Snapchat Phone Number Database Leaked - <AUTHOR> http://www.snapchatdb.info <comment><USER2> The top comment on Reddit r/netsec's corresponding coverage has mirrors on Mega.co.nz for the files [1]

I couldn't find my own data in the set, and actually it seems like lots of entire area codes are missing.

Assuming `cat schat.csv | uniq | cut -c1-4 | wc -l` is the proper command, there are only 76 of 322 [2] US area codes represented.

It appears there are two Canadian area codes represented in the database: 867 and 204. There are also 248 US area codes which are _not_ represented in the database. Assuming a relatively uniform distribution of phone numbers in the US (which is not at all a safe assumption), the average US snapchat user has better odds of _not_ being in the list than being in it. Sampling from the set of my snapchat friends who are not in my area code, 3 of 13 can be found in the database.

If your phone number is in any of these states, you're not in the database: Alaska Delaware Hawaii Kansas Maryland Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Mexico North Carolina North Dakota Oklahoma Oregon Rhode Island Utah Vermont West Virginia Wyoming

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/1u4xss/snapchat_phon...](http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/1u4xss/snapchat_phone_number_database_leaked_46_million/)

[2] I'm matching a regex against this list [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_Numberin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_Numbering_Plan_area_codes#United_States)

<comment><USER3> It had never occurred to me that cell phone operators would use area codes. In my small home country, there is basically one 'area code' per cell phone operator. First lesson learnt in 2014! :)

<comment><USER4> That doesn't just apply to small countries. I was also unaware that mobile phone numbers could have area codes and I'm from Germany (where each mobile operator has one three digit code – but even that is becoming meaningless with legally required number portability from operator to operator).

<comment><USER5> Less visible to people, though the way gsm works means that every call and text you receive entails a lookup to your number's original provider. Prefix allocations to mobile networks are static and they are required to return a new route if you've ported. Which means if a company leaves the market, _someone_ has to take on their allocations or even non-current customers will lose connectivity. Or at least that was true last time a checked, 4 or so years ago. Kind of crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just like to remind everyone that snapchat was aware of this exploit and dismissive in regards to it.

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/27/5249304/snapchat- dismisse...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/27/5249304/snapchat-dismisses- concerns-over-phone-number-finder-exploit)

<comment><USER7> Heckuvajob, Brownie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> CSV: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:bab9548c3770188c70d27ded9b22348f5b979713&dn=Snapch at+database+CSV&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80 &tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftrack er.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80&tr=udp% 3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337

SQL: magnet:? xt=urn:btih:f7b1cec6280edb8169d63550ba2dfb224df7810d&dn=Snapch at+database+SQL&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80 &tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftrack er.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80&tr=udp% 3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337

Both: magnet:? xt=urn:btih:fae9c0a8b2eee2f9cc31c713f21a4cda4083612b&dn=Snapch at+Database+CSV+%26amp%3B+SQL&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbitto rrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp %3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.d e%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337

<comment><USER9> That's crazy how some personnal infos, once leaked, become a public/underground data leaving no real way to repair. (I m thinking about leaks of other infos with an expiracy, or tier revoking, like oauth tokens)

<comment><USER10> BLockchain roll-backs of leaked info?

/I have no idea what I am talking about :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Possibly they shouldn't have pissed on the people who notified them of the vulnerability, and on the journalists who broke the story?

(aside from not being vulnerable to this in the first place, but that actually is a lot to ask. I still can't believe anyone relied on the Snapchat model of security more so than any other app, although from an ease of use, non- security perspective, sure, it's reasonable.)

</comment><comment><USER12> I guess I'm dating myself, but didn't we used to call that the phone book?

<comment><USER13> Fuck, misclicked downvote (wanted to upvote). Really great how HN does not allow changing votes at least once. Sorry for that, but yeah good point.

Nowadays one or a few phone numbers are unique to you, which makes it linkable to other things. Linkability is something that breaks privacy, so if you don't want your full name to be known somewhere, it is important to be able to keep things separate. When your phone number goes public (e.g. resumé and snapchat), that anonymity is broken.

<comment><USER14> Someone always does it for me, so here is a compensation up vote. I agree, a few mins of vote changing grace wod be nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For the record we don't know about SnapchatDB.

But it was a matter of time until this happened, the exploit still works with minor modifications, you just have to be smart about it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Not at all surprised. Anyone that used the app would be suspicious of the backend behind it. Should have taken that $3bn while you had the chance.

<comment><USER17> Still too early to make those types of statements. I think it mostly depends on how much the media plays this up.

<comment><USER18> we are kind of the media.. and reddit is too.. I also believe that they made a fatal error by not selling everything for $3bn then jumping aboard. To not have anything to do with the "soon to come security issues". I mean they could have mentioned it and downplay it as they did just recently. I don't think that the new owner would take security more serious than them.

For us it was really really good that he rejected the offer! Because otherwise we would see the trade market crash $3bn, guess who would have to pay loss.. we..

well, if he saw that coming, which I doubt, he would be a hero.

<comment><USER19> >I don't think that the new owner would take security more serious than them.

I don't know about that. Their dismissal was (at least framed as) "well that's a lot of data, so it's not going to happen!"

Actual excerpt from their blog, on the 27th: "Theoretically, if someone were able to upload a huge set of phone numbers, like every number in an area code, or every possible number in the U.S., they could create a database of the results and match usernames to phone numbers that way."

This is kind of a joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's taking too much time to download each file even they're 40 MB. I wish they put it on as torrent in the first place.

Regarding the leak, yeah, that actually happens when you focus on the product but security and reliability of your system. Snapchat, Whatsapp and many others are hacked numerous times and yet it still happens.

<comment><USER21> I do not wish they would torrent this. People, think about it. Personal, private phone numbers. Why would you want this information? Seriously the comments here make me sad for humanity right now.

<comment><USER22> Phone numbers are hardly private information.

<comment><USER23> Hmm, I somewhat disagree. Private information is anything you don't want public. By protocol, it isn't strictly private. But a phone number is private/unknown until its known, which is how most of us prefer it.

For example, in implicit social code it is impolite to give away a friend's phone number without asking them first.

<comment><USER22> Seriously? Ever heard of whitepages.com?

<comment><USER23> I don't think whitepages has every name and phone number ever created

<comment><USER24> neither does snapchat

<comment><USER23> Yeah, but snapchat isn't suppose to give your number out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What does snapchatdb hope to accomplish by allowing people to download the db. Just showing and proving that you've hacked the database should be enough to get the company to respond. They're probably not hurting snapchat as much as the potential damage to the people who's phone numbers and usernames are being dowloaded.

<comment><USER26> Wasn't there a story posted right here on HN like a week ago where some people notified snapchat of the vuln. and provided evidence, but Snapchat told them to basically f __* off?

I'm not savvy enough to have the link at hand but I vividly remember that happening.

<comment><USER27> Previous Discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6962329](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6962329) (6 days ago)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6970036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6970036) (4 days ago)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I still don't understand why you would turn down $3 billion. How will you ever make money with snapchat and how is it not a fad that will eventually die?

<comment><USER29> Was it 3bn cash or 3bn with some conditions? Maybe they have already made enough money (or are confident they will) and now want to get their name into history by building great company.

<comment><USER30> At the end of the day it is 3bn for an app that sends and shows photos for 10 seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I wonder if this is real: "65039076XX","larrypage","Mountain View"

</comment><comment><USER32> Threw together a quick script to check if you're affected... [http://robbiet.us/snapchat/](http://robbiet.us/snapchat/)

<comment><USER33> Ha, what. Your site says I'm leaked but gives a totally wrong phone #.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> They censored the last two digits of the phone numbers. And if you goto google's password recovery option, it shows you the last three numbers of a someone's phone number. Just saying.

<comment><USER13> Why do you even share your phone number with Google?

<comment><USER35> [http://www.google.com/landing/2step/](http://www.google.com/landing/2step/)

<comment><USER13> 2FA is pretty useless if you have a good password and simply mind the https lock and domain when logging in. Also I wouldn't share anything with Google that is sensitive enough that it needs 2FA at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> >For now, we have censored the last two digits of the phone numbers in order to minimize spam and abuse. Feel free to contact us to ask for the uncensored database. Under certain circumstances, we may agree to release it.

At least they had the tact to omit the complete phone numbers, but agreeing to release them under certain conditions just seems malicious.

</comment><comment><USER37> The exploit was brought to snapchats attention. Snapchat said impossible! DB is posted as proof.

</comment><comment><USER38> Is there a torrent for this? I want to see if my phone number has been compromised to I can take measures to change it.

<comment><USER39> CSV: [https://mega.co.nz/#!dcUhWabJ!dgiGrQCbRm6RqWCssewbmWzfV48B_B...](https://mega.co.nz/#!dcUhWabJ!dgiGrQCbRm6RqWCssewbmWzfV48B_BXK3wppZOtKpuo)

SQL: [https://mega.co.nz/#!QJklSRJA!WrVeARPvcYgyKI3KENiPu0A6hlRCLf...](https://mega.co.nz/#!QJklSRJA!WrVeARPvcYgyKI3KENiPu0A6hlRCLfDaYNt9v1l69RI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> For those who haven't noticed that, they are censoring the last two digits of the phone numbers:

> For now, we have censored the last two digits of the phone numbers in order > to minimize spam and abuse. Feel free to contact us to ask for the > uncensored database. Under certain circumstances, we may agree to release > it.

<comment><USER41> a.k.a. pay us some $ for it

<comment><USER42> Since they give a bitcoin address, it's more likely that they want BTC. But yeah, same idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I made a site to check if you are affected by this leak: [http://www.snapcheck.org](http://www.snapcheck.org) . Happy new year, everyone (although on a bad note...)

