeably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me quite a bit of MasterView (<http://masterview.org/>).

There are static HTML pages that can be used to walk a client through an app,but they are also used to generate the actual Rails templates.</comment>


The Equifax Chief Security Officer Received a BA and MFA in Music Composition - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-m-93069a/ <comment><USER2> While it's easy to jump on the Equifax Sucks Bandwagon (they do), I find it hard to believe that the degree earned has anything to do with this breach.

Are you absolutely certain that if their Chief Security Officer had a degree in CS that things would have been different?

Attacking someone a personal level like this is tempting in a case this serious, but it's in poor taste and will yield exactly 0 results. The data can't be un-breached, and placing blame in hindsight is unhelpful and will only escalate to more personal attacks.

Let's not pour oil on the 'Stem degrees are the only good degrees' echo chamber fire.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't mean she didn't know what she was doing, but it certainly looks bad. A company whose CSO doesn't have a technical degree is going to have a harder time proving they took security seriously.

<comment><USER4> Would it be less offensive to the HN community if her degree was in Math?

And, then, given that Music is entirely dependent on mathematical principles, and Music Theory especially: What are the chances that, as an MFA in Music, she has a _rock solid_ background in mathematics?

Does that make her choice of degree less distasteful?

Would we be having this conversation if she had no degree? (Of course not.)

<comment><USER5> > What are the chances that, as an MFA in Music, she has a rock solid > background in mathematics?

Unlikely? There is no standard math requirement for music majors, and that's pretty well known.

> Would we be having this conversation if she had no degree? (Of course not.)

Yes, even more so! A chief security officer with no degree presiding over the security of a nation's credit data?! I mean, she's already under scrutiny because Equifax has been hit by three big stories in the past couple weeks demonstrating their absolute lack of concern for security: the breach, the "random pins", the admin/admin credentials.

<comment><USER4> Does it change your views if I restate this as (using just her public LinkedIn profile):

"A chief security officer with 15 years of experience and peer accolades in the fields of banking-grade security and human data management"

Typically, this is where most people don't even _ask_ what a degree is. However, as you indicate "no degree" is unacceptable: _Which_ domain-relevant degree programs, initiated 20+ years ago and completed 15 years ago, would satisfy your terms?

<comment><USER5> Anything remotely technical. Remember, we wouldn't be having this conversation if Equifax wasn't making embarrassing amateur mistakes with everyone's personal data. Their CSO appears incompetent.

<comment><USER4> Which qualifications does a "remotely technical" degree meet to operate security at Equifax that a "non-technical" degree does not?

You imply that Music is a non-technical degree, which is arguable, but it's certainly an Arts degree rather than a Science degree. If that's the distinction by which you draw the line, you're wrong to do so. If you reject job applicants to a technical role on that basis someday, that's more overlooked high-value opportunities for others to hire instead :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I hadn't quit college to continue my tech career, I would have ended up with a degree in Sociology.

Would having a non-Tech degree make me _less_ qualified than someone who has _no_ degree? Of course not. It proves I can do the drudge work necessary to earn a degree, without which I must fall back on testimonials.

They have an _MFA_. That's a hell of a lot of hard work. Proves they are capable of doing hard work.

I don't see what the problem is here.

EDIT: Received a BA, magna cum laude, and MFA, summa cum laude. That's impressive regardless of the field. That's "succeed at all costs".

EDIT: Changed BS to degree in the first paragraph because I have no clue wtf makes something BA or BS. It's an arbitrary division that's used primarily as a weapon to disrespect women and is not a valid distinction of "intelligence" or "science-capable" or "technical-capable" in the modern era in any way whatsoever.

<comment><USER6> > I don't see what the problem is here.

The massive breach of personal information.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand. Could you help me understand? I'm not able to see the connection you see between an MFA in Music and the Equifax breach, and I'll need you to describe it clearly in order to comprehend what you're trying to say here.

<comment><USER6> Equifax's Chief security officer may have had a lack of knowledge in the domain she was hired for(A very important role).

They ignored security warnings from Apache and now we have the fallout from the breach. So did the CSO's lack of security knowledge aide in the breach? If so that is on Equifax for hiring her into that role.

