Privacy Is Just the First Step, the Goal Is Data Ownership - <AUTHOR> https://thetoolsweneed.com/privacy-is-just-the-first-step-the-goal-is-data-ownership/ <comment><USER2> It's been a while since I disagreed this much with a privacy-related article. It's a good reminder to me that the privacy community is reasonably diverse, and that different people can advocate for the same policies for very different reasons.

I advocate for privacy a lot, but my end goal definitely isn't data ownership. If anything, I'd like to see IP protections start to go in the opposite direction. I'm not against the idea of copyright as a purely practical invention, but I certainly don't believe anyone has an intrinsic moral right to a monopoly on creative or factual information.

So I take some issue with the idea that privacy is just a gateway to something else. To me, privacy and anonymity _are_ the end goal. There's not a secondary, deeper issue behind that. I'm not mad that Facebook is making money off of my information, I'm mad that they were able to get it in the first place.

This is important, because when you transition to talking about data ownership as the underlying problem, then you start to lose ground on questions like, "why is it important that the government not be able to track my GPS location anytime they like? What was really wrong with programs like PRISM?" Because Government privacy concerns don't really have anything to do with data ownership.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you.

To me the biggest issue with advocating for data ownership is that it puts the burden of privacy back on the user. I.e., I shouldn't have to micromanage my data-foot-print and give or deny explicit access. That just opens the doors for a barrage of requests levied against the average Joe user with lots of room for "accidental" approvals (similar to the "this site uses cookies" popups).

Privacy should not be a chore that the user is tasked with performing every day. Privacy should be implicit and extensive.

>Because Government privacy concerns don't really have anything to do with data ownership.

Could you expand on this? I want to agree here too, but I don't think I fully understand what you're getting at.

<comment><USER2> _Anything_ is probably too strong a word for me to use here. There's almost certainly some overlap with stuff like the 4th Amendment. But while you probably could use property rights as an alternative way to get at some government abuse, you've changed the overall nature of your argument.

TLDR, privacy is something that's intrinsic to _you_ as a person, and property is something external that you just happen to have right now.

The typical arguments that are used to defend property rights (including the arguments that OP uses in this article) are largely centered around economic harm. In longer conversations this usually ends up being even worse than OP's apple example because the most direct analogy that gets brought up when discussing information ownership is copyright, which has a concept of fair use.

A pretty large component of nearly all existing IP systems is that there is a somewhat tangible value to information, and when someone takes your information they are taking that potential value away from you. And OP is probably right, if you tell an average person that Google is stealing from them, you will get a bigger reaction than if you tell them that Google is violating their privacy.

But privacy as I view it is not about economic harm, or even about my right to control how a piece of information gets used. Privacy is, very roughly, about my right to _hide_.

Right or wrong, if you go to an average person on the street (or even an average Congressperson) and tell them that putting all of your phone call metadata in a database violates your property rights, they're going to somewhat reasonably say, "that doesn't effect your potential market. It's not really harming you or preventing you from exercising your property rights. And if it ever does harm you for some reason, then you can argue it in court _then_."

But when I talk about PRISM in terms of privacy instead of property, the arguments I make are more direct. Violating someone's privacy has an observable chilling effect on freedom of speech and freedom of association _regardless_ of whether or not future action is taken. In the US, we already have Supreme Court precedent on the books that a right to anonymity is often an essential part of exercising freedom of speech. We don't have any similar precedent that I'm aware of around IP or even general property rights.

Property rights additionally lead to undesirable questions like, "can the government tax your information?", or "if the government really wants your information, can it use eminent domain to seize it?", or "If you die, and no one inherits your information, can the government take it then?"

<comment><AUTHOR> I sort of agree with this. I'm cynical that the genie can be put back in the bottle. I also think for a certain crowd whose support you'll need for any changes along these lines, the term "freedom of speech" has become politicized too much. I'm not sure it's an ideal that we can still rally around as a country.

What we seem to be able to rally around is money. And I think once people realize they're sitting on some real monetary value, they'll be galvanized to pursue some of the things we hope to get with privacy advocacy.

These are great things to point out and part of why I started this blog. I knew there were smarter people out there that would think of all the things I'm not thinking of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I visit a webpage does the fact that I did so belong to me, or the site owner, or both? Clearly, it's a record of my activity, so it should belong to me. But it's also a record of the server's activity, which should belong to the site owner ("Served page X to User at 18.104.22.168 a 4:03 PM EST on April 3, 2019") I don't see an easy way to make a case that they don't have at least partial ownership of it.

Location data is a little more clear that it belongs to the user, since you aren't requesting anything from anyone, they are just collecting it, sometimes without telling you.

Voice assistants are also complicated. Does the information "Analyzed noise XXX at such such time - determined it was not the word 'Alexa' " belong to the company doing the analysis? After all, you bought it and asked it to listen to you and respond when you said a certain thing.

<comment><USER5> If my normal route for lunch is down the street to the hotdog stand to get a dog and coke, then into the park to read. Do I own that information? If a friend goes to the hotdog vendor and asks if I'd been by there, when he replies is he giving away _my_ information or _his_?

<comment><USER6> It's not one or the other, both parties have the information, and without a prior agreement of confidentiality, there isn't any reason to expect confidentiality from any party other than common courtesy.

<comment><USER2> In that case, let's talk about a current privacy problem and see if the model OP is advocating helps.

One of the ways that Facebook fills out relationship graphs is by reading contacts. Both I and my brother own the information that we're related to each other. Both I and my brother own my phone number (I didn't make him sign a confidentiality agreement when I gave it to him), so outside of the bounds of common courtesy, I can't force him not to tell anyone else.

So if my brother decides to let Facebook scan his phone contacts, he's just giving away information that he owns, which is his right to do.

But if information ownership under this model doesn't provide any real protection to stop one of Facebook's primary data gathering techniques, then what's the value in it at all? What privacy infringement would this protect me from? If a store that I walk into could still claim ownership of the fact that I walked in and track my movements everywhere with facial recognition, and a website can still log that I visited and track where my mouse moves, and if they have co-ownership of that information, then they can still sell it to whomever they want.

A big issue with information ownership is that in order to make it logically scale, it has to be neutered to the point where it's no longer useful.

<comment><USER7> You know, if you have a conversation with someone (without an NDA, etc.) they are free to tell anyone about it, but in a number of states they (or anyone acting with their permission) would not be free to _record_ the conversation because of all-party consent laws.

I wonder if that's the kind of model that we need to consider expanding into personal data collection in a number of areas. (And maybe reinforcing with _separate, affirmative_ consent requirements for some uses; e.g., I've posted notice and you entered the property may be sufficient consent for video recording used exclusively for normal security purposes, but perhaps not for outside sharing, as targeting, etc.)

<comment><USER8> "but in a number of states they (or anyone acting with their permission) would not be free to record the conversation because of all-party consent laws."

I'm against that due to the power dynamics in place. I'd rather anyone be able to record anyone without saying anything. The whole situation, start to finish, will need to be recorded to make sure they're not cherry picking. I've found that lots of arrogant, evil people will be too cocky to realize someone is recording something or even that folks around them are listening. Gives us a way to deal with more of them. I've known quite a few people that protected themselves that way.

I haven't seen a strong argument in terms of practical effects for full disclosure of that. If anything, less people in abusive environments would be able to prove abuse since abusers would hide it second they know someone is recording evidence. So, I'm for rolling back those all-party, consent laws into one-party or no consent. At least for dealing with harms to person recording. We could require consent before publishing something if no provable harm was done.

"I wonder if that's the kind of model that we need to consider expanding into personal data collection"

Interesting. Not sure about that one. I do prefer it for businesses collecting consumer data given they do most of the abuses. They also have most of the power in this space.

"reinforcing with separate, affirmative consent requirements for some uses"

They'll mostly just click through the dialogs or whatever. It might still be good for few it helps. I don't know. This is a security feature that fails the most unless they already know ahead of time how valuable or important something is. They already have to want to protect whatever it is. Plus, sacrifice whatever product/service is being offered to them, esp free. We could try it to see what happens, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd say the primary problem with this argument on its own terms is that one of the natural questions to ask is "OK, then, how much are these companies stealing from me?" and the answer is roughly "At the upper end, probably on the order of $10/month". That's going to be hard to build a social movement around. I could argue that if we were being paid a fair price, it would be worth more, but that's a chicken & egg problem; until we have such a free market, we can't really know what will happen with enough confidence to make a strong argument that we need a market of some sort.

The real problem with all this surveillance isn't the direct impact to me, it's the impact to society. It merely turns it into a sick joke that my social order is being upended and social contracts rewritten for an amount of money I'd happily hand to them to just... not. (I mean, that has it's own issues if it actually came to be, but in its current form, yes, I'd happily pay $10/month in hard cash for them to just leave me entirely alone.)

