Ask HN: What are the facts in the Google v Bing scuffle? - <AUTHOR> "Facts" I have read, please correct me in what is wrong, incorrect or missing.
#1 Google suspected MS/Bing of straight copying their search results.
#2 Google setup a honeypot like system.  Landing pages indexed bogus terms in their system.  Essentially noise, that would not exist previously as a search term in either system
#3 Google used a web browser, with the Bing toolbar to navigate bogus search terms
#4 In turn, this user activity was used to cross link a term entered by the user to a web page in MS/Bing's system.
So this opens up the can of worms about user privacy, content ownership (lets drag up the deep linking hysteria of several years ago), morality/legality etc etc etc.
But how exactly did Bing violate Google's terms exactly?
Did Google invalidate their own data by simply using the bing toolbar?  Accepting legal terms of the toolbar, device, OS by using it?
Who "owns" the content the user "created" by typing in a search term and clicking a link? <comment><USER2> I think that Google are claiming that Bing were specifically spying on Bing users clicking on Google results.

My position is that it's simpler to assume that Bing were spying on Bing users regardless of what page they were on, a side-effect of which is that Google had a lot of influence over-all, especially noticeable on 'long tail' queries.

"How exactly did Bing violate Google's terms". I don't know.

"Who "owns" the content the user "created" by typing in a search term and clicking a link?" Good question, I don't think there can be a definitive answer to this. Google can make a decent case that they own it (just like they own the directions given between two points on google maps, it's a consequence of their algorithm). But I think that's missing the point that, if I'm right, Bing weren't just targeting Google, they were targeting everyone.

Obvious sarcastic reply: "Oh it's all ok, Bing were spying on _everyone_ guys, not just Google users, yay!" but that neatly brushes under the carpet the fact that _everyone_ who runs a website spies on their users to some extent. This underpins the entire business model of most web businesses, especially search.

</comment><comment><USER3> >Who "owns" the content the user "created" by typing in a search term and clicking a link?

I'm not sure that's the issue here. Unless I've misunderstood, what Bing is doing essentially lets them duplicate whatever improvements in results that Google innovates on. Google doesn't want Bing to reap the benefits of their hard work and money spent on improving their tech. I believe what Bing is doing is preventing Google from competing on a technical level. Honestly though, I'm still a little lost myself. There is a lot of back-and-forth going on here so it's difficult to distill the facts and weed out what is simply opinion.

</comment><comment><USER4> My impression is that Google is not claiming a violation of terms, and certainly they have not stated an intention to take legal action. Google is claiming instead that any comparison of its own results with Bing's should be taken with the grain of salt that Bing (apparently) is not above "Googling" queries it doesn't have an answer to itself.

Hence why the last line of the official blog post on the matter is "we'd like for this practice to stop," and nothing stronger. This is PR, not litigation.

</comment><comment><USER5> In my opinion, Bing did not violate Google's TOS because Bing did not use Google's service. The user did, and by installing Bing Toolbar the user gives Bing permission to spy on his/her search (per the Toolbar's TOS, which I presume is carefully written).

I find this bickering between Google and Microsoft amusing. Instead of the concerted public humiliation, a simple private call to Dean, and a public "Yeah, they copied us, and you know why" would suffice.</comment>


Linearized map of Lake Michigan: a matter of perspective - <AUTHOR> https://somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/a-matter-of-perspective/ <comment><USER2> > _Taking the square root of the data de-emphasizes the densest areas, helping > fix this. Actually, I'll tell you a secret: I showed the 2.25th root of > density, not the square root, because I'm way too detail obsessive._

This is an important detail. I used something similar before. Never assume that the best conversion from data to color is linear. The monitor is not linear, the eye is not linear, who knows if the printer is linear.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not to be a wet noodle on the cerebral art explanation or ignore the technical discussion, both of which were interesting, but as an extremely practical matter a former coworker of mine had a life goal to row a boat around the perimeter of Lake Superior (a little bigger, and to the north) and this linearized map is kinda what he saw, which is both cool and would be an interesting way to document his photos and stories and it might have been a useful navigational tool for him, if zoomed in to human scale.

And no he didn't live in his boat and do it in one trip, it took him years (decades?) of his life. He'd do city B to city C on one vacation and city C to city D on some weekend etc.

Social media photo sharing sites are kind of "done" as a startup idea (or are they?) but I could see something like this, generalized to work on cars, planes, and bikes, being kinda popular to scroll and zoom thru someones trip photos as an unusual kind of map display. Maybe for navigation apps, scroll along a long line...

<comment><USER4> In case you didn't make it to the end of the page, there's a "bonus" map of Lake Superior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> We have a sailboat on Lake Michigan. That map of Lake Michigan is, for the most part, how we experience it when we do a "sailing adventure" because we are going port-to-port along the coast.

<comment><USER6> I've wanted to do this for a long time. Have you posted anything online about how you planned your trips, or have any favorite planning sites/books?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice work. A few compass roses tossed on the page at suitable intervals might help orientation (as in "which way is the sunset here?").

</comment><comment> dj-wonk A comment on the math: the article portrays it as quite verbose to say the least, which I think might indicate to some that it is "scary" or really complicated. I get the hunch that it need not be that way, if approached differently.

Affine transformations, conceptually, are quite elegant: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affine_transformation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affine_transformation). Figuring out the values to use for a particular transformation is the key here. This is where the blog post gets really verbose in the math.

The complexity of the solution, as written, seems much higher than the inherent complexity of the problem. So my intuition suggests the mechanics of the solution (e.g. the amount of notation required, at least, if not the amount of computation) can be dramatically simplified if done a different way. I'd think that playing around with polar coordinates and various frames of reference would help find an elegant calculation.

<comment><USER8> those aren't affine transformations he's using, they're plane projective transformations (parallel lines aren't preserved). Yes, you can express what he means more simply, but as an 8x8 matrix problem - then just use a maths library to solve it. (see eg [http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/CVonline/LOCAL_COPIES/EPSR...](http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/CVonline/LOCAL_COPIES/EPSRC_SSAZ/node11.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lovely map.

> I once briefly understood why we were doing what we were doing, but that > knowledge has since vanished into the ether

Looks like generalized barycentric coordinate over the quadrilateral? Sort of like UV mapping, though it'd be good to hear from someone that knows more.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've often thought about doing something like this for documenting my bike trips; a 'somewhat straightened' map would work great down the side of the page with the story. The straight line route maps that used to appear in AA map books are a bit dull, I wanted something more like [http://w.faringdon.org/alljpg/hy%20Map%20London%20to%20St%20...](http://w.faringdon.org/alljpg/hy%20Map%20London%20to%20St%20Davidsjpg.JPG)

However I got sidetracked in the notion of how to linearize the map. What I want, is roughly: start with the route, smooth it so that the original route still wiggles on the final map (eg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramer%E2%80%93Douglas%E2%80%93...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramer%E2%80%93Douglas%E2%80%93Peucker_algorithm), then interpolate with splines)

Simply using straight line distance to the curve won't work, places can be the same distance from multiple points on the route (unless you divide space up as in the article).

So what I thought of instead was, treat the smoothed line as a charged wire, and map POIs as opposite charges. Electric field lines do not intersect, and if a POI 'charge' is allowed to fall towards the 'wire', the distance it travels and the place it lands give me coordinates. These calculations are relatively straightforward (see eg [http://lampx.tugraz.at/~hadley/physikm/apps/linecharge.php](http://lampx.tugraz.at/~hadley/physikm/apps/linecharge.php)), and I never need to figure out a closed form for the transformation, which I guess would be horrendous.

I'm not sure what you'd call this coordinate system; it bears some similarity with isobaric coordinate systems in meteorology though.

Edited to add: these things are called 'strip maps' in the literature btw, there's a survey of examples here: [http://www.geovista.psu.edu/publications/MacEachren/MacEachr...](http://www.geovista.psu.edu/publications/MacEachren/MacEachren_ALinearView_86.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> Ok, as I understand it, there is no canonical way to unfurl a lakeshore. Sure, a map of the lakeshore can be drawn differently. But there is no real parameterization of a shoreline. Its called the 'coastline of England' problem or some such. I.e. an approximate shoreline might be 200 miles. Draw every nook and cranny - 300 miles. Draw the accurate line around every grain of sand that's wet on one side and dry on the other - 20000 miles. What is the 'real shoreline'?

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminded me of wooden maps carved by the Greenland Inuit, for example the "Ammassalik wooden maps" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammassalik_wooden_maps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammassalik_wooden_maps)).

</comment><comment><USER12> The stretch of beaches between Grand Haven and Saugatuck are some of the best spots to spend a summer (all 5 weeks of it in the Michigan climate).

</comment><comment><USER13> I love this. It's brilliant how enormous the cultural dependecies are in what we think of as completely uncontroversial geographic facts - like how "Upper" and "Lower" Egypt are the 'wrong way round' from a modern frame of reference - i.e. Upper Egypt was the south, because it was where the Nile flowed from.

<comment><USER4> "wrong way round' from a modern frame of reference"?

Isn't the modern use the same as the Egyptian one; that "upper" means "upstream", no matter the direction of river flow?

For example, in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ob_River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ob_River) you can see "The upper Ob valley, in the south, grows grapes, melons and watermelons, whereas the lower reaches of the Ob are Arctic tundra."

At [http://www.protectingourwater.org/watersheds/map/upper_st_jo...](http://www.protectingourwater.org/watersheds/map/upper_st_johns/) you can see "The Upper St. Johns River Basin extends from the headwaters of the St. Johns River in Indian River and Okeechobee Counties to the confluence of the St. Johns and Econlockhatchee Rivers in Seminole County".