<comment><USER44> This would be perfect for completing the database .)

<comment><USER43> I just open sourced the code: [https://github.com/VikParuchuri/snapcheck](https://github.com/VikParuchuri/snapcheck) . Can verify, nothing tricky going on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Download links were broken for me so I've mirrored them here (converted from zip to bzip2):

CSV: [http://evilrouters.net/schat.csv.bz2](http://evilrouters.net/schat.csv.bz2)

SQL: [http://evilrouters.net/schat.sql.bz2](http://evilrouters.net/schat.sql.bz2)

<comment><USER46> Or just use port 8080 to bypass their Varnish server:

[http://www.snapchatdb.info:8080/schat.csv.zip](http://www.snapchatdb.info:8080/schat.csv.zip) [http://www.snapchatdb.info:8080/schat.sql.zip](http://www.snapchatdb.info:8080/schat.sql.zip)

<comment><USER47> 8080s aren't working, but jlgaddis's downloads are...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is anyone out there thinking that perhaps a larger social network might have had some hand in this?

The first thing that came to mind was "oh boy, I'll bet this made Zuck's new years eve!"

</comment><comment><USER49> SnapchatDB here: Our hosting account has been suspended. For further contact please use: firstname.lastname@example.com, or the original Bitmessage address (BM-2cTPMALzgYTkM8A96g2iwTjGHQUuNSwamp)

You can confirm my identity by messaging the original Bitmessage address which was captured by [http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/1u4xss/snapchat_phon...](http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/1u4xss/snapchat_phone_number_database_leaked_46_million/ceekp51)

</comment><comment><USER50> As a casual user, can someone explain the implications for me? They seem to have my username and phone number combo; can they use these for nefarious purposes?

<comment><USER51> If you're not a hot underage teen girl, then prob not. But now it blows up the spot for where a lot of teens are hanging out. Now it's another step to getting to you if some creep wants to. Or take it to a grander scale, it creates a viable link of who a person and their digital mask is.

That's kind of the thing about privacy. It's kind of slipping away, but if you don't care that it is then it's prob cause it doesn't matter to you yet.

<comment><USER52> If you're playing anonymous, you surely would also use burner phones and not your main phone for that purpose. Same applies to identities, profiles and hardware, any IDs, network connection and so on.

Because if I do have an alias, which is doing very shady things. I would make it pretty sure, it's not going to be that easy to get it. When doing stuff like that you want to be sure that there's "shared nothing" approach. So if they hack your systems, your primary system won't contain any information referring to the shady side and vise versa.

<comment><USER53> > _If you 're playing anonymous, you surely would also use burner phones and > not your main phone for that purpose._

We are talking about teenagers sending pictures to each other, not weed dealers in a prohibition state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> So the primary use for this database would be phishing, right? Or some attempt at building a reverse cell phone number lookup database, assuming people have reused usernames? My normal username was taken when I signed up for snapchat, but I suppose you could use this to get quite a few cell number -> instagram or twitter pairings?

</comment><comment><USER55> _> >The company was too reluctant at patching the exploit until they knew it was too late_

Did they give Snapchat enough time to fix this before releasing this data?

NOTE: I've heavily edited this comment because when I first read the website I thought snapchat ignored the people who found an exploit but re-reading, it's no longer clear to me that releasing this data is not pure malice.

NOTE2: The link from couchdive's comment makes this more interesting - [http://www.zdnet.com/researchers-publish-snapchat-code- allow...](http://www.zdnet.com/researchers-publish-snapchat-code-allowing- phone-number-matching-after-exploit-disclosures-ignored-7000024629/) \- but still, the webpage hosting the data said the exploit was fixed, so it wasn't ignored, so... I don't know what the purpose of releasing this data was.

<comment><USER21> Why would you donate to these people? Because they're hurting Snapchat users? What is wrong with the people posting in this thread like this is some kind of good thing? Real people can be hurt by this.

<comment> w-ll Maybe no one would ever send him snaps. Either Way I find it more disturbing that an address he claims to own [1] is on this list [2]

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=smtddr](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=smtddr)

2\. [https://github.com/mikispag/bitiodine/blob/master/classifier...](https://github.com/mikispag/bitiodine/blob/master/classifier/cryptolocker_known.txt)

<comment><USER55> Um, I just want to say that I have __NO IDEA__ why my BTC address is on that list and I've never seen this git URL before in my life. That BTC address is my deposit address on BTC-e.com. This address has only ever received 2.25 BTC[1] and this was purchased fair & square from coinbase.com[2] with my hard- earned USD. I really do not know what in the world is going on or who put my BTC-e.com address on this alleged cryptolocker's known list. I have absolutely nothing to do with that software.

Pardon me while I go to BTC-e.com and have it generate a new address. I don't need to be getting mixed up in this.

1\. [https://blockchain.info/address/19ukXViVqQ2pVg63aeTmMNv6TBEZ...](https://blockchain.info/address/19ukXViVqQ2pVg63aeTmMNv6TBEZpFtVFo)

2\. [http://i.imgur.com/6EKJvX9.png](http://i.imgur.com/6EKJvX9.png)

<comment> w-ll Well, word to the wise, don't use BTC-e as a wallet.

<comment><USER55> I would have found it quite amusing/scary to suddenly see some huge balance on my account. BTC-e.com sends emails for any account activity and I haven't seen anything I didn't cause. Also, BTC-e.com is just too convenient not to use for now. It's the quickest way for me to get litecoin until coinbase.com supports it.

<comment><USER56> Did the snapchatdb.info guys change the donation address? Its now reporting as 1M7rREovDkdEh4mZrYNgcj1FECRknFLuRz

They have already got $1USD for this. [https://blockchain.info/address/1M7rREovDkdEh4mZrYNgcj1FECRk...](https://blockchain.info/address/1M7rREovDkdEh4mZrYNgcj1FECRknFLuRz)

When i first read your post smtddr i got worried we had a collision! Ive found the quality of blockchain auditing in 2013 highly inaccurate. I recently bring attention to the case recently on reddit where someone 'chased' the SMP thief through a tumbler and found... the 96k wallet allegedly owned by btc-e. Its a shame if a non published address of yours has been tainted in someones inaccurate blockchain analysis.

<comment><USER55> w-ll was talking about the original BTC address in my profile being on the known list for cryptolocker. The same address I linked to in my reply to her/him. When you say "we", who are you?

Also, that whole reddit thread about chasing the SMP stolen coins I thought was too hard to actually pull off. For example, I use coinbase to buy BTC, to send to BTC-e.com, to buy Litecoins and ultimately store them in the offline address that's in my HN profile. Can anyone show me the blockchain.info URLs that would prove my actions? If the SMP people changed coin-types, that's how it'd end up on BTC-e.com's wallet. In fact, maybe that same flawed logic is how my BTC-e.com address ended up in that list - capturing addresses that BTC-e.com uses for its customers or internal operations.

<comment><USER57> Please consider corresponding with the author of the Github repo to see if they can figure out why that address was included in the list.

Based on the page for that tool ( [http://miki.it/articles/papers/#bitiodine](http://miki.it/articles/papers/#bitiodine) ), it looks like they would be interested to know of the failure.

<comment><USER55> And done... [https://github.com/mikispag/bitiodine/issues/3](https://github.com/mikispag/bitiodine/issues/3)

This whole incident reminds me of Reddit doxxing. This could have ended up much worse for me. I'm just glad I found out this way instead of the police requesting info from Google about my youtube account and gmail inbox then busting down my door in the middle of the night.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> > For now, we have censored the last two digits of the phone numbers in order > to minimize spam and abuse. Feel free to contact us to ask for the > uncensored database. Under certain circumstances, we may agree to release > it.

Why not just release the usernames and leave out the phone numbers?

</comment><comment><USER45> _NB:_ "For now, we have censored the last two digits of the phone numbers in order to minimize spam and abuse. Feel free to contact us to ask for the uncensored database. Under certain circumstances, we may agree to release it."

</comment><comment><USER59> I have list of all US phone numbers:

        000-000-0000
        000-000-0001
        ...

<comment><USER60> Yes, this is strange on all fronts. As far as I know names and land numbers are still published in phone books, and a phone number isn't generally a very interesting bit of information to have. And to the extent this information is sensitive, why be so eager to spread it (beyond being a teenager and getting a thrill)?

<comment><USER61> 1\. You can remove your phone number from phone books.

2\. Cell numbers aren't published in those books, which this affects.

2\. Land lines these days are somewhat separate from our lives. It's relatively easy to ignore. Getting phishing texts (say, faking our banks, since some -- including myself -- have some bank alerts texted to us) to our cellphones could be quite harmful. If you send a million texts pretending to be Chase, and say 50% of the numbers are legit cell phone numbers, and 20% of people have chase accounts, and 0.1% of people fall for the phishing attempt, then you get 1/10,000 people getting phished. That's 100 people out of a million affected monetarily, and 500,000 people getting annoyed by the spam.

Obviously this is back of the envelope, but this is one reason it could matter.

edit: a comment thread below mentions that the bottom two digits are hidden at this moment but will be revealed for interested parties. That really smells like the numbers will be sold to spam/phishing operations.

<comment><USER62> You can't remove your phone number from already published phone books. You can only omit yourself from later editions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> This is what a sample looks like

"31755501XX","username","Indianapolis"

The XXs hide the last two digits of every number. The list is also massively incomplete.

</comment><comment><USER64> I wonder if this will adversely affect their revenue

</comment><comment><USER65> could someone please post a torrent of this spreading the information as much as possible it will become less important and more known

</comment><comment><USER66> Is it not odd that Snapchat has 5+ open job listings on their website, none of which include security?

</comment><comment><USER67> What I want to know is what kind of asshole it takes to do things like this?