In the long term, I'm much more concerned about the fact that knowledge is power. I don't particularly look forward to the era of "SELECT name, current_location FROM citizens WHERE dissidence_level >= .6 ORDER BY dissidence_level DESC". But until that _happens_ , to a much greater extent than it has, and it visibly manifests in the real world, it's going to be hard to get people to care, until it happens and it's too late.

What really scares me is idea that the reason why it hasn't happened yet is precisely that the people who want to do that are deliberately waiting until it would be too late.

<comment><USER10> Yes, you hit the nail on the head! The societal impacts have to be considered. If you rely on each person to rationally decide whether or not to sell 'their own' data, you'll have a tragedy of the commons situation.

Maybe we will see a health insurance company that costs half as much as the rest, but to apply you have to give them all your social data and they run "CREATE TABLE rejected_applicants AS SELECT name, id FROM insurance_applicants WHERE health_risk_level >= .7".

All the healthy people will rationally sell their data and try to join this company, and all the other companies will have sicker pools and have to double their prices. For a person who couldn't get accepted into the cheaper company, the fact that they can sell their own data is cold comfort.

Privacy harms will always fall disproportionately on the marginalized: the poor, the sick, dissidents, and minorities. The framework of 'data ownership' can never make these harms right because it fails to recognize that half the people selling their data often hurts the other half.

<comment><USER11> Enough with the paternalism. Let me use my data as I see fit. It's mine. Not yours. Stop putting limits on it.

If I want to trade my information for money I should be allowed to.

The problem with you guys is not that your ultimate goal isn't data ownership. The problem with you is that your ultimate goal is that you own and control everyone's data. You want to make the rules as to what they can do with it.

<comment><USER9> Are you using your data as you see fit?

By your own choice? Even if the first answer was "yes" (and, to be honest, it still isn't; if you had control I virtually _guarantee_ that you would choose to change _something_ about how it is distributed), this answer is certainly "no". You're not choosing right now. You're having done to you.

If you want to complain about people making choices about what to do with your data, I can't fathom why you'd file that complaint against someone who wants to give you vastly more control than you have now.

<comment><USER12> What do you mean? Sure, currently personal data is being used without much control by the person. But the GP is not proposing more control, they're saying people should still not have choice, as that may harm the marginalized.

<comment><USER10> I'm not saying that people shouldn't have the choice whether or not to sell their data - I'm saying that even if they have that choice, it doesn't prevent many society-wide harms. (Edit: Which implies that we do need to restrict some uses of large datasets that would cause these harms.)

I'm not sure how you would characterize my position in terms of increasing or decreasing 'control' or 'choice' \- I find those terms tricky to apply in this case, so I prefer to apply concrete concepts like 'harm'.

<comment><USER11> Harm is not a concrete concept in your characterization. It's pretty non- concrete and you've demonstrated no manner in which it occurs under the circumstance, only the possibility of it occurring.

If my friends and I all decide to self-insure as a group and we will pool our money to do so and we all agree to be covered by our collective-owned policy only so long as we submit our data in to the group, I want that to be permissible.

This is us choosing to interact with each other as a freely-associating group. That's our business. I don't want it restricted because I have lots of friends.

And I'm sick of people continually taking away my right to use my data with other people who choose to use their data. There is a societal cost to not allowing freedom. I'm not game for some Communist-style Committee for Personal Use of Personal Data Voluntarily Given. Yes, CoPUPeDVoG is not okay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Individual ownership of data doesn't solve the problem because there's an inherently unequal relationship between the data's owner and the data's consumer. The consumer whether public or private has limited use for an individual data point and is really interested in the collective sum of individuals' data. We see this unequal relationship in plenty of other domains and it always collapses into giving into the demands of the larger entity just for the privilege to participate.

What really would make more sense is the collective ownership of data. Allow for data owners the power to form a body to collectively bargain with entities that want access to their data.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I've been thinking about this. I still think the focus should be on individual ownership, because then that individual could opt-in to a bundled data purchase. Their cut would be small, but maybe it's automated so you get a lot of small payments without doing anything. I think you need to leave the door open for an individual's data having stand alone value though, like a unique mutation in their genes that cures cancer.

<comment><USER14> How much do most people collect from class action suits they get bundled into? Vs how much do the lawyers make?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's a relief to see that the top-voted comments already disagree with this article. I disagree so much however that I need to voice it, I can't just upvote others. So, here it goes:

Nope, nope nope nope. Personal data property is a _bad_ idea. And it probably does not come from people who actually care about privacy. It is an ideological push towards more and more privatization and "free market" economy.

Think of it for a minute. If personal data protection is based on private property that you can sell or rent, it means that rich people get a right to privacy, while others will necessarily rent or sell their data so they can pay for rent or feed their kids. It means power over personal data belongs with money. That's not what anyone actually fighting for the right to privacy actually wants.

Now, people should have _control_ over their personal data, that's a fact. But control means rights, it does not mean that a notion of property is necessary (or maybe a loosely derived notion, like something resembling moral rights [1], in addition to control). It also means regulation of data controllers and data processors. The fight for actual privacy is not the fight for ownership, it's the fight for control.

For those who, rightly, think that "control" is a vague term: it was, but it has been properly defined [2], and more recently formally modeled [3] (disclaimer: I'm one of the author of the latter article).

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights)

[2] [https://script-ed.org/article/control-over-personal-data- tru...](https://script-ed.org/article/control-over-personal-data-true-remedy- or-fairy-tale/)

[3] [https://pablo.rauzy.name/research/publications/lemetayer2018...](https://pablo.rauzy.name/research/publications/lemetayer2018capacity.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER16> The solution, as I imagine it, is the following:

1\. data for web apps should be stored separate from the servers as the code.

2\. this separate data store should be owned by the user (not the provider of the web app).

3\. user should be able to point the web app to another datastore if needed.

so, for example, if you user basecamp for project management. basecamp should be designed so that all data writes happen to a separate database or datafile. the data that i enter in web app (basecamp) should never be stored on basecamp servers. at setup i should be asked for a data store location (that I pay for and manage).

ofcourse, for non-privacy consicous customers, the existing status quo option can also be provided.

<comment><USER17> Check out blockstack, they solved this in similar way like you described

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thinking out loud here.

This ownership analogy isn't working well, because ownership is a concept invented for physical things, whereas data can be copied. We can keep it, _and_ pass it on. We know from copyright how painful it is, to put ownership on digital "things".

Did data ownership ever work like that in the physical world? Say we see a person walk by, someplace, at some time: is my sensory impression and memory like data? Is it a privacy intrusion to remember that later? Tell somebody? What would be the equivalent online? (Do we have a private "house" online, and public space?)

<comment><USER19> > Did data ownership ever work like that in the physical world?

Insider trading is a crime in which someone takes an action based on data they had no right to. (Trading on corporate secrets, or data that belongs to the corporation and not the individual profiting.)

If a student finds a copy of the answers to a test, even if the student finds the data in a completely legitimate way, it is considered academically dishonest for the student to take the test after learning this information.

In many games learning certain information is considered cheating. For example, in Poker it is cheating to know another players cards expect after a player folds and chooses to show their cards.

Until very recently it was illegal to make a copy of "Happy Birthday" in the form of a live performance at restaurants in the United States.

Yes, in the real world data has owners and it can be illegal/restricted to provide copies of the data or to perform certain actions with the data.

<comment><USER18> Nice examples, yes.

I hope I didn't come across as someone from the if-you-don't-have-anything-to- hide crowd.

I do think your conclusion is a bit quick, though.

> Yes, in the real world data has owners

Things happen in the real world, and people perceive and know it as a consequence. We came to call some of that data (if recorded with machines I guess).

We wouldn't think of perceptions in terms of ownership. It just wouldn't work. We don't have a response for intrusion, e.g. If someone catches us in the act, there's just no protocol. We often just pretend it didn't happen, and are embarrassed. You can't unsee it, or punish someone for seeing something private.

We can throw them out of our house, if they trespass. But if they see you through the window, what do we do?

My point earlier was only: ownership as an analogy for data is not as helpful as some think it is.

But if you stick with ownership, you possibly end with making very strict rules around personally identifiable information (PIN), like in Europe. Some of that ends in log files, like IPs. I think that is a bit like walking by and peeking into a shop window. The shop owner might see you too (perception). Why is that the shoppers protected information? I think it's rigid and comes from off analogies. That's not to say some data doesn't need to be private.

In the end, when this cultural development is further along the way, we might have very specific rules. Like with books, and movies, which have fair-use rules etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Protecting users data is a very hard problem to solve in current tech landscape. There are enormously profitable business build around this and are driving significant portion of economy.

Only solution I can see is to build alternative economic model that can thrive while protecting data, otherwise it would be an uphill battle with all tech giants that are going after user data for profit.

<comment><USER21> This would be great, but for that model to work, the end users themselves would have to pay to have their data protected, when in principle I think most people would argue that their privacy should be protected in the first place.