At [http://aep.alberta.ca/lands-forests/forest- management/forest...](http://aep.alberta.ca/lands-forests/forest- management/forest-management-facts-statistics/documents/FMU-FMA-LUF-Map- Apr302011.pdf) you can see a map showing that the Upper Athabasca and Upper Peace are to the south of Lower Athabasca and Lower Peace.

<comment><USER14> Up/Down have come to mean North/South in the way many people speak in English (US-centric? Not certain how other English speaking countries handle this). I think that's what GP post was referring to.

That it's actually referring to upriver/downriver in the case of Egypt is lost on those who aren't more closely familiar with the geography. It makes sense once explained, but it's non-obvious if you've become accustomed to up and down being synonymous with North and South.

Side note: There's a discussion about Common Core math and a comment by DanBC about how students may correctly fill out many math worksheets without developing any actual understanding just by coincidence (some idiosyncratic algorithm or method that's technically wrong, but happens to work for the worksheets). The same thing happens with language. If people only encounter an idiom in a limited context, they may come to misunderstand what the idiom actually expresses. In this case that it's not strictly the cardinal directions, but the direction of the rivers.

<comment><USER4> While I agree that many people use north=up/south=down, I'm not convinced that it's meaningful to talk about the 'modern frame of reference' in this way.

We have one major river in the US which flows south, the Mississippi. It's such a big influence on the local views that people in New Orleans may use "north" to mean "up river" even in a bend where the river flows from geographic south. The Mississippi is very influential in US history. Northern slavers used the threat to "sell down the river" to the South.

We also have the Hudson River, which is important for New York. Someone sent "up the river" was being sent to the Sing Sing Correctional Facility, thirty miles north of New York City.

So it's not surprising that those set a baseline for a lot of people.

But if you're from Portland, OR, then the river flows (locally) west. If you're from Jacksonville, FL, the river flows (locally) east, after coming from the south. If you're from Nebraska, the Platte flows mostly east. In Boston, the Charles flows mostly northeasterly. (And to double-check, the Upper Charles River Reservation is indeed 1) upstream, and 2) southwest of the mouth.)

To say that the modern frame of reference has changed, I would want to see evidence for change. Where is the "upper" part of a river system used for something other than upstream?

Otherwise, my belief is that eponeponepon is asserting a personal view that is not really backed by the evidence.

<comment><USER14> My point was that upper and lower seem to (anecdata) be disconnected from the context of rivers. Upper and Lower Egypt make sense once reminded of this, but for many (anecdata) it seems upper and lower mean north and south so their intuitive sense is that the naming is "wrong" or seems off.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I think I understand your point. Yes, there are many people who use "upper" and "lower" as rough equivalents to "north" and "south".

Here is but one of many examples - "Up and down can be confusing when one talks about Egypt. In ancient times the term Upper Egypt actually meant heading downwards into Africa, while Lower Egypt meant heading upwards on the map, to the Nile Delta." [http://motherdaughterbookreviews.com/guest-post-the- magic-of...](http://motherdaughterbookreviews.com/guest-post-the-magic-of- maps-in-middle-grade-books-by-fiona-ingram/)

My point, however, is that the phrase 'modern frame of reference' is meaningless. At best it's "personal sense of reference" or "a common mistake."

That is, our 'modern' use now seems to be identical to what it was when the terms "upper" and "lower" Egypt were coined.

Also, note that that book review is wrong. At least, according to Wikipedia, 'Lower Egypt was known as Ta-Mehu which means "land of papyrus"' and 'Upper Egypt was known as Ta Shemau which means "the land of reeds"', so it's not like modern English uses a direct translation of the Ancient Egyptian.

So, when was this earlier time that's supposed to be different from now?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Hacker News Leaderboard - <AUTHOR> https://why.degree/hn-leaderboard/ <comment><USER2> Oh god, please don't encourage this kind of juvenile spamming contest.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the one for all-time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders](https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders)</comment>


Obama and McCain Debate on Twitter Tonight - <AUTHOR> http://summize.com/search?q=%23pdfdebate

<comment><USER2> I don't see how this post relates to technology.</comment>


Trump staffers using app that deletes their messages - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/policy/technology/319478-trump-staffers-reportedly-communicating-through-app-that-automatically <comment><USER2> The amount of shills infecting HN with the deluge of petty posts from mostly fake news sites is far more annoying.

What's next? An OMG???!! article about how Trump once ran a red light (that was actually yellow when he crossed it)? Where's the downvote button?

<comment><USER3> Why don't you just come out and say that you voted for Trump and it hurts your feelings when people criticize or make statements even remotely critical of his staff. Or you could just not comment, it's not fake news. It's certainly not that important, but there's no evidence it's untrue.</comment></comment>


Qmail is a vector for bash shellshock - <AUTHOR> http://marc.info/?l=qmail&m=141183309314366&w=2 <comment><USER2> Does this mean he gets the $500?

[http://cr.yp.to/qmail/guarantee.html](http://cr.yp.to/qmail/guarantee.html)

<comment><USER3> Seems unlikely:

"Of course, ``security hole in qmail'' does not include problems outside of qmail: for example, NFS security problems, TCP/IP security problems, DNS security problems, bugs in scripts run from .forward files, and operating system bugs generally. It's silly to blame a problem on qmail if the system was already vulnerable before qmail was installed!"

But, I think he can take great satisfaction in thinking of a potential hole that even djb didn't consider. That's pretty impressive (though less impressive since everybody was sitting around trying to think of places where a shell might be invoked in non-obvious ways...I spent half an hour talking to my co-founder and employee during our regular meeting trying to think of ways our users could be effected outside of the already discussed ways, and we spent quite a bit of time testing various theories; one of the vectors we discussed was procmail being called by Postfix).

Edit: And, just in case anyone was wondering, Wietse seems to have considered the environment variable problem, and took measures to prevent exploits in Postfix, so it does not _seem_ to be exploitable by Shellshock, even when calling out to procmail.

<comment><USER4> It's really incredible how much time qmail has been alive without any security hole bugs and still distributions use sendmail by default.

<comment><USER3> Distributions _couldn 't_ distribute qmail in the past because the license agreement made it impossible (or at least required such stupid things that no one in their right mind would do so). Its license became public domain in 2007, and I suppose would allow distributors to do sane things with the packages, but Postfix had already supplanted Sendmail as the preferred MTA on Linux and nobody really cared about qmail...since qmail isn't demonstrably more secure than Postfix (and both are maintained by well-known and well- respected security researchers).

And, to be clear, most distributions no longer use Sendmail as the default. Postfix is the default on RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux. exim was the default in Debian for many many years, not sure if it still is. Postfix is the default on Ubuntu, I believe. I can't think of any distros for which sendmail is the default MTA.

<comment><USER5> Postfix has a marginally poorer security track record than qmail does, but Postfix is the saner default choice for normal users. Both of them are head and shoulders better than _every_ other MTA.

<comment><USER3> I would argue that this is at least partly because Postfix has a larger surface area...it does more, and thus, should reasonably be expected to have had a few more run-ins with security problems. Unless things have changed a lot over the past several years, qmail isn't capable of even functioning in a number of modern email environments, without significant patching.

Once qmail has been patched up to modern MTA standards, it no longer has the pedigree of being built and maintained by djb. I don't know the people who maintain the huge patch sets for qmail...maybe they're good. I know Wietse is more than competent.

But, that may be what you're getting at with "Postfix is the saner default choice for normal users". We support all of them (Sendmail, Postfix, qmail, and exim) in Virtualmin to varying degrees, but we configure Postfix, by default, and very strongly encourage its use over the alternatives (mostly because we know Postfix so much better, and because so many more people use it). About 95% of our users stick with Postfix, though we do have some users of all of the others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another great reason to have a good filtering proxy in front of qmail, such as Qpsmtpd or my own Haraka. Both validate MAIL FROM and RCPT TO commands to ensure they are valid according to RFC 5321 (the newer version of RFC 2821), and will reject any command not complying with those specifications. Qmail alone is just too fragile.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would still argue the bug is not entirely bash it's fault. A feature that causes security bugs, is imo the fault of the application using a program that has these feature. It's like not escaping strings/CLI-commands/SQL commands.

Or did I miss something where this bash feature is not suppose to work under all circumstances ?

<comment><USER8> It's certainly bash's fault!

First, and foremost: user-provided data has been passed in environment variables since the stone-age. That's why, for example, we explicitly guard against LD_PRELOAD'ing a shared library into a suid-binary... But it was common knowledge, that this selection of dangerous/benign variables can be made based on the NAME of the variable, NOT the CONTENT. And bash basically calls eval(name+' '+env[name]) for every variable containing the magic substring.

Imagine any of your other favourite script languages scanning random places for "things that look as if they could be imported/included/executed"... and tell me that this is a smart thing to do.

The second mistake was to not just create a function-definition inside the currently running program, but to actually eval the complete content of the variable. If bash would just postpone the evaluation of the function to the point in time where it's actually called, no one would be bothered, because the script would have to be tricked into executing a command called "RECIPIENT" (or DHCP_OPTION_1234, or COOKIE, ...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This also applies to pure-ftpd when using an external authentication module: [https://gist.github.com/jedisct1/88c62ee34e6fa92c31dc](https://gist.github.com/jedisct1/88c62ee34e6fa92c31dc)

</comment><comment><USER10> I thought of mentioning this - specifically, people who use the .qmail file in the mail directory.

Anyway, djb uses shell scripts liberally in his software projects but I've never seen him include a shell script with Bash-isms. That tells me he does not _assume_ his users to be using Bash.

Everyone has a choice. And if you are trying to practice "secure" computing, then some choices are wiser than others.

