Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/30/retirement/student-debt-delaying-retirement/index.html <comment><USER2> A Bachelor's degree doesn't really do that much for you these days. It's become like a high school diploma was 30 years ago (which almost no one paid for). I keep trying to advocate that people not go so far in debt for a college degree. For med school or law school (although I would argue that this is not a great investment with the current glut of law school grads) it makes sense to go into debt of that size. But I don't think you can or should justify student loans of over $10k for undergrad. Maybe you could stretch that to $20k, but I wouldn't (and didn't). If you can't afford a college don't go there.

I left college with ~$3k in student loan debt. I went to a liberal arts college that costs ~$60k a year with room and board. My family definitely could not have afforded to send me there, but I got a lot of scholarships and financial aid. I ended up with a job that had nothing to do with my education there. I value the experience I had there, but it was not worth $60k a year by any means.

There is a lot of benefit to college education, but not everyone needs to go to their dream school. Not everyone drives their dream car or lives in their dream home.

<comment><USER3> Few friends went to a state school in NJ and lived at home - literally could not get cheaper than this situation for us - and they ended up with between 20 and 40 thousand of student loans.

Yes, they did work part time. But 100-200 a week from a part time job doesn't go far. That's gas and lunch.

They certainly got some aid other than loans, but I do not know the level of scholarships they received. Might have been their problem!

<comment><USER4> >>and they ended up with between 20 and 40 thousand of student loans.

Doesn't seem much, if you continue the same student life style after getting a job, that kind of debt can be seen through in 1.5-2 years.

After that every thing you earn is yours.

<comment><USER3> I don't think it is that bad. They got decent jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was a writer for Wired Magazine for three years and never took a single class in journalism, and nothing beyond the required english classes in college.

I think we need to do more to help educate parents and prospective students that in most cases a college degree is next to worthless. For-profit schools like the University of Phoenix get a lot of negative press, but how about these little known colleges referenced in the story that charge nearly as much as top of the line schools? Sadly, many colleges (most?) are simply outgrowths of an overgenerous loan subsidy program run by the government.

If you want to enter a credentialed field, be it education, medicine, or law—by all means get a degree.

Likewise, if you're going into a highly technical field, it's a wise investment to study intensively.

Most psych/business majors would be better served working their way up through the ranks.

In 90% of creative fields you're much better off just "doing it." I got my job at Wired by writing on my blog and getting the attention of the editor-in- chief. If you want to be a filmmaker, make films—same with music, art, etc. I essentially got paid for my "graduate school" in writing.

This is easier said than done when most entry level gigs require a college degree, but you can still get an affordable degree at most state universities. Also, we should be talking more at the political level about vocational education and non-degree training programs to prepare people for the workforce.

<comment><USER6> >I think we need to do more to help educate parents and prospective students that in most cases a college degree is next to worthless.

Do you have a source for this? The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the exact opposite. [0]

>Most psych/business majors would be better served working their way up through the ranks.

Source? Again and again, people only seem to look at the cost of education like education is a product that you buy at a store that could be gotten cheaper if you follow this One Weird Trick. College education is an experience, an exposure to new ideas, a gradual development of ancillary skills.

>This is easier said than done when most entry level gigs require a college degree, but you can still get an affordable degree at most state universities.

Why would anyone bother to get an affordable degree when they are "in most cases... next to worthless?"

Again, another person who went to college advocating that other people don't go to college. Every time this topic comes up, people who have clearly benefitted from higher education start claiming no one else needs a college education.

The same attitude that led us into the student loans debacle -- "education is a product" \-- is the same attitude that pervades every thread about this topic, but somehow the participants think they've 'hacked' the system by advocating people not get an education. It's bizarrely short sighted by otherwise educated individuals.

[0][http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm](http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm)

<comment><USER7> Those who earn bachelor's degrees do indeed earn more than those with only a high school education. But many people are vastly overpaying for this benefit.

Not to mention that this is not a controlled experiment. Maybe those who earn degrees would have earned more anyway. (Though I do suspect that college is very beneficial, for the reasons you cite.)

<comment><USER2> >But many people are vastly overpaying for this benefit.

Exactly. I don't have any issues with getting a degree. I think it is very beneficial both financially in the long term and emotionally. But you shouldn't overpay for it. There is nothing wrong with community college. There is nothing wrong with putting off college for a year or two to save money. Obviously every situation is different, but I think we should be educating high school students about their options and their prospects.

<comment><USER6> >There is nothing wrong with putting off college for a year or two to save money

Positively agree. In fact, I think entering college directly after high school is absurd. We should encourage if not require everyone to take a year off to really decide what they want before entering college. Lots of people I know who ended up dropping out with debt and no degree reported to me that they were not ready for college and they only went because it was the "thing you're supposed to do."

<comment><USER2> I entered not knowing what I wanted to do at all and ended up with a history major, which hasn't really been all that useful to me. I discovered too late that I loved programming for me to switch majors to cs.

Now I am not saying that waiting a year or two would have helped me pick a better major, because I still might not have found my passion for programming. But I do know that I would have studied harder and learned more during those years. My grades were fine, but I really did just enough to get good grades. I didn't take advantage of the learning opportunity because I was immature. I would love to go back now and really learn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Never cosign a loan. There is one reason that lenders required a co-signer -- they know that the borrower is high risk for defaulting.

If you can't afford or didn't save for college, go to a cheaper school. In- state tuition and fees at most state universities is more than it used to be but still generally under $10K a year. There is no reason to go into six-digit debt for an undergraduate degee.

With very few exceptions, once you get your first job, nobody cares where you got your undergrad degree (if even then).

<comment><USER9> Given that you can't get out of student loan debt through bankruptcy, they're at basically no risk. It might take them your entire lifetime to collect, but they'll get it eventually unless you happen to kill yourself at a young age.

<comment><USER10> What happens if you stop living in the US? (I realize very few people would do this, but I'm curious)

<comment><USER11> If you leave the US, you don't stop being a US Citizen unless you revoke your citizenship. And most nations won't allow you to become a citizen if you have foreign debts.

Also, expect to see more of these types of rules, since many student loans are backed by US Government entities: [http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/12/...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/12/22/irs- gains-power-get-tax-scofflaws-passports-revoked/77417570/)

> A new enforcement provision passed by Congress and signed into law earlier > this month allows the government to revoke the passports of seriously > delinquent tax scofflaws — people who owe more than $50,000 to Uncle Sam.

<comment><USER12> "most nations won't allow you to become a citizen if you have foreign debts"

How will they know? AFAIK, my country, which has pretty lenient rules, only asks for proof of no criminal record at the time the application is filled.

On the other hand, you can and will be extradited to the U.S. if you were found breaking their laws and their legal system does ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _a bachelor 's degree in journalism and media studies._

 _He 's especially interested in a Hollywood career, but has found it hard to land a job there._

These folks went into debt to the tune of nearly 4x the average american pre- tax income, for a theater degree.

No, the lenders shouldn't have let them do that... but come on.

<comment><USER14> Agreed.

I went to an affordable, in-state university. My father was wise enough to advise me that I was taking on debt for myself, and should think very hard about the economic consequences of my decision.

Some parents are just way too nice to their kids, and these two are in that bracket.

I've found it very amusing as I've grown up to notice this is a pattern in otherwise well-meaning, financially successful baby-boomer parents: in stark contrast with my father and other parents like him, they seem to encourage their children to pursue their dreams without any regard to reality. I suspect my father's financial struggles gave him a sense of practicality that some of the executives I work with never had in advising their own kids.

I have 3 executives I've reported to in the past year. One of them subsidizes her 30 year old daughter's life of studying Middle Eastern cultures. Another subsidizes his son's death metal band (which he abandoned his Music degree midway for), and the third is paying for his daughter's failing business, openly complaining about the fact that she doesn't seem to show up for work very often and has hired people despite lacking revenue to even pay for herself.

Parents enabling bad decisions is never a good thing.

<comment><USER15> I've always found that to be a cultural oddity. Growing up in Australia your parents almost never paid for your first car. I'd estimate 1% or less. And it was a source of pride. Your first car might have been a barely roadworthy beater/clunker but it was yours.

Here in the US, there's still some expectation that there's a good chance that, if your parents can afford it, they'll buy your first car. Certainly not an absolute, but definitely a much more commonplace expectation.