Great, Snapchat isn't secure, and they probably didn't give a damn when notified of the vulnerability (not surprising, given their cavalier attitudes), but why expose their audience in order to prove a point?

Not cool man.

<comment><USER68> Probably because someone else would have, or already has, and kept it secret instead. What you don't know _can_ hurt you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> You mean to say a company that encrypts users' messages in ECB mode with a fixed key hard-coded into the binary and which was publicly disclosed almost a year ago and hasn't been changed isn't responsible with user data?

</comment><comment><USER70> Is this a hoax? Has anyone attempted to verify the data with at least some spot checks?

</comment><comment><USER71> The database and download exclusively on convoe: [http://convoe.com/topic/127/introducing-snapchat- database](http://convoe.com/topic/127/introducing-snapchat-database)

<comment><USER72> "exclusively" \- as opposed to those torrents, the mega mirrors and personal mirrors provided by reddit and hn members, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Check if your Snapchat account is leaked in the SnapchatDB release: [https://dazzlepod.com/snapchat/](https://dazzlepod.com/snapchat/)

</comment><comment><USER74> I knew I shouldn't have signed up for Snapchat, never freaking used it, and now my phone number-username identity has been leaked.

</comment><comment><USER75> What is the point of the areacodes table they provide. It has no relation to the recors table. Also, I found my username in their.

</comment><comment><USER76> I am interested in knowing if anyone who had deleted their SnapChat account, preferably months ago, was listed in that database.

</comment><comment><USER77> For some reason, all of the 617 area codes are labeled as "Southern Michigan", but 617 is for Boston/Cambridge.

</comment><comment><USER78> Anyone else tried putting together some stats from the info?

                         name                     | areacode | count
    	</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----+</comment><comment>----+</comment><comment>--
    	 Chicago Suburbs                              | 815      | 215953
    	 Eastern Los Angeles                          | 909      | 215855
    	 San Fernando Valley                          | 818      | 205544
    	 Southern California                          | 951      | 200008
    	 Los Angeles                                  | 310      | 196183
    	 Northern Chicago Suburbs                     | 847      | 195925
    	 Denver-Boulder                               | 720      | 188285
    	 Downtown Los Angeles                         | 323      | 168565
    	 New York City                                | 347      | 166374
    	 New York City                                | 917      | 165420
    	 Fort Lauderdale                              | 954      | 153522
    	 Northern New York                            | 315      | 147447
    	 Buffalo                                      | 716      | 144939
    	 Southern Illinois                            | 618      | 144280
    	 Boulder-Denver                               | 303      | 139265
    	 Southern Michigan                            | 617      | 138821
    	 Northeastern New York State                  | 518      | 138043
    	 Champaign-Urbana                             | 217      | 135837
    	 Oakland                                      | 510      | 130531
    	 Miami                                        | 786      | 117906
    	 Westchester County, NY                       | 914      | 116632
    	 Western and Northern Colorado                | 970      | 115378
    	 San Francisco                                | 415      | 108883
    	 Miami                                        | 305      | 104415
    	 Southeastern Colorado                        | 719      | 102932
    	 Manhattan                                    | 646      |  96646
    	 Mountain View                                | 650      |  94430
    	 Chicago                                      | 312      |  70709
    	 Southwest Connecticut                        | 203      |  60629
    	 Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn                      | 718      |  51086
    	 Boston                                       | 857      |  41857
    	 Central Arizona                              | 480      |  35631
    	 South Carolina                               | 864      |  33034
    	 Eastern Ohio                                 | 330      |  32721
    	 Arkansas                                     | 870      |  28940
    	 Idaho                                        | 208      |  26827
    	 Southeastern Virginia                        | 757      |  21170
    	 Los Angeles                                  | 213      |  13705
    	 Southeastern Ohio                            | 740      |  11597
    	 Eastern San Francisco                        | 209      |  11356
    	 Seattle                                      | 206      |  10623
    	 Fort Lauderdale                              | 754      |  10131
    	 Maine                                        | 207      |  10126
    	 Northern Louisiana                           | 318      |   9842
    	 Indianapolis                                 | 317      |   8151
    	 Northwestern Arkansas                        | 479      |   7300
    	 Manitoba                                     | 204      |   7211
    	 Minnesota                                    | 320      |   7162
    	 Southeastern Michigan incl. Ann Arbor        | 734      |   7077
    	 Eastern part of Southern New Jersey          | 609      |   6952
    	 Pennsylvania                                 | 484      |   6314
    	 Manhattan                                    | 212      |   3970
    	 Pennsylvania                                 | 610      |   3930
    	 Southern New York State                      | 607      |   3437
    	 Central Florida                              | 321      |   3258
    	 New York City                                | 929      |   2651
    	 Florida                                      | 863      |   2642
    	 Southeastern California                      | 760      |   2523
    	 Southwestern Wisconsin                       | 608      |   2217
    	 Central Texas                                | 325      |   1542
    	 Central Georgia                              | 478      |   1396
    	 Western Central Alabama                      | 205      |    825
    	 Eastern Kentucky                             | 606      |    565
    	 DuPage County, Illinois                      | 331      |    512
    	 Eastern part of central New Jersey           | 732      |    507
    	 South Dakota                                 | 605      |    375
    	 Knoxville, Tennessee                         | 865      |    263
    	 Southwestern Connecticut                     | 475      |    253
    	 Eastern Iowa                                 | 319      |    198
    	 Georgia                                      | 470      |    163
    	 Minneapolis                                  | 612      |    103
    	 San Fernando Valley, LA                      | 747      |     84
    	 Canadian territories in the Arctic far north | 867      |     31
    	 Washington DC                                | 202      |      3
    	 Georgia                                      | 762      |      2
    	 Dallas                                       | 469      |      1

I wonder where they were getting the numbers to search by from. From how they described the vulnerability, I would have thought they would just iterate through all possible phone numbers. If they're doing that, it's strange how there's exactly 1 number for the dallas area code.

</comment><comment><USER79> This seems super reckless.

</comment><comment><USER80> If you have a SF Bay Area phone number, it's probably in there.

</comment><comment><USER81> It looks like they only bothered with most populated area codes.

</comment><comment><USER82> I feel good i didn't get into the Snapchat train before.

</comment><comment><USER75> Did he just turn of his HTTP server? I get no response.

</comment><comment><USER75> Did he just stop his HTTP server? I get no response.

</comment><comment><USER83> "This account has been suspended."

</comment><comment><USER84> is this a result of an actual hack, or just someone who used the snapchat username->phone number to get 4.6?

</comment><comment><USER85> These comments are disgusting. Why are you all trying to download the data? Why are many of you trying to distribute it?

<comment><USER86> I would imagine some of the people wanting to download the data are snapchat users who are trying to find out if they (or people they know) have data is in the file. No clue on the distribute part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> www(dot)mediafire(dot)com/download/73t434w3h55x5z4/Snapchat.zip

that is the whole file

</comment><comment><USER87> www.mediafire.com/download/73t434w3h55x5z4/Snapchat.zip

real files right here

</comment><comment><USER88> 503 on download links

</comment><comment><USER89> My number is present.

</comment><comment><USER83> redirects to localhost for me...

</comment><comment><USER90> how do I check my data?

</comment><comment><USER90> hi

</comment><comment><USER91> This is only useful in wide-net fishing attacks, most of which I'm guessing no one here would fall for.

Anyone interested in you particularly will quickly get your phone number, email address, facebook profile, social security number, or whatever they want if they're determined enough.

Even then, I'm not sure what information this database really provides that could be used to gain some fraudulent or exploitive benefit.

<comment><USER92> Can you really quickly get a social security number?

<comment><USER93> "I'm glad to let you know that you qualify for X healthcare coverage. Can I just have your social security number and we'll send over the confirmation documents?"

Yes, people fall for this kind of stuff all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> How long until somebody releases an updated snapchat database linking pinterest profile pictures? I mean if you chose a very unique username, and went to [http://pinterest.com/username](http://pinterest.com/username), you'd be able to discover what they possibly look like. It doesn't end there, their email address is probably firstname.lastname@example.com too. simply googling the username results in connecting their twitter? facebook? myspace? linkedin? full name, more pictures, your friends, your interests, your likes. All in all, I would have to say, this can be potentially a far bigger loss of privacy than just your Snapchat account.

Damn that 3 billion dollar looks good about now.

</comment><comment><USER65> has anyone fully download the list yet

</comment><comment><USER21> Looks like they are using WhoIsGuard to protect the domain whois information. The terms of WhoIsGuard[1] include not violating the privacy of others:

> defame, abuse, harass, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such > as rights of privacy and publicity) of others;

I've sent WhoIsGuard an email. Hopefully they'll revoke service. Shame on the people that published this private information. They aren't hurting just Snapchat. Revealing personal information like this can cause real problems for people.

[1] [http://www.whoisguard.com/legal-tos.asp](http://www.whoisguard.com/legal- tos.asp)

<comment><USER95> > Shame on the people that published this private information.

That would be Snapchat.

Stop trying to censor stuff that's already out there.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

<comment><USER11> Actually in this case the absolute best thing would be for Snapchat, Inc. to go full court press against snapchatdb.info, as what is actually important here is to communicate both the "snapchat security is a lie" message, and "companies which flagrantly suck and then piss on those who report vulnerabilities responsibly will suffer" message, rather than the actual snapchat phone/username db. Streisand will help that more than "go to this site which is really slow and download a huge file which you can't easily use to find your own number or that of your friends" (without a minimum of "how to use a computer" skill).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> I have a theory. Last week there was a big story about how Facebook was "dead and buried" because teens didn't want to be on a service that their parents had moved into. Now, when it comes to security, the parents care a lot more than the kids. Could Snapchat be playing fast and loose with the security of their user data as a way of scaring away the grownups?