For data protection to work efficiently, there has to be a centralized store of data that's deemed private, with a way to authorize / deauthorize consumers of your data. Of course, with centralization, it paints a big red 'hack me' crosshair.

Privacy is already lost. There are already cameras everywhere, be it personal home Nest cams, or surveillance cameras inside grocery stores, or street cameras at traffic lights. The fights now for data protection, IMO, are just feel-good initiatives that aim to provide a false sense of data privacy. Take Facebook for example - they've pledged to protect your privacy, offer data protection tools, a way to export all your data. Before privacy became a huge thing, I'm pretty sure people felt comfortable putting all their photos and data in Facebook due to the trust in them being a large enough company that they should protect your data, right? Same goes with Equifax. Same goes with banks and credit card processors.

The burden of data privacy and protection lies more towards the end-user than towards multi-billion dollar companies you entrust your data with. They may provide the tools, but once your information is out there, it's retrievable via various means by bad actors. You can keep guns in your home to protect your family, but if you aren't educated enough to use them properly or if you leave your doors and windows unlocked, it's not going to help.

Edit: my case in point - Facebook records found in public Amazon cloud servers [0]

[0]: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-03/millions-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-03/millions- of-facebook-records-found-on-amazon-cloud-servers-ju1hde0w?srnd=premium)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is mostly a convoluted metaphor comparing data to apples. Only a single line about a mystical "data locker" type object that would store all of our data in a decentralized way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's imperfect for sure, but I'm trying to get people who don't think about these things to understand how the thefts is analogous to physical items we value. Data has its own unique properties so any physical metaphor or analogy is going to fail pretty quick. Tried to keep it simple to make the point.

<comment><USER23> I applaud your effort, but unfortunately agree with GP. The methaphor really does not work

<comment><AUTHOR> Understood. Any alternative ideas?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is exactly what we're trying to solve with debut. ([https://landing.debutapp.social](https://landing.debutapp.social)) The underlying technology uses blockstack where users own their own data and information is not stored in a central database.

Beyond data ownership, the future goal is to add a layer of security around your information through encryption. Only user approved parties could access your secured data through a private key.

</comment><comment><USER25> Most, if not all, arguments on data ownership are arguments by analogy. This makes them ipso facto invalid. Using that same line of inductive reasoning, we could argue that we own the trash we generate, and that's not a reductio ad absurdum.

An encrypted 'digital locker' is a naive and unreal solution, at least until homomorphic encryption is mature. How would I request data I'm interested in from people without knowing if they have it in the first place? Issue a million requests? And if I'm issuing such requests, do people have to pay me now because it's data that I have generated?

We are agreeing on the terms and policies of all information services we use and generate data from. It's not like they took us by surprise, except for few _Analytica_ cases of course. If we follow the data ownership argument, which has (re)surfaced mostly due to media attention on FB and the likes, such services will become dysfunctional right away.

Privacy isn't the weak argument, it's just not very well enforced yet mostly because most people don't care much. Ideally, if a company wants to sell your data, as part of their ToS/PP, they notify you. If you approve, you get a share of that sale (basically what Nukleosome is doing). If you don't, they just move on.

<comment><USER26> > We are agreeing on the terms and policies of all information services we use > and generate data from.

If only that were true.

<comment><USER25> How is it not true?

<comment><USER14> To be charitable, maybe we all click Agree in the same way that we consent to being searched at the airport: there's no other choice, so it's a begrudging accept, not an enthusiastic accept.

<comment><USER25> I didn't claim it's an enthusiastic one. My claim is that all the sudden "privacy-is-not-enough" arguments make it seem like some breach happened without our agreement. To use your words, it's almost as if they're complaining about airport security/searches because we were never very explicitly warned about it.

If we don't do security checks or don't agree to some ToS, we'll be left out (of flights or online services). How many people would do that in exchange for 'ownership'?

Also, if you go to a bakery for couple months buying the same bread. Would you sue the bakery if the seller automatically knew what you're going to get, after two months of transactions, and wrapped your favorite bread for you with a smile (not the Amazon smile)? Is that also data you should own and encrypt?

Does your physician need your consent on every visit to unlock your health information in his brain and be able to follow up?

Imagine that this comment I'm writing here is locked into my very own encrypted vault and HN needs my consent every time someone wants to read it (although I used HN to write it!). I cannot imagine how would the discourse evolve this way.

So justifying 'ownership' as the future solution using invalid argumentation by analogy isn't solid. A more solid approach is to actually _build_ products with well-enforced privacy and transparency rather than just theorize about it. Or even build and experiment with the 'ownership' proposition and see how would that play out.

<comment><USER26> It's not enough anymore because many people are just learning about how widely their data is shared around.

For example, most people that use a loyalty card at their grocery store has no idea that what they buy is being sold to Facebook. People have just discovered that Facebook is tracking them even if they have never had a Facebook account and never consented to anything from Facebook. Same goes for Four Square. Not many people have a Four Square account yet Four Square has built a giant location data empire. MasterCard is trading your purchase data. The list of examples like this is long.

There needs to be some regulation around the ownership and use of information by and about individuals. I don't have a relationship with Four Square so they shouldn't be allowed to hold any data about me.

<comment><USER25> I'm not advocating against that, quite the opposite! My work involves solving exactly this class of problems and good privacy ensures such behavior does not take place.

What I don't see is how changing the nomenclature to 'ownership' would solve all of this. It's like calling some statistical models AI models. You see my point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> >> Privacy for privacy's sake is a weak argument, and privacy advocates should abandon it.

But, why? Why is it that "privacy for privacy's sake is a weak argument"?

Why is it so hard to find a way to respect peoples' wishes to avoid doing things that offend their dignity? What _is_ that great need to spy on everyone that is so indispensible to the progress of human civilisation that this strong concern of many people must be brushed aside as "a weak argument", an irrelevant and obsolete affectation that can just be ignored?

And who is making an argument in the first place? Is anyone arguing for or against the need for dignity in the last days of one's life? Is anyone arguing for or against the need to respect bereavement? Arguments exist for and against the limits of such things, but not their actual need. We _need_ to be able to live our lives with dignity and worth, else our lives are meaningless, we are in constant conflict with everyone around us and the peaceful coexistence and collaboration that supports human societies goes to hell in a hand cart.

This is what tech companies have to understand: you can't just take a big, smelly dump on peoples' sensibilities and not face consequences just because you have "arguments".

</comment><comment><USER28> The analogy used in this article is too ill-fitting to find compelling. It does prompt me to wonder to what extent a person's digital traces left upon the world could be construed as a creative output that they own as a form of intellectual property, like a form of artistic expression. That analogy too seems tortured, unless possibly you're Nietzsche. But it seems less ill-suited than trying to compare one's data traces to a material good.

</comment><comment><USER29> > What we need is a digital locker that encrypts all our data and stores it > for us.

Or, alternatively, we we need to simply do what people did for ages before us: buy a couple of hard drives and store this stuff offline. If people want to come see our photos, we can either grab them and email them over or they can come review them at our house.

People keep talking the fix for technologies problems is more technology—but sometimes it's actually _less_ technology.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you in principle, but then we're giving up the redundancy and safety offered by multiple data centers. The cost also comes down at cloud scale so that you're only paying a few dollars a month instead of large up front purchases.

There's also a technical hurtle for the average person. Are they going to manually sync all their data from devices every time?

<comment><USER29> Somewhat. There are (were?) some companies trying to break into a personal cloud (WD MyCloud) and I think companies like Buffalo and Synology are making it a lot easier to spend $500-600 and be able to reasonably protect your data from pretty much everything but fire (though, you can buy hard drives that claim fire protection, too).

But at a deeper level, we claim that we want to store and keep all this data but do we need to? Really? I mean, back before digital photos, I took some (but not a lot) physical photos. They were dear to me. Still are. But now I have so many photos that I hardly ever look at them except for maybe a few that I've explicitly put into albums. A lot of them never get used.

Perhaps even then we don't really need to protect all of it—if it was important to us then perhaps we really should think about how we'd protect it just like we'd protect those old photo albums that people leave with during hurricanes/flooding.

<comment><AUTHOR> My thinking is that you just don't know what will be important to you in the future. Those photos probably weren't that important to you when they were first taken, but now they are. I would advise that everyone store even the seemingly most trivial piece of data. There could be an algorithm in the future for which that is the missing key. I trust in our inability to predict the future more than our ability to predict it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Every comment submitted here is kept by Y Combinator and they own it in the same way facebook or "applebook" would own it, except they don't run ads. But if you were to apply to their accelerator they would use your comments to determine if they want to accept your business idea so there is definitely added value to them of your data being surrendered to them freely.

<comment><USER12> They do run (job) ads for YC companies, there's one in the front page right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> One of the big challenges with data ownership is policing it. If I grant one- time access to my data to some company, the company can store the data and use it many times over, potentially distribute it etc.