If a user thinks Bash is the bee's knees, then djb's software will work just fine; it does not discriminate against that user.

But if a user does not use Bash, and prefers to use a more simple, POSIX-like shell, that will work just fine too.

This is purely my opinion but unlike so many other software authors, djb does not appear to discriminate against people who prefer simple software systems that are not loaded with "features"; he does not intentionally or unintentionally force them to embrace complexity or be ignored.

That said, it also appears he is a self-professed Ubuntu user these days. For example, read his latest blog.cr.yp.to entry.

I do not understand how he can tolerate the amount of complexity in Ubuntu that is on by default and hidden from the user. But maybe I'm just too stupid to understand.

There seems to be a choice of at least two options:

1\. keep Bash installed and try to determine every possible untrusted user input accepting or internet facing application that might at some time use the system shell, or

2\. uninstall Bash and use a barebones POSIX-like shell without extra features.

Preserving the continued use of shell scripts with Bash-isms as a reason to choose option #1 does not make sense to me. Maybe there are other "compelling" reasons? (Interactive shell features?) With a little effort, these Bash script authors could probably learn to write scripts that do not use Bash-isms. Is that really so terrible as to make option #2 untenable?

If there are enormous Bash scripts being relied on in security senstive settings which "cannot" be rewritten in POSIX shell, then maybe the mistake was ever "deploying" such monstrosities in the first place.

Shell scripts, no matter what shell, should always be relatively small assuming the author has any common sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> >> 2\. uninstall Bash and use a barebones POSIX-like shell without extra features.

It's not that simple. True, djb doesn't say you need bash. But qmail uses /bin/sh (not configurable without recompiling). Try changing /bin/sh to, say, ksh on Ubuntu and watch as nothing else on the system works. The distributions make use of shell-specific features.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't Ubuntu ship dash as /bin/sh already? dash isn't ksh, but it is minimalist (and not vulnerable to this).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it does. I meant Debian, but it looks like Debian changed too. My bad. My point was that changing /bin/sh from the distro-chosen one to something else _could_ cause problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This would also affect Exim's pipe filter if it accepted '()' in author names.

<comment><USER6> That depends on whether Exim validates MAIL FROM according to RFC 5321 or not. I would like to assume it does. Rudimentary testing on cam.ac.uk (where Exim was developed) shows that it does, so Exim is not vulnerable as far as I can tell.</comment></comment>


Are cloud costs killing companies? - <AUTHOR> I've read about several companies that seemed to be doing well, shutting down. I've had the opportunity to start digging into one, and saw that the costs to keep their cloud running might have been what killed them. I'm in the process of trying to re-build the thing from the ground up on purchased, dedicated hardware, but not everyone could do that.
Are cloud costs, and the associated lax engineering practices that are being solved by throwing more cloud resources at problems causing problems for these companies?
Cloud providers seem like drug dealers. They make it easy to get hooked, then they jack up the price. <comment><USER2> From the outside, cloud providers like to emphasize the fungibility and standardization across their competitors. Makes prospective customers feel safe.

Once you buy, you are provided a dazzling array of APIs and platform features which do not have direct equivalents from provider to provider. The temptation to use them is strong- they're free, right?

Having eaten these metaphorical pomegranite seeds, you're stuck. Migrating to another provider becomes an uphill battle. This is the ecosystem working as intended. Of course, if you're a startup which intends to coast for 2 years before imploding, being bought out, or IPOing for billions, planning for the future might be sheer overhead! Smoke 'em (the VC funds, that is) while you've got 'em!

Sometimes the cloud is a cost-effective solution. Some use-cases benefit from the elasticity and low startup cost/time. Other times it would be _much_ cheaper and easier to run a handful of physical servers. It varies. I suspect that if everyone was considering their options prudently and looking toward the future, the cloud would not be used as widely as it is today.

edit: more to the original question, perhaps the answer is that companies that are killing themselves _anyway_ have an incentive to use cloud services, and do so recklessly!</comment>


Ask HN: How long did it take for you to get your first active users - <AUTHOR>

I launched my startup a month ago and everyone I'm showing it to says they love it and want to use it.
However, of the 20 or so people that have said they definitely want to use it only a couple have actually become active users.
I'm trying to get a sense of how long it takes after launch to get active users - people that actually use it regularly. <comment><USER2> That's totally dependant on your app. What it does. is it viral like? are you advertising it? Are you getting the word out? how interactive is it? how often do people use it? the only way to get those numbers is to test. Also, a growth hacker is someone that tweeks flows through the app to improve numbers conversion numbers. Different advertising channels will produce different results also.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was able to get active customers immediately (not many, but a few). This was due to the work I did pre-launch to gather interest.

I also had a private beta before launch and the beta users converted across.

I don't think this question is really going to help you though, as it varies for everyone and is not an indicator of how well you're going to do. You're probably best wondering/asking how do you get more customers. That's what is relevant now. Not how you compare to other unrelated businesses in different industries.

</comment><comment><USER4> there are lot of things that you would need to capture. Are all the people dropping off from the same page? How many people are bouncing out? Assuming you are a B2C app, you would need to study the UX behaviour and keep performing experiments. If B2B, you might contact the customers for feedback.

PS : People are by nature appreciative of one's work. So they are going to say - i love your product, get third/fourth degree people to use it and get their feedback from your friend (hopefully you would get a correct feedback)

</comment><comment><USER5> >only a couple have

Sounds close to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle> thus far.

</comment><comment><USER6> How are you marketing it?

</comment><comment><USER7> what is it?</comment>


Jeb Corliss "Grinding the Crack" [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfph3iNC-k <comment><USER2> I love this video. I am struggling to see any applicability to Hacker News, however.</comment>


Amazon Patents Photographing On White Seamless Backdrops - <AUTHOR> http://www.diyphotography.net/can-close-studio-amazon-patents-photographing-seamless-white/ <comment><USER2> So if I don't use an 85mm lens and use a different fstop, it's not infringement?</comment>


Metcalfe's law - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law <comment><USER2> Possibly stupid question: is metcalfe's law always n^2? Or in real life does n log n model the growth in value better?</comment>


Google: Large-scale Incremental Processing Using Distributed Transactions - <AUTHOR> http://research.google.com/pubs/pub36726.html

<comment><USER2> What I really want to know is: Given that I used to do one updates of size n, and now I can do k updates of size m (n=k*m) in the same time, I can essentially do k times as many updates. What is k?

"By replacing a batch-based indexing system with an indexing system based on incremental processing using Percolator, we process the same number of documents per day, while reducing the average age of documents in Google search results by 50%."

This statistic, about a 50% reduction, is difficult to interpret. It is hard to understand what sort of improvement on would see on other measures, like the one I proposed above.

<comment><USER3> The 50% statistic is related to what matters to Google: changes in real search results. It is pretty irrelevant for anybody else. The speed of adding a single page to the index and updating is, of course, much, much faster (~1000x).

I can't parse the measure you propose above.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Percolator provides two main abstractions for performing incremental processing at large scale: ACID transactions over a random-access repository (makes it easier for programmers to reason about the state of the repository)and observers, a way to organize an incremental computation.</comment>


Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures hides lawsuits via 1000+ shell companies - <AUTHOR> http://techdirt.com/articles/20100217/1853298215.shtml

<comment><USER2> I remember reading a glowing profile a few years ago on Nathan Myhrvold and Intellectual Ventures(I believe it was on Wired), how they got together a bunch of big scientists and came up with cool new ideas (and then patented them, but that seemed fair to me at the time).

Seems that was just good PR back then, or possibly Mr. Myhrvold started out the business on the best of the intentions... till the cold hard reality of being able to make money by just sitting back, exploiting the broken patent system and extorting raised its appeal.

Has IV actually been responsible for something good? I do not ask this sarcastically(almost), what good deeds have they done?

<comment><USER3> The "glowing profile" you mention may have been this 2008 article in the New Yorker, by Malcolm Gladwell: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell)

<comment><USER4> My appreciation for Malcolm Gladwell's work took a major tumble at the publication of that article. We had enough sycophantic executive worship from Wired in the 90s to keep me immune to that sort of carefully packaged PR for a lifetime.

<comment><USER5> I don't think you read the article. The conclusion is that ideas are cheap. The dude was the ideas man.

When a company is seen as a bullshitting enterprise how is it sycophantic?

<comment><USER4> Yes, I read the article a few times since it was released.

A knowledgeable reader like you or I realizes the travesty of an organization of rich people sitting around dreaming up ideas so they can assign a team to document for patent. But you have to _interpret_ the article to see that angle, because the extent of Malcolm Gladwell's interpretations are the problems of eponymous attribution and the message that "you can do it too", which comes off disingenuously:

 _"The unavoidable first response to Myhrvold and his crew is to think of them as a kind of dream team, but, of course, the fact that they invent as prodigiously and effortlessly as they do is evidence that they are not a dream team at all. You could put together an Intellectual Ventures in Los Angeles, if you wanted to, and Chicago, and New York and Baltimore, and anywhere you could find enough imagination, a fresh set of eyes, and a room full of Varleys and Pfaffs."_

Yes, he's right, we can setup a patent mill too! (I know, that's not fair, he means that we could setup an invention workshop too, but that's not what we typically see I.V. as.)

On the other hand, there's Dean Kamen. Now _that's_ an invention workshop! Bravo!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This highlights one of the problems with the current patent system that I illustrate in my recent essay: How Law Shapes the Business Landscape, and a Patent Puzzle.