This would be a clever ploy but for one damning fact. A large share of Snapchat's users are minor children. Could anyone, from the CEO of Snapchat to the perpetrators of SnapchatDB really think that risking the broadcasting of the phone numbers of 12-year-old girls and boys is a risk worth taking?

For more, see: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2014/01/01/4-6-mil...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2014/01/01/4-6-million- snapchat-usernames-and-phone-numbers-captured-by-api-exploit/)

<comment><USER66> I HAVE a theory that a (not so)clever writer for Forbes is plugging his story by planting misguided theories everywhere UPON which I plan to plant my theories on his planted theories on snapchat CEO "rumor" theories.</comment></comment>


Nathan Myhrvold claims NASA scientists asteroid calculations are all wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/05/27/nathan_myhrvold_claims_nasa_scientists_asteroid_calculations_are_all_wrong.html <comment><USER2> Lots of scientists and schools have to deal with cranks sending in papers just like this. Myhrvold just has enough status to get heard and get into the media.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am all for challenging orthodoxy, but Myhrvold appears to have been really sloppy.

</comment><comment><USER4> On the bright side, that's less time he has for patent trolling....</comment>


Ask HN: How to securely and safely blow the whistle? - <AUTHOR>

There are many injustices in the world and people wanting to blow the whistle are probably holding themselves due to a lack of knowledge on how to proceed.
I am a supporter of responsible whistleblowing and I am looking for articles, tutorials, platforms or anything to encourage responsible, safe and secure whistleblowing.
I believe HN is the most open place I can discuss such topics in and I am hoping to see a positive and enriching discussion.
Thank you in advance, HN. <comment><USER2> Whistleblowing is never safe. It is always risky. And I am truly baffled why you thought this Ask would get any serious traction on HN.</comment>


Trump's War with Amazon (and the Washington Post) Is Personal - <AUTHOR> https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/trump-war-with-amazon-and-the-washington-post-is-personal/amp <comment><USER2> It's not be just because of the Washington Post, although that is certainly a contributing factor.

There is also reason to believe that Trump wants to go after Amazon because Amazon is hurting brick and mortar retail, which also hurts commercial real estate, which also hurts him financially. Also Jeff Bezos is very wealthy, and Trump might view him as a rival.

I am not a Trump supporter, however it may be true that Amazon is in fact underpaying taxes. What's repugnant is that I don't believe Trump's motivation is about making sure everyone pays their fair share into the system. It's more just transparent resentment, as well as a tactic to go after rivals.</comment>


Gmail Compose is a Fat Ass - <AUTHOR> http://bizorgnet.com/User%20Interface/2012/06/02/gmail-compose-is-a-fat-ass.html

<comment><USER2> I'd instead hope that bigger screens gradually knock people out of the "every window gets maximised without question" mindset. It made sense earlier, not anymore.

I also think different window usage changes what makes a good desktop wallpaper. When wallpaper no longer has "all or nothing" visibility, a solid colour or a subtle pattern works better than a photo or something else that spans the entire screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I agree, and I hope most people make good use of the extra screen real estate -- Full screening a browser on 27 inches would be less than optimal except for when a website is designed to be used that way.

But, even at a reasonable window size, I find the Gmail compose box to be wider than ideal for encouraging succinct communication.</comment></comment>


The Calibre Content Server - <AUTHOR> https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/server.html <comment><USER2> I've always just used Calibre because it's a nice way for me to strip DRM and then archive my books. I've never really used it any kind of active way. Since I buy pretty much everything from Amazon, I already effectively have a content server.

Does anybody have a link to an online server (with public domain books)? I'm curious to see what the presentation is like. What's the typography like? Does the screen dim after 30s? What's the browser battery consumption like compared to an ereader app?

Long term, my big concern about ebooks is DRM. Amazon's most recent version (KFX) hasn't been cracked and workarounds involve getting Amazon to send you an older version of the file with older, crappier hyphenation and layout. I've started mostly buying DRM free books from Amazon, but they don't make it easy to find them.

<comment><USER3> My response is to avoid buying ebooks from Amazon if possible.

Most of my purchases are from Weightless Books [1] which sells only DRM free books and magazines.

Granted, this is a limited and small market (SF related stuff) but if I have a choice of getting a book DRM free from a vendor or getting it from Amazon, I would avoid Amazon, even if its price was cheaper.

[1] [https://weightlessbooks.com/](https://weightlessbooks.com/)

<comment><USER4> > My response is to avoid buying ebooks from Amazon if possible.

This severely limits what ebooks one can read. I used to torrent DRM-free epubs and buy the paper copy so I could support the work without appearing to support DRM. Lately though I've been skipping the torrent part and just buying the paper books.

<comment><USER5> I wonder how many people do this and if it over inflates piracy figures or physical book readership

<comment><USER6> Does it even matter when the people using these numbers will distort the facts anyway?

(this may not apply that much to books but most types of content are usually filled with DRM garbage, region restrictions, usually have worse quality and distribution methods, and they pretend to not understand why people choose to pirate it)

<comment><USER7> If you think most people who pirate are aware of region restrictions or notice the quality difference, I think you're mistaken. That's a rationale that some idealists use, but most people would just rather not pay.

Streaming video piracy sites are becoming more popular than downloading, and that's usually poorer quality and worse interfaces than the official sources.

<comment><USER6> > but most people would just rather not pay

These people wouldn't pay no matter what you do so it's not really relevant. I'm talking about people who resort to piracy because they can't pay to get what they want. Or the value just isn't justifiable.

For example, I feel cheated when I have to wait months for content to be available in my country. Sometimes years (or not ever). So I go and download some torrent since I can't buy the content anyway. And now I'm one of the numbers on their spreadsheets.

If licensing is broken or too hard to manage, they should spent the money fixing that instead of going after "pirates".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Related but slightly off topic:

Am I the only one who is turned off to calibre due to how "heavy" and clunky it feels? I suspect this is due to the program being written in Java. I think the author does great work maintaining the project but frankly wish it was more modern.

Perhaps this is a good side project for me to delve into ;)

EDIT: thanks to users who clarified that Calibre is written in python.

<comment><USER9> Much as I love pyGTK, apps written in it feel pretty chunky :/

Here's looking at you, Mint Menu

(not nearly as bad as Electron though)

<comment><USER8> I disagree, while Electron apps have trade offs, I never experience the experience of clunkiness I find with Calibre.

<comment><USER10> Try resizing a window in any Electron app. Bonus points if you have display scaling enabled.

<comment><USER11> Works fine. That's not the issue with electron (for me at least), it's battery life/power consumption.

<comment><USER10> On every machine I've used any Electron app on, there are large gray areas that flash and lag behind the mouse cursor when resizing (it's especially noticeable on Slack). On hidpi displays, half the time there are 1px black lines remaining on the right and bottom sides (probably due to poor rounding). Compare that to native apps like Sublime or Windows Explorer.

<comment><USER11> Just tested on both a 4k 13" Windows Display and a 2K 15" Mac Display - yes I see what you mean. That is pretty bad, though I've never noticed that before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been searching for a solution to handle the various ebooks I buy and to allow me to annotate them in a centrally stored location. I have kindle purchases, pdfs, epubs, and mobis from various publishers.

Moon Reader ([http://www.moondownload.com](http://www.moondownload.com)) would be great if it had a desktop or web-based client...however, it's only supported on Android. If Calibre can give me this experience, it's value just increased immensely. Looking forward to trying this.

<comment><USER13> "Note:

"On initial release, the book reader is fully functional but is missing some more advanced features from the main calibre viewer, such as popup footnotes, bookmarks and annotations in general. These will be added in due course. In fact, the browser reader is designed to eventually replace the main viewer, once it matures."

<comment><USER14> On mobile I would rather use something that doesn't stop working when I don't have internet access. I kind of expect any browser based reader to be thoroughly mediocre compared to actual clients.

<comment><USER13> "The server downloads and stores the book you are reading in an off-line cache so that you can read it even when there is no internet connection."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love it in principle but, considering how small most books are relatively to storage space offered by modern devices, even mobile ones, what is the upside of storing content centrally instead of just carrying a copy with you?

<comment><USER16> Many of my ebooks are anywhere from 50 to 350 Mb. That adds up when you want to load many of them. The downside of course is that you need a good Net connection, unless the Calibre Content Server can be configured to do some kind of 'trimming', while serving the ebooks over the wire.

Also a content server mitigates you having to manage and synchronise your ebooks in multiple places. You only need to manage one library. Although I guess any sync application can work just as well for this.

<comment><USER17> Why are your ebooks so large?

<comment><USER16> They contain a lot of colour images and diagrams. Books on biology and art. Granted other topics including fiction are usually in the ballpark of a few megabytes.

<comment><USER18> Kilobytes even

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I thought that this was a recently added feature. Turns out it has been there since at least 2011 (based on a forum thread about it). Will have to try it!

<comment><USER20> The content server has been around for a while, but the ability to read the books in the browser is new.

<comment><USER21> Newish, it's been around for at least a few months now, since I first tried it out a few months ago. I got excited seeing the link on HN, thinking it was some new feature added to the server

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I did a little go server to expose an opds basend of a dir structure

[https://github.com/dubyte/dir2opds](https://github.com/dubyte/dir2opds)

So far I only tested on moonreader

</comment><comment><USER23> It would be great if this feature was extended so that I can sync my books across different Calibre installations on different machines.

<comment><USER24> Can't you just put your library and database on git or Dropbox? It should just work, unless you're accessing them from two devices at the same time.

<comment><USER20> I do, with Dropbox, and it mostly works... but it's very easy to get the database corrupted even if you are careful not to have more than one instance of Calibre open.