I can see this working for datasets like website interactions or search history which companies could pay a subscription for and receive periodic updates which would be of continued value.

</comment><comment><USER32> The author mentions at the end that monetization of your own data is the option offered by data ownership. But I am not sure that there is money to be made by an individual. Facebook makes about $25 / user / year. Say there are 100 companies willing to buy your data -- would you sell all of your data (out of your "digital locker") for $2500 / year?

<comment><USER26> > Facebook makes about $25 / user / year.

This feels outrageous to me. They snoop and spy on every move I make online and off for a measly $25?

<comment><USER33> The goal is to snoop and spy on every move _everyone_ makes online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The article presents an economic model of privacy. While I think that is important (and part of the argument for the indieweb - [https://indieweb.org/](https://indieweb.org/) ) there are more arguments to be made about privacy, including not only the individual, but also collective harms that the violation of privacy can impact. That argument is challenging to make, because harm changes depending not only on the individual or group and their reason to need privacy, but also on the type of information gathered, and the possible uses of it, which change over time. That kind of shape-shifting argument is challenging to get across, so I can appreciate something simpler. However, when I hear the framing of this as "the problem" I feel nervous, because I hear that as reducing consideration of other possibilities.

</comment><comment><USER35> Well, I have been in the hacker scene since like 1997 and it's ethos has always been about free information and secondarily about anonymity. Hence, data as ownership privacy is a no go. What is going to happen is what Julian Assange outlined in his book "Freedom and the Future of the Internet" lays out.

The article lays out that even the hackery of the hackers are having a hard time. I don't know what the hell he is talking about. A hard time like a hard time in not eating a chocolate cookie of convenience lays out but nothing more.

Elite hackers will always have privacy and it will not always be glorious. It is the masses who think the hackers will save them who are delusional.

Annendum :

I think some hackers will pick and choose when to be anonymous and others will be 100% of the time. I am the former.

Sorry, for the repost I had to edit it for lucidity.

</comment><comment><USER35> Well, I have been in the hacker scene since like 1997 and it's ethos has always been about free information and secondarily about anonymity. Hence, data as privacy is a no go. What is going to happen is what Julian Assange outlined in his book "Freedom and the Future of the Internet" lays out.

The article lays out that even the hackery of the hackers are having a hard time. I don't what the hell he is talking about. A hard time like a hard time in not eating a chocolate cookie of convenience lays out but nothing more.

Elite hackers will always have privacy and it will not always be glorious. It is the masses who think the hackers will save them who are delusional.

</comment><comment><USER36> We already tried data ownership, and society rejected it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19035834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19035834)

<comment><USER37> That was neither "us trying data ownership" or "society rejecting it".

That was tech titans smearing each other with feces, trying to dodge responsibility for tracking teenagers as if they (companies) were pedophiles in power.

Besides, Apple? Is almost always on the side of _themselves_ as brokers of your data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Ownership is an odd concept to apply to something like data, I don't have a problem specifically with ownership of data as much as I have a problem with statements of form applying X to Y where that relationship previously did not exist. To take it for granted that there should not be a debate about the possibility and the implications of such relationship and just presume the existence of it seems odd to me.

</comment><comment><USER39> Theoretically, we have all the measures in place the article described. We do sell our data - simply not for money, but for services, e.g. FB. The digital locker is actually called data privacy rights. Companies do need to ask you directly, in form of the privacy policy when you sign up to the services. The flaws of the current privacy situation lie in the execution in practice. In theory, everything is fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but there's something about the lack of knowledge on the part of many software users that makes the consent portion debatable. That, and there's no other way to pay to use a service that you want to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The Applebook metaphor in the article breaks down because data is infinitely copyable. It's actually costing less than nothing for this hypothetical "Applebook" to store (copies of) my apples: if there's a disaster back home and my orchard is wrecked, I can partially rebuild from the redundant apples that Applebook has stored. By my calculus, that's a net positive for me.

</comment><comment><USER41> Suppose what everyone is saying is true: "We pay for the services companies provides us with our data".

Normally, depending in which jurisdiction you're in, you could get your money back for "bad" service. If someone still wants to use our data as a service payment, how do you propose we get our data back for bad service?

<comment><USER11> You can ask them to delete it.

If you tell me a story and I sing you a song in exchange, neither of us can "take back" the thing we did for bad service. But we've bartered (and hence paid for the experience). That's just life. You can't take away an experience.

So you can take away the data but you can't take away the fact that they had the data.

<comment><USER41> > So you can take away the data but you can't take away the fact that they had > the data.

I know and that's my point why it can't be considered as a payment.

<comment><USER11> Most people would consider that payment, actually. The exchange there would be barter of experiences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I agree w/ OP. Using cryptography for privacy and data control is a step in the right direction and needs some critical mass behind it for broader adoption.

Shameless plug - that is exactly what Tozny provides. An easy way to have end to end crypto with a sharing model that keeps data in control of the original writer.

</comment><comment><USER43> Data ownership is the goal behind Solid (Inrupt) [https://solid.mit.edu/](https://solid.mit.edu/) \- project led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. From the website: Users should have the freedom to choose where their data resides and who is allowed to access it.

</comment><comment><USER44> poor people will have to sell. rich people won't. poor people will have to sell cheap.

Anne Frank didn't think that she had anything to hide. Anne Frank didn't have anything to hide. Anne Frank got killed. Why? Because Anne Frank's parents disclosed their religion to the Dutch census. The Dutch government was benevolent, liberal. Bigotry was rare in Holland. Then Nazi's.

This can happen to you. Anne was a child. This can happen to children.

Privacy, for privacy's sake, is one of the strongest arguments that I have ever come across.

</comment><comment><USER45> Hi Keith, have a look at [https://mysafe.io](https://mysafe.io) and business.mysafe.io We are the first privacy and data protection ecosystem - With data and infrastructure owned by data subjects. Keen to get your thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER46> At the other end of the spectrum and perhaps more pragmatic is Grassland [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19529921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19529921)

</comment><comment><USER35> Well, I have been in the hacker scene since like 1997 and it's ethos has always been about free information and secondarily about anonymity. Hence, data as privacy is a no go. What is going to happen is what Julian Assange outlined in his book "Freedom and the Future of the Internet" lays out.

The article lays out that even the hackery of the hackers are having a hard time. I don't know what the hell he is talking about. A hard time like a hard time in not eating a chocolate cookie of convenience lays out but nothing more.

Elite hackers will always have privacy and it will not always be glorious. It is the masses who think the hackers will save them who are delusional.

Annendum :

I think some hackers will pick and choose when to be anonymous and others will be 100% of the time. I am the former.

Sorry, for the repost I had to edit it for lucidity.

</comment><comment><USER12> The Personal Data Ecosystem has been around for about a decade, based on these concepts: [http://pde.cc/](http://pde.cc/)

</comment><comment><USER47> For some apps remoteStorage could be an interesting solution to this problem.

[https://remotestorage.io](https://remotestorage.io)

<comment><USER12> Nice, I had forgotten about that. Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17297673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17297673)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> digital data is not at all like apples which exists as physical objects. this issue is far more nunanced.

</comment><comment><USER49> No. The "ownership" goal should be within the company. Does Legal own it? Does so-called Product own it? Does Engineering own it? Data Science? Ad clients? Without better governance, you will have misuse.

And at some point you have to ask yourself(Zuck), is poor governance on data ownership a bug or a feature?

</comment><comment><USER50> Privacy is nothing more that be allowed individuality. What google and facebook do is to steal your identity and everything that it means to be you. They can then normalise your personality through algorithms, erasing whatever is left of you.

</comment><comment><USER51> I still find it shocking that many people in society quote what originates from dystopian propaganda. The phrase "You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide." is commonly attributed to Goebbels, because he popularized it. Though there's an earlier precedent[0], it is also a dystopian reference. So I think there's something wrong when people are quoting literal Nazi propaganda, and having that belief ingrained.

[0] [https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/217196/origin- of...](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/217196/origin-of-you-have- nothing-to-fear-if-you-have-nothing-to-hide)

</comment><comment><USER52> TFA lost me in the lead:

> As soon as you connect to the internet, there is a vast surveillance > infrastructure tracking your every move. Even the most hackery of hackers > have trouble moving in complete anonymity.

> For most of us, however, our brains assume our pre-internet intuitions are > still accurate. That what we do in our own home stays private until we > decide otherwise. We feel violated when we discover how much is known about > our online activity.

I am not -- in an meaningful sense -- a "hacker". I'm a reasonably technical guy. And I know how to use a bunch of tools. But "hacker"? No way.

So, my first point. Assuming that "what we do in our own home stays private until we decide otherwise" is foolish. Unless you include implementing strong OPSEC in "decide otherwise".