<comment><USER4> I'm unable to follow your logic here, as there's a missing component of the explanation.

How does the CSO's multiple degrees in Music convey a lack of knowledge in the domain she was hired for?

It doesn't, because there's no information to derive there. I believe you are attempting to construct an argument that says that an offtopic degree _disqualifies_ her to be a skilled practitioner by default.

This is wrong. The topic of someone's degree has no implicit bearing on their work experience before and after it.

LinkedIn shows endorsements by tens of people at each of her jobs in the specific labels "Information Security", "Disaster Recovery", and "Business Continuity". By that basis, she is perfectly qualified to handle this breach.

Unfortunately, that information - which takes up as much or _more_ screen space on her LinkedIn page than her dual degrees - wasn't considered relevant by the OP, and is being studiously ignored for some unknown reason.

<comment><USER7> _LinkedIn shows endorsements by tens of people at each of her jobs in the specific labels "Information Security", "Disaster Recovery", and "Business Continuity". By that basis, she is perfectly qualified to handle this breach_

LinkedIn endorsements are as meaningful as Facebook likes.

<comment><USER4> Of _course_ her LinkedIn profile does _not_ correctly reflect her experience and qualifications.

Yet here we are, on Hacker News, with people calling her out for not having security experience based on her LinkedIn profile having an Art degree, rather than a Science degree.

I agree wholeheartedly with you that LinkedIn is as meaningful as Facebook. We absolutely should not be here evaluating her qualifications based on her LinkedIn profile. Any conclusions therein derived would be obviously wrong, by your own point.

<comment><USER6> Nobody is outright saying she doesn't have the experience. Clearly some employees at Equifax were ignoring security vulnerabilities. The first person you look at is the CSO.

The Linkedin doesn't paint the whole picture but it could indicate something and that what's being pointed out.

This isn't an attack on a single person it's an attempt to figure out how the biggest breach of user information in history went down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is unduly personal and therefore beneath the standard this community ought to keep. Not cool.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER9> It's also fucking stupid. Peiter "mudge" Zatko from the L0pht, Stripe's new CSO, has a music degree from Berklee.

You can't criticize Equifax's CSO about her degree without revealing how little you know about the infosec field.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for that.

The middlebrow dynamic has to do with assuming one knows more than one does and trying to constrain the spectrum of variation. Since unexpected variations are often the most interesting, that is a big bad deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the best developers and architects I've ever known has a Ph.D. in Music Composition. Never took a formal CS course in his life - yet he was one of the best. I suggest not being too quick to judge people by their degrees.

</comment><comment><USER11> So from a CSO perspective, it isn't useful information what degree the CSO had. Keep in mind the level of experience that she had in the position. Not zero.

More relevant to the situation is the overall technical competence of the organization. For a perspective, watch Alex Stamos' talk "Appsec is eating security" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OTRU-- HtLM&t=7s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OTRU--HtLM&t=7s). The top 100 in the Fortune 500 are technical companies with technical culture. The others, not so much. He notes that the bottom 400 (he gives them a particular name) are likely to be doomed.The top 100 are serious technical companies or financial institutions.

Far more important to the security of an organization is the overall culture of the company and its technical competence compared to the degree that a CSO received decades ago.

One example. Is it not true that the bonus calculation of the Equifax higher- ups excludes losses due to breaches or legal or compliance hits?

Flip that around, and you will see a whole different level of internal culture.

</comment><comment><USER12> Would the breach appear worse if her degree was in CS or not? Seems the HN community is trying to correlate her degree to the breach and this is virtually impossible. Her MFA did not cause the breach nor is their an identifiable correlation.

<comment><USER5> Optics. Equifax has pretty clearly demonstrated that it does not care at all about security. There was the breach, then the news that their "random PINs" were just timestamps, _then_ there was the admin/admin credentials for an employee portal. It's a pretty bad look.

<comment><USER4> This is Hacker News, though. Is it news that the CSO has a degree in Music? No, not without further investigation, which didn't occur prior to the bait- titled link to her LinkedIn profile.