[http://daniellefong.com/2010/02/11/how-law-shapes-the- busine...](http://daniellefong.com/2010/02/11/how-law-shapes-the-business- landscape-and-a-patent-puzzle/)

Corporations with no assets and no technological liabilities can acquire patents and use them as weapons for extortion. There is no counterbalancing force. These corporations may be created and dissolved at will for an exploitative purpose: they need not ever invent, produce, or otherwise give back to the public: the initial impetus for the patent system in the first place.

The liquidity afforded to ideas that Intellectual Ventures claims to create might, in fact, create enough social good that the drain via litigation is mollified. Given that they've claimed to be pacifists here, the deception laid bare looks particularly evil.

<comment><USER7> "There is no counterbalancing force. "

There is a company offering an interesting service to fight patent trolls: [http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2010/tc201...](http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2010/tc2010021_382392.htm?chan=technology_special+report+--+ceo+guide+to+patent+trolls_special+report%3A+ceo+guide+to+patent+trolls)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good side project - shellcompanyfinder.com - up/downvote companies as potential shells, share information as to their true owner.

<comment><USER9> I could build this in a weekend. No, really.

Who is in? I'm in. Someone comes with me I'll go, but I have no interest in a lone wolf initiative.

I need a designer who knows HTML/CSS and someone who can help get the word out. I'll do all the programming, database design, security, and hosting.

Optimally, I'd like at least 3 people to be involved including myself. If two people, who are _serious_ , decide to come along by midnight tonight, we'll post a link to review the site Monday morning.

Edit: The project has been started, see this post to contribute to a discussion about what the site will do. I have a data model there as well: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1135508>

<comment><USER10> buy the domain name fast! :)

<comment><USER9> Okay, I now own shellcompanyfinder.com

<comment><USER8> ohh this is fun, i just bought it too (intending to donate it to the effort) and godaddy said the purchase was successful... wonder what will happen now...

update:

The following domain name has failed to be registered:

SHELLCOMPANYFINDER.COM

Error: SHELLCOMPANYFINDER.COM: cannot register - already registered

<comment><USER9> Interesting! I have always wondered what happened in cases like this. The godaddy checkout process is so long and tedious, by the time you actually pay, someone else could have gone through the process somewhere else. In this case, I used godaddy too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Their business practices were always dubious. The fact that they feel the need to hide them in this fashion says all there is to be said.

</comment><comment><USER12> IANAL, so can somebody explain how this isn't considered racketeering (you pay IV for their promise not to sue you)?

<comment><USER13> Racketeering is the extortion of money under the threat of illegal violence: arson, injury, blackmail, etc. The payer has done nothing to harm the payee.

Patent trolling is the extortion of money under the threat of a legal action over a wrong done by the payer (ie, infringed on a patent).

If you hit me with your car, I can choose to sue your insurance company (you've paid them to take legal responsibility), or I can choose to accept a negotiated settlement from them.

<comment><USER14> Right, so then the definition of racketeering is starting to become inadequate, is the way I see it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another reason we need the Pirate Party.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm sure I'll get a backlash here for supporting this guy, but the system he publicly advocates would be a much better functioning patent system than the current one.

Currently, the average lawsuit between a large and small company over an IP dispute is around $1.6M. The result is that only large companies can play the patent game, and will simply infringe on smaller companies.

If IV can level the playing field by aggregating these patents and taking on that lawsuit risk, that should theoretically reduce the likelihood (or at least the cost) of an IP lawsuit, making the system more efficient.

<comment><USER17> That's also the starting cost of a lawsuit between a big company and another big company. We are currently not moving forward with some development our customers are requesting because of a ludicrous patent held by a subsidary of a large company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a cookbook junkie and was looking forward to IV's 1500 page codification of molecular gastronomy. Then I saw this article and put two and two together. IV won't make enough money selling a cookbook to justify the expense of their kitchen and staff. I'll bet money it's all an exercise to patent cooking techniques. Cloaking it as a cookbook has allowed them to bring in some big names to help out. That's dirty pool.

</comment><comment><USER19> In the book "Superfreakenomics", IV is shown to be actively developing insanely simple/improbable solutions for hurricanes (by cycling warmer ocean water with cooler water using tires and concrete), global warming (by pumping sulphur into the statosphere), and malaria (with female mosquito detecting lasers). The book protrayed them as developing prototypes for those "inventions", so patents seem fitting.

</comment><comment><USER20> throw this guy in jail for the rest of his life and be done with it. no different than madoff. worse actually. he not only took money, but he also "took" knowledge + intellectual property.

<comment><USER7> That's pretty harsh and unobjective! I haven't read anything to suggest patent trolling is equivalent to a Ponzi-scheme. Furthermore, give the man benefit of the doubt. For a person who did a Post Doc with Stephen Hawking, it's difficult to believe he is absolutely lacking in ethics and morals.

<comment><AUTHOR> According to the article, I.V. demands cash _"for a combined promise not to sue over those patents and (here's the sneaky bit) a bit of a pyramid scheme, where those in early supposedly get a cut of later deals."_

I'm not sure that being smart and accomplished in science is a reliable predictor of ethics or morals.

<comment><USER20> yup, that's what i based it off of (being objective). It's also _similar enough_ that he takes money from the big companies THEN goes back to sue them. I don't think it's being harsh either. I'm absolutely against throwing people in jail for dumb things that don't deserve the time. If we don't do something about patent trolls like this, things will continue to get even worse.

Being smart (studying under hawking) != having good morals.

<comment><USER21> He sounds more like someone with a "If I can do it under the law, it must be perfectly moral to do it" sort of personality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> No more than a speculation. Try to follow the links...</comment>


1200 Baud Archeology: Reconstructing Apple I BASIC from a Cassette Tape - <AUTHOR> http://www.pagetable.com/?p=32 <comment><USER2> Great hack, always wondered how the tape was used as a recording device.</comment>


Google to partner with BankMobile to offer digital bank accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/08/03/2071746/0/en/BankMobile-Announces-a-Collaboration-with-Google-to-Offer-Digital-Bank-Accounts.html <comment><USER2> I wonder how much Google's reputation around accounts will impact this. It is one thing to get locked out of your Gmail account with no recourse. It is something else entirely to get locked out of your bank account. From the article, it sounds like the account is with BankMobile and Google is just adding integrations for it, but Google's reputation would still be in the back of my mind when signing up for the service.

My opinion is that this reputation is confined to the Hacker News bubble and therefore will make no difference.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been looking for an alternative to Simple for a while now and haven't heard of this until now. However, I don't think this is my answer. It's slightly confusing to me what Google is offering here since it appears that BankMobile already has apps and accounts?

In either case, Google being tied to this doesn't give me much confidence. "Google will provide the front-end, intuitive user experience." Ah yes because Gmail is the pinnacle of UX. I haven't used any Google services in years (other than YouTube I suppose) but the last I remember of them were not impressive.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, a bank account where I cannot reach a real human when I have problems.

<comment><USER5> This seems to be most Google products, the lack of support has made me shy away from using any of their products.

Edit: This is more for business products, specifically with Google domains, pixel support is excellent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why can't I find anything else about this? Everything seems to point to this single source, which reads as a paid-for ad.

If Google was really "partnering" in any significant way, I would expect this to be on the front page of everything.

This seems more like BankMobile has simply been added as an integration bank (like thousands of others) into Google Pay.</comment>


Do Certain Types of Sneakers Prevent Injuries? - <AUTHOR> http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/phys-ed-do-certain-types-of-sneakers-prevent-injuries/?ref=magazine <comment><USER2> Running on your heels is the #1 source of running injuries. If you learn proper running technique, you don't need motion control shoes or insoles. For a more technical approach, look up Evolution Running. For a more beginner- focused approach that also incorporates mental aspects, look up Chi Running. Both offer the same fundamental technique advice, just go about it in different ways.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you pay to use a good GIF encoder designed for iOS? - <AUTHOR> _TL/DR: We failed to find a good GIF encoder for iOS; so, we built one. We want to know if you would pay to use it._
Encoding GIFs in iOS is not a solved problem. It should be easy to encode high-quality, compact GIFs without crashing your app; unfortunately, it isn't. We searched for a solution and found none. If you perform the search as we did, you'll likely reach the same conclusion.
The main issue is this: no one has dedicated enough time to creating a good GIF encoder _for iOS_. It's true that good GIF encoders exist— but they don't work well with iOS. It is also true that GIF encoders designed for iOS exist— but they need much more work done to be good. A good GIF encoder that works well with iOS is what's missing.
Existing solutions suffer a combination of a variety of problems:
- High memory usage — Many solutions require keeping all input frames in memory in order to create a GIF. With large number of input frames, this behavior will likely trigger a out-of-memory crash. - Large file size — Many encoders implement no or few compression techniques. These encoders end up creating really large files that are expensive to store and transmit. - Slow encoding speed — Performance bottlenecks for desktop apps and mobile apps are different. Inefficient use of memory or compute time are magnified on mobile devices. - Poor transparency support — Many solutions either ignore transparent pixels in input frames or offer poor support for them.
To solve these problems, we built, from scratch, a GIF encoder that gives you the ability to create GIFs with the stability, speed, and quality iOS apps deserve.
Now, the question is this:

    Would you pay to use a good GIF encoder designed for iOS?
 Give us your advice on how we can better shape this product to suit your needs.
Thanks.
(Also, get early access to our SDK by subscribing to our email list at http://www.giftoolbox.com/.) <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I messed up on formatting and I am unable to edit my post. Is it good form to delete and repost my submission?</comment>


The World's Cash Is Disappearing. Bankers Aren't Sure Where It Went. - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-worlds-cash-is-disappearing-bankers-arent-sure-where-it-went-11576184491 <comment><USER2> Drug Dealers/Gangs.