And second, you need not be a "hacker" to avoid surveillance. You just need to learn some OPSEC, and how to use a few simple tools. The core point is never communicating (saying, writing, imaging, etc) _anything_ without a studied awareness of who might be observing.

I have a few Internet-facing machines. One is plain-vanilla. Just a box with basic apps, sitting behind a pfSense firewall. But of course, with no WiFi. The others, each on its own LAN, run VirtualBox, and host various VMs.

There are some low-security VMs, which reach the Internet through nested VPN chains. Which are implemented with pfSense VMs as VPN gateways. That's what Mirimir, and some of his sub-personas, use. They basically just talk about stuff. And do some consulting work. But nothing at all iffy.

Then there are a bunch of Whonix instances, which reach Tor through those nested VPN chains. That's where I do whatever interests me, with no concerns about consequences.

All of these machines are full-disk encrypted. And they're on a UPS, with a kill switches on my desk, and in the kitchen and bathroom. Although I mainly focus on being hard to find, I am prepared for discovery.

I'm not prepared, I admit, for sitting in prison, after refusing to reveal decryption passphrases. I'll probably claim ministroke and memory loss, but that damn iffy.

And then there's my physical workspace. It's basically a walk-in closet. My desk faces the door, and there's a wall behind me. There are no windows.

I painted all of the interior surfaces myself, using black EMF-blocking paint (carbon plus Al dust). For the wall behind me, I applied a series of bright washes, using custom-mixed colors.

It's locked when I'm not using it. And I live in a multifamily building, in a very cohesive community. So there's very little chance that adversaries could secretly plant bugs. They'd need to enroll or compromise one of my neighbors. That's not impossible, I know. But hey.

Anyway, my point is just that you need to keep in mind, always, that adversaries are trying to snoop. And act accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER53> Wow everyone on here defending tech giants owning their personal data. Is this Facebook trolls working their propaganda?

What exactly do we stand to lose if Facebook can't aggregate data on a level akin to a hyper advanced dystopiam government? Are we worried out advertisements will become less funny? Are we worries well be less manipulable on a mass scale? Are we worried well have options on our tech overlords instead of being stuck with 4?

Its my data and I should own it. Just like I can't login to Facebooks servers and take their data. The only thing that separates Facebook from having privacy and the user is Facebook has billions of dollars of leverage. But hey if yall like billionaires owning you then let's keep it up - let's not say we own what's ours. Make the billionaires even stronger.

<comment><USER54> >Its my data and I should own it.

Then don't give it to them.

>Is this Facebook trolls

I personally don't use facebook, and don't advocate for others to use facebook. If you do use facebook, then you are accepting the deal they have offered you.

>What exactly do we stand to lose if Facebook can't aggregate data on a level akin to a hyper advanced dystopiam government?

This is how facebook makes money, and stronger how they survive as a platform. If they couldn't do this, then more then likely we would lose facebook. I personally don't see this as such a huge loss, but apparently you do.

<comment><USER55> One of the major complaints about Facebook is their tracking of non-users, of people who haven't accepted any 'deal' nor given them any data - e.g. Facebook is known to do matching of non-users full name with phone numbers and other contact information based on what _other_ people have in their phone contacts, combined with tracking their visits on third-party websites which embed e.g. facebook like buttons.

There are ongoing court cases proving such practices, and Facebook insisting in court that it should be allowed to continue to violate privacy even for people who, like you, have intentionally chosen to avoid Facebook.</comment></comment></comment>


Adium adds support for IRC and Twitter... - <AUTHOR> http://beta.adium.im/

<comment><USER2> Twitter support is unusable [for me]. Adium adds everyone you follow to the contact list. I follow 357 people. That's a pretty big contact list.

It is OK for using direct messages as IM, but it won't replace your Twitter client.

<comment><USER3> twitter is the "me too" feature, I guess.

<comment><USER4> twitter is not an IM service.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately it is for many people. Thankfully we have the unfollow button for those that feel the need to organise every facet of their life via twitter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the Twitter support! A lot really.... it integrates all the IM in one place. Tweeting gets more familiar and easy.

You can send direct messages by chating with that contact the same way you'd do in MSN/AIM. There is always a group chat called Timeline updating the tweets being sent, where you can RT, reply and tag as favorite.

I'm convinced and maybe will drop Twitterific...

</comment><comment><USER7> IRC support is great, I can finally ditch Colloquy. I consider Twitter to be asynchronous, so I still use a separate application for that.

<comment><USER4> colloquy is 100 times better with buttesfire - <http://github.com/shaniqua/buttesfire/downloads>

<comment><USER8> What is buttesfire? I looked through the repo but there wasn't any information on what it does.

<comment><USER4> oh it's a campfire-style theme for colloquy

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I misread Adium as Atium.

Gave me a mental image of Kelsier (from Mistborn) responding to tweets he hasn't actually received yet.

(It's possible SOMEONE else here has read that series...)

</comment><comment><USER10> It was about time... Pidgin has this a while ago, they just needed to port it and add the fancy ui ;)

</comment><comment><USER11> I miss something simple - how do I tweet? (not DM to someone in my contact list)

<comment><USER6> Go to file, mouse over the twitter account and "update tweets" It should open a group chat called Timeline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder what they did that makes it suddenly require 10.5. That's a deal- breaker, at least for me.</comment>


Today's biggest threat to democracy isn't fake news–it's selective facts - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1130094/todays-biggest-threat-to-democracy-isnt-fake-news-its-selective-facts/ <comment><USER2> This is exactly why I brush off all comments of fake news -- isn't it funny that 95% of all "valid news sites" are left-wing? So by removing all fake news sites, we have completely factual (biased, selective) news leaning heavily in one direction.</comment>


GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-gnu_screen/ <comment><USER2> You might want to consider tmux (<http://tmux.sourceforge.net/>) as an alternative. Its cleaner (and, incidentally, BSD-licensed) codebase means that it's getting features that have been gathering dust on screen's to-do list for ages. Most notably, its dwm/XMonad-style layouts (<http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux6.png>) are _really_ nice. AFAICT, screen doesn't even officially have vertically split windows yet, it's still an unofficial patch.

Either way, if you use Unix, learn to use screen or tmux. They're _tremendously_ useful. (Also: Noisy wireless connections are the new flaky dialup, when it comes to resuming shell sessions.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I will look at that, looks rad! I just thought the article covered some really key points about multiplexing terminals in general...

<comment><USER3> tmux is not _rad_ , just clean -- see <http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/neercs> for a truly _radical_ screen replacement:

      Grab a process that you forgot to start inside neercs
      Great screensaver
      Real time thumbnails of your shells
      Special effects when closing a window
      Various window layouts...

<comment><USER4> How does any of this work when through putty or when connecting to X-less unices from the myriad of non-Unix boxes out there?

<comment><USER5> At least click the link. It is all done in ascii art.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It also gives OSX RS-232 terminal emulation capability. As far as I know OSX ships with no other such program. Once you get your USB dongle's driver situation under control you just:

screen _device_ _baud_

ex:

screen /dev/tty.usbserial-FTDPZOEJ 115200

Very useful for embedded system hackers and others who still need to speak RS-232.

<comment><USER3> I have not used a single other serial console since I accidentally discovered this feature in screen a few years ago. Hyperterminal, minicom, gtkterm, et. al. were the bane of my existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I often use idiosyncratic screen setups with very specifically-purposed windows. I support this behavior with a special config file that launches screen with certain windows pre-loaded for certain uses:

      source /home/mcantor/.screenrc
      chdir $SANDBOX/src
      screen 0:svn
      screen 1:lib
      screen 2:nosetests
      stuff "activate_environment\015"
      screen 3:ipython
      stuff "activate_environment\015ipython\015"
      screen 4:
      select 0

I use stuff because it's the most straightforward way to send commands with carriage returns (015 in octal) to a window.

I make this even more effortless by using a special alias in my .bashrc:

      alias scd='screen -c /home/mcantor/.screenrc-dev'

I also use a few other aliases to support common uses:

      alias scr='screen -rd'
      alias scx='screen -x'
      alias lsc='screen -list'

Also, don't forget the very useful -S switch:

      screen -S someproject

Or, you can use Ctrl-a :sessionname, if you're already within a session, to rename it. That way, screen -list and screen -r can use your sessionnames, and you don't have to parse or remember the process ID's.

<comment><USER8> I really wish there was a way to use the sessionname in the hard status line formatting.

<comment><USER7> You're probably never going to read back this far in time, but, it's coming in the next version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think I can live without it anymore.

There is no reason why you shouldn't use screen when ssh'ing in and working on remote machines, it will save you tons of time in case the connection goes down, plus allows your to keep a persistent working environment on remote boxes.

        ssh -t user@host screen -rx

That will drop you immediately to a running screen on connect

<comment><USER10> My remote `.bash_profile` ends

        screen -d -R
        logout

On the rare occasions that I don't want to run under screen, I run `ssh -t user@host bash`.