That's my only point here. Her degree is irrelevant to the point of uselessness for determining _whether_ she's qualified, and _whether_ fault for this incident lies with her judgement calls, or with others.

Maybe we'll find out that she's been writing internal memos for years about the security catastrophes and they've been willfully ignored by the CEO and the Board of Directors. Hell, she has an MFA in Music, so she there's a non- zero chance she wrote them a song about how they'll all be burned at the stake someday if they don't listen to her. This is no less likely an outcome.

We literally have no information to accompany the bare facts of her profile. Hacker News is not Hacker "link to a list of facts with a clickbait, personal- attack title and hope that someone else investigates if they're newsworthy" News. There is no news here without further investigation, and no one has done that in this thread. This should never have been posted as-is.

EDIT: If you were doing a post-mortem of an incident and a manager came in and said "Well, obviously that incident occurred, we let the guy with a Music degree do production work", they'll probably end up being fired under a cloud of HR violations, because they likely have a habit of invoking personal attributes in an inappropriate context. Don't be That Guy. Personal attributes - and _optics_ \- are not relevant to a post-mortem. Work behaviors, intentions, statements, and judgements are.

<comment><AUTHOR> >This is Hacker News, though. Is it news that the CSO has a degree in Music? No, not without further investigation, which didn't occur prior to the bait- titled link to her LinkedIn profile.

First off, the title was literally a fact. There was no opinion or "click bait" added to the title.

Second, yes this is absolutely news. The Chief Security Officer of a company who has very private details of tens of millions of US citizens received two degrees in a music field. Some might find it news because it's, in my opinion, quite interesting she was able to go from studying music to becoming the CSO of a major and very important company. Some people might find it to be news because it most certainly could cause questions of her ability when looking at this fact and other Equifax security related facts.

I'm quite confused as to why you are so offended by this submission. It's not uncommon from C level executives of major businesses to have received degrees in the area they are working. The fact that computer/network security is an extremely focused field and the CSO of an extremely important company has two degrees in music instead of CS or a related field is quite interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> ...and now she's <cough>fired </cough>retired.

[https://investor.equifax.com/news-and- events/news/2017/09-15...](https://investor.equifax.com/news-and- events/news/2017/09-15-2017-224018832)

</comment><comment><USER13> And what is the alternative? Hiring a Licensed Software Security professional? Oh wait, those don't exist. It's software, so literally anything you do can never be considered negligent. So it goes.

</comment><comment><USER14> Music is incredibly intellectually challenging and stimulating. I'm getting a STEM degree because I couldn't handle a music degree. Music students I know work just as long if not longer days than I and my ECE peers do. This personal attack of the CSO isn't relevant.</comment>


Fukishima is Worse than Ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2017/02/16/no-fracking-way-fukishima-daiichi-worse-ever/ <comment><USER2> HN has been quite pro-nuclear in the past. However, _this_ is the grim reality of nuclear power: It's a mess we won't be able to clean up for many generations. The operators cannot cover these limitless risks, they will have to be shouldered by the entire country (or world).

And Fukushima isn't the only accident. It's merely the most recent big one.

Even if nuclear reactors work as designed, we still haven't solved terminal storage of nuclear waste after more than 60 years.

<comment><USER3> HN has been quite pro-nuclear because _despite_ these accidents, the effect is limited. You could crush the radioactive material in that reactor and pump all of it into the atmosphere, and nuclear would still be one of the safer methods of generating power.

Compare it to e.g. the vast on-going death toll caused by pollution from coal, and decommission nuclear power plants becomes outright immoral if it is replaced by coal. If you can replace it by e.g. concentrated solar or wind, then fine, but even hydro is likely to cause more deaths of time (dam accidents - construction, maintenance and failures - kill a lot of people).

<comment><USER4> Focusing on deaths is one of the favorite moves by nuclear proponents. It works because nuclear creates long term problems that aren't people getting crushed in a coal mine or drowned when they fall off a dam, and both coal and hydro have been around a lot longer than nuclear and as a result have some really major disasters in their history.

Additionally dams are fairly simple to build and construction of them is not as well regulated during its history as nuclear has been for most of its life because of its very obvious risks. If anything the mortality statistic is an argument for more regulation of mining and dam construction practices, not for more nuclear power.