Some of this is due to other factors too, admittedly. Parents in the US seem to spend more time as chauffeurs than in Australia, often due to the mostly inferior public transit systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Sean is now pursuing another bachelor's degree, this time in computer science, from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. He is paying for this degree as he goes, with help from an internship program with the U.S. Navy."

Smart move. Maybe he will pay it all down some day. In this thread there are a lot of people saying you shouldn't take out a lot of loans to get a degree like journalism, and you shouldn't. I agree that is the type of degree that I would encourage someone to get as a second major, and/or from a state school.

Part of the problem here is that all of these people's parents grew up in a different time period where having a technical major was less important, schools were much cheaper, and it was easier to find jobs in general. Combine this with the utter lack of skilled and proper advising for freshmen coming into college.

You get there and you are 18 years old, have little concept of money and underdeveloped judgement skills. Then you go to your advisor who is a scatter- brained English professor with books all over his office. Advising for him is just one of those things you have to do as a professor but he isn't really there to advise and has no idea what to tell you, or his 100 other advisees. So then he asks you what you like and you tell him you like writing. There you go, major in journalism. Even then, some people might want to sign up for CS or Business but they lose the class signup lottery because those departments are under funded and don't have enough sections. Then they lose again for the next 3 semesters and are forced to declare a major in classes that they already have experience in.

There is no point where they explain the value of a degree to you and it can be difficult to understand for most people until they are 2 or 3 years in and suddenly realize that they are stuck in this path and can't go back to change majors because it would take more school and they can't take on more debt. You can't drop out and start over later because then you have to start paying those loans and don't have a degree at all.

tl;dr; it isn't just these kids making bad decisions, it is a dysfunctional system that leads people down paths that are convenient for the school, not necessarily for the students.

<comment><USER17> > "Sean is now pursuing another bachelor's degree, this time in computer > science, from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. He is > paying for this degree as he goes, with help from an internship program with > the U.S. Navy."

... or he could have just driven 40 minutes north and gotten a CS degree at George Mason University, which is a far, _far_ better program than Mary Washington. OR if out of state tuition is not an issue, he could have driven another 30 minutes further and gotten a CS degree at U Maryland, which hovers in the top 15. Both of which are basically the same price as Mary Washington. Is it worth mentioning that the Navy has close connections to both schools? Particularly GMU.

Indeed of nearby schools, the following are all superior to Mary Washington in CS and cost about the same: GMU, U Maryland, Virginia Tech, UVA, ODU, VCU.

So one son decided to blow $200K on a journalism degree, and his parents helped him. Now the other son, already $60K in the hole, is going back to school, and has picked the worst of several options to get a computer science degree. And no doubt his parents are helping him again. One wonders if the problem is the parents.

<comment><USER11> There's another option that's even cheaper. My training to enter software development was less than $1,000 (various books and online courses + plus lots of hours behind the keyboard). While that might not provide a _deep_ CS background, its _enough_ to become a competent developer to build real things and obtain a job. And if someone feels like they still need that CS degree, do so after entering the field and pay tuition out of pocket along the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> $200k for journalism and media studies was a bad investment. It's a tough message, but you have to invest in education more intelligently than 'throw money at it and hope for the best'.

<comment><USER19> The U.S. educationnal system is wrong. If you go to Canada, you will pay less than 30k$ for you entire program. It's illogical to waste 4 years if you don't have solid chances to get a job and make it profitable, maybe it is not the place to go and/or the career to follow.

<comment><USER20> Getting a journalism degree in Canada doesn't somehow make it more viable. We don't need more journalists, plain and simple. Nobody should be paying money to become journalists.

<comment><USER21> >>We don't need more journalists, plain and simple.

I disagree. In a country with free press, journalists play a critical role in uncovering truths and disseminating the information among the public.

The problem is that the vast majority of people with the title "journalist" today aren't really journalists. They're just brain-dead writers for news conglomerates and PR firms. And yes, getting a degree just for that is dumb. But if you want to become an _investigative_ journalist, then getting a degree for it is a very good idea.

<comment><USER22> There is a difference between not needing more journalists and not needing journalists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The real solution to this is to open up some kind of bond market for majors. Bundle up a bunch of student loans by major and create a partly public partly private debt obligations.

Schools have far too much incentive to lie about the value of different degrees. Parents and high school advisors don't have the necessary information.

A market device would give students the feedback they need to plan their futures.

Plus if large employers ever complain about the skills that grads are lacking, they can be asked to invest in the appropriate student loan category.

<comment><USER24> There is already a lot of information available about the labor market in general, and colleges are also required to provide gainful employment statistics for graduates. Despite this, it seems that many students make poor decisions, probably for more subtle reasons (easy availability of loans, wanting to experience college, wanting a gap between school and work, etc).

Securitizing student loans by major and having a liquid market for the securities is an interesting idea, but its hard for me to imagine that the information provided would have any impact on this problem. If students, counselors, etc already ignore the plentiful labor market statistics available, a I'm sure they'll have no trouble ignoring a proxy for those statistics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Shouldn't it? They're under 60 and they cosigned on $200K of debt. If they really thought that that they could afford be retired right now, coming up with another $200K should only take a few years between the four of them.

They'd still be retiring earlier than anyone that I know who isn't wealthy. Ideally they'd have cut the taps at some point before their child spent $130K on a "journalism and media studies" degree in order to be an _actor_ , but I understand that nobody's invented a time machine yet.

</comment><comment><USER26> All of the people here writing about how these people shouldn't have picked non-STEM majors are missing the point entirely.

These people in the article are the population we've got, not the population we want to have; Monday morning quarterbacking is completely useless, as the debt is already accrued. To state it again: this is the population we actually have. They are not technically skilled, but they are educated and heavily indebted. They were told "go to college, get any degree, and you will have success." This was not accurate, and now, we have an entire generation that is suffering.

Student loan debt is smashing the potential of the millenials and is now increasingly seen as a massive burden on their parents and (mostly uncreated, due to insufficient funds) children as well. Large-scale debt relief is mandatory at this point, as all of the money siphoned to debt maintenance is severely limiting the amount of demand that the economy's primary consumers are able to create. Millenials aren't buying homes, aren't having kids, aren't buying cars, aren't able to put their parents into nursing homes, etc.

The parents of the millenials typically have some wealth that can be extracted, and so, it's on the chopping block. This is why loans have cosigners-- so that their bank accounts can be emptied, too.

Debt slavery is the reality we live in, and predictably, debtors parents aren't thrilled that their retirement is being siphoned away by their children's debt.

As I said, this debt is a massive drag on the economy, and debt relief is mandatory. Unfortunately, there's not so much going on politically right now, so I think that a mass student debt boycott is a better decision. It's unlikely that the lenders will be bankrupted, but it'll send a message at least. Sure, they'll ruin everyone's credit and dock people's wages, but that can only be sustained until there's white riots due to poverty. And it'll probably take riots to end this debt slavery-- it takes riots to fix things in a broken country.

</comment><comment><USER27> I see a lot of people blaming the government for college costs, but the fact is that, unlike for graduate school loans, the amount of guaranteed undergraduate loans individuals can take on is capped at $12,500 Stafford + up to $5,500 in Perkins loans. Beyond that you need parents to sign on for PLUS loans, which require a credit check.

The real problem is that we've been indoctrinated to overvalue education and artificial college rankings. If you're a Virginia resident, going to UVA will cost you almost $30,000 a year, in-state, including room and board (unless your parents happen to live in Charlottesville). But you can go to George Mason for only $11,000 a year living at home. But few people who can get into UVA go to GMU because you're giving up a lot of job prospects in the process, plus have to deal with the "commuter college" stigma. And employers don't really ascribe a much higher value to a UVA education versus a GMU one--they just want to sort people who managed to get into UVA from people who didn't.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's amazing that someone with virtually no life experience (12 years in grade school?) has to make this huge life decision on what they want to go to school for. Do they want to be an artist, maybe an engineer? They then get thousands of dollars in loans to go pursue it.

It's probably the second biggest monetary investment in their life (if they buy a house), but probably the least educated investment.

Now, some people get amazing help in high school while making this decision. They have extremely intelligent parents, a very supportive school counselor/teachers etc.

But a lot, and I know this from experience have zero help. I know today that if i'm going to invest a hundred thousand dollars in a college education I should probably try to know what the market 5+ years from now will be (good luck with that) maybe I should know what the ROI is on that degree... maybe I should know how competitive the labor market is/will be.