<comment><USER8> I hope you mean on the server. IIRC, some things like GNOME will source .profile or .bash_profile so that you can have globally customized $PATH,etc variables.

<comment><USER10> On remote servers, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I use screen every day for administering multiple remote servers. I don't know how I functioned before I used screen. One of the coolest things are "backtick" commands you can put in the caption string. Here is a pastie of my screenrc and one of the backtick files which displays the free RAM of the system in the caption line, updating every 30 seconds (ymmv on the free RAM command depending on how your distro's `free` command displays its output)

<http://pastie.org/633808>

</comment><comment><USER12> The difficulty of scrolling back in the buffer (C-a ESC PgUp is a longer and more tedious key sequence than Shift+PgUp), and lack of full terminal support (e.g. man, less, etc. don't restore screen contents on exit) mean I strictly only use screen on ssh connections.

Perhaps the terminal support issue could be worked out with better termcap etc. settings, but I haven't found the answers. I asked questions here:

[http://superuser.com/questions/23144/how-to-make-screen- term...](http://superuser.com/questions/23144/how-to-make-screen-terminal- emulation-act-more-like-xterm-or-rxvt-for-init-uninit)

... but no luck.

<comment><USER13> try "altscreen on". (see also the -a option, and [http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/html_node/Window-T...](http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/html_node/Window- Termcap.html)).

<comment><USER12> The -a option didn't work, but altscreen on in my ~/.screenrc seems to have worked. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Many thanks for posting this. This is exactly the kind of thing I come to HN to find. I use screen on occasion but never really had it in my mind that I should be using it as a productivity tool.

I have once again found minor enlightenment and am already more productive because of it. Its nice when procrastinating on HN turns into a net win!

</comment><comment><USER15> Screen is great. I wish there were an analogous tool that let me group several running X apps into a long-running session that I could connect to/disconnect from locations. Any idea if this is possible today?

<comment><USER16> NX is supposedly able to do this, but last time I looked (which, admittedly, was two or three years ago) you had to expect serious problems if the set of available fonts on the different display servers was different (i.e. in all realistic scenarios). Oh, and it only worked on x86-32.

<comment><USER17> <http://partiwm.org/wiki/xpra>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been satisfied with just using multiple tabs in Terminal.app in OS X, but I'm curious if anyone has switched from that solution to screen and wouldn't go back? (for local use in particular)

<comment><USER19> I use screen constantly and would never go back. The detachability is _incredibly_ useful. Say I had to go to a meeting - I shut my laptop and it goes to sleep. This would normally kill any SSH session (and thus leave vim swap files lying about in my case)... but with screen I can just pick up where I left off last time.

It's also great if you want to run something big - say a job that would take 5 hours. I'm free to do whatever I want without fear that killing my ssh session will also kill the job.

<comment><USER20> Your second scenario can be handled with nohup from within a vanilla ssh session.

<comment><USER21> There's also disown, for that matter, but how can you re-connect to the process?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been using Screen for a number of years now, but I've recently come across Ubuntu's repackaging of it - [https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/serverguide/C/screen- profiles.h...](https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/serverguide/C/screen- profiles.html). This seems like a fantastic way to introduce screen to new users, who are probably intimidated by screen's default bare-bones config.

</comment><comment><USER23> Screen uses C-a as its "command" character. Unfortunately, C-a means "go to start of line" in emacs and terminals. The solution?

In your .screenrc file:

        escape ^Ww

This will default C-w as the command character.

<comment><USER24> Isn't C-w kill-region in emacs? I recently came up against this problem too, but what else to change it to .. ?

<comment><USER2> I like ` (just backtick, no control), though that clashes with Lisp a bit. (I don't usually use Lisp inside tmux, though.)

<comment><USER25> ` cannot be used since in terminal C + ` or C + SPC or C + @ translates into same thing(only allowed characters are @ [ \ ] ^ and _ ). I personally prefer using \

<comment><USER2> Oh, I'm using just ` , not C-`. It's like hitting ESC in vi. (I also noticed that space and shift-space are indistinguishable, which is a bit annoying because in Emacs I use S-spc for languages with lots_of_soft_spacing or- several-words-joined-with-dashes.)

<comment><USER26> Readers - I found the .screenrc change for this not-entirely-obvious. You need to say escape ``

whereas you'd have thought it would be just escape `

<comment><USER2> The second character doesn't have to be another ` - that option controls what you type for an unescaped version of your meta key. I use

      escape `~

and reserve `` for switching to the most recently used window. (It looks like I didn't need to specify that explicitly.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Screen is an amazingly useful tool. If you aren't using it or something like it, you are really making life more difficult for yourself.

If you want something that isn't GNU or GPL'd, take a look at `tmux`.

<comment><USER28> I'm just curious- Why would you want to specifically avoid the GPL?

<comment><USER8> The same way there are people that want their entire software usage to be GPL/MIT/BSD/etc, there are people that want everything to be non-GPL. Unless you are going to be hacking on GNU Screen and feel the need to do something that the GPL forbids, there's really no reason to stop yourself from _using_ a software package just because it's GPL-licensed.

<comment><USER29> I think it's ironic that your argument is remarkably similar to "nothing stops you from using a closed source program unless you planned to start hacking on the source." Sometimes you don't know when you start using something what amount of hacking may be required.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but you _can_ contribute to GPL-licensed projects. It's just specific things that you are limited in. We're talking orders of magnitude. 'closed- source and GPL' and 'MIT/BSD and GPL' aren't even in the same ballpark.

<comment><USER30> One thing you can't do with a GPLed application -- and something I do all the time -- is try to support copyfree licensing rather than copyleft licensing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I use screen for bazillion of years already. When doing stuff with django I like to C-a c to make a new screen, then C-a :resize 10 so that I have two screens on one (you can switch between them with C-a TAB). So in the smaller one I run server and in larger whatever I need to. Excellent when having two or more monitors with one being dedicated to full screen terminal setup like that.

</comment><comment><USER32> This IS a hacker's ideal Terminal - a while ago I set out to write my own shell with all the features I wanted. A huge portion of the functionality I intended to implement is accomplished with GNU Screen. Since I found Screen - I haven't felt enough need to keep developing my own shell!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found this link on how to patch/compile Screen 4.0.3 on Snow Leopard...the one out of the box is kind of buggy, and does not support 256 colors...

<http://trac.macports.org/ticket/20862>

</comment><comment><USER33> In the same vein, if you use a repl on a remote machine you should check out detachtty if you're not already using it. It's particularly nice for use within emacs because it doesn't eat the whole screen and it doesn't eat ^A.

<comment><USER11> fwiw, screen doesn't "eat ^A"

You can send ^a to a window in screen by typing "^a a" - I do this everyday using emacs inside of screen. It becomes second nature.

<comment><USER34> I changed to C-\

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> 'dtach' is a nice utility too, a kind of lightweight-screen. It's in the BSD ports.

</comment><comment><USER36> Highly valuable.

See [http://renesd.blogspot.com/2009/09/screen-for-ghetto- servers...](http://renesd.blogspot.com/2009/09/screen-for-ghetto-servers-and- startup.html) for more pointers.

</comment><comment><USER37> I recently found BSD implementation -- tmux better than GNU screen.

<comment><USER38> Better in what way?

<comment><USER2> For starters, it has built-in dwm/XMonad-style layouts, while screen has taken ages to even get vertically split windows.

<comment><USER8> In general, one should probably know their way around GNU screen in addition to tmux just because you'll probably encounter it on more installations. Much in the same way that it's really to your benefit to know a bit about vi even if you are an Emacs user.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. They're both _incredibly_ handy, and even if you only learn the common feature subset, it's still a huge win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> All my rxvts run screen automatically. This means if I then leave my workstation and need to access one of the terminals remotely I can just duplicate it with screen -x.

[Edited for clarity]

</comment><comment><USER25> I posted my config sometime back. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=843630>

</comment><comment><USER39> anyone care to share their screenrc? heres mine: <http://github.com/bdotdub/dotfiles/blob/master/screenrc>

<comment><USER2> The most notable part of mine is

       # Set up my status line at the bottom of every frame
       caption always "%{gb}  %{ck}%m-%d %C %{gb}  %{gb}%?%-Lw%?%{ck}%n*%f %t%?(%u)%?%{gb}%?%+Lw%?"

I use tmux now, though. (it has a statusbar similar to the above by default)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I prefer tmux.

<comment><USER40> I installed tmux, but have not yet played with it. I know I want to, simply because it supports vertical splits…</comment></comment>


The Art of Raising Seed: You're Either Hot, Or You Make Your Own Heat - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/28/the-art-of-raising-seed-youre-either-hot-or-you-make-your-own-heat/

<comment><USER2> Darius and I were in the same batch at YC and he was one of those guys you just thought would outshine everyone else.