The reality is that while not that many people died in Chernobyl, Fukushima and other nuclear disasters relative to other disasters we have had, they are still some of the worst disasters in human history and downplaying that to push nuclear is either being very cynical or naive.

<comment><USER3> I grew up in Norway when Chernobyl hit and we had to deal with monitoring of reindeer uptake of Cesium-polluted moss etc. for years. Norway was one of the worst hit due to a combination of the prevailing winds and a lot of animal- rearing that depends on sheep and reindeer feeding on moss and other plants that would aggregate those pollutants.

It's still an issue now and again in some areas, but it was still a minor inconvenience compared to the _huge_ amounts of deaths caused on an ongoing basis by some of the alternatives.

> Additionally dams are fairly simple to build and construction of them is not > as well regulated during its history as nuclear has been for most of its > life because of its very obvious risks. If anything the mortality statistic > is an argument for more regulation of mining and dam construction practices, > not for more nuclear power.

Great, but until that happens, they are still far more lethal. In the case of coal, by at _least_ an order of magnitude, probable 2-3 orders.

> It works because nuclear creates long term problems that aren't people > getting crushed in a coal mine or drowned when they fall off a dam, and both > coal and hydro have been around a lot longer than nuclear and as a result > have some really major disasters in their history.

For coal, coal kills more people _per year_ due to respiratory illnesses etc. than nuclear has done _in its entire history_. For dams, feel free to ignore the largest ever (Ban Qiao - 171,000 people dead) which was an extreme outlier (so far - there are a number of dams, like e.g. the Mosul dam, that are in disrepair and has the potential to be worse if they fail) and it's _still_ worse on average than nuclear.

> they are still some of the worst disasters in human history and downplaying > that to push nuclear is either being very cynical or naive.

Exaggerating it is worse: It leads to policies enacted out of fear that kills and harms far more people. It's immoral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If Cringely claims authority on the topic, he could at least spell "Fukushima" correctly. Both the link above and the article misspell it as "Fukishima," the article 4 of 6 times!

<comment><USER6> Apparently spelling "Fukushima" is as hard as spelling "Ph.D.". Link subject is so clickbaity that I'll avoid it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Damn, the comments on that are... bad.

Having said that I have followed the Fukushima situation somewhat, and it certainly has given me pretty serious pause in my conversion to a nuclear "new fission" advocate (like many on HN seem to be).

The general argument seems to be "Oh, new reactors are much safer than the old ones."

To be honest, that argument doesn't seem very compelling. The most compelling version of this argument involves using Thorium reactors instead of Uranium. This does seem somewhat safer, but actually reading it turns out it is only a question of degree[1][2].

It seems to me renewables + power storage seems a much better solution.

[1] [http://ieer.org/wp/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/thorium2009fac...](http://ieer.org/wp/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/thorium2009factsheet.pdf)

[2] [https://theconversation.com/should-australia-consider- thoriu...](https://theconversation.com/should-australia-consider-thorium- nuclear-power-37850)

<comment><USER8> > "Oh, new reactors are much safer than the old ones."

You're aware that Fukushima Daiichi NPP was _older_ than Chernobyl NPP, right?

<comment><USER7> Yes(?)

I'm just relaying the argument as I understand it.

<comment><USER3> The point being that in the 30 years since Chernobyl we have had no serious accidents involving any modern nuclear reactor models and one serious accident involving a reactor older than Chernobyl. We may just have too little data, but at least so far the data all points to the argument that modern reactors are safer being reasonably likely to be true.

The only reason we don't have clear evidence either way is that the risks even with the older models is very low.

<comment><USER7> The incidence of accidents with any reactors is very low.

The risks associated with those accidents are extremely high.

<comment><USER3> > The risks associated with those accidents are extremely high.

And yet they are low enough that nuclear is one of the safest alternatives we have, given the low incident rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here in Japan the government tries to actively shape the public opinion about Fukushima. You often see ads and projects advertising what a beautiful place it still is and how everything will soon be fine. Then you have companies helping with this by proudly (in the sense of putting big posters stating it) importing ingredients, fruits and food from Fukushima.