When i was 18 graduating from school I had zero help with this process. Zero. I was told "pursue what you love". How do you expect an (average) 18 year old to make this evaluation?

In my perfect world, we would increase business taxes to pay for higher education, those taxes would then be given directly to programs. Programming industry needs more programmers? easy give more money to computer science education. Students of course will still apply to programs they're most interested in, but in a competitive industry they'll get rejected BEFORE they make the major investment. If it takes a congressional act to change industry taxes, you can be assured someone is going to do some studies on how much each program will need. It's better to have a professional do that, than to hope the student maybe looks into it.

Finally how many jobs ask for a bachelors that just don't need it? If you start asking companies to pay for that education, they might make a better evaluation if its necessary.

Things just get more efficient, perhaps less "fair", but I don't life crippling debt is fair either.

</comment><comment><USER29> From a different point of view, the parents are age 57 and 59 and if everything went well, they would already have retired.

In contrast, European Union asks Greece (and other PIIGS countries) to set the minimum retirement age at 67 if it wants to stay a member...

<comment><USER30> > From a different point of view, the parents are age 57 and 59 and if > everything went well, they would already have retired.

Things would have to have gone really well to retire before 60 in USA. Most Americans don't even consider retiring until at least that, often 65.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> No doubt higher Ed is a mess in the US but this could just as easily be an article about attachment parenting gone array. The article mentions that their son is waiting on a dream career in Hollywood. One would think that critical skills gained from a media studies degree would be useful in unpacking the myth of cracking into the big time. Perhaps he would have a better chance if he took himself out of the multitudes of the uninspired waiting to be discovered and instead did something to help his family with their problem.

</comment><comment><USER32> Wow, living in Germany I graduated in CS with ~7k in loans. Just the idea that a government does not pay its childrens education is freakin me out and from my perspective seems to be a neo liberalism horror story.

<comment><USER33> college professors in the States need to be compensated at the same rate as company CEOs. EVERYONE 'deserves' a flat screen 4k TV, a brand new car every 3 years and 7%+ gains on any and all investments, otherwise, it isn't "fair".

<comment><USER34> Umm .. no.

As someone who was a lecturer for a top CS dept, I can tell you that professors do not get compensated the same as CEOs. You can use google to check salaries for public university professors in many places (since this information is public). When a CS PhD accepts a job at a University, they take a pay cut from what the private sector pays. A full professor makes under 200K, and that is at the top of the stack. The average take for assistant and associate profs (at top CS schools in North America) is more like 130-140K. Not what CEOs make!

<comment><USER35> Not to mention how many professors are being replaced by adjuncts ("Overall, non-tenure- track faculty, often known as adjunct or contingent faculty, now account for three-quarters of the instructional faculty at non-profit colleges and universities across the country."): [http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5/changing-academic- workforc...](http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5/changing-academic-workforce)

Those adjuncts are often contingent, low-paid workers: [http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/poverty-u- many...](http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/poverty-u-many-adjunct- professors-food-stamps-n336596)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/your-waitress- your...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/your-waitress-your- professor.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0)

[http://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-college-so- expensive...](http://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-college-so-expensive-if- professors-are-paid-so-little/)

The numbers you present themselves are in the top 25% or 33% (depending on which measure you look at) of earners as professors, all inclusive. The idea that most professors are well-compensated on the whole is absurd. Wasn't the old deal supposed to be "decent compensation, but not great, made up for with great benefits and tenure?" Now it's "terrible compensation and no benefits, no tenure."

Of course, the person you're responding to seems to be making their comment sarcastically in any case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> For that amount of money, the parents could have purchased a cheap condo for each of their children, and have the children rent it out as a source of income that would be more stable than a knowledge economy job attainable with their children's interests. Or the child could live in the condo. At this point, a condo is actually more useful than most degrees.

</comment><comment><USER37> $130k on a journalism degree which is rapidly becoming a professional blogger?

This is a first-world, lack of common-sense problem.

</comment><comment><USER38> Not looking forward to the large groups graduating with gender/culture/journalist degrees. A large generation lost. The smarter ones will figure out how to squeeze money from government grants like they do in Sweden.

</comment><comment><USER39> At this point I wonder if they're better off selling their house and moving to Mexico or something.

</comment><comment><USER40> Guidance counselors across this country are massively failing the students who turn to them for... guidance. Mine pushed me into AP/Honors classes for subjects I had almost zero interest in causing me to get B's when I could have easily gotten A's in the regular classes (Comp Sci was the exception, I'm glad I took the AP version of that, at both A and AB levels). Even with my score on the ACT being very good I wasn't able to qualify for certain loans through my college (and some privates ones/grants) due to a lower (un-weighted) GPA which increased my tutiation.

This coupled with a complete lack of understanding how student loans work or what I would be responsible for (I take 100% responsibility for this failing I just wish there had been more education on the issue). Now I've got some ~$60K left in student loans and I didn't even finish college because all of my job prospects said they didn't care about a degree if I could do the work required (software engineer). I am, thankfully, able to make the payments on them but (and again, I take full responsibility) student loans were practically billed as "Free money" and just "something everyone did"... The "good debt" to have... What a load of BS.

I liked my college experience and the life-long friends I made but knowing what I know now I might have cut my college even shorter or possibly not gone as I was able to get a part-time job (I could have worked full time if I had wanted) in my first semester at school in my field... This will not hold for all majors of course but the college (and high school) system sells college as a job ticket and that couldn't be further from the truth in today's world.

</comment><comment><USER41> If you co-sign a loan it's not your son's debt, it's _your_ debt.

<comment><USER42> > If you co-sign a loan it's not your son's debt, it's _your_ debt.

Actually, if you _co_ -sign, its both, and primarily the son's.

<comment><USER41> My point is, one of personal responsibility. You are agreeing that if the need arises you are willing to be 'on the hook' for the money owed. It isn't their son's debt that is keeping them from retiring, it is the choice that they made to co-sign the loan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Just go for a few years and get your degree in europe. Education in most countries is almost free of charge (between 100€ and 500€ _a year_ )

So you can get a degree for 7k€ (if you live relatively well if you are thrifty it will be less than that. this without working part time, this _includes living expenses_ ) per year. So in total 21k€ max. That is 23k USD(Jan, 2016 rate). That is what you would pay in 1 year in a low level college in the US, without the living expenses! (All this even if you are a foreigner)

Why pay that when you can study in the Sorbonne or in the Freie Universität Berlin? There are even degrees in English.

Admittedly one needs to talk the language (french, german) but it is definitely worth it. Not to talk about the experience you get for the money.

PS: This is what I did, currently doing my masters degree in Engineering in France.

</comment><comment><USER44> While majoring in Computer Science at MU, not a fancy school by any means, i had a job in my field on the third year of school and by the time i graduated i had a few years of development experience. Most folks I communicated with in school had similar experience. Those who didn't were typically foreign students. Do other majors not work this way? It baffles me how someone went through their college career, at a prestigious school at that, and couldn't get some kind of job/internship.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't want to be harsh but the reality is either you can afford to try a very hard path such as "bachelor's degree in journalism and media studies." where it seems competencies don't really matter or you push your kids to study something where the odds of finding a jobs are higher.

Unfortunately it seems like, journalism, acting, professional sports is not about talent but about who you meet and when :/

May be I'm a pessimist but that's how I feel about certain jobs/career paths.

</comment><comment><USER46> These are important stories to hopefully make people thing more critically about not only the value of college, but the value of your degree. For example, a degree in journalism today doesn't really seem to convey much value.

</comment><comment><USER47> I recommend the book "Worthless: The Young Person's Indispensable Guide to Choosing the Right Major" by Aaron Clarey for a brutally honest, if exaggerated, take on higher education and employment.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if allowing bankruptcy for student loans would allow the market to price them correctly (based on job prospects, etc)?

</comment><comment><USER48> What would it take to completely wipe out all student debt? In theory, could a Presidents pen stroke do it?

<comment><USER49> Obama has already done such a giveaway, writing off student loans for certain schools that were paper mills and shut down once they got any scrutiny. The loser? Taxpayers.

Instead of discharging that debt, he could have offered to _apply_ that balance to genuine, accredited programs (e.g. if the student had $80K in debt principal, she could get the first $80K taken from that balance instead of new debt). In other words, they made that money commitment in search of a degree -- they shouldn't just dump all that on the taxpayers with no societal gain from it.