I haven't tried using a source control system, that might work better. Hmmm.

And of course that only works for computers, There isn't a full version of Calibre for Android.

<comment><USER25> Out of curiosity, how does your DB on Dropbox get corrupted if not by having more than one instance of Calibre open?

I'm asking because I use Dropbox to store my Keepass DB, and so far (2+ years) I haven't had any problems.

<comment><USER20> I don't know. But I occasionally find files with names like foo(username's conflicted copy).db.

I do the Keepass thing too, and this has happened with it's files as well, but that doesn't seem to cause any problems.

<comment><USER24> Those aren't corrupted databases, it just can't merge so it leaves you to pick the version you want. Just pick one and keep using it, at most you'll lose some recent changes from the other computer.

<comment><USER20> I should have known not to use language imprecisely on HN. :)

To the layman, any situation that results in having Calibre show books which are not in fact there, or having books in the library which are not shown in Calibre, or having Calibre's check library function report that there are "invalid titles", "missing formats" etc., could be casually described as "corruption".

<comment><USER24> Sure, but the worst case is that you don't see books which are in your filesystem, and then all you need to do to fix that is click "Add books".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am a happy user of Calibre and am grateful for the work the author has done, but I've never heard a convincing explanation of why it is so slow when adding books and updating metadata. 10-15 seconds to add a 500KB ePub. I have apps that will transcode 4K video at a higher throughput than that. What's it doing?!

<comment><USER14> 2 seconds to add a 12MB pdf

Calibre 2.85 Funtoo Linux Current reading a file from a ssd that wasn't previously cached or opened prior to test. Same speed with a 300k file therefore obviously time is dominated by whatever calibre does when it adds a book not reading the file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Calibre is unfortunately a big mess of spaghetti code. I had a problem with speeds when a book is being added. Couldn't get myself out of the soup to fix it.

<comment><USER14> Is this a function of the number of existing books in the library? Basically does this appear only with large libraries? Might be worth filing a bug I have found the author to be pretty quick in responding.

<comment><USER27> Nope. Works slow with 0 books, although I do have about 700, which still is by Big-Oh standards, at least it should be, small.

<comment><USER14> 2422 books here all of the above ought to be small though as noted. I think it would be interesting to profile and figure out which part is slow. Is it equally slow if you run calibredb add in the terminal?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It looks like you still need Calibre GUI to add books- this is read-only interface.

I was hoping that this could replace my Google Drive folder with various papers on interesting topics I'd like to read.

</comment><comment><USER28> They have also made Calibre look a little less crappy on high definition screens, and added a conversion to .docx: [https://calibre-ebook.com/new- in/twelve](https://calibre-ebook.com/new-in/twelve)

<comment><USER29> So glad about this, it always looked terrible on any Macs as it wasn't really designed with 2.5K-5K screens in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've been using Google Play Books as a way to keep my books in the cloud, ready and available. Looking forward to seeing how Calibre works in comparison- hopefully much greater control, with similar functionality.

</comment><comment><USER31> Having tried to set this up, it's a neat idea, but needs a lot more work before it's ready. Can't logout users, poor interface design, a bunch of JS errors when just trying to load a book (immediate request timeouts, incorrect paths, trying to access missing objects, non-working buttons, etc).

I hope it gets better though, because it's a great concept

 _EDIT: also, the forums aren 't letting me register due to an error in their captcha being broken, so I can't discuss/submit my bugs there.

_EDIT2: I was able submit a bug report to lanuchpad.

</comment><comment><USER32> I love Calibre and contribute recipe updates often but don't really see the value of the server. I script things to download via command line and then send to kindle over email. It's more robust than the front end and less hassle than running a server you have to use the browser to access. Given file sizes are small (this week's Economist is about 15mb) it's perfectly Fine to us email.

<comment><USER5> One guy further up the thread has 350mb ebooks

<comment><USER33> There are people who have 200GB of books (non-fiction only so none of the fiction books that seem to come out at an alarming rate every day)

<comment><USER34> Books that are 350MB individually*

Many comic books from recent humble bundles have been around that size, for example.

<comment><USER33> I am having a bad day understanding comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I personally just use iBooks as my personal content server / ebook reader. Get your epubs somehow and drag & drop to iBooks. It syncs with all of your devices whiles using your iCloud account. It's very easy, and I've found iBooks the nicest ebook reader yet.

I like it better than amazon's kindle apps and you can use an open format.

</comment><comment><USER36> Semi-related: I wrote a fb messenger bot [1] which can send any ebooks (including epub) to your kindle.

It's handy if you've only got access to an epub, and a bit less clunky than sending via email.

[1] [https://m.me/kindleebooksender](https://m.me/kindleebooksender)

<comment><USER10> Just so you're aware, I added it and Messenger automatically sent the "Get Started" text, and the typing animation ran for about 30 seconds until it stopped with nothing happening.

<comment><USER36> Huh that's weird. I'm looking at the logs, and this is the first time that's ever happened. It will usually just spit out the following introductory text:

      Hi there! Send me your ebooks and I'll send them to your Kindle.
      To get started, I'll need you to first tell me your Kindle's email address.
      This can be found on your Kindle management page: https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/manage?ie=UTF8#pdocSettings

      (ending with @kindle.com)

Will look into this, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> can someone tell (test) for me if calibre server serves to a console browser such as elinks ?

Thanks</comment>


Yahoo's Tumblr Buy Fails Four Tests Of A Successful Acquisition - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2013/05/20/yahoos-tumblr-buy-fails-4-tests-of-a-successful-acquisition/

<comment><USER2> Sometimes I wonder if both sides of such analyses are written out beforehand (for/against). Then, if the prevailing sentiment is for the event, they publish the against version; and vice versa. Just to offer a 'counter opinion" and garner pageviews. It reminds me of the obits that NYT has in its database of all famous people alive today; when s/he croaks, they just pull up the latest version and publish.

<comment><USER3> Forbes are a huge source of clickbait. Writers are paid on a Gawker-like basis, so we get contrarianism, #slatepitches, and coarse statements in spades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is not a good analysis. Tumblr has a demographic access that yahoo doesn't. Yahoo can generate ad revenues due to scale that Tumblr couldn't. Karp adds a perspective that Yahoo needs.

It's unclear whether the acquisition will be a success, but if it is a success the article's reasons will be irrelevant. If it isn't a success, those will not be the reasons why it failed.

<comment><USER5> So what you are saying is that Tumblr will allow Yahoo to lose money on its target demographic faster than Yahoo could lose by itself?

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that the demographic or the site is money losing over the long term, like youtube.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This analysis is pretty useless. Where do these metrics come from? Yahoo long ago ceded the search crown to Google and don't seem to be focused on reclaiming it. The assertion that Yahoo can't integrate Tumblr is baseless considering how new the exec team is.

YouTube wouldn't have scored much better on a report like this.

I don't think the deal will ultimately end up having a YouTube like effect for Yahoo, but this is nothing more than a linkbait puff piece.

<comment><USER7> > Yahoo long ago ceded the search crown to Google and don't seem to be focused > on reclaiming it.

This acquisition seems to support that idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've taken a quick look but I can't seem to find a good response: what kind of "interactive campaigns" or "interactive advertising" does tumblr sell at the moment?

<comment><USER9> "Tumblr finally started rolling out ad products in 2012, starting with Highlighted Posts in February, which function like promoted posts on Twitter and Facebook. In the following months, the company rolled out several additional features, including a Pinned Posts, Radar and a premium analytics tool for brands and marketers that costs $500 per month."

<http://mashable.com/2013/01/02/tumblr-revenue-13-million/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Saving this so I can re-post it in 2 years to show how wrong this was.

</comment><comment><USER11> These four points illustrate the fact that making a large acquisition to try to transform/redeem yourself has not worked well in the past. Think AOL and Time Warner or HP buying autonomy.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Tumblr's industry of interactive advertising is less profitable than Yahoo's display advertising industry."

Banner ads are the future, you guys! Forbes said it first!</comment>


Ask HN: Settlers Of Catan For iPad? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone wanna make Settlers Of Catan for the iPad? You could link it so that players view their cards on their iPhones, and the board on the iPad.  I bet if you got on the ball and contacted the company right now to discuss licensing you could get it out in 60 days... <comment><USER2> Hey we're working on it now! At She's Geeky Mountain View. Stacie & Anna. Cheers.

</comment><comment><USER3> this is a really smart idea.</comment>


Show HN: Forage - A search engine for node.js - <AUTHOR> http://www.foragejs.net

<comment><AUTHOR> I was meaning to post this under "ask" \- how do I do that..?</comment>


Device turns Android phone into computer. A reason to make HTML 5 apps? - <AUTHOR> http://clamcase.com/clambook-android-and-iphone-laptop-dock.html <comment><USER3> Getting closer...

I really think a smartphone docking into stations is the future. "Mannequin" Laptops, desktops etc that are activated once a smartphone is plugged in. You can now use a keyboard, external monitors, your OS slightly adapts... iOS becomes Snow Leopard (not exactly, you just have more functionality)

Once docked, a smartphone can unlock additional cores that would otherwise consume too much power, activate a more powerful GPU, possibly one even housed in the docking station itself...

I really think smart phones will become the magical little chip you place inside a cyborg to operate a larger, more powerful creature.

Imagine working at home off your docked smartphone computer (fully functioning OS), undocking and using your simple apps on the train to work (mobile OS, not much different than current experience), getting to work, docking into your station and you're right back at it (full OS)... portability with a familiar ui/ux feel... seamless experience.

Or gaming at home, undocking and going to a LAN party with your friends, not having to worry about whether or not the games / apps are installed, the docks are generic... plug and play.