It's probably still the main reasons why I don't want to be here. It's easy to forget about everything but things could go sour very quickly without us being able to react in time.

</comment><comment><USER10> > molten uranium that has melted its way through the steel pressure vessel, > through the reinforced concrete containment, through the reinforced concrete > foundation of the nuclear facility, and is now working its way through > whatever rock or soil lies underneath the foundation, dropping lower each > day.

Is this really what happens? How does a quantity of molten metal-oxide burn a hole through "hundreds or thousands of feet" of earth? Where does all the earth / rock go? Does it just vaporise off?

<comment><USER11> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_(nuclear_reactor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_\(nuclear_reactor\))

<comment><USER10> From the link you provided:

 _The fast erosion phase of the concrete basemat lasts for about an hour and progresses to about one meter in depth, then slows to several centimeters per hour, and stops completely when the melt cools below the decomposition temperature of concrete (about 1100 °C). Complete melt-through can occur in several days even through several meters of concrete; the corium then penetrates several meters into the underlying soil, spreads around, cools and solidifies.[3]_

This would seem to counter the claim that the molten core material could burn through hundreds or thousands of feet of earth.

<comment><USER12> Isn't all of this dependant on the composition of the corium? As that's what defines how much heat is being added to itself via nuclear reactions?

Per my understanding, it will always be sub-critical without correct geometry and neutron moderators. But wouldn't the precise amounts and percentages of various materials in the molten sludge vary thermal output?

<comment><USER10> That's the way I read it.

I find it hard to believe there are any circumstances under which a hundreds- of-megawatts to gigawatts core could remain hot enough to burn through hundreds or thousands of feet of earth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The linked article ([http://www.sciencealert.com/radiation-levels-in-the- fukushim...](http://www.sciencealert.com/radiation-levels-in-the-fukushima- reactor-have-started-unexpectedly-climbing)) has a most interesting picture from inside the Reactor 2 building depicting the floor beneath the pressure vessel, or rather, what's left of it.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've been looking at what's going on his comment threads recently and it looks like he pulled a near-con on Kickstarter.

It's kind of amazing how one can completely ignore people you've hurt and keep posting as if nothing happened, when they keep asking for explanation.

Why is no media talking about this? It looks like a huge scandal.

<comment><USER15> There are bigger scandals, like people getting offended by Pewdiepie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If I remember correctly, the thing that killed Fukushima was the wave of water from the ocean killing the water pumps at the ocean's edge. And there was no backup water supply. So it isn't necessarily true that nuclear power is not safe, it is it's relationship to the environment and how it is constructed. I guess there was no anticipation of such a significant event. Which I suppose is an indicator of the failure mode. It isn't the technology itself, it is unforseen accidents. Which is how any technology evolves: newer generations improve due to observations of past mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER17> His entire rant is based on _fake news_.

The whole "The radiation levels inside Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor No. 2 have soared in recent weeks" is _bogus._

The new, higher readings are from areas _never measured before_ [0]; levels measured from consistent points are _falling consistently!_

[0] [http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at- fuku...](http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at-fukushima- daiichi-are-not-rising/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I doubt he gets his facts straight. I very much doubt the 250t of Corium haven't cooled down enough in 6 years to solidify.</comment>


Peeple is finally launching today, but its niceness is a front - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2016/03/05/remember-peeple-it-finally-launches-on-monday-but-its-niceness-is-a-front/ <comment><USER2> aww i remember that app. i thought it launched ages ago!</comment>


"Why Linux Sucks" and "Why Linux Does Not Suck" videos from Linux Fest - <AUTHOR> http://lunduke.com/?p=2953

<comment><USER2> Keep in mind that the points in the second are the same as the points in the first, just with a different perspective.

I think this mostly works OK except for one area: package format. The disparate package management in Linux is indefensible because it weakens the entire development ecosystem. One thing that hugely hurts the package management in Linux is that package format disparity means that the tooling for package management is far inferior to what it could be. The Linux package managers could be the single greatest tool for developers, but instead we have increased fracture over the entire ecosystem.