Another parallel taxpayer-funded debt reduction done by the current administration was to change such windfalls to non-taxable (as regular income, as it always had been), again at the expense of other taxpayers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It is important to know and not perpetuate the myths about student loans...

-Federally guaranteed student loans _can_ be discharged in bankruptcy (it is just a different standard than other debts); and

-Federal plus loans (a type of educational loan for parents) can also be discharged, not just through bankruptcy but also directly through the US Department of Education, for example one program is for permanent and total disability, and with the aging population more and more parents with $100,000's in loans for their kids will be eligible for this discharge.

<comment><USER51> > -Federally guaranteed student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy (it is > just a different standard than other debts)

As a practical matter, it is not dischargeable. The standard is nearly impossible to meet.

<comment><USER50> >The standard is nearly impossible to meet.

Not really, the standard is "undue hardship". The problem is the myth...Of ~900,000 bankruptcy filings in 2014 only ~700 listed student loans as a debt to be discharged, of that number do you know how many were successfully discharged? The truth is of ~900,000 bankruptcies vastly more were eligible to have student loans discharged but didn't because they didn't even try.

As a lawyer I have personally worked with a client to have a >$100,000 parent loan discharged directly with the US Dept of Education, and in no way would this client come close to being eligible for a normal bankruptcy.

<comment><USER51> Did the lender contest? Was the bankruptcy actually adjudicated? Your client may well have just gotten lucky. The Brunner test is a tough one to pass.

<comment><USER50> Discharge through bankruptcy and discharge through the US Dept of Education are different reliefs.

In bankruptcy, available statistics show educational loans are discharged, in whole/part, 50% of the time when attempted.

My client's loan was discharged through the US Dept of Education. Unlike bankruptcy a lender can't contest, there is no adjudication because the matter does not go to court and a lawyer really isn't needed.

It surely isn't luck. While most people falsely believe student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy, even more don't even have any idea there is a separate process to discharge student loans directly through the US Dept of Education.

<comment><USER51> Does the DoE's ability to discharge student loan debts include private student loans, or only federally subsidized ones? My understanding is that the DoE has no legal interest in the former. Also, for many students, private loan obligations dwarf federal loan obligations.

Also, under which criteria did your client receive loan forgiveness? Total/permanent disability? TPD will only apply to only a small fraction of borrowers; bankruptcy is much more difficult to attain a discharge under.

<comment><USER50> As far as I am aware DoE can discharge any loans they originate (subsidized, subsidized and PLUS loans). Between sub and unsub that covers up to ~$18k/year, meanwhile only 1 in 10 student end up with over $40k total. PLUS loans are probably closer to private loans in obligation as parent loans can cover multiple children.

In my client's case it was >$100k of parent PLUS loans, discharged under TPD. Statistics suggest TPD could apply to as many as 20% of borrowers. Again this number will only increase as baby boomers get older. I don't know if "small fraction" is a fair description or not of 20%, but that would still mean >$12B of parent plus loans alone are eligible for discharge under DoE TPD.

One problem I experience first hand as a lawyer is potential clients who actually are eligible but they don't believe it. Worse they think it is some type of scam, because they believe it is impossible to discharge student loans. Something tells me if I discharged >$100k in student loans for a parent as a SV startup rather than in my capacity as a lawyer, I might be hailed as disrupting student loan debt rather than lucky.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Executives Face Jail Time for Italian Video - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/google-executives-face-jail-time-for-italian-video/

<comment><USER2> The entire case is really grottesque. It's thank to that video that the _idiots_ (sorry, I can't just find another term) got busted and proper actions have been taken to make some justice for the boy with Down syndrome.

This is only yet another way to prove that our (I am italian) justice system is such a total failure on so many side that it hurts.

<comment><USER3> After reading this all I can think is...

Note to self: Block Italian IP's

How on earth does a case like this get prosecuted?

<comment><USER4> Punishing Italian internet users isn't at all like punishing Google executives for Youtube is it?

<comment><USER5> Unless this case ends up dismissed or easily won, Google should redirect all Italian IPS to a page explaining what has happened and that they are unable to do business in Italy until the laws are changed.

They should add a "contact your government" feature that lets Italian internet users let their parliament know what's going on.

This isn't punishing Italian internet users it's a necessary safety precaution. It's not worth doing business somewhere that puts your employees in danger of jail time for doing their jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an Italian who has left Italy in disgust several years ago, I have a hard time considering my country of origin to be a first world nation. Companies should be weary of doing business in Italy until the draconian laws there are revoked.

</comment><comment><USER7> In related news, they also seem to have outlawed blogging: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/26/italian_law_kills_bl...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/26/italian_law_kills_blog/)

<comment><USER8> Not only that, kebabs as well: [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_dri...](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article5622156.ece)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Italy's in a bad way right now. Consider that they still have Berlusconi as their leader, who first made his appearance in the early 90'ies. Imagine if we still had Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and Bush Sr. contending the presidency in the US.

I think long term that Italy will continue to punch above its weight, as it has in the past: Roman empire, Renaissance, and some pretty decent stuff in decades past, for that matter - not bad for a relatively small country without much in the way of natural resources. But I don't know when that will be. We're headed back there next month, but we may not be staying too long. It's sad, because it's such a wonderful place in many ways, with plenty of very bright, creative, hard working people.

<comment><USER10> "Imagine if we still had Bill Clinton"

We can only dream ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm actually less shocked that they're bringing criminal charges than that it's illegal to post a video making fun of the mentally handicapped. It's clearly in bad taste, but I can't imagine living somewhere where even the poster of the video had committed a crime.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure that it would be considered a hate crime in the UK. This is an arrestable offense which can carry a range of punishments depending on the severity (e.g. physical assault vs verbal assault).

See [http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing- crime/ha...](http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/hate- crime/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is such a joke...does anyone really think that Google's senior executives are going to face jail time due to some trial in Italy? Laughable.

<comment><USER13> Apparently one of Google's lawyers was arrested in Italy. [https://www.privacyassociation.org/index.php?option=com_cont...](https://www.privacyassociation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1745&Itemid=228)

<comment><USER2> Arrested? They aren't talking about any arrest on that article

<comment><USER13> They took him before a public prosecutor for a deposition. It doesn't say he was charged, but it sounds like he was detained. May "arrested" was too strong, but it certainly wasn't something that could be laughed off.

<comment><USER2> He wasn't detained.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Edit* this must be why google patented the floating offshore datacenters...so they can operate outside of territorial waters and evade extradition.

If Exec's are directly personally responsible for content created by user's of a site in Italy it kinda makes you think twice about operating a site there. Pretty scary actually. I don't condone the video, nor do I think web services should not take some responsibility to monitor content, but it's not feasible or sane to assume they can catch all or most of what might be illegal in one country or the other.

<comment><USER15> I don't know why they would get a patent on something that obvious. They could simply do it without needing a patent.

<comment><USER16> Moreover, if a company copied them to gain similar legal immunity, who would they sue for patent infringement?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting to note that the individuals named are all non-Italian Google execs and employees. Perhaps the Italian government has no real intention of punishing individuals, but just wants to make a stink about this to try to scare UGC sites into being responsible for their content. The impossibility of extradition gives them cover. If they named Italian Google executives or employees, which I'm guessing they easily could have, they'd actually have to put people in jail and face the absurdity of these changes in a very concrete way.

</comment><comment><USER18> This will be about as successful as the MPAA's attempts sue The Pirate Bay, etc.

</comment><comment><USER19> After this trial ends, they should just not offer service to Italian internet users or businesses ... Ideally they should set up some sore of embargo with all the major players [content providers, network owners, software producers, etc]. I think that a lot of companies would be willing to join in to help make an example of Italy so other countries don't try the same sort of bullshit in the future.

<comment><USER16> Unfortunately, there are still other companies that would be happy to take Google's slice of the market in their absence. I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't mind taking over search services, and there are plenty of user-generated content sites that would be willing to risk an unlikely extradition in exchange for Italy's YouTube users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Any free services listing Italian IP address ranges?

</comment><comment><USER21> isn't Google covered by precedents, or at least their terms of service?

<comment><USER22> Generally terms of service don't trumpet national laws.