(Ignoring the whole home to work aspect and security issues / work policies, of course)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3902051>

<comment><USER4> Possibly, a few issues though:

Hardware is getting cheaper , for example the $25 raspberry pi computer. It will become likely that peripherals like the screen , case and keyboard will be more expensive than the actual computer itself (especially if the CPU etc are smartphone grade stuff).

If you have additional hardware inside your phone that is unlocked only when it is plugged into a docking station, then why are you carrying that extra hardware around in your pocket the whole time? Why not just put a very fast GPU inside the docking station for example and have some sort of high speed bus.

If you are making 2 versions of the same application with different UIs then that is really very similar to making 2 applications. Sure you can do a lot of code re-use, but this is possible anyway even when you are programming for separate devices.

Portable things like phones get easily lost of broken, imagine losing your smartphone and being basically unable to do anything until you replace it because there is no such thing as a "fat terminal" anymore.

Businesses are probably going to prefer bolted down systems (physically and in terms of software) that employees do not take home with them.

The internet makes this sort of a moot issue anyway, because if most of your applications are SaaS and all of your data is stored on a server anyway then anything with a web browser can become a dumb terminal, there is no need for your own hardware.

<comment><USER3> I don't think all applications will work cross dock.. Some sure, all no.

And in regards to housing the GPU inside dock, thats exactly what I was thinking. I believe you may have missed:

"Once docked, a smartphone can unlock additional cores that would otherwise consume too much power, activate a more powerful GPU, possibly one even housed in the docking station itself..."

<comment><USER4> I missed the part about the docking station and assumed you meant inside the phone, sorry.

Once you have put the GPU inside the docking station though, people will start to say "hmm, why not put a faster CPU in there too" "oh, and a bigger SSD so we can cache more stuff" at which point the phone starts to become redundant.

As with all of these things , I imagine it will be cyclical.

<comment><USER5> To me, the phones primary purpose in this scenario is to maintain state.

I can be working at home and instantly sleep my "phone-computer", slip it in my pocket and then resume right where I left off when I arrive at work by re- docking it.

<comment><USER6> Exactly! Even now I'm annoyed that I have to type on my iPhone keyboard when I'm sitting at my computer and someone sends me a text. Would infinitely prefer that when I'm in proximity of my computer and logged in that the phone functionality was available in the computer's OS and on screen.

And then being able to get up and carry what I was doing on my computer wherever I go would be the next step.

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't it be simple enough to write an app for your phone that would check if it was connected to your "home" wifi and then upload incoming sms messages to your desktop/laptop.

The phone app could wait for you to type a reply on your PC which is then sent back to the phone and then the phone would send it.

I'd be amazed if something like this does not exist.

<comment><USER7> AirDroid is a pretty good start: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sand.airdr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sand.airdroid). It lets you manage most of the phone functionality from your desktop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love the power consumption charts with no numbers, not units and basically not information whatsoever. Gem of marketing, really.

Also, I don't really think this is a good idea. Phones have different power and thermal envelopes, so even with Moore's Law, dedicated desktop is always going to be more powerful than laptop, and laptop is going to be more powerful than this. Same goes for storage, memory, graphics and everything.

And one more thing, after playing one of the games in lastest Humble Bundle that was originally released for iOS, I am of the opinion that touch and mouse/trackpad interfaces are incompatible in both ways, that using mouse or trackpad with touch apps is as impractical as using touch interface with traditional desktop apps.

<comment><USER9> The thing is most people who have a need for a laptop, don't have a need for a beefy laptop. Its the form factor they care the most about. Sure you and me need something more beefy. I have emulators, and simulation programs, and virtual machines running. My brother on the other hand has 3 spreadsheets, a word doc, and about 5 tabs open in chrome. A smart phone could probably handle his workload. I would take a guess that the average computer user has more in common with my brother then myself. To them there's probably a lot of value in having this all on one device.

<comment><USER4> A smartphone probably _could_ handle his workload, but a CPU/motherboard design that was less constricted by size would be able to do it faster.

Also would your brother want to dock/undock his phone with his laptop all the time? I generally just leave my phone in my jacket pocket most of the time so if I want to go out of the door I don't have to hunt it down. Under this system your going to have to go find your laptop and unplug it before you can leave.

Under this logic it would have made sense for Apple to launch the iPad as simply a "big screen" dock for the iPhone. Instead they launched it as a separate device with faster hardware.

I predict that tablets will start to become far more powerful than smartphones in the long run as demand for high end graphics will increase whereas smartphones will become more optimized to reduce power usage.

<comment><USER10> You are trying to shove the future into a present-day sized box.

If things were working correctly, there wouldn't be any need to take your phone out of your pocket to have it drive the laptop.

And the laptop needn't be useless if the phone isn't around, it should just be able to advertise its screen and keyboard to the phone, so that a user that wants to push text at the phone can use the laptop to do it (without messing around with much of anything).

<comment><USER4> It really depends who far into the future we are thinking. If we have the technology to reliably stream high resolution video (of the desktop/UI) through the air with no noticeable latency at 120fps then all bets are basically off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Even a ballpark indication of price would be helpful. I have a bad feeling that it will price itself too high to be useful (especially considering I'm in the UK and tech seems to use bizarro $1=£1 exchange rate).

<comment><USER12> Prices in the US don't include sales tax (VAT). In the UK they do. Take the new iPad for example. $499, add 20% UK VAT ~$599 which at today's rate is ~£385.

The UK price for the same iPad is £399. Yes there is a discrepancy, but you're not being ripped off as much as you think you are.

Unless you buy an Apple TV, that is.

<comment><USER13> Could also be due to licensing regulations etc etc. There seem to be a million and one EU directives regarding different levies placed on tech. For example if something can record more than 30 seconds of video I believe it's classed in a separate category and carries with it hefty levies.

<comment><USER14> Also, if I remember right, in Europe, electronic devices must come with at least 2 year warranty, compared to 1 year in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Something about this just doesn't seem legitimate.

Also, in the fine print at the bottom:

"The images on this website are examples only. Actual products may not contain the same design or functionality as featured on this website. "

</comment><comment><USER16> This thing is just begging for Ubuntu for Android. <http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android>

<comment><USER17> Not exactly the same solution. Ubuntu for Android lets you run Ubuntu on the desktop, and no Android apps I think.

This seems to work more like Asus' Padfone, so when the phone is docked, you get ICS on the larger screen, and get to use all Android apps.

<comment><USER18> From what I heard, it's possible to run Android apps on Ubuntu for Android:

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/02/ubuntu-for-android- announ...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/02/ubuntu-for-android-announced)

The fact that they run in a special window suggests that the applications actually run in Android, but that they are composited in/on the Linux desktop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> No.

Isn't it ironic how just a few hours after somebody posted the wikipedia article on Betteridge's Law of Headlines (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4092880>), two of such headlines make the top 2 of HN :)

More on topic, this looks like Palm Foleo re-invented (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo>). I always found the Foleo concept great so I wouldn't mind seeing another attempt. That said, the success of iPad and other tablets is going to make this device even more niche than the Foleo would have been. It'll be a tough sell.

<comment> Digit-Al >That said, the success of iPad and other tablets is going to make this device even more niche than the Foleo would have been. It'll be a tough sell.

You are probably right - but not necessarily. This, after all, fills a different niche to a tablet. You can't put a tablet in your pocket and tablets are expensive because of having their own processor, memory, etc. This way you can use all the facilities of your highly portable phone on a laptop sized device that should, in theory, be a lot cheaper than a laptop or tablet.

<comment><USER20> Tablets are expensive because of their screen, touch screen, battery and mechanicals. Everything else is cheap in comparison.

[http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/New- iPad-32-GB-4...](http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/New- iPad-32-GB-4G-Carries-364-35-Bill-of-Materials.aspx)

Devices like this still have a screen and battery and mechanicals. Instead of $20 of CPU and $10 of RAM they have a $10 CPU that includes RAM. That's pretty much the only savings available.

On the other hand, tablets sell in huge volumes; this is a niche market. So it's quite probable that tablets and/or notebooks without a CPU will be more expensive than ones with a CPU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> To me this, if anything, looks like a trade dress infringement (MacBook line). Can someone help me understand why it isn't?

I don't support IP whatsoever; I'm vehemently against all these laws. I'm just curious how they're planning to get away with it.

<comment><USER22> I'm by no means an expert on trade dress, but look at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress> , especially the law itself (which is pretty straightforward) and the section on distinctiveness. The key point is that to win a trade dress suit, you must prove that consumers are actually confused about who made the product.

Now look at me. Now look at the clambook pictures. See how it prominently says "clambook" when it's open, and prominently shows the clambook logo on the back? I suspect that it would be hard to find a meaningful group of people who would answer the question "who made this" with "Apple." If you know enough to associate that design with Apple, you know it's not going to have a picture of a mollusk where the Apple logo's supposed to be. No customer confusion == no trade dress problem. (This isn't a hypothetical -- they literally do this kind of survey in trademark cases.)

Incidentally, not all IP law is the same, and trademark/trade dress law in particular is a Good Thing. You don't _want_ to buy a knockoff Apple power charger thinking you're getting the real thing. You don't _want_ to pay French champagne prices for California bubbly, or Coke prices for store-brand soda. The basic question in trademark law is "how often does this product succeed in tricking someone into buying one thing when they meant to buy something else?" Obviously courts will get the answer wrong sometimes, and there might be areas where the line should be drawn a little differently, but for the most part this is an area of IP law you should vehemently support.

I'm on a horse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why is it not a reason to make Android apps?

<comment><USER23> I'm far more interested in this. If I could have full productivity features with Android, I'd take a serious look at making it my only device. As it is, tablets simply can't bring enough to the table to convince me to ditch the laptop.