[https://www.kltv.com/story/27599526/police-find-over-a- milli...](https://www.kltv.com/story/27599526/police-find-over-a-million- dollars-in-trailer-of-truck/)

[https://www.al.com/live/2013/09/task_force_in_baldwin_county...](https://www.al.com/live/2013/09/task_force_in_baldwin_county_s.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Or .... the banks are not seeing it.

i for one have as little to do with banks as possible, banks are not needed, only the security of a currency is needed.

that currency can be anything really it just has to be mutually agreeable that a bag of barley equates to X hours of physical work, and a 10pound sack of barley equates to one chicken , or a bottle of scotch wiskey</comment>


Show HN: websites and hosts monitoring service - <AUTHOR> http://up-time.io/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi lads,

We have created uptime monitoring service - up-time.io.

Our main design principle was to ask users for as little as possible (page URL) and then build a service which based on user input (page URL) returns as much as possible.

At the moment when URL is provided we do DNS resolve and add all found hosts to the monitoring group with 80/tcp and 443/tcp rules. After that URL is being scanned every minute and each host every five minutes. When website (URL) is down for 5 minutes service sends notification.

We monitor from Amsterdam but tomorrow (we move really fast) we shall have a bit more complex solution and will add monitoring from Germany and New York.

We were wondering what path shall we go and what should we add as a next feature?

On our list:

\- Twilio integration

\- PhantomJS/YSlow HAR archives with alerts when sth is not going well

\- PhantomJS - screen grabbing (inspired a bit by post I found on HN about pagesnap.io)

\- More complex monitors, for instance HTTP content check, ICMP/ping, certificate verification, etc..

\- Improve UI - add help, tutorial, introduction, so that my Mom can use it.

Any feedback would be great.

Thanks guys,

<comment> Ash-k Hi,

I know there are other lot of services like this. But I like yours. Its simple and quick. Thank you for your hard work. You planning to keep this as free service?

Ideas:

\- Certificate Expiry warning,maybe a month before the expiry day or so.

\- URL redirection test etc.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: HR startups doing interesting work? - <AUTHOR> I work in HR Tech and the market is dominated by big enterprise HR Enterprises like Oracle, SAP, Workday or ADP. I couldn't a centralized list of HR startups that are doing nice and interesting work.<p>I was inspired by this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325138 <comment><USER2> Gusto, they are awesome for general HR and are expanding their products

</comment><comment><USER3> unitedremote.com

<comment><USER3> It's a startup that provides a combo of Triplebyte + WeWork + Zenefits for hiring distributed teams.</comment></comment>


An EV Future is Inevitable - <AUTHOR> http://sam-koblenski.blogspot.com/2013/09/an-ev-future-is-inevitable.html

<comment><USER2> There's an awful lot of hand-waving going on in this article. A Leaf's range just magically doubles in "6-10 years" due to improvements in battery tech. More and faster chargers, despite the fact that Blink has filed for bankruptcy. Battery prices have "plenty of room to fall". There is little to back any of this up, and the solar panel idea just solidifies my thinking the author is engaging in wishful thinking.

Range isn't going to get magically solved. A Macbook Air gets amazing battery life because of advances in getting more computing with fewer electrons, not because batteries are all that much better. In contrast, the energy required to push a car down the road isn't going to be reduced by orders of magnitude. So it's up to battery tech, which has been slow to advance.

We'll see what happens with the charging infrastructure. Blink seems to having a hard time making a go of it, and their rates are pushing up against the cost of gasoline if one charges at the mall.

I know of no reason for battery prices to fall. Maybe they will, but I wouldn't stake my reputation on it.

Yes, electric cars are simple and require little maintenance. You know what else require little maintenance? My 2005 Scion xB. Tires, oil, and filters in 70K miles. The Leaf doesn't need oil and most filters, but to me those two things are trivial. If the Scion is typical of most Toyotas, by the time the Scion needs an engine rebuild, we'll have probably replaced the battery pack in the Leaf at least once.

I love our Leaf, and I'd buy another one (or a Tesla). But to describe EVs as an inevitable future is to ignore or wish away the current limitations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Battery energy density is improving at about 7% per year. ([http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1074183_how-much-and- how...](http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1074183_how-much-and-how-fast- will-electric-car-battery-costs-fall)). After 10 years, that's a 97% improvement. If one of the new battery technologies becomes feasible with all of the new investment in battery research, there could be a much bigger jump in energy density before then.

<comment><USER3> That's not really what the attached article says. That article says that (1) nobody has any reliable data; (2) the general trend is assumed to be down; (3) the order of magnitude of the current data variance is 10x the "guestimate" of the future growth rate. Not sure this is the type of data you want to extrapolate from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> " _What better way to extend the range than to slap some high efficiency panels on the car 's roof and drive all day long? I'm sure that solar panels will reach the point where it would be possible to have an EV with infinite range as long as the sun is out.._"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was my understanding that there isn't enough energy in the sunlight hitting a few square metres on top of a car to keep it going even in the middle of a summer's day - unless we count the extremely low drag 'only works on the salt flats' type experimental 'vehicles'. Even if solar panels get to 100% efficiency, we won't have cars (traditional, 500kg+ ones) that can drive all day long off its panels.

<comment><USER5> This sentence is a good sign that the author has no idea what he is talking about.

Solar constant is 1360 W/m². You can collect 1.3 kW (about 2 horsepowers) from 1 square meter if sun is directly overhead and conversion efficiency is 100%, no cloud, absolutely transparent atmosphere (no clouds).

Solar panels on a car can be useful, though -- to run a small fan when parked on a hot sunny day. Not much more.

<comment><AUTHOR> I admit that the idea of driving on solar panel energy was more of a pie-in- the-sky idea, but it's not as bad as you're making it out to be. The Leaf's cross section is about 8 m^2. If we assume 5 m^2 can be covered with 50% efficiency solar panels and using an Earth's surface solar constant of 400 W/m^2, that would give 2 kWh of energy to the motor/batteries. If the car can be driven at 5 miles/kWh efficiency (already possible and improvements will make it more common), that adds 10 miles of range per hour of solar charging. If you drive 600 miles in 12 hours (including breaks where the solar panels are still charging), then the battery only needs to supply about 500 miles of that to drive all day.

It's a range extension idea, not a battery replacement idea.

<comment><USER6> Theoretical max efficency of PV is 40% and we're not likely to get there any time soon. Do the math: [http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/09/dont-be- a-pv-eff...](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/09/dont-be-a-pv- efficiency-snob/)

We're at about 15% now but let's be generous and use 20%. Neglecting the mounting angles and resulting reflection, that gives 640 watts collectible if you cover the whole car.

So you're collecting 3.2 miles of range per hour of peak sun. Note that the sun is not at peak elevation for 12 hours per day.

The middle of the country averages about 5 peak-sun-hours per day, so that means you're adding 15 miles of range per day of sitting in the sun.

It's not nothing, but it's very close to nothing. Useful to keep the car from self-discharging while it sits in long-term parking at the airport, perhaps. But it's not gonna provide meaningful range extension. The average EV has about 100-mile range, so if we assume a moving average of 33mph to make the math easy, you're moving for 3 hours, during which you collect enough power to actually move for 10 more miles. If you happen to be driving at noon in summer...

<comment><AUTHOR> Summer peak sun hours will be much more than the annual average, when road trips are normally taken. Admittedly, it's not 12 hours, probably closer to 7-8 hours.

Theoretical max efficiency still uses a number of assumptions to get to 40%. If we learned anything from the path of semiconductors, it's that we shouldn't try to predict what's impossible. According to these 10-year predictions, current microprocessors are impossible to manufacture. And so were last year's, and the year before, going all the way back to the 1980s.

I'm not going to accept that infinite range cars are an impossibility. They may be impossible with today's technology, but what about the technology we have 30 years from now? Maybe solar charging is not the way we will do it, but I'm sure we will see it happen.

<comment><USER6> Theoretical maximum is not talking about manufacturability, we're talking about within the laws of physics conceivably possible.

Theoretical max efficiency of PV is about 40%, in the same way that theoretical max transistor density is one per atom. It's about the characteristics of sunlight as much as anything, and advances in manufacturing may bring us closer to the limit but not beyond it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many of the arguments claiming that Moore's law would end were based on the physical properties of light in lithography and the material characteristics of silicon substrate and gate oxide interactions. These are issues that people thought were physical limitations, but we found ways around them.

Theoretical max efficiency of PV also relies on assumptions about the physical properties of light in absorption and the materials being used. I'm not saying we know how to get around these limitations right now. I'm saying that we can't predict future innovations that will make the impossible possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There lived among us during the first part of the present century a great Master who gave us the basic knowledge of how this cleansing may be carried out. His name was Nikola Tesla. Mr. Tesla's talents in the electrical field were so far above those of any other that he must have been a great soul from some other planet far advanced over ours and sent here on a special mission of mercy to help a planet that was in dire trouble. Most every electrical device we use today would not be possible without his inventions. However, he gave us a great host of new basic knowledge that we haven't made use of, mainly because of our greed and ignorance. Throughout his lifetime Mr. Tesla obtained a host of patents and gave many demonstrations that won worldwide attention, and would again today, because we still cannot duplicate them.

In this book we will deal only with one invention: the Electronic Shield. This invention reveals new Cosmic laws of the Universe. These new laws, when fully understood and fully applied, will change human life in all ways. This new knowledge is basic and from it will come hundreds of inventions and techniques of the future. It contains the basic knowledge on how to make a new electrical production device that will be electric like a magnet is magnetic and this is what this book is all about.

The search for this new source of energy started in the very early twenties with two questions.