<comment><USER19> s/trumpet/trump/</comment></comment></comment>


Make Your Customers Your Evangelists - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mozio.com/make-your-customers-your-evangelists

<comment><AUTHOR> The default behaviour at these trade show/exhibit hall events (stand behind a table, look pretty and hand out swag) has always struck me as a colossal waste of time and money. This sort of slightly-different format seems like a good way to shake things up a bit. Have others tried different creative tactics to get (and hopefully give attendees) more value from these events?</comment>


Ask HN: Is $5k really worth 5%? - <AUTHOR>

A good software developer contractor can gross 10k in a month. Is something like ycombinator worthwhile to give up 5% for $5,000 per founder? <comment><USER2> Well, apart from the fact that you got your math wrong (its $5k + $5k per founder) I'll give you a few other reasons why YC is worthwhile.

1) Introductions to prominent VC's/Angels if you want to obtain further funding

2) As a result of the process of getting into YC, it can somewhat validate your idea

3) Having to pull it off in 3 months can really light fires under people's asses

4) PG seems like a genuine bloke who really wants to help people. The mentoring aspect would be worthwhile.

5) Constant feedback. You'd be surrounded by a lot of other YC alums who are very switched on people... Good things to be learned all round

I'm sure there are other reasons I failed to mention, but I think I covered the basics.

EDIT - also, read PG's essay on the subject.

<http://paulgraham.com/ycombinator.html>

<comment><USER3> Don't forget extra coverage. Many of YC sites getting covered by Techcrunch would have never been able to get covered without being part of YC

<comment><USER2> I guess there's always PG's Rice & Beans to look forward too! :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=525529>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This has been answered before. YC isn't about the money; it's about the advice and connections. If those things increase the probability of your company's success by more than 5%, YC is a good deal. If you can do better on your own, do it.

<comment><USER5> The support that YC provides is definitely more valuable than the money they provide. With that being said, however, you can't discount the benefit of having that extra cash. $5,000 for 5% equity essentially valuates your company at $100,000. Ask yourself, would anybody outright pay that much for what you have built? On top of that, YC also provides an additional $5000 to cover living expenses. Thats a deal if I've ever seen one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your question is nonsense.

I'll assume for a moment that you are _presently_ a "good software developer contractor" and you currently gross "$10k" a month.

Given that, $10k a month is your opportunity cost for doing something else, for instance, doing a startup.

That fact has little to do with your question "is ycombinator worth 5% of my biz for ~$15k"?

If you want to do a startup, then you'll be giving up your $10k a month to build something that scales beyond your time. I recommend doing this, if you have the risk-tolerance for doing a startup.

IFF you decide to do a startup, THEN you have to decide how to fund it. YCombinator offers your team ~$20k for 5% of the company to kick off your startup efforts. Plus, they offer you the "prestige and access" you'll get due to YCombinator. The alternative is bootstrapping, or "normal" funding channels.

From what I know about YCombinator, it's definitely an outstanding opportunity if you can get your idea accepted. If you're young and inexperienced and mobile, do it.

Alan

</comment><comment><USER7> Many will point out the fact the introductions and the opportunity to work with other startups are worth more than the money. I want to say the money is worth it too.

We are self-financed and so we do contract to pay our living expenses. It is working great for us, but often we will get sucked in client projects. Those distractions have been costing a lot in term of growth. 5% for the intros and money to just focus on your idea for 12 weeks is certainly worth it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Making influential people into stake holders is always a good thing. It would be worth it for $0, in fact, it might be worth paying Y Combinator to take your stock.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sorting out $15k is the easiest part of an early phase startup. YC seems to mostly focus on the harder parts.

</comment><comment><USER10> I believe its more about the experience and opportunities that are opened up to you than the money. You can earn $5k pretty easily but where does that get you?

</comment><comment><USER11> It can push you from 'thinking about starting the company' to 'starting a company.' If you're a 'thinking about starting a company' person, then it is worth it just to force you to switch modes.

Also, the adage "it's better to have half of something than all of nothing" has never let me down. I've always been very generous with stock and it has always paid off -- for me anyway.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you and your company are good enough to be accepted by YC, then it probably is, both for you and for YC. It's the classic win-win proposition. YC will probably get a return on their money, and your company will be worth enough more that your share, now 95% instead of 100%, will be worth quite a bit more than it was before their investment.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you sign on an adviser, you might give them a comparable percentage for $0K. It's worth it in the right cases.

</comment><comment><USER14> Absolutely not.

But Demo Day is worth a lot more than 5%.

<comment><USER15> ... if you believe you're going to get funding, and if taking funding is what you want to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> <http://www.paulgraham.com/equity.html>

</comment><comment><USER17> This depends on many factors, pretty much all of which can only be answered by you. If you think that the YC route may be worthwhile, then you'd do well to apply, and if not, bootstrap or go off on your own.

</comment><comment><USER18> The money is not the draw. The chance to be mentored, and get money earlier are to me. I would pay more than 5% of the current venture to benefit from being mentored by these people for long to come.

</comment><comment><USER19> The real question is whether $5k + $5k/founder AND startup school is worth 5%.

<comment><USER2> AND 2x demo day AND YC alum network (tapping people on shoulders to try and get introductions to others you need) AND instant coverage by many blogs AND idea pre-validation if you try to pitch later.

... just saying. I'm applying next round and for me, the money is low on the list of what I like about the YC prospect. It's a nice thing to have don't get me wrong, but it's really one of the smaller pieces of the pie in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> mu.

The right question is something like "Is ycombinator worth the equity it will cost my company?"

While other people have talked about what ycombinator is worth, the right answer to that question also depends on the meaning of "my company".

</comment><comment><USER21> Is an elite college worth $150k?

<comment><USER22> Yes. It is. The connections you get out of an elite college worth more than that.

<comment><USER21> I disagree strongly that the connections are the source of the value, at least for undergrad. You're assuming that everyone who goes to an elite college is rubbing elbows with the wealthy. In reality, the people who are able to utilize college in this way are those who are already from wealthy backgrounds. Upper-crust kids don't go to Ivies looking to be "connections" for middle-class strivers.

I think that an elite college degree is worth $150k for most people, but I don't think it's the connections that add the value, so much as the prestige of the degree, the recruiting opportunities, and the information learned (mostly outside the classroom) about how the economy and society actually work.

<comment><USER22> "the recruiting opportunities, and the information learned (mostly outside the classroom) about how the economy and society actually work"

The recruiting opportunities are part of the connections too. The information that you learned outside of class is mostly from your connection outside the class too.

This may not be a strong case for a local resident in US. For my case, I did have a stronger connections(friendship) than in my country(Malaysia). I am sure that I cannat achieve what I have done so far here if I decided not to further my college in US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yes.</comment>


OpenPGPjs v3.0 - <AUTHOR> https://protonmail.com/blog/openpgpjs-3-release/ <comment><AUTHOR> In case anyone that doesn't follow the development of the library closely missed it, the main improvement in this version is the introduction of ECC support. ECC tends to be able to provide equivalent levels of security as traditional "big prime" cryptography (like RSA) with less computationally intensive operations. This is especially important in a library like OpenPGPjs that is primarily meant for in browser based web usage because it should make things, like sending and receiving mail, faster when ECC is used over older PGP public key encryption systems. For people that use ProtonMail's web based crypto on mobile or tablet devices, a switch to ECC would result not just in similar performance improvements but also in lower battery usage.

Currently, ProtonMail uses RSA keys, but this addition of ECC support to their web encryption library may mean that they are about to start switching users to ECC keys. Because using "larger" (when compared with equivalent theoretical strength RSA keys, for example) ECC keys is less resource intensive than using higher security keys in some other forms of cryptosystems (like RSA) it may also be an indication that ProtonMail is preparing to upgrade users to higher security/stronger keys.

Many cryptographers and organizations, including the US Government, have recommended for a long time that people migrate from older "big prime cryptography" based cryptosystems to ECC based cryptosystems for increased security.

<comment><USER2> _> In case anyone that doesn't follow the development of the library closely missed it, the main improvement in this version is the introduction of ECC support._

Wow...I'm sort of shocked that wasn't a v1.0 consideration.