<comment><USER17> Same here. I've just bought a new Windows laptop, and I'm planning on getting a new "machine" around 2015 or so. The hardware should be "good enough" by then (quad core 2.5-3.0 Ghz Cortex A20 - or whatever they are calling the next-gen 64 bit chip after A15), and I'm hoping Android will be mature enough as an OS by then with a lot of productivity apps, that I can just use an Android machine (like a Transformer device) for everything.

I'm also on the lookout for a Windows alternative in the future, as I'm not liking the direction Microsoft is taking with Metro at all. But Google needs to become a lot more serious about tablet (and desktop) apps by then. So far I've not seen that, but maybe things will change when they launch their own Android tablet at I/O, unless they will keep pretending phone apps are good enough for larger screens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can do this with my current phone with this device:

[http://www.motorola.com/us/consumers/Motorola- Lapdock-100/73...](http://www.motorola.com/us/consumers/Motorola- Lapdock-100/73945,en_US,pd.html)

The clam case is much sexier.

But, even at $250, I can't find a compelling reason to use my phone in laptop environment. The apps just aren't there.

Also, $250 gets you a fully funtional (and more powerful) Windows/Linux laptop. Spend some more and you get a machine you can write code on and game with.

I wish them all the best, but this is going to tank.

<comment><USER25> I bought a Motorola Lapdock for my Atrix for £50 (about $80) in a sale. It seems really cool but hardly gets any use as I have a real laptop with a proper desktop OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It took me a while to understand what actually the product is. Is it just a dock? A MacBook Air like laptop? Only then I understood it was a laptop that "connects your phone to laptop" (I'm still not sure if I got it right, so correct me if I'm wrong). I'd probably won't buy it but good luck to them.

It's funny that now every laptop is looking like Apple's MacBook Air.

<comment><USER27> It's not a laptop, it's an all-in-one external display, keyboard, and battery for an Android phone.

For 90%+ of computer users on Earth, it's way better than a laptop.

This smells like the future.

<comment><USER28> Citation please.

<comment><USER27> From TFA:

> MHL Technology simultaneously delivers digital video to ClamBook and power > to your Smartphone

> Standard Laptops can run uncomfortably hot in your lap. ClamBook's > processing happens on your Smartphone, so it runs cool as cucumber.

> With MHL® technology, your smartphone charges while it's connected to > ClamBook.

> ClamBook's slim and sleek aluminum design features a widescreen display, > full-sized keyboard and multi-touch trackpad. Add style and functionality > while transforming your Smartphone into the ultimate connected device.

> Impossibly thin, Incredibly light

Apparently it has speakers too.

<comment><USER21> Those are advantages of this product. The citation (I think) should look more like the source of that 90% figure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Now it looks like producing apps that are tablet + phone capable is important for this to succeed. Think if you have an app running on your phone, and you dock it now you just got more space so you're app should change to tablet style interface. Android's architecture might shine because apps are capable of single binary with all of the goodies included for phone vs tablet. So plugging in your phone just causes the Android App to run onCreate() again on your activity and now you're in tablet layout vs. phone layout. iPhone is a universal binary, but it's two different executables in one package so you'd have to start the app over. The over arching point is form factors like this require app developers do certain things to make their apps behave well in these environments.

</comment><comment><USER30> I see a lawsuit from Apple coming: [http://lghttp.5654.nexcesscdn.net/8041F9/mage/skin/frontend/...](http://lghttp.5654.nexcesscdn.net/8041F9/mage/skin/frontend/pro/cc/images/cbgallery/clambook_laptop_dock_02.jpg)

<comment><USER9> It's more rectangular then it is wedge shaped.

<comment><USER31> I don't think that argument is really going to hold up against Apples legal team.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Interesting bet. While most are betting on having all your data and apps in the cloud so you can live device-agnostic (eg iCloud, GDrive, Chrome OS, etc), these folks are basically proposing a mobile-centered world.

The only advantage I see of this model over the existing cloud model is possibly cost, as presumably the device is much cheaper than a laptop.

But that comes with a UX price tag - as already pointed out here, app interfaces built for touch can be frustrating to operate with a mouse/trackpad cursor.

If they can pull off an attractive price point AND an elegant solution to the UX problem, this could be a serious sales machine.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hasn't this already been done with the Redfly Mobile Companion (<http://www.celiocorp.com/companion>) and the Palm Foleo and failed miserably both times?

<comment><USER34> One glance at Redfly is enough to tell you why it wasn't embraced!

And by your logic, the iPad was destined for failure too, no?

I'm not sure if this will fly, but I suspect execution and design will be major factors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I read "Dive into HTMZl 5" 18 months ago when we were in Japan an China. I was pretty much convinced that this was the future but when I got home other stuff required attention.

Today I bought 2 more HTML 5 books, and I am trying to take breaks from consulting to master HTML 5 based apps. Something is wrong in the world if HTML 5 apps don't replace a majority of platform specific apps because in is in just about everyone's interest to have a portable UI platform across devices.

</comment><comment><USER36> Headline I'd like to see:

 _"Google Turns Android Into A Computer"_

I almost suspect that the chromebook project is down Google's attempt to make a new kind of laptop.

</comment><comment><USER37> Here's my question. What if you could purchase a small black cube that served as a micro-kernel with large computing capability and some type of wireless connectivity. From there, we could have multiple slave devices such as this laptop or a smart phone that then could turn connect to your computer box?

That would be pretty cool?

</comment><comment><USER38> Interesting, they just say "Smartphone", and have an iPhone (am I mistaken?!) lurking behind the Android device. Similarly, on the part where they had their marketing department create a "Gaming" sample, the device used as controller looks very much like an iPhone, even the connector does.

<comment><USER39> In the small print:

"Some of the ClamBook features highlighted may use modified software. It is important to note, most manufacturers strongly caution against installing any software that modifies the original device software (this process is often referred to as "jailbreaking" or "rooting")."

There are iOS AirPlay APIs for video mirroring on later devices[1] (you can even have different content on the external screen and phone's screen), though I'm not sure how they'd manage to connect a keyboard or trackpad.

This strikes me as more of a design mockup than a viable product. The company does have existing products[2] but they're not nearly as polished.

[1]<http://www.apple.com/airplay/> [2]<http://clamcase.com/ipad-3-keyboard- case-black.html>

<comment><USER38> As I mentioned in reply to notatoad, you can connect bluetooth devices to your iOS device. The trackpad, is the interesting thing though. I don't think iOS has a concept of Mouse...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> No

The reason to make HTML5 apps is that they'll run on anything with a modern browser. Some applications are related to the underlying device hardware and need to be written in the appropriate SDK, but many programs could be done just as well in HTML5 and would be inherently cross-platform.

</comment><comment><USER41> I love how they are saying less processing power is better. If netbooks taught us anything is that sacrificing too much processing power for battery life ends up with frustrated users. Why not just use a Ultrabook? Everything is in the cloud already.

<comment><USER17> It's not the same thing. Netbooks were forced to use a 20 GB OS with much more bloated apps compared to the lean mobile alternatives, and on a single core processor. Use Office on a netbook, and then use an "Office" app on iPad. See which is faster.

The thing about netbooks is that everything from the OS itself to the applications written for Windows were made with powerful processors in mind, and as processors became more powerful, those apps became more resource intensive as well. Then you took all that and crammed it into a very low- performance netbook.

Mobile operating systems and apps were designed from the ground up to use very little resources and be lean so they don't use a lot of battery life, either. So yeah, the comparison is not the same. The most "advanced" app on a dual core tablet will probably feel just as fast as the "most advanced" program on a high-end PC, if not faster.

<comment><USER41> mmm.. yes that is true. It will be interesting to see which paradigm wins or we might have all of them exist side by side. Apple is betting on separation of mobile and full size computers. Windows and Ubuntu are betting on the same OS on all screens.

<comment><USER17> I think either Apple's method or going bottom-up with Android, but they have to fix the problem of making "mobile apps" work well in desktop environments, too. Plus, they probably need an improved Android UI for desktops as well, although the current tablet ICS one comes pretty close to a desktop interface. But they need to enable a more "desktop-like multi-tasking" and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm getting a sort of deja-vu feeling, this thing reminds me of all those desktop docks for laptops that appeared during the '90s when I was a kid.

I remember it seemed really cool, but in practice it was a pain in the ass.

</comment><comment><USER43> It would be far more interesting to see this technology on wallboards (TVs), car devices (de-coupling of interface devices with processing devices such as GPSs), and supplemental processing units.

</comment><comment><USER44> Wait, where have I heard this before?

Oh wait it's Palm Foleo (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo>) all over again

<comment><USER45> Except the Palm Foleo contained a computer. This is a "dumb" box.

It's much closer to the Motorola Atrix laptop dock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Interesting concept. I'm not sure it will totally catch on though, I use my smartphone when on the go. I have a PC at home that vastly outperforms any smartphone.

<comment><USER45> PC manufacturers other than Apple despair because people overwhelmingly opt for the low end, low margin devices, since most laptops are now "fast enough" for people to use them as their primary computers. It's not that long ago that using a laptop as your primary computer was inconceivable. And even shorter ago since the thought of using a phone as replacement for a laptop would've been considered science fiction.

In other words: Your phone will catch up to where it is fast enough for enough uses for enough people that there will be a substantial market for taking advantage of the enhanced mobility and flexibility.

Power users will still want more, but power users are a small niche.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Motorola will be filing for patent infringement shortly....

</comment><comment><USER48> Now it makes more sense for those quad core android phones.

<comment><USER17> And 2 GB of RAM. I'd prefer dual core 2 Ghz Cortex A15 CPU's vs quad core 1.5 Ghz Cortex A9, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> "Don't have your chestnuts roasting on an open fire" lol

</comment><comment><USER50> Considering Apple patented the clamshell design from the Macbook Air recently, I expect this design to shift radically.