How can a battery ever become discharged or charged when everything that goes out must return and everything you put into it must go out? Next, if a piece of iron can be used as an electro-magnet and if this same Iron is made into a hard steel it becomes a permanent magnet and a source of magnetic energy. If a source of magnetic energy can be produced in as simple a manner as that, how can the elements used in making the battery be rearranged to produce a permanent electrical source? This book is the result of over fifty years of research, experimentation, study, and with the great help and new knowledge of Nikola Tesla.

Nature not only gives you free water, air, and sunshine; with this new knowledge she will give you free energy in an unlimited supply. Make use of it as Nature intended, fulfill your mission in life in joy, happiness and individual freedom. It is yours for the taking.

[http://www.nuenergy.org/solar-radiant-energy-and-the- electri...](http://www.nuenergy.org/solar-radiant-energy-and-the-electrinium- battery/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Meanwhile, Toyota claim that hybrid cars are at a "tipping point" in EU sales: [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4984ab8e-196d-11e3-afc2-00144feab7...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4984ab8e-196d-11e3-afc2-00144feab7de.html)

"We are increasing our sales in hybrid a lot," said Toyota Europe President Didier Leroy. "In western Europe 27 to 30 per cent of our sales will be hybrids this year. In the EU it will be 25 per cent."

Obviously that's less than half of new car sales, and the total fleet will remain mostly petrol+diesel for the next decade, but hybrids and EVs will start to win on economy grounds for commuters fairly soon. Don't forget that in the UK we're paying £1.40 / litre, which is about $10/USgal ( [https://www.google.co.uk/#q=1.4+%C2%A3%2Fliter+in+%24%2Fgall...](https://www.google.co.uk/#q=1.4+%C2%A3%2Fliter+in+%24%2Fgallon&safe=off) )

</comment><comment><USER9> EVs have been around for a long time, and the Leaf is not the first "mass- produced EV" as the article claims. In 1996, GM produced the EV1: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1)

Electric Vehicles have been around for about 100 years or more: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle#History)

<comment><AUTHOR> The Leaf is the first mass-produced EV _for sale_ that consumers can actually buy and own. The EV1 could only be leased.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just a note: the Volt price drop was due to the replacement of certain expensive components with simpler or cheaper alternatives, not simply efficiency in manufacturing. Source: buddies work for GM.

My next car will be an EV. I'm going to drive my econobox nearly into the ground then buy something reasonably priced and keep the ICE car for long trips. I got as much a rush from the Volt instant torque as I did from a CTS-V wagon (though not as much as the Z06. That company loaner program is a nice perk)

<comment><USER11> The torque is very nice, I traded in a `09 370Z for a Volt and have found my driving style adjusted more conservatively (with a side benefit of less speeding tickets.)

I've leased a Volt for 12+ months now and consumed < 30 gallons of gasoline in that time. My chief complaint is not about the car, but about the lack of metered charging stations. The charging stations in my area (of which there are a fair number) are flat rate $2.50 regardless if I require $0.05 or $0.90 (my max residential rate charge expense) of energy or whether I'm parked for 5 min or 500 min.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This article has to be paid propoganda (er, PR). [1]

______

[1] Other articles in this (gag!) series:

The Rest of the Leaf Series:

Part 1: The Acquisition

Part 2: The Summer Drive

Part 3: The Winter Drive

Part 4: Frills and Maintenance

Part 5: The Data

Part 6: The Future

<comment><USER12> Why? Not saying I know that it is or isn't, but I could see myself doing similar just for the value of the links / hits / personal brand, let alone the fun of deeply analyzing something like this.

<comment><USER3> If you've found this piece to be "deeply analyzing" perhaps you could explain its merits in more convincing terms?</comment></comment></comment>


What if the Apostles Developed an iPhone App? - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/11/15/bible-app/

<comment><USER2> I use this app on my iPhone. I use it every day.

</comment><comment><USER3> I love this app!</comment>


Little dunder proto - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lassus.se/2013/10/little-dunder-proto.html

<comment><USER2> __proto__ is an old, deprecated feature of JavaScript. The proper way to get the prototype of an object is with Object.getPrototypeOf(object) and use Object.setPrototypeOf(object) to set a prototype.

I'm assuming in this example what the web app is doing is it is using the name of the child as the key in a object like this:

        students[studentName] = studentDetails;

Since the child's name is __proto__ the web app is setting:

        students['__proto__'] = studentDetails;

Which is the same as:

        students.__proto__ = studentDetails;

Which sets the prototype of the object full of students to the student's details, and will totally break things.

There is no reason to use a library like stringset.js or stringmap.js with extra overhead. The proper solution is to never use user supplied strings as keys in an object. A good key to use in this situation for an object full of students would be a generated student ID or something like that.

<comment><USER3> For many problems, you never need a stringmap (in any language so JS). For a lot of problems, you do.

Perhaps the administrative software for this school wanted to display the most popular names in each class, which you'd typically do with a stringmap and many would mistakenly do with an object. That's the same problem as counting word frequencies in a sentence.

__proto__ bugs are a real thing, and it affects small and large apps (Google Apps comes to mind).

<comment><USER2> True. Those are both examples of problems where a string map using user supplied strings as keys would be the best solution to the problem.</comment></comment></comment>


No matter what, Equifax may tell you you've been impacted by the hack - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/08/psa-no-matter-what-you-write-equifax-may-tell-you-youve-been-impacted-by-the-hack/?ncid=mobilenavtrend <comment><USER2> So, this basically is a way for Equifax to get a mass waiver from people to make a class action lawsuit less damaging to the company. Opting out of the waiver is a long winded process of mailing a form. another funny thing is that if you sign up for their crappy product, you have to come back on a different day and complete the sign up. There wont be emails or notifications. If you forget to signup, then you have basically waived your rights to sue to company.

For every SSN entered, Equifax can say in a class action lawsuit that they have waivers from all the following SSNs ....

IANAL, but this looks like a sensible strategy for Equifax to save itself after screwing with people's SSNs and personal info.

<comment><USER3> > Opting out of the waiver is a long winded process of mailing a form.

I freaking hate tactics like this, so I am offering to go through the mailing process for anyone who fills out the form at [https://unarbitrate.org/](https://unarbitrate.org/). I'll pay to mail it, just because I hate this sort of thing. If you don't trust me with your data, the site also provides a way to print it and mail it yourself. But whatever it takes, I encourage everyone to opt out of this; you have nothing to gain by giving up these rights.

(I've submitted it to HN as well: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15207151](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15207151))

<comment><USER4> Let me know if you'd like a contribution to cover postage for people.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, I appreciate the support! I'll let you know if it comes to that; so far I have some money set aside and I should be able to keep costs under control by bundling them into one envelope.

<comment><USER5> It's going to take more than an envelope, if your site gains legs. There is also the expense of printing and shipping. Paper is heavy. You mentioned the idea of delivering them in person, you may wish to get some press and legal council.

Reach out, should you need financial assistance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> considering all this information has been leaked, how on earth would they expect the people entering in their credentials to be the actual people who own the SSN!

with regards to giving up their right to class action

</comment><comment><USER7> In Sweden your social security number is public information. What's the reason for it being private in the US? Sounds like a horrible thing to rely on for security anyway.

<comment><USER8> Well I mean, what it comes down to is you need someway of establing that it's actually you over a phone or Internet and you can assume that an equifax- equivalent would be storing that info regardless of exactly what it is in Sweden.

<comment><USER9> >Well I mean, what it comes down to is you need someway of establing that it's actually you over a phone or Internet

Why do you need that exactly? If you are selling something, it's quite simple: if you receive the money, you provide the service -- if not, you don't.

The payment processor can use 2FA (this is actually done by a number of banks in Europe, when you enter the payment information, you get a text message with a code from your bank to confirm the transaction).

<comment><USER10> > The payment processor can use 2FA (this is actually done by a number of > banks in Europe, when you enter the payment information, you get a text > message with a code from your bank to confirm the transaction).

I think 3-D Secure is the protocol they use.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-D_Secure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-D_Secure)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So basically Equifax now is engaging in fraud on massive scale. It needs to be dealt with the same way as we dealt with this company called Arthur Anderson.

<comment><USER12> Allow them to rebrand?

<comment><USER13> Hey now. Accenture is a totally different company. They have reliable analysts who do good work.

/s

<comment><USER14> Ha interesting, didn't know of Accenture's history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This isn't a very rigorous test, and TC's assertion that this may be random is probably untrue given that the results seem to be consistent if you enter the same details multiple times. The idea that Equifax has implemented a random yet deterministic checking system seems beyond the pail of belief.

If I had to guess, I would say that Equifax is not checking against a list of people that they know are compromised, but rather against a list that they know __have NOT been compromised __. So if you check a name, and it _is in Equifax 's database AND it is known to be uncompromised_, you get back a "you are safe message". For everyone else they give a generic "you _maybe_ were effected", emphasis on the "maybe".

Obviously a fictional person with fictional details is not going to be in Equifax's database, so they would just throw the generic maybe message.

<comment><USER16> I have 5 and 7 yr old girls. To the degree that either exists with respect to the finance industry, they both exist. Neither has credit, obviously, or any interactions with a credit agency. The only people who have their SSNs are the federal government and our health care provider, which has some very strict laws about what they can do with _any_ data they have.

Equifax says the 7-yr old "may" have been affected. The 5 yr old comes back clean.

This sure looks scammy.

<comment><USER17> Sadly, "very strict laws" don't have much ability to prevent data breaches due to zero-days or simple incompetence.

<comment><USER16> Sure, but they didn't give data to a credit agency. That would require consent, and even if you assume they ignored HIPAA, if they'd done it for one daughter they'd have done it for both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I will be blunt, and I am very incensed by this.