 _> ECC tends to be able to provide equivalent levels of security as traditional "big prime" cryptography (like RSA) with less computationally intensive operations. This is especially important in a library like OpenPGPjs that is primarily meant for in browser based web usage because it should make things, like sending and receiving mail, faster when ECC is used over older PGP public key encryption systems. For people that use ProtonMail's web based crypto on mobile or tablet devices, a switch to ECC would result not just in similar performance improvements but also in lower battery usage._

In particular, elliptic curves have smaller parameters, which allow for smaller keys at the same bit security level. For example, to achieve 128-bit security, an RSA/DLP modulus must be 3072 bits. Elliptic curves achieve the same security level with only 256-bit parameters. They are also faster for most operations, but RSA is still technically faster for signature verification.

 _> Many cryptographers and organizations, including the US Government, have recommended for a long time that people migrate from older "big prime cryptography" based cryptosystems to ECC based cryptosystems for increased security._

True, but elliptic curve cryptography is just as vulnerable to quantum computers, however long off that problem may be.

<comment><USER3> > Wow...I'm sort of shocked that wasn't a v1.0 consideration.

Given that you need to pass --expert to gpg 2.1 as of right now to even generate an ECC keypair for PGP use (nor use one on an OpenPGP smartcard or yubikey), I can sort of forgive the lack of ECC in 1.0. I don't think it sees wide usage for PGP keys (some clients don't support it, also).

However, as of the last time I tried Protonmail (about 10 minutes ago to check this is all still true) you can't: revoke/reissue your PGP key, validate outside signatures (either on encrypted messages or signed, plaintext messages) or send pure-PGP mail to users outside of protonmail (there's an encrypt for non-protonmail users option, that sends a link instead). Essentially as another commenter has said, you can't really do PGP with ProtonMail.

<comment><USER4> I don't use ProtoMail but it sounds like _they_ are "managing" users' private keys!? Am I understanding this correctly? ProtonMail has access to their users' private keys? And they are using web-based encryption, delivered via JavaScript?

And people _trust_ them!?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is the threat model for PGP in JS? Like, is there an Alice, Bob, Carol, Eve story under which PGP in JS makes sense?

The canonical example that IMO doesn't make sense is when Alice and Bob want to communicate privately using Eve as an webmail provider who wants to snoop in on the communications. Alice and Bob can't just trust Eve to provide a copy of OpenPGPjs in a <script> tag on EveMail.com, because then they're trusting Eve to provide a legitimate PGP implementation, trusting Eve not to log their keystrokes in JS, etc.

I can understand OpenPGPjs as a server-side library in Node (though I suspect it would be safer to run a battle-hardened library like GPG with node FFI).

But, in client-side web code, how could this ever make sense?

<comment> dane-pgp One user story is that Alice uses Eve's webmail, and Bob uses PGP and mutt on his laptop. Before Eve's webmail supported PGP in JS, Bob had to send his emails to Alice unencrypted (and unsigned), which meant his mail provider could read the plaintext (even if he trusted that mail provider to always require a TLS connection when sending to Eve's servers).

From Alice's point of view, she is just using webmail as she always has, except now she has the assurance that no one (other than Eve) can spoof Bob's identity, and that Bob's mail server isn't reading the messages she sends him (unless Eve is deliberately leaking the plaintext somehow despite sending Bob the encrypted version).

Long term it would be nice if the W3C's SRI standard was extended to allow offline signing of JavaScript files:

[https://github.com/w3c/webappsec/issues/449](https://github.com/w3c/webappsec/issues/449)

and for browsers to prompt you whether you wanted to run a new (offline signed, maybe independently audited) version of those files.

<comment><USER6> > [Alice knows] no one (other than Eve) can spoof Bob's identity

If Carol or Chuck can spoof Eves "identity" they can spoof Bobs identity. This can be done in a multitude of technical or social ways.

Is it better to have this than nothing? The problem is that you have to trust your whole infrastructure if you want to do this kind of client side encrypting.

<comment> dane-pgp If your threat model says that Eve's webmail servers can be spoofed, then Alice can't use webmail at all, or possibly any websites. At that point, the security of PGP in JS is pretty much irrelevant.

<comment><USER6> I think that is one of the most obvious things that can happen, but no it only affects JS PGP that is integrated on a site you use. PGP in JS is still relevant because it makes it easier to download, verify and execute Javascript "anywhere", not as an integrated solution served by a third party. Sadly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish something like this would take off -

[https://github.com/kylehuff/webpg-chrome](https://github.com/kylehuff/webpg- chrome)

We deserve a better userspace from our browsers. The excuse that "users" don't want this because its "hard" is circular.

<comment><USER8> The project looks really cool! But...the fact that the website has a certificate error doesn't inspire much confidence. Especially since it's a security tool. :(

<comment><USER9> What certificate error? Neither [https://openpgpjs.org](https://openpgpjs.org) nor the link here have a certificate error for me. Maybe you are being MITMed...

<comment><USER10> I'm also getting it. The certificate for [https://webpg.org/](https://webpg.org/) expired October 29, 2017.

<comment><USER9> Aha, I misunderstood the original comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great to see protonmail working on this.

It's shocking how much sensitive data is sent by mail (contracts, passwords, lawyers, etc..) without pgp signing / encryption on a daily basis.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why not use webcrypto instead?

<comment><USER13> They are probably using it underneath. Webcrypto by itself is just a set of primitives, you need a higher level abstractions to do anything useful in real world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't get it. Protonmail still doesn't support PGP, yet they're working on open source libraries for other people to implement PGP? I don't understand these priorities.

<comment><USER15> The library is the prerequisite for proper PGP support in ProtonMail, so it obviously needs to be built first.

<comment><USER16> You mean the library that you've been using from the beginning of the proper web client? This is not an answer. Kudos for finally doing ECC though.

<comment><USER9> For internal use we had all RSA keys so it was fine. For external use we have to support what everyone uses, and there is a variety as you know. Saying "hey, you can use PGP but all your friends have to have RSA keys" is not a recipe for a good user experience.

<comment><USER17> This is great to hear! If/when protonmail transitions to be mail host that support open standards in a wider sense, I'd more seriously consider becoming a customer :-)

Fwiw, while I'm not that interested in the current project - I actually think it's great to build a walled garden on open standards - especially for secure services. Makes it easier to evaluate, and opens the door fore secure interop in the future.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anybody working on a good math editor for the web (or would like to)? - <AUTHOR> I was trying to put up a few equations from a course I was doing, on my personal blog and I was curious about how people normally put up equations on the web.   More importantly how the content -> presentation workflow works?   Some solutions I have encountered are:
1. Do it in latex, generate PDF, copy image and paste or save as URL and link URL to an img tag. 2. Use some GUI (standalone or web) app to write latex/mathml etc as equations, generate the layout, save as image, copy and ..... 3. Have custom plugins on a custom installation of <your favorite blogging platform>.
Can this be done better and in a less painful way?  I can see this may not be such a hot market, but was curious to see if anybody is working on this in an interesting way.
One idea that comes to mind is if the copy-and-paste aspect can be gotten rid of by say the equations/math-document being hosted as a resource at some REST endpoint and a PNG representation is served on a GET (if .png is the format selected).   Similarly an /edit would take you to the "editor page" of the equation.  (2) above would still be required but (1) and (3) are taken care of.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> use VSCode as convenient Markdown editor and enable TeX math via extension Markdown+Math. Html export is possible.</comment>


WikiLeaks, a Post Postscript (Fake?) - <AUTHOR> http://www.opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/keller-a-post-postscript.html

<comment><AUTHOR> But it this really nytimes? It claims the article is on page A21, but it is not there.

<comment><AUTHOR> And along with it is an apparently fake paypal blog: [http://www.thepaypalblog.co/2012/07/statement-on- nytimes.htm...](http://www.thepaypalblog.co/2012/07/statement-on- nytimes.html). Via @csoghoian.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where can I call out for maintainers? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> for OSS or commercial? paid or unpaid? what tech stack?</comment>


100 million+ page views per day, 950TB streaming video - just 1 adult website - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123929-just-how-big-are-porn-sites/2 Wow. I obviously knew adult websites were pretty big, but the stats are pretty astounding. The number 1 site is 3x CNN or ESPN.... <comment><USER2> "but even then YouPorn is something like six times larger than Hulu."