My takeaway from this excellent post was that once you start fundraising, you need to be on the hunt 100% of the time. I see too many co-founders sharing fundraising duties and product development duties at the same time. The idea is that you should have already spent enough time building a product that is at least partially compelling and showing some traction. Once you set out to raise funding, you can't effectively skip between building product and talking to investors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Too kind. Too kind.

And yes. Full focus is key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been lucky enough to follow Darius' career for a number of years. And I can't say that I've seen a more masterful use of AngelList to round out a who's who of investors. This post shares some great insights on how he managed to make that happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> And you were there supporting me when I couldn't even get any kind of coverage on a blog like TC... So thanks for everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks for the helpful post. We're considering raising funds but aren't from Silicon Valley. How would you suggest getting our initial list of investors to contact and people to intro for us?

<comment><AUTHOR> Where are you located? I think when you're fundraising you have to go where the money is. Plan to spend a few weeks in the Valley driving up and down the 280 (avoid the 101 it sucks).

You can use technology and services like Angel.co to make the connections and schedule the meetings... then you have to go out.

I raised this last round from my home in Hawaii. I spent the first few weeks doing phone meetings and then was in SF & NYC for another couple weeks doing partner meetings and wrapping things up.

<comment><USER4> I'm located near San Diego. Thanks for the suggestions. Any special advice on how to use angel.co?

<comment><AUTHOR> Everything I said in the post. Get prepared... then create your profile on Angel.co and then work it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good article.</comment>


Show HN: Free and open-source home for art made with code - <AUTHOR> https://shadergif.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> For some info about the tech stack, I use:

\- Ruby on Rails

\- Vue

\- CodeMirror

\- gif.js

\- avconv (FFMPEG) for video previews

\- A $5/Month Linode server

The server handled being top 3 on HN with about 20 reqs/second with less than 15% CPU load.

The editor uses an architecture that allows me to quickly add a new language. Just create a class & reference it.

EDIT: Forgot to mention important parts:

\- Bulma CSS

\- feather SVG icons ([https://feathericons.com/](https://feathericons.com/))

\- zip.js

<comment><USER2> Impressive 20 req a second with just 15% cpu!

<comment><USER3> A server can do way more.

<comment><AUTHOR> At 5 $ per month?

<comment><USER4> Yes. Ruby is not _that_ slow, this is not quite the throughput that will require load-balancing or even caching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a refreshing take on a shader-sharing platform. My first thought was "Here's another Shadertoy competitor", but this was quashed by two core features that I think are done really well:

\- A cleaner / extensive code editor (that also supports JS, woop!)

\- Conversion of shader output to GIFs... Even on a laptop with a dedicated GPU, Shadertoy pulls the rug from underneath my system resources

I would like to see a grid-view (unless this already exists and I missed it) of the feed, as I don't think scrolling through a feed of linear, huge one-by- one posts is good for discovery.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I like the grid idea!

<comment><USER5> No worries :) — Great to hear.

Just a question since you're here: I've poked around with WebGL / GLSL in the past and have started to get into Metal (mainly out of necessity for macOS development) — is there scope for Metal to be ported / rendered on the web, and if so would you be interested in adding that as a language?

<comment><AUTHOR> There seems to be a fight between browser vendors for the next generation of 3D web standards - ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16186043](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16186043))

As soon as some browsers support an implementation, I'll try it. (However, it will be difficult if it's Safari only, since I use Linux)

<comment><USER6> there's no fight. all the major players are working out the details. the last major detail is what format the shader language will be. Google and Mozilla are currently pushing for a subset of SPIR/V, Microsoft and Apple are pushing for a subset of HLSL. Both seem to have their merits

<comment><USER7> I don't think Microsoft has stated a position on this yet. It has mostly just been Apple pushing for WebHLSL as the shader ingestion format, with most everyone else in favor of SPIR-V with a restricted execution environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is actually a very neat and useful website. Also respect for making the website fast and not adding any 3rd party scripts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's terrible how things like Google analytics, web fonts, can slow things down. I tried to keep this app as light as possible. Of course, I will not get a lot of data for analysis, but as a user, I know what can be improved, I don't need to monitor every click, typed keys, mouse moves, ...

<comment><USER8> google analytics is the only 3rd party script I am okay with. Maybe you should add it sometime in the future to get a rough idea about your users, I was talking mainly about the more intrusive analytics and ads scripts that plagued the web. It's rare to see anybody who respect his users to that extent these days :D respect again!

<comment><USER9> GA is also cached for most users, so the downloading part is non-existent.

<comment><AUTHOR> But there is overhead at every tracked event because you have an extra request to Google.

<comment><USER9> True true, although GA batches these pretty smartly from what I remember.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This may sound like an odd request but at a creative codejam in Berlin a while back I saw something like this but "multiplayer" \- different people could log on to a room and edit live. In this example they couldn't edit each others code but all shared the same output window. It used Processing.

It ended up being kind of a shared creation/remix experience which was really cool. I figure adding live simultaneous edits is a fairly difficult ask but it's immediately what I looked for when I saw your page.

Regardless, looks really cool!

<comment><AUTHOR> Complicated, but not impossible! In fact, I already have an issue in github for this: [https://github.com/antoineMoPa/shadergif/issues/50](https://github.com/antoineMoPa/shadergif/issues/50)

I will make it one of my priorities for the next months (Studying still being priority number 1, of course).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One feature I found myself missing from ShaderToy is that you can't have render targets of arbitrary size. You have Buffer A/B/C/D but they're all the same size as the canvas. I would love to see a way to specify a shader that generates a 64x64 texture for example, that would allow some nice effects like a simple low res fluid sim.

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently, I support many passes, but also at the canvas size. I took a note in my github issues and I will try to implement it when I have time!

In the meantime, it is still possible to create 2D toy fluid sim: [https://shadergif.com/search?search=fluid](https://shadergif.com/search?search=fluid)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The feed is cool, I would appreciate if it was subdivided with tags like Mandelbrot, fractal, etc.

10/10 would add to my daily RSS feeds!

</comment><comment><USER13> This is great. Hopefully I can use it in the future sometime.

</comment><comment><USER14> Neat! very nice idea, well implemented. +1

</comment><comment><USER15> i used this platform very first time and now a days i'm taking help from here: [https://theanimationstudio.co/](https://theanimationstudio.co/) regarding art and animation point of view.

</comment><comment><USER16> wow, this is really interesting.

</comment><comment><USER17> thanks for sharing!</comment>


Better living through subliminal messages - <AUTHOR> http://www.mondo2000.com/2017/10/12/jamming-signal-better-living-subliminal-messages/ <comment><USER2> Back in High School (25 yrs ago, sheesh!) I did a research project on subliminal messages.

I found some MS-DOS TSR program that would flash messages on the screen at specified duration or frequency.

I told my test subjects (other students) I was testing if typing in vocabulary words helps learn them more efficiently.

I made up a set of 50 words and definitions. Each student got a random mix of words and definitions to type in, while other words were flashed on the screen subliminally.

I then gave a test which covered both sets of words.

I think I originally tested three different subliminal message durations, and one of them was showing a slightly-higher average test score.

I then realized I needed a control group, so I tested another batch of students without any subliminal messages at all. The control batch got the highest scores of all.

Don't remember details, but I did actual statistics on the data and failed to reject the Null hypothesis.

Ie - my conclusion was that flashing word/meaning subliminal messages didn't make any difference to testing those same words in a quiz.

It was a fun project, but I realized later it wasn't very scientific. The message duration would actually vary greatly depending on the model of monitor (the old CRT days). And I didn't really have control on how much time the person looked at the screen vs the keyboard.

But it was fun anyway. I was also chosen as one of eight high school kids to present at the local county science symposium too.

<comment><USER3> Ahhh, ST and Subliminal. I think there way a time the Ad business thought Subliminal messaging was a worthwhile avenue to pursue to increase effectiveness. I think they abandoned that tack either in the 70s or 80s --though ST came out with that song in the 80s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Subliminal messages have as shoddy a track record as homeopathy. At best this is a placebo effect.

<comment><USER5> I agree that this is likely no better than placebo. I'd argue that a systematic method for _self-aware_ triggering of the placebo effect (without having to pay anybody money for it) is fundamentally valuable.

<comment><USER6> I don't think they're saying that it's a different effect from placebo with the same effect size, but that it's actually the placebo effect. You can't treat yourself with something that you don't believe works and trigger the placebo effect.

<comment><USER4> Technically placebos still work even when you know they are placebos.[1]

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/09/26/placebo- effect...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/09/26/placebo-effect-works- even-know-given-dummy-pill/)

<comment><USER7> I have used this to personal benefit with "Vitamin Water". More recently I have picked up the even more affordable "Belly breathing" placebo. Now I have a placebo for free and all I have to do is breathe a particular way. Absolutely wonderful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm extremely skeptical, but it might work for the tiny percentage of people who can be hypnotized.