My comments ... [https://twitter.com/hpcjoe/status/906549917509980160](https://twitter.com/hpcjoe/status/906549917509980160)

This is an extinction level event for Equifax. They need to be disassembled, their stored data destroyed correctly and securely, their negligent officers charged.

This isn't an accident. You don't surface _0.134 BILLION_ bits of PII without some sort of criminal level incompetence.

Any organization that uses Equifax data in any decision making process needs to be held accountable, as there may have been earlier intrusions also undiscovered, that have altered. Which, if they then choose to use them in any decision process whatsoever, brings them liability for misuse of possibly tampered with data.

I am quite serious when I say that Equifax should cease to exist as a result of this. All others should be audited for security, and audited hard.

Again, not being hyperbolic. But quite direct, with appropriate levels of anger at Equifax.

<comment><USER19> Every generation is galvanized by serious injustices. But, it _feels_ like we're far less effective at turning that anger into change; though maybe that's always how it feels at the time.

I'm almost sure I once saw a quote from Bill Clinton's press secretary that said something like "We knew that if we could survive the first 5 days of a bad story, it would get dropped."

That perspective solidified for me during the Occupy Movement. Granted, it lasted much longer than 5 days, but ultimately, what of it? The FBI didn't investigate the bankers, it investigated the protesters.

You see it with Flint. You see it with Climate Change.

I've always been politically apathetic. Moreso as a foreigner where I recognize that living in a foreign country is a privilege, not a right. Plus I'm a cynical person (not a healthy habit). Which means that whenever I hear about "boycotts", or "writing to your representative", or "held criminally responsible", or "..." I always think two things. First, that people are naïve, and second, what's it going to take to drive people to take un- ignorable action?

Brave New World.

<comment><USER20> > we're far less effective at turning that anger into change

The anger will become a _mob_ that enacts change when a critical mass of people lose access to food and/or shelter.

> what of [Occupy]

Occupy was _very_ successful at (re-)introducing _class warfare_ into the public dialog.

> First, that people are naïve, and second, what's it going to take to drive > people to take un-ignorable action?

3rd, why isn't this anger organizing into larger activist/political movements? Well, with enough surveillance data and modern data analysis tools it's easy to find the "leaders" or "organizers" that bring people together. Remember JTRIG[1]?

[1] [https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipulation/](https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/)

<comment><USER21> Oh, you're on the right track... but it's worse than you imagine. Those "leaders" and "organizers" are unimportant. You're familiar with the 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon', right? Say you were omnipotent and wanted to make it so that instead of only needing 6 links to get to Mr. Bacon, you needed 15 links on average. And you want to do as little disruption of the network as necessary.

What nodes in the graph of connections would you target? Intuition says go after the nodes with tons of connections to tons of people. Intuition is, as it almost always is, dead wrong. Removing those massively-connected people in a social network is basically useless. They are almost exclusively connected to people who are already connected to one another. They're the center of clusters, and you will almost never route through one in an attempt to find the path to Mr. Bacon.

Instead, what you want to look for are node which bridge clusters. People who are usually not strongly connected to one of the clusters they are associated with, but provide a conduit through which connections can be made. Because they are inherently a bit 'different' from the people in each of the clusters they bridge (few others bridge those two clusters), they tend not to be important figures. They're a member of a biker gang who hangs out with his great aunts knitting circle on Saturdays. They're the ones who facilitate the flow of ideas between groups that never speak to one another otherwise.

So you know who to target... but how many 'bridge' nodes like that do you need to really take out in order to significantly increase the 'distance' between nodes on the graph on average? Disturbingly few. Removing something like 25 nodes from the graph of tens of thousands of performers will make it so you need 15 or more connections on average to get to Mr. Bacon. (The book 'Linked: The New Science of Networks' details the research specifically, its been years since I read it though so I am fuzzy on exact numbers but it was definitely fewer than 30 you needed to remove)

Now, imagine a crazy scenario where you had access to the social graph of a country (somehow!) and knew who was talking to who. And your goal was just to maintain the status quo. Well, what does any large-scale social change require? An idea must spread to large numbers of extremely different, and almost entirely disconnected, groups. Any idea that remains sheltered in one or a few groups will die out of its own accord. A revolution doesn't happen because one minority wills it, there has to be buy-in from a wide array of groups. So remove those bridge nodes. Any widespread social change becomes very nearly impossible.

But what is "removing a node"? I'm not talking about black-bagging a person and dragging them off to some hole or blowing their brains out. Such things are entirely unnecessary and counter-productive. The more significant your action is, the more profound the unintended consequences will be and predicting the outcome quickly becomes intractable. Instead, notice that those bridges are usually connected more strongly to one cluster rather than the other. If their communication became more burdensome to the group they are less connected to... for how long would they persist in fighting to maintain it? If something nutty happened and they had to change their phone number, what're the odds they'll forget to give the new one to the contact in a group they're barely involved in?

You could have very quiet oppression through these means. I expect there would be unintended consequences, and have been trying to figure out for a few ways a good way to detect such changes in a social network, but its just a thing I keep in the back of my head, not something I actively work on. If you've got any ideas, I'd be happy to hear them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [https://trustedidpremier.com/static/terms](https://trustedidpremier.com/static/terms)

"As specified on the website, Your membership subscription may be subject to automatic renewal. TrustedID may, in its sole discretion, terminate this Agreement (or suspend, terminate, or otherwise restrict Your use of and access to the Product) at any time, without notice."

Not only can they renew you automatically (unclear what the renewal term is, plausibly the autorenew could obligate you with another year of service you'd have to pay for); but they can also cancel the service, and not inform you. So you're "protected". Maybe. You don't really know, nothing about it is transparent.

What we do know, is they're bad at their job of protecting consumer credit data from people who shouldn't have it. They're not to be trusted, and therefore no good reason to agree to anything they offer.

</comment><comment><USER23> I entered my real information and they said I was not impacted (but still asked me to sign up for TrustedID). The same for my wife. I tried it again today to make sure the answer didn't change and it's the same as yesterday.

Here's the message I got:

 _Based on the information provided, we believe that your personal information was not impacted by this incident._

 _Click the button below to continue your enrollment in TrustedID Premier._

Maybe if they can't make a positive match against their "safe" list, they give the warning.

They seem to be matching on SSN alone, I entered a completely different last name, and still was told that I'm not impacted, so maybe no one with the last 6 digits of my SSN was impacted.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have now placed freezes [1] on my accounts with each of the four agencies.

It is perplexing to pay $5-10 to each of these companies that have collected my data without my permission to stop the sale of that data. In particular after they have mismanaged that data and put me at risk.

They will probably see a large surge in revenue based on this breach.

[1] [https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze- faq...](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs)

<comment><USER25> Whats the fourth? I just know of Equifax, Experian, Transunion.

<comment><USER24> From the New York Times [0]: _In the meantime, here's hoping that this breach is the nudge you need to finally sign up for permanent freezes on your credit files. I've used them for years, and here's how they work. You sign up (and pay some fees, because you knew it wasn't going to be free to protect data that you didn't ask these companies to store, right?) at Equifax's, Experian's and TransUnion's websites. Christina Bater, managing director at Barrett Asset Management in New York, suggests freezing your file at the little-known company Innovis, too. Hey, why not?_

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/your-money/identity- theft...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/your-money/identity- theft/equifaxs-instructions-are-confusing-heres-what-to-do-now.html?mcubz=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Every attorney here in the Federal bar needs to file an emergency injunction on Monday asking the US Government cease sharing confidential bank data with Equifax until they are paid statutory damages, and Equifax posts bond large enough to cover any future data breach payout.

</comment><comment><USER27> Scary their tool isn't even hosted on Equifax.

I'm sure Techcrunch verified this is legit, but there's going to be a lot of similar sites shared on Facebook popping up that are similar to get your data.

</comment><comment><USER28> Someone comments in TFA that Equifax likely gives random results to garbage inputs to deter criminals from using it as a way to validate data.

</comment><comment><USER29> Even if the information they returned was correct, do you trust them enough to enter your SSN and name anymore? Surely they will be hacked again and you will be impacted by the next hack.

1\. Enter SSN

2a. Impacted by this hack

2b. Not impacted by this hack but will be impacted by next

<comment><USER23> They already have your SSN unless you have no bank account, credit card, utilities in your name, a loan, etc.

I think it'd be nearly impossible to be an adult living on your own and not have your SSN in a credit agency's database.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you would be able to block them from buying your SSN under the current system, you would not be able to get any loans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has hammered Equifax for using language meant to discourage arbitration and is asking Equifax for answers over the data breach. The company has stated since it would not bar consumers from joining breach-related lawsuits."

Is anyone else mortified that this is the reality? Where companies are allowed to dictate how much legal privilege we have to seek legal recourse if they legitimately screw up?

<comment><USER31> Welcome to capitalist America!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> With this Equifax hack, is it feasible this info release could endanger the lives of people?

Specifically, having current address info released for people who that could go badly for. eg ex-partners of violent people, maybe law enforcement (?) people, etc

If that's the case, then the fallout (and scrambling-to-relocate by people endangered) from it could be even more massive then so far mentioned. :/

<comment><USER23> There are plenty of ways to look up credit report information, I don't think this hack is going to add a significant new risk.

Though it'd be nice if this caused new data privacy and protection regulations. (But it won't)

<comment><USER32> Cool. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you read the message, it's very noncommital. You "may have been impacted" which doesn't take a position either way.

They could issue that response regardless of what you type and cover all possibiliites.

My guess: to account for typos, they are responding with "may have been impacted" if they get a hit on _either_ the name or SSN, not only when there is a match on both.