Whoa.</comment>


Ask HN: How can I view older 'Ask HN' questions? - <AUTHOR> As in, ones from more than a day or so ago?
Because part of me wants to read some of the older questions here, but the Ask HN list only goes back to a day or so ago, and I'd like a bit more structure than 'search Ask HN in the search engine and see what randomly comes up'.
Is there an older archive for these things anywhere online? <comment><USER2> This should be useful - [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ask%20hn&sort=byPopularity&pre...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ask%20hn&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Just wanted to see Ask HN questions from more than a day ago, and this seems to do just that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/ask](https://news.ycombinator.com/ask)

Some relevant shortcuts for filtering contents in Hackernews[1]:

Top links: [https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best)

Newest links: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newest](https://news.ycombinator.com/newest)

New comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments](https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments)

SHOW HN posts: [https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show)

Noob Stories: [https://news.ycombinator.com/noobstories](https://news.ycombinator.com/noobstories)

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<comment><USER4> Classic filtering: [https://news.ycombinator.com/classic](https://news.ycombinator.com/classic)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish HN offered a search function, but they don't. Fortunately, the folks at Algolia offer a search tool for HN here: [https://hn.algolia.com](https://hn.algolia.com)

<comment><USER6> HN does provide a search option, powered by Algolia. It's at the bottom of the page.

Algolia is one of YC's investments, Algolia provides your site with search like Disqus provides comments.

<comment><USER5> Oh wow, thank you for pointing that out! I've completely missed that for years. Do you know when they added it?

<comment><USER6> They did a blog post about it:

[https://blog.algolia.com/hacker-news-search- algolia/](https://blog.algolia.com/hacker-news-search-algolia/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> @siddhant's recommendation to use the algolia search is probably the best way for simple searching of what you want. You could also always use the API and build a UI that better suits your needs, should existing ones not suffice.

[https://github.com/HackerNews/API](https://github.com/HackerNews/API)

</comment><comment><USER8> Related question, Is there a way to "download"(for machine learning purposes) all posts on HN?</comment>


Frugal is cool in cash-strapped US - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/04/us-economy-thrift-barack-obama <comment><USER2> "The scale of the disaster is so large that Obama being America's first black president will almost be a historical footnote."

Nope. Economic downturns will come and go. If this downturn tends back toward a bull market during Obama's term(s) in office, Obama will look like a genius. Anyway, there can only be one first black president, but there can be lots of presidents who enter office during an economic downturn. I'm not so sure that the American cultural shift is as profound as the article says, either. My family didn't buy a house (after returning to the United States from a stay in Taiwan) during the last several years precisely because we could easily see our local housing market was in a bubble. Plenty of Americans never used their houses as piggy banks or lived on credit cards, and plenty never will. There is cultural change at the margin, but there will always be debtors, always be speculators, and always be people who spend money conspicuously.</comment>


Trump's DOJ tries to rebrand weakened encryption as "responsible encryption" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/trumps-doj-tries-to-rebrand-weakened-encryption-as-responsible-encryption/ <comment><USER2> "We know from experience that the largest companies have the resources to do what is necessary to promote cybersecurity while protecting public safety. A major hardware provider, for example, reportedly maintains private keys that it can use to sign software updates for each of its devices. That would present a huge potential security problem, if those keys were to leak. But they do not leak, because the company knows how to protect what is important." (Quote from Rod Rosenstein in the article).

This kind of says it all, doesn't it? It's not a matter of if the keys from these large companies are exposed, just a matter of when, similar to what happened to Piriform earlier this year. If all such companies are to keep master keys which can decrypt communication going through their software they are likely to be an even bigger target.

According to Amnesty 119 out of 160 governments had restrictions on freedom of expression in 2014. I can think of several that are likely to be interested in being able to read whatever messages are being sent in order to target dissidents. Journalists are in many cases depending on privacy and security to be able to do their job. At the moment the US is ranked at 43 out of 180 for freedom of the press by Reporters without Borders; if Rosenstein gets his wish, what is the likelyhood that journalists will be among the first to be targeted?

There can be no middle road or "responsible encryption" as they describe it. The data is either encrypted with the recipient being the only one with the means to decrypt it, or it's not encrypted at all.

</comment><comment> tony-allan What is the DOJ going to say when China, Russia, and every other country wants access to phones or is their position that its ok for the USA but not ok for everyone else?

Apple will have to agree or withdraw from those countries or break faith with users. What do Apple shareholders think about that?

<comment><USER3> > What is the DOJ going to say when China, Russia, and every other country > wants access to phones

I suspect that the people that are in support of this are perfectly fine with every government being authoritarian and surveilling everything within its own borders. (Of course, they want their own covert operations to be immune to that, but they aren't concerned with following local law, anyway, so that's not an issue.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's a nice move, copying a play from the infosec industry and calling this "responsible encryption", implying that any/the other way is anything _but_ responsible (just like companies do with "responsible disclosure").

"If these tech companies were 'responsible', they would help us -- your friendly, caring government who knows better than anyone (including yourself) what's best for you -- spy on everyone and everything because otherwise, you know, terrorists will kill you and paedophiles will rape your children."

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure the responsible, patriotic thing to do now is encrypt the shit out of everything. Right? Do I have that right?

</comment><comment><USER6> What can possibly go wrong

<comment><USER7> Depends on your IQ level. /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It sounds like what they want is the opposite of responsible.</comment>


YouTubeSkip - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtubeskip.com/ Saw this on Quora and thought it's worth sharing. <comment><USER2> Doesn't AdBlock already handle YouTube? I haven't seen an ad before video in quite a while.

<comment><USER3> I haven't either and was wondering if it was that or Glimmerblocker. If I did see video ads, I'd rather just close the tab than suffer through them.

That is by the way in everyone's best interest, especially the advertisers. Making me watch some ad will only make me dislike your brand.

<comment><USER4> Well, as you apparently continue to use Youtube, it's not in their best interest.

<comment><USER3> That's a problem they will need to solve, not I. My problem (ads) is solved by blocking them. I know for a fact that there are ways to monetize content that do work on me, advertising is just not one of them.

To name just one example, Google certainly has the means to implement a micro- payment system where each click on the thumbs up/like button deducts a small amount of money, assigns it to the uploader's account and keeps a percentage of that for their own hosting expenses. Let's call it Google Flattr.

Perhaps more people using ad-blockers would encourage such (in my opinion) positive developments. Until then, I'll enjoy my content without advertisements while you pay for it by getting your time wasted with ads and your brain crammed full of desires to buy shit you don't need.

<comment><USER5> > That's a problem they will need to solve, not I. My problem (ads) is solved > by blocking them.

"People being easy to mug is a problem they will need to solve, not I. My problem (getting money) is solved by mugging them."

If everyone is looking out for their best interest without thinking about the community in general, things won't function very well overall. If everyone has the same opinion as you and blocks all YouTube ads, it might lead to a future where we have no YouTube. Just sayin'.

<comment><USER3> Not at all the same as mugging people. Better comparison: Free candy.

YouTube is a bowl of free candy sitting in a public place with a big "free candy" sign posted next to it. Each candy has a flyer for some product attached to it. You take the flyer and the candy. You might throw it away later, or not even read it, but you take it. I just pry off the candy and leave the flyer there.

If enough people do that, perhaps we will have a future where there is no free candy. Or no flyers. Or really strong glue so you can't pry them off. Or the stuff on the flyer gets printed in tiny letters on the candy itself.

We will however not end up with a future where there is no candy, because people still want candy, even if it's not free. Just perhaps not as much.

<comment><USER5> The mugging example was more to illustrate how you need to optimize for society, rather than yourself, in order to keep things working harmoniously.

When it comes to YouTube videos specifically, your analogy is fair, I agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you cannot let the ads run you shouldn't watch the video.

I understand that people hate ads, and that having a method to pay for content would be better than ads, but we don't have that micropayment yet, so we're stuck with ads at the moment.

If you hate ads you should refuse to use any site that displays ads, rather than use the site but block the ads.

If any YouTubers are reading: It'd be great if there was someway to provide feedback on ads. Yes, I realise this would be hell for anyone reading the feedback. But when I go to watch a ten minute video and there's a 4 minute ad, or there's an unskippable 30 second ad that has no interest for me, or there's no way to opt out of future ads from a company that has no interest to me ("Please stop showing me ads from Jakamo").

<comment><USER7> If we all refused to watch ads, they'd have to find alternative solutions; we might already have micropayments by now if it weren't for the people who watch ads.

<comment><USER6> You might have a point if you'd said you refused to watch the content and told them it was because of ads.