</comment><comment><USER51> omg even the site design screems apple :O

<comment><USER52> yep. "How close to an Apple keyboard can you really get" seems to be one of the questions they have asked themselves.

About the idea - it's kinda neat but I think it's 2-3 years too early. Graphics, ram and networking are ok in today's smartphones and may be able to power a netbook - the CPU however isn't. As an example, HD flash videos is something today's users expect in an ultrabook sized device and this will disappoint them. And if this is thought to be an additional device to your notebook then I have to ask - why? You're still much better off with an ARM tablet and a keyboard dock.

<comment><USER45> > As an example, HD flash videos is something today's users expect in an > ultrabook sized device and this will disappoint them.

There are Android phones out there that can display video at 2160p to an external display, so I'm not sure why this should be a problem.

But I really don't think people who want to play flash videos are the target market for this device today.

Rather people like me for whom having a netbook for very basic stuff is very useful, but who really have no need for it to be an extra computer.

I have everything I need in order to manage the servers I'm responsible for on my phone, for example, but I'm hampered by a small screen, no keyboard (ssh via on screen keyboard on my 4.3" phone is somewhat painful) and short battery life, so today I already carry around spare batteries and a large battery pack in my back, and really should have a keyboard with me too. That still leaves the screen. And cables. Getting it all in one sleek case would be great.

> And if this is thought to be an additional device to your notebook then I > have to ask - why? You're still much better off with an ARM tablet and a > keyboard dock.

My laptop is a 17.3" "desktop replacement" that never leaves the house. I don't usually need a laptop when I'm out and about, but as mentioned above there are cases where _some_ limited capabilities beyond what my phone offers would be great.

You're right that a tablet + keyboard could meet it, but I'd prefer a 7" tablet I can easily hold in one hand during commuting, while I'd prefer a larger screen if I need to have extra stuff to be able to do work anyway.

There's room for a lot of different form factors and types of devices - <USER2> have different usage patterns.

<comment><USER52> How is HD resolution on an external display the same thing as DECODING IN SOFTWARE a HD flash video? Please keep in mind that Flash decoding is still not GPU supported on ARM devices (at least as far as I know).

And concerning a target market: Yes it might be useful for some audiences like sysadmins or people who don't really want to consume media on their computers. I still think that most people who want to use devices like these want to be able to watch videos. Even on iPads the lack of flash is what has been most limiting to many people - luckily the situation gets increasingly better with the adoption of iOS native formats. I guess we have to see.

<comment><USER45> > How is HD resolution on an external display the same thing as DECODING IN > SOFTWARE a HD flash video?

How is software decoding remotely relevant? Doing that when almost all modern phones and tablets have GPU's that supports accelerated decoding of the formats that actually get used on the web would be entirely pointless.

> I still think that most people who want to use devices like these want to be > able to watch videos.

And they will be, given that pretty much even the cheapest Chinese Android devices around have hardware accelerated video decoding for the common formats. In fact, the most common chipset in the cheapest of the cheap Android devices these days tend to have the ARM Mali GPU architecture largely for this purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The new Palm Foleo

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo>

</comment><comment><USER54> This won't do me any good until Samsung releases Ice Cream Sandwich for my Infuse.

</comment><comment><USER55> Client side form factor detection: nightmare mode

</comment><comment><USER56> It looks fake..

<comment><USER54> I agree. Maybe a digital mockup for market testing purposes.

<comment><USER57> Probably - look at the shot of the racing game; the speed and timing on the ClamBook display do not match those on the phone.

It's a nice idea and I could use it to replace most of my desktop functionality - but then I sometimes have to burn a few DVDs, run some in- house developed apps, read/write USB sticks and use a (USB) Yubikey (OTP generator) to access some of our systems so it would be very hard to switch 100% to a ClamBook, and there's no way I'd want to keep alternating between two sets of kit - kinda defeats the purpose - but some may be able to cope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> That's certainly a cool direction computing could take. Instead of having a PC and a smartphone you will only have one device.

<comment><USER59> You still have two, only you don't have to synchronize your data between them.

<comment><USER60> Well, you have one _smart_ device, and one or more _headless_ devices that require you to dock your smart device. But, the big idea is that these dumb devices could be anywhere... the office, your home, your car, the coffee shop, etc... Many locations, one device - no syncing. With each dock conveniently adapted to it's locale. So, the desktop at work has a big screen and extra storage, the laptop at home is small with a larger battery, and the dock in your car simply charges the device as you drive.

It's a great vision, if someone could just standardize on a docking mechanism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Laptops are ergonomically horrible.

If we have removed the technological restrictions that tied us to that form factor, are there not better ways to modularise this kind of functionality than to just make a dumb terminal in the shape of a laptop.

For this kind of product, if the keyboard can't unclip from the screen, then you are doing it wrong.

<comment><USER62> Nothing says ergonomics like typing on a hard glass screen.

Not that they're doing it right either. I don't want to have to carry around a dongle in addition to a fake laptop. Better to sync my data to the cloud securely and have my device of choice (for actual work) automatically pull down the relevant data.

<comment><USER61> _Nothing says ergonomics like typing on a hard glass screen._

I agree. Tablets are ergonomically stupid as well. Don't even get me started on the general problem of having your fingers blocking what you are trying to see, let alone the lack of any kind of nice tactile feedback. The current minimalist design principles for personal computing devices are mirroring the worst of the architectural ones. Clean, sleek, beautiful, refined, and fairly useless for most people.

Today's computing devices are fragile toys that look the part, and do more things, but are functionally worse at doing the tasks of the objects they are supposed to replace. The fact is I am very close to binning my smart phone and finding an old nokia 3210, purely because I could use that without looking at it most of the time, it was much quicker to make a call, it crashed a lot less, booted up quicker and the batteries lasted longer.</comment></comment></comment>


Olark – The First Three Years - <AUTHOR> https://www.olark.com/customers/olark-the-first-three-years <comment><USER2> Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Being a serial entrepreneur I can attest that in multiple companies of mine raising the prices has been the best decision we've done, often taking us to profitability. It sounds scary at first, you worry about the value to customers. In reality what often happens is you are being started taken more seriously by customers. Often both deal size and number of deals per month increase - while we all worry that the deal number initially goes down. Most founders should try charging more than they currently do, especially if the initial prices have been taken from thin air.

In Europe I also see more and more teams who thanks to 3-5 times lower cost base than in Silicon Valley happily become profitable and growing from their own cost base. Reach $20k in monthly revenue and a team of 5-10 good people can enjoy their life as kings and queens. Grow $1-2k per month and hire one additional person each month. No investment needed if you don't want to accelerate.

Have followed both rules with my current startup Weekdone ([https://weekdone.com/](https://weekdone.com/)) and we're nicely profitable here in Estonia, growing month by month. Raising funding is a potential for upside, but not really needed.

<comment><USER3> Your post is timely. We're based in the UK and constantly being approached for investment and I just can't seem to bring myself to jump on that ride.

While £20k MRR won't allow us to pay for 5 - 10 people here in the UK, £50k MRR will and at any point I can make the call to sell the company.

By the way we're in a similar space, I run [http://www.staffsquared.com](http://www.staffsquared.com) (HR software).

We also see our competitors dropping their prices, but my take is the same as yours, we tell our customers that we won't compete on price as our app is simply better than the competition :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A nice story but gotta say that olark tab that keeps rising up from the bottom on every single page drives me absolutely nuts.

<comment><USER5> Assuming the tab is going to be there, what would make it be less distracting to you? When we first started all this we wanted to get rid of those incredibly annoying people wearing headsets bouncing around the screen. (I think we've made progress).

(Some themes are animated others aren't, perhaps if we had more people use non animated themes by default, it'd help)

<comment> grey-area If you must have a tab, it should have a big dismiss button for the 90% of visitors who are not interested. Why is there no option to close it?

Another option would be not to have a tab at all (a hovering tab is very annoying as it hides content and distracts from the site for a function which is not often used) - instead let customers include an unobtrusive help button in their actual page content wherever they wish which calls your js in order to display your overlay when clicked. You don't need an obnoxious tab.

<comment><USER5> Site owners actually have the option to make it close able, and implement with just a simple "help" button.

I think what generally happens is that the team that handles customer communication does not have the dev resources to get someone to add UI elements to their page, so only bigger companies take advantage of "closeable olark" and click to open the chat window.

We also found that once people close the window, many get confused and have a hard time opening it again. (clearly not a problem for the "average HN reader", who might clear cookies and reload)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for sharing, really interesting approach.

BTW, Olark is a great product, and you deserve every bit of success!

</comment><comment><USER5> It is interesting how much pricing can really help drive revenue :-). It's really hard to know what works without experiments.

</comment><comment><USER7> Good job, keep it up!

I'm a paying customer for more than 6 months now and love the product.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great article. Btw, I wonder why we see so many blogs from SaaS companies revolve around the business side of things. For example Groove does the same thing on it's blog, go into how to run a successful business.

On another note, I've unfortunately stopped using Olark for a completely free service called [https://tawk.to](https://tawk.to). It even came with an Android app, and I just couldn't believe that it was completely free. It was enough for me to completely ditch Olark (even though it was well made), because it was free.

<comment><USER9> Very interesting. How do they make money? The product looks very robust, but when I see nice products like this that charge no money, I wonder how they stay alive. At least disclose how they pay their employees? Are they a consultancy? Are they funded? Private or public?

<comment><USER10> They offer a service where they man your support for you.

<comment><USER8> seemed like they provided this service to large companies to support the rest of us for free.

I would definitely pay for something extra. Even the UI is top notch. I was so impressed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>