One of the biggest problems is the inability for the package managers to integrate with language-specific packages. Gem/pip/cabal cause an extremely obnoxious fracture because they all have dependencies which can't be tracked without an OS package manager but at the same time the OS package manager can't integrate with them. If Linux could decide on a single package format and packaging tool then we could all start working on tooling to support integration of the different language packages. However, as long as there are still 3-4 major package formats and packaging tools that's not going to happen.

Added to that are the package managers reliance on specific OS constructs. Homebrew works but we really shouldn't have to use different package managers just because we're on a different operating system. Either the package supports that OS or it doesn't, but this shouldn't say anything about the _package manager_.

Aside from all of this is the difficulty in actually constructing the packages. Arch PKGBUILDs seem the closest I've used to an easy source->binary package but they're not mainstream. As far as I know debs still don't support natively bundling the source with the binaries and the RPM SPEC system is the single unfriendliest system I've encountered to quickly make a portable package. Moreover, the ties to shell script just continue to harm OS independent adoption.

I'm not sure what the answer is but I'm starting to think the only acceptable solution is a complete severing of Linux distributions with package management.

<comment><USER3> On a somewhat related note: Why do 99% of the things that are packaged by Ubuntu (or any distribution) need to be packaged at all, let alone by the distribution?

A lot of the lack of focus (and fragmentation) in Linux comes from people duplicating each others' work. There is absolutely no need to have hundreds - thousands? - of developers spending their valuable time packaging up software when the app developers could do it just as well - or better, on account of _knowing_ the software that they are packaging. People who work or volunteer for the OS developer should instead be writing new features for (and generally improving) the user experience of their respective distributions, not taking other peoples' software and making it work like it should already.

Two words: app bundle. Developers handle their own packaging. Bundles include dependencies. The end.

<comment><USER4> And who packages glibc? Or udev? Or zlib (which is so quirky that it almost doesn't build at all out of the upstream source). That's where the packaging bandwidth is spent in the distributions: middleware. Certainly not "apps", which are generally trivial to build as long as you have the dependencies correct. Take a look at, for example, the Fedora spec files for the software you use vs. the middleware and see the difference in complexity.

And note that Android's (which I assume is what you're referring to when you talk about "app bundles") middleware packaging is no less complicated (honestly it's a lot more so in a lot of ways -- no firm dependency tracking, everything must build all at once). Check the AOSP "external" tree.

<comment><USER3> I'd expect that like other OSes core dependencies would still be managed by the distributor. But these are nothing but the barest essentials to making the OS work. I count udev, and glibc, and zlib among these. Mac OS X does this. But these are very few in number compared to the number of total packages that are stored on, for example, Ubuntu's repositories.

If the price of having apps that just download and work on any distribution is having a more complicated middleware system, then I'll take it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kickstarter sounds like a viable option for bringing more software to Linux if only for the reason that it's attracting a lot of attention lately.

There is a danger of this making Linux a second-priority OS but it pretty much is already so I don't know if this is a huge issue. A team behind a proven software for Windows or OSX could say "Hey look we've made this great tool for Windows/OSX users and made a lot of money on it.. We'll bring it to Linux if we raise X amount of dollars". The Linux users are significant enough and generous enough (as proven by the humble bundles) that it would work financially and would make the Linux ecosystem explode with new variety.

Open source developers on the other hand might find it easier to raise funds and continue to hack away on their projects with a similar solution. The Ardour developer could go on an open-sourced version of Kickstarter and say "Hey guys I've developed this awesome audio software that a lot of people use. Here are the features I'd like to bring to the next version.... I need to raise 100K in order to be able to continue working on this."

<comment><USER6> This is why I'm excited about Light Table, even though I don't think I'll ever use clojure or javascript much. The author also experiments with kind of humble bundle licensing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm so glad that I watched the first of these, and I think I will also enjoy the second. Since it required a bit of searching due to the very short mention at the end, the "Vivaldi" KDE tablet can be found at <http://makeplaylive.com/> , which cites a "target retail price of €200" for the tablet stack.