<comment><USER9> — _I often hear people say they "can't be hypnotized" because they tried it once and nothing happened. In my experience – which happens to match what I learned in hypnosis class – an experienced hypnotist can hypnotize anyone, so long as the subject is willing. Where the confusion comes in is that only about 20% of the public can experience what hypnotists sometimes call "the phenomena." The phenomena describes any situation in which the subject experiences a full-blown illusion, such as seeing something that isn't there, or feeling something that isn't real._

[http://blog.dilbert.com/2017/11/06/win-bigly-bonus- chapter/#...](http://blog.dilbert.com/2017/11/06/win-bigly-bonus- chapter/#more-16700)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seeing a Mondo 2000 article posted in 2017 is surprising, but the fact that jwz posted a comment correcting a factual error makes it seem somehow normal.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm sure this is too raw, to actually works.

<comment><USER12> Maybe the app contains subliminal messages to convince you it works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reading comments, it is not as black or white as it initially looks. There is definite effect that can be observed, with say 80+% of users.

I can't overstate the importance of properly phrasing messages, wrong intention or phrase can be harmful. I am always very careful when trying to help customers how to phrase something.

Either way it is not all shoddy and shows results.

Author of [http://smartcodehq.com/subliminal/](http://smartcodehq.com/subliminal/) here, sorry for the shameless plug.

<comment><USER4> "It works, I swear" says the snake oil salesman.

<comment><USER13> All of the comments on MAS are real user comments, read a few. I don't care if you are ignorant, but ignorant and rude makes dangerous combination.

<comment><USER4> No. Ignorant, rude, and swindling people out of their hard earned money with false promises makes a dangerous proposition. Frankly I don't know how you sleep at night. Just because there's a placebo effect doesn't make it effective. Many properly executed double blind studies have debunked what you are selling for decades now.

<comment><USER13> Money is of no importance here, since it doesn't make any meaningful percentage of my earnings. From any angle it is no profit pet project of mine.

On the other hand number of 'thank you' emails, from real people all over the world, greatly compensates for development hours.

Mechanics is very different from what you imagine it to be, placebo being only small part of the entire process. However it is very tiresome to explain it to somebody who is righteous about topic he doesn't know much about.

<comment><USER4> Sure... and it's also so advanced that even double-blind researchers can't reproduce it.

I'm sorry that asking for rigorous science sounds like being righteous to you. I am not taking anybody's hard earned money with empty promises. You are.

If money's not the issue, then stop charging people and give back the money you have received. That will prove to me that money's not the issue.

<comment><USER13> > Sure... and it's also so advanced that even double-blind researchers can't > reproduce it.

I have no idea who and how performed studies, so it is not impossible to imagine if you don't really understand the process you can't use the tools properly and results will be questionable. I did research the topic probably ten or more years before I dared to write an app. At least 60% of the success is depending on how you phrase the message, so if it is not respecting mechanic you can flash messages all day long with no results. There is also _a lot_ depending on how you present the message -- if you are curious you can download app trial and check settings. Don't use the app, just see what options are there.

> I'm sorry that asking for rigorous science sounds like being righteous to > you.

Righteous as in "church claims earth is flat, this guy disagrees, let's burn him". It is perfectly fine if you expect official dogma to tell you if something produces results -- please wait for that then.

Out of curiosity, you _are_ aware that all major players use subliminal messages in their commercials? Or not? If you know about that, why would they use them that way if there is no effect? If you don't know about that why we discuss the topic then?

> I am not taking anybody's hard earned money with empty promises. You are.

You really have no idea if they are empty, right?

<comment><USER4> You ask that as if the burden of proof is on me. I'm not charging anyone for this hogwash, the burden of proof is on you. Other people selling snake oil too doesn't make it any more effective. I can walk into any grocery store in the USA and find pure distilled water being marketed as homeopathic. That's not proof that homeopathy has any effect more than placebo. I'm 100% sure that every snake oil salesman in history had an endless supply of testimonials and thankful words. They also didn't stop charging for their snake oil, and it seems like you aren't going to stop either. Seems like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth too... this is from your website: "Constantly on Top 100 Grossing Lifestyle apps list in US Mac App Store since 2011"

So which is it? You make almost nothing or you are one of the highest grossing apps in the App Store? Please. I don't believe a single word you say either way. If your moral framework allows you to profit off of gullibility, then anything you say is suspect.

<comment><USER13> > Seems like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth too... this is > from your website: "Constantly on Top 100 Grossing Lifestyle apps list in US > Mac App Store since 2011"

It takes very few copies per month to reach MAS top lists, please google it if you don't know that, especially in less crowded 'lifestyle' category. I never said in the entire app store, I said in lifestyle category. So both claims are true but you are too blinded with rushing to prove 'other guy being wrong'. Being both constantly on top grossing lifestyle list and making almost no money is topic on its own, but the fact doesn't make any of those two claims less true.

Great majority of the Subliminal user base was reached trough [https://stacksocial.com/sales/the-mac-freebie- bundle-4-0](https://stacksocial.com/sales/the-mac-freebie-bundle-4-0) several years ago. As you can see it was free bundle. StackSocial did 'pay' for all the free copies, it was mutual promotional move, with earnings of exactly whooping 1.3 cents per copy. Even paying customers never had to pay for any update, so far it was always one-time payment (if not free), since 2011. When you mention money as motivational factor it looks really funny on this side.

> hogwash, snake oil, both sides of your mouth, I don't believe a single word > you say, profit off gullibility...

That's pretty strong wording to cover ignorance. You did first choose what to believe in, then put an effort to make it sound true?

I am now really curious to hear (at least short or yes/no) answers to the part you skipped:

"Out of curiosity, you _are_ aware that all major players use subliminal messages in their commercials? Or not? If you know about that, why would they use them that way if there is no effect? If you don't know about that why we discuss the topic then?"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Decline of the West - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West <comment><USER2> How have I not heard this before?

>The Cartesian self-centered rationalism leads to schools of thought that do not cognize outside of their own constructed worlds, ignoring actual every-day life experience. It applies criticism to its own artificial world until it exhausts itself in meaninglessness. In reaction to the educated elites, the masses give rise to the Second Religiousness, which manifests as deeply suspicious of academia and science.

>The Second Religiousness appears as a harbinger of the decline of mature Civilization into an ahistorical state. The Second Religiousness occurs concurrently with Caesarism, the final political constitution of Late Civilization. Caesarism is the rise of an authoritarian ruler, a new 'emperor' akin to Caesar or Augustus, taking the reins in reaction to a decline in creativity, ideology and energy after a culture has reached its high point and become a civilization. Both the Second Religiousness and Caesarism demonstrate the lack of youthful strength or creativity that the Early Culture once possessed. The Second Religiousness is simply a rehashing of the original religious trend of the Culture.

<comment><USER3> Ditto!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <According to Spengler, the Western world is ending and we are witnessing the last season—"winter time"—of Faustian Civilization. In Spengler's depiction, Western Man is a proud but tragic figure because, while he strives and creates, he secretly knows the actual goal will never be reached.></comment>


How to Read a Newspaper, by Walter Cronkite [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://assets.mediaspanonline.com/prod/286501/HowToReadaNewspaper.pdf

<comment><USER2> I'm curious if you think this is relevant today. Don't get me wrong I respect the author but I haven't picked up a newspaper in forever and I'm old enough to remember Mr. Cronkite doing the news.

So do you think stories are written the same way today? I agree the first paragraph is usually the most important it's loaded to get you to read more. However do you think journalists / bloggers have the time to think a story through and not add opinion?

<comment><USER3> I think it's still relevant to some degree, for two slightly related reasons.

[1]Good journalism still exists online. You just have to find it. RealClearWorld does a good job of finding quality stories, and the CSM is still top notch. Even mainstream news sources such as CNN still have good pieces; my rule for them is the shorter the better though -- just the facts.

Everyone has inert baises when they write, no matter how hard they try to hide them. But this has happened for decades, so take them with a grain of salt.

[2]Bloggers aren't journalists, they're just bloggers (sorry bloggers). If anything, they're editorialists. Cronkite's rules still apply to this crowd as well. Bloggers add opinion by their very nature. If they didn't, then they'd be classified as journalists, and held up to the same standards of integrity.

This is also my own bias showing -- I really do want Cronkite's rules to still apply today, simply because he was the standardbearer for a generation of news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the advice to pick a story on the TV news and research it in more depth is wonderful, and even easier to do today with the variety of news sources from around the world easily available on the web.

But did Walter Cronkite really mistakenly write "effect" for "affect" twice, or was this the fault of some later transcriber?</comment>


Show HN: State of UX design tools in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rr4nZLgiycd_g1hb8pYbGIr6QJhf99YYUNJochR_KsM/edit?usp=sharing <comment><AUTHOR> Feel free to leave comments if you think I should add anything. I'm creating this information free and open source to try to learn more about the state of current tools</comment>