</comment><comment><USER33> The reaction here seems pretty over the top to me. Leaking a bunch of private information is bad, I guess. As a former federal employee, my SSN/etc. were leaked in the OPM breach a couple of years ago. So far, it's hard zero repercussions for me (or anybody else I know). There are many layers of defense mechanisms in place. It's not like just having some numbers let's you do whatever you want. The US banking system has a ton of human checks and balances and ways to reverse things in place. If I ever saw an unusual charge on my credit cards, I'd just get it refunded. How much actual harm is going to come out of this? My suspicion is not that much.

<comment><USER34> > If I ever saw an unusual charge on my credit cards, I'd just get it > refunded. How much actual harm is going to come out of this? My suspicion is > not that much.

Fraudulent charges on an existing account is not the concern when someone has your SSN and other high-value information - it's the ability for someone else to open an account in your name that you have no knowledge of.

<comment><USER35> This is the thing that bites you. Someone opens a store credit card in your name, uses it enough to get the credit limit to a point where they can walk off with enough stuff to make it worthwhile. Guess who gets reported to the debt collectors? Not them, you do.

And here is the really sad bit, when you tell the debt collector that its a bogus account and not you, by law they have to stop hassling you but instead of 'retiring' the debt they just resell it to another debt collector to get back some of the money they paid for it. So the cycle doesn't stop.

<comment><USER36> It's also illegal to sell a debt when the owner has knowledge that it is fraudulent.

<comment><USER35> Yes it is, but that is much harder to prove, and not something I can do in small claims. Nor can I easily get the local AG to do it for me in the area where they operate (I've tried, they just laugh at me)

<comment><USER36> Too bad patio11 has a full time job now. Sounds like something he'd have fun with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Given the fact that every other week some company gets hacked and leaks data on customers they shouldn't have been keeping in the first place, I'm looking forward to some court precedent being set. I don't know why the Equifax leak is getting all the attention and hate when [https://haveibeenpwned.com/](https://haveibeenpwned.com/) discloses a major hack constantly, but it'd be great if companies were held financially responsible for security carelessness and improper disclosure.

</comment><comment><USER38> Does anyone have any information about taking them to court yourself (small claims or otherwise)? This breach has affected me and as a cryptographic software engineer, I am exceptionally upset. I intend to go as far as my funds and personal knowledge will carry me.

<comment><USER10> I submitted this a few hours ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15207727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15207727). Basically the steps to file a small claims lawsuit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Yet another argument for decentralization. Data monopolies have single points of failure.

</comment><comment><USER40> Just a note: I tried the same thing and was told my information was NOT impacted.

I suspect the reason for this might be that I froze my info years ago.

In some way they must be screening against people who are frozen, or I got lucky.

<comment><USER41> I read on Krebs on Security [1] that those who visited the site from a computer got one result, but also got the other when they visited from a mobile phone. Not that this might apply to you, but the results from the equifaxsecurity2017 site do not seem trustable.

Quote from the article:

> In the early hours after the breach announcement, the site was being flagged > by various browsers as a phishing threat. In some cases, people visiting the > site were told they were not affected, only to find they received a > different answer when they checked the site with the same information on > their mobile phones.

[1]: [https://gixtools.net/2017/09/equifax-breach-response- turns-d...](https://gixtools.net/2017/09/equifax-breach-response-turns- dumpster-fire/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> And they have still, as far as I can tell, not communicated to anyone who the Canadian and UK affected people are; they've merely stated that there are some…

</comment><comment><USER43> Where is the class action lawsuit for their intent to defraud the entire US and Canadian populations?!?

</comment><comment><USER44> I can't reproduce these results.

</comment><comment><USER45> Not true. It said 'not impacted' when entered fake account and 'impacted' when I typed mine.

</comment><comment><USER46> I keep seeing people say Blockchain technology would prevent this type of hack. True?

<comment><USER47> Blockchain technology would prevent a web app vulnerability? What on earth?

<comment><USER46> I was wondering the same.. just what I saw some of the crypto people I follow on Twitter say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here is a crazy alternate theory for you guys, which I think fits all the details we have so far.

1\. Equifax was never hacked.

2\. Equifax accidentally deleted a substantial portion of their database.

3\. Come up with a system to get the information they lost back, via a "have I been pwned?" checker.

3a. If you enter your details and they are not in their database, they assume it is one of the persons they deleted, add it to their database, and give you a "maybe hacked" message. Obviously a fictitious person would never have been in any of their databases, deleted or otherwise. So, assuming this fake person must be a deleted person, they add the info and show the "maybe hacked" message.

3b. If you enter your details and you are one of the _lucky_ (haha) persons that were not deleted, you get a "you are safe" message.

4\. Equifax gets a lot of their database they deleted back with little effort on their part.

What do you think?

<comment><USER48> This is silly, because losing data would be lower outrage, and they might even purchase the data from other agencies so we wouldn't even know it happen.

Also the data that leaked is not the valuable data to them. See how proudly they stated that no core databases were affected? Not giving a damn about us?

What's valuable to them and to banks that use them are the actual information about our credit. If that was compromised that would kill them, because they would lose trust of their real customers (banks).

<comment><USER15>
      crazy alternate theory</comment></comment></comment>


Schooner announces $45K optimized memcached and MySQL appliances - <AUTHOR> http://www1.schoonerinfotech.com/x13.xml

<comment><AUTHOR> A few more details: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/13/schooner_memcached_m...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/13/schooner_memcached_mysql/)

"There's nothing too special about this hardware or using Linux ... Where Schooner has done its R&D is in creating a clone of Memcached that has been reworked to take advantage of the multiple cores and instruction threads in modern processors like the Xeon 5500s and it is also keenly away of memory, both flash and main, inside the box."

<comment><USER2> That's quite interesting - tiered storage for Memcache - but I already hate them for not open-sourcing it. Facebook made some _amazing_ performance changes to Memcache and had no qualms about open-sourcing it.

I'm not that convinced about the whole tiered-storage thing. Memcache is a simple LRU cache. The moment it stops being a simple cache is the moment you've started doing it wrong. This is the golden rule which has been worked out over several years of Memcache development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A few years ago I saw a company selling rather servers that, instead of using hard disks or SSDs, used massive striped arrays of RAM (~128GB per server) to provide absurd throughput and latency for database operations. It had an automated system that backed up the data to hard disks in real-time, so if the system lost power, it would be able to fully back up before the UPS ran out.

You can imagine the ungodly throughput and latency of such a system.

<comment><USER2> RamSan: <http://www.superssd.com/>

Nice machines if you need absolutely the best (persistent) IO performance. I believe EVE Online uses a ton of them to store their game state on.

<comment><USER3> Yup, that's the one I was thinking of--knew about it from CCP as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> This _totally_ misses the point of Memcache. Firstly, why do you need a disk at all, let alone 512GB of flash?

Secondly, the whole point of Memcache is that you can distribute it across multiple boxes. Facebook, the largest Memcache user in the world, does fine with that.

We could easily buy 640GB of memcache capacity for the price they're asking for 64GB.

<comment><AUTHOR> This box is $45K for 512GB, so I don't know where you're getting 64GB. It's an appliance, so what's inside it doesn't matter; they're using flash because it's (supposed to be) cheaper and denser than DRAM (see related discussion <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=558820> ). There is a difference between a cluster with N boxes and a cluster with N/8 boxes; if they're similar total cost almost everyone would choose to have fewer servers.

<comment><USER2> It's $45k for 512GB of _disk_ and 64GB of RAM. And however fast flash is, it's not as fast as RAM by a fair margin. Memcache is all about RAM.

And if I had a choice of 640GB of Memcache in one box, or in 8 boxes, I'd chose the 8 boxes. You need redundancy, and you need parallelism.

<comment><USER4> It's not for going from 8 -> 1 box. It's for going from 64 -> 8 boxes.

<comment><USER2> Right, sorry. But my point still stands. SSD != RAM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Makes sense. I've been telling a competing startup about value-added open stack appliances. OTOH, the comparison numbers are completely BS. Nothing prevent people buying a similar Dell for less than half the price (I just configured a dual 5560, 64GB RAM, 512GB Intel SSD R710 for about $18K which is a lot less than $45K)

</comment><comment><USER6> Not sold on the performance increases. Facebook was able to get 200k req/s out memcache just by reworking the code. <http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=39391378919>. Compared to the claimed 300k req/s for this I don't really see a big value add.

</comment><comment><USER7> _"512 GB Schooner-optimized Intel® X25-E enterprise-class flash memory"_

Memory? They're SSDs. Why the misleading language?

I'm sure they're great devices but SSDs are not memory and referring to them as such just sounds sleazy.

<comment><USER8> It _is_ flash memory. There's nothing sleazy about it. Anyone who doesn't know the difference between DRAM and and flash memory has no business even considering ordering one of these.

<comment><USER7> Yes, the basic technology is flash memory, but it is packaged and accessed in the form of a disk drive, and it is conventional to refer to it in that way.

Claiming "512GB flash memory" is a pretty non-standard way of saying "contains an array of 8x64GB SSDs", or however they've organised it. Other vendors don't do that. The implementation of the storage array is a pretty salient factor in a device of this type, wouldn't you say? I would certainly want to know, for example, the interface by which the array was accessed, its filesystem, its RAID type, etc. Referring to them as "memory" implies a memory-bus-speed interface, and the x-25 is a SATA device.

<http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/extreme/index.htm>

The implementation and interface is highly relevant. To take the argument to its absurd extreme, they could bundle a couple of hundred 2GB USB sticks in the box. Would it still be cool to say it had hundreds of gigabytes of "flash memory"?</comment></comment></comment>