Related to this, I have been helping seed the torrents and distribution of a new flavor of Kubuntu called Kubuntu Active, which can be found at [http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu- active/releases/precise/re...](http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu- active/releases/precise/release/) . Like the Vivaldi tablet mentioned, it's based on the KDE Active stack and is thus optimized for touchscreens. I'm going to try this live CD out on my convertible tablet PC, once I can find a CD to burn it to. I was already very surprised to find that six months ago my upgrades magically enabled multitouch, but at the time it seemed like the only multitouch gesture anyone had programmed for was pinch-to-zoom in KDE.

Since it might also be relevant, in the vein of "send money to support businesses which ship Linux," shortly after I bought my current Fujitsu laptop I found a nice company selling Linux laptops called System 76: <https://www.system76.com/> . While they don't seem to be selling convertible touchscreens yet, they do make some very pretty and cost-effective laptop options. (Full disclosure: I am plugging them in part because I want them to stay in business, because I want to buy from them whenever I need my next laptop.)

</comment><comment><USER8> The guy who gave this talk has a really fun weekly show that I've been addicted to as of late. The Linux Action Show, most recent one here: [http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/18887/ubuntu-12-04-review...](http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/18887/ubuntu-12-04-review- las-s21e06/)

They do a live show on Sunday and put the recording out the next day. Today's will be on in about 40 minutes from now (1:00P EST)

</comment><comment><USER9> I came expecting the latter would be in response to the first by another person. Nope. It's the same guy taking the opposite perspective on every point in the first.

</comment><comment><USER10> Someone needs to send Chris a damn tripod!

</comment><comment><USER11> Can we agree on a standard Linux directory structure first?

</comment><comment><USER12> How hard is it to hold a camera steady..?

<comment><USER13> Pretty hard without a tripod. I don't know why Chris didn't bring one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> God bless ya, bryan :p

</comment><comment><USER15> That video gave me motion sickness, and I couldn't see the slides very well.</comment>


Ask HN: How to reliably register domains in Europe? - <AUTHOR> Where do you HN people register important domains?
I have a domain that my life kind of depends on. I built my business on top of it for many years now. If I lose it, I would go from a comfortable lifestyle to zero income immediately.
Currently it is registered with a small German ISP, which recently got bought by a US company.
That makes me uncomfortable. God knows how professionally they run their business. If they make a mistake or maliciously take or sell my domain, God knows whom I would have to sue.
I think I should move the domain elsewhere.
What options do I have? How do you guys handle this? <comment><USER2> Gandi.net is France-based and apparently one of the best in the business.

( I had a rough move at first with them, coming from using another service for a decade, but they've been solid so far. )

<comment><AUTHOR> What makes them "one of the best in the business" when evaluating their trustworthyness?

I wonder if it really would be a good choice to use a registrar from another country.

Since I am not based in France, I could probably not afford to sue them in case they mess up.

So if they mess up, my leverage to get them to act is probably non existant.

<comment><USER2> I mentioned France because EU regulations are better than elsewhere for customers, you also asked specifically about Europe. It's hard to find a bad review or a disgruntled customer anywhere, they consistently rank high in all articles or reports you might find about registrars / hosts, and they do not advertise themselves.

Also, they're not a newcomer, but a relatively big player ( despite the lack of advertising ) and independent, not part of one of those American umbrella companies with dozens of fake subcompanies who couldn't care less about individual cases.

I am based in Asia and even here they have an excellent reputation. I happened to find them at a time they were short on hands and releasing new products, their replies to my issues were slow and I was not happy about it -- full disclosure. Yet here I am recommending.

I was contacted directly by the area manager and offered compensation in the form of free services after I complained. In my experience they are serious, and I haven't found any better as yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You want GANDI.

They have been well known and respected in the RIPE ([https://www.ripe.net/about-us](https://www.ripe.net/about-us)) and Free/Open Source communities for something like two decades now.

My personal vanity domain goes back to 1995, and I registered it through Heller Information Systems, back when they were one of the biggest BBSes in the world. But every domain I've registered since then has been exclusively through gandi.net.

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://domains.google.com/](https://domains.google.com/) ?

<comment><USER2> Not sure Google, whose favourite past time is shutting down every couple of years services millions use would be the best option particularly when absolute reliability is a requirement.

Ars Technica has a 'graveyard' mini site somewhere devoted to listing everything Google shuts down.

Edit : [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/googles-constant- pro...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/googles-constant-product- shutdowns-are-damaging-its-brand/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've used gandi.net for years without any issue.</comment>


In pursuit of tortoise smugglers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/02/in-pursuit-of-the-tortoise-smugglers-madagascar-trafficking-endangered-species <comment><USER2> That article smacked so much of colonialism and foreign interference. Foreign donors create an organization that goes around giving orders to the Madagascar police so that they can put more if their citizens in prison. I bet if we looked closely at these poaching laws, I bet they also were heavily influenced by foreign money and pressure as well.

It seems like many NGO's believe that brown people don't know how to place the correct priority on their wildlife so the try to use their overwhelming resources to defacto control the government.

Can you imagine the outrage if an foreign organization came in and told the FBI how they should run their investigations and demanded a representative always be with them to make sure they are doing what the NGO wants?

<comment><USER3> Aren't the foreign smugglers/buyers just as colonial and interfering... only they do it with different money to a different group of desperate people. Once you accept that it's ok for foreign money to align the goals of "brown people", it's not that strange that NGOs and with their diabolical support of anti-poaching laws would compete with smugglers. It's not property rights, because I see nothing to show that those tortoises were rightfully gained rather than grabbed off of public or even other's private lands.

Why find one worse than the other?

Why support corrupt cops more than those enforcing the law?

Why support Thai over Israeli?

p.s. I can read about a foreign power covertly using money and propaganda to control the FBI in the Washington Post.

<comment><USER4> I don't have strong opinions either for or against poaching animals, but:

> It's not property rights, because I see nothing to show that those tortoises > were rightfully gained rather than grabbed off of public or even other's > private lands.

People are innocent until proven guilty.

I might see nothing to show that your shirt was rightfully gained rather than grabbed off a member of the public or even another's private land, but you've got no obligation to show me that. If I want to interfere, the obligation is upon me to show that it is stolen.

<comment><USER3> We arent talking about someone's pet. If it was illegal to ship shirts without a license, and I'm shipping hundreds of them dangerously packed in a huge suitcase... then maybe it is my obligation. Who's to say they aren't carrying salmonella and it infects someone on the plane?

For example you can't take more than $10k in cash out of the US (or into most countries) without declaring it. Is that an example of colonialism?

<comment><USER4> Being illegal to ship shirts without a licence, and illegal to ship more than $10k without declaring it, are both perfect examples of invasive regulations making criminals out of harmless members of the public.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Hyades, a newsletter for your starred Git repos - <AUTHOR> https://hyades.info/ <comment><AUTHOR> Published under a free license ([https://github.com/delehef/hyades](https://github.com/delehef/hyades)) if you prefer to self-host :)</comment>


Dilbert: We are going to try something called Agile Programming...  - <AUTHOR> http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2666700071126.gif <comment><USER2> Man, developers in my office _loved_ this...

</comment><comment><USER3> Posted over the sink!</comment>


Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support - <AUTHOR> https://forums.getpebble.com/discussion/22081/apple-now-rejecting-apps-with-pebble-smartwatch-support

<comment><USER2> This was discussed yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9426542](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9426542)

Yesterday's article properly linked to the forum without HTTPS.</comment>


Barack Obama commuted sentences of more than 1,000 in prison for drug crimes - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/844035/barack-obama-has-now-commuted-the-sentences-of-more-than-1000-people-in-prison-for-drug-crimes/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a step in the right direction. The war on drugs is an abject failure. I'd like to see him commute everyone that qualifies, i.e. non-violent, excessive sentences, etc. before he leaves office.

<comment><USER2> Right. A step. I'd imagine that a good number of these should have been pardons. For example. There are over 11,000 people in federal prison for __marijuana __offenses[0]. Unbelievable.

[0] [https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf](https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know if these in jeopardy of being reversed by the Trump Administration?

<comment><USER4> Last paragraph of the article:

> "Clemency is the one administrative action President Obama can take that > will not be overturned by an incoming Trump administration," Jessica Jackson > Sloan, director of #cut50, a criminal justice reform group, said in a > statement.</comment></comment>