<comment><USER7> How so? You think Google isn't measuring how many people block ads?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems like this kind of scenario is inevitable. There are also browser extensions for skipping, like Magic Actions for YouTube.

Advertising values are constantly being devalued. It would be nice if there was a way to move beyond advertising on the web as the primary business model. Wikipedia is the only top 10 site on the net that does not rely on advertising.

</comment><comment><USER9> So we're supposed to use this site to skip YouTube ads, and in exchange we're presented with the website's ads. Right.

<comment><USER10> Least you get your video faster, YouTubes advertising is much more invasive and irritating

<comment><USER11> In how many other places can you pick and choose the terms of your agreement like we constantly do with online services? It's not really up to us to say, "well your ads are annoying! I still need your service though."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> See, my first thought on seeing this URL was that it'd be a site that skipped to the most interesting part of a video first. So many videos on YouTube have comments like "to get to the good part/skip the waffling, go to 00:47" or whatever ;-)

<comment><USER13> It's known as the Wadsworth Constant. Based on some dude named Wadsworth on reddit[0].

Apparently pressing 3 with the youtube player selected will jump to 30%.

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/yxfpC.png](http://i.imgur.com/yxfpC.png)

<comment><USER11> Better yet, add &wadsworth=1 to the query string of any youtube URL :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Kind of surprised there wasn't a bookmarklet. Here you go:

        javascript:if(/youtube\.com\/watch\?v=([^&]+)/.test(location)){location='http://www.youtubeskip.com/watch?v='+RegExp.$1;}

<comment><USER15> I didn't realize you could use RegExp.$1 ( .. $n) until just now. Thanks!

<comment><USER16> You _can_ , but it's highly suggested you don't. First off, it's a deprecated property. Second, RegExp.$1 is the 1st match of the last RegExp ran. No matter where in your page it was ran. Extensions, events, functions, wherever. In this case, it _should_ be safe, but don't ever actually use it on your page.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Deprecated_and_obsolete_features)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not against ads in a general way, but forcing me to see an advertisement before letting me access the content, oh that pisses me off.

Looks like a great service, easier to remember and apply it (just typing 'skip' on the url, awesome).

I used to use the URL [http://youtube.com/v/[video](http://youtube.com/v/\[video) id]. Dunno if still works, but it didn't displayed those 5 second ads plus would still play a video that requires login even if you are not.

</comment><comment><USER18> I see people are asking why build a website. Maybe they want to build a userbase and expand to other skips too(such as hulu skip).

</comment><comment><USER19> Isn't it against the TOS of youtube ?

<comment><USER20> Isn't what google does against human rights?

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Huma...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Article_12)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> YouTube has ads? I use AdBlock (not AdBlock plus) and I don't see ads before YouTube videos.

Also, when I have seen ads, they are like 15 seconds long, or if they are longer, you're given a "skip" button. Are you _seriously_ that impatient that you can't wait 10 seconds?

</comment><comment><USER21> ViewTube[1] is a greasemonkey script which allows you to play the HTML5 versions of youtube videos. So this lets you skip ads too

[1] [http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87011](http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87011)

</comment><comment><USER22> Aside from the argument of whether or not to block ads, there are extensions to that, why build a website?

Can this website take a load as big as Youtube's ? I doubt so.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Saw this on Quora and thought it's worth sharing. I've no idea who's behind it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Surely YouTube's lawyer-sense must be tingling.</comment>


Should I stay out of team slide? - <AUTHOR> I got top results in school and uni but in english literature and archaeology in a good university in Ireland. We don't really have Ivy League Unis there anyway. I taught myself to program, competed in and won prizes in many hackathons, worked as a business analyst and now am in a startup where I am co-founder. I did some of the programming at the beginning but I'm now doing most of the research, connecting with accelerators and VCs, angel investors, etc. some of the technical, while the main founder is doing most of the technical work. I don't quite know to capture myself in the best way possible for the purposes of the team slide of the slide deck and I know this is critical. Can anyone advise if I am even best to stay off the pitch deck given my lack of credentials (no former big company, no ivy league uni, etc.) in case I put some investor off and just work in the background and let the lead founder who is more technically able and accomplished than me, and our business side team member pitch instead? <comment><USER2> Get some confidence. It's your damn company.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok, thank you both, but what title do I put down there? Grafter, trooper? Self-taught programmer, co-founder? I've just read heaps of stuff that says at the very early stage where we are at now, the team is the first thing potential investors look at.

</comment><comment><USER3> You're the co-founder. Unless you'd genuinely prefer to stay quiet about that, put yourself in there. (If some investor gets put off, chances are he wouldn't have been the best to work with anyway.) Armchair advice, though.

</comment><comment><USER4> Let me do it!

I have great experience in public speaking. A portfolio of products and Saas Products. And I am:

1\. White.

2\. Tall.

3\. Confident

<STOP>

If you ever considered it. think:

1\. Why you did consider it for a stranger and not for you?

2\. Why you are more critical with you than a stranger?

3\. Can you be nicer to you?

4\. Really can you hug yourself?

Be bold</comment>


"For the past two months, I've been living in the world of keystroke tax." - <AUTHOR> http://thetypist.com/405/make-count/

<comment><USER2> "Pain reminds you that your body is an entity of its own, that your body isn't you. Rather, it's the machine that the mind utilizes to bring your thoughts and desires into manifestation."

I'd encourage people to avoid thinking about things this way. It matches subjective experience quite well, but it encourages you to think of psychological problems/pains as part of "you" and therefore unchangeable. Internalize this mind/body duality too much and if you encounter a psychological problem in your life you will have a very hard time dealing with it.

It also encourages you to ignore the very real impact your body's state has on your thoughts, feelings and mental abilities (see: all those really interesting studies around "embodied cognition").

It's also provably false but I leave that for the second point because basically any day to day metaphor you use to think about these kinds of things will be similarly "off". Learning the facts and then picking the metaphors and level of abstraction used to think about these subjects that are most helpful has been very useful in my experience.

"[Would I] be less forgiving with my mind and more with my body? ... Why not live like that anyway?"

Even better in my experience to take it even further. See that the distinction isn't particularly valid and be more or less forgiving of the whole.

aside: Looks like I entered dangerous territory voting-wise by wanting to talk about the main point of this post rather than alternative typing solutions. Fuck that, because this subject is _way_ more interesting.

<comment><USER3> No one is saying that psychological problems are unchangeable. But it is a useful abstraction to separate mind and body. This will become more relevant in the future when get mind uploading. But even in the present it's a useful concept. You can get a serious crippling disability and still be alive with only limited ability to interact with the world. You can get your body almost completely destroyed and it will still be the same you. This is the point the author was getting at (though to a lesser degree.)

<comment><USER2> "You can get your body almost completely destroyed and it will still be the same you"

Actually, it won't be the same "you". Your feelings and likely actions can provably be affected by whether you are standing or sitting, or holding a pencil in your teeth or balancing it on your upper lip.

Obviously your self is more sensitive to brain changes (at least in some parts of your brain) than body changes, but that's just a matter of degree rather than some kind of imaginary hard line between mind and body or between "me" and "my meat suit".

Looking at it a different way I'm saying that there are more useful concepts than this distinction, that lead to more successful outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article seems to suggest that we should spend our time better. Yet, all the comments here are about tech workarounds/alternatives to typing.

Yes, I know this is HN, but I find it kinda funny anyway. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> The article doesn't mention voice-recognition software. I wonder if the author has tried using it.

<comment><USER6> Even the best voice recognition software is really really bad.

<comment><USER7> I have a friend who had extremely bad CTS and used Dragon Dictate extensively both for programming, and for dictating English text. She said that after a surprisingly short period of training and acclimatization it achieved extremely high input rates, comparable to her touch typing.

I'd be interested to hear what experience do you have to balance that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Having suffered with RSI for quite a few years, I've found that the best preventative+restorative tool is a wrist-brace. The moment I feel any pain, on it goes - whether I'm going to type more or not, the brace is necessary to take the strain off and allow the wrist to recuperate.

I really regret not discovering that a few months sooner, because I may have done some permanent damage. The problem is that (counterintuitively) just taking a break from typing and resting the hands doesn't take the stress off - the neutral position/state of the hands keeps a great deal of stress on the wrist. I can infer this because the pain continues when I take a break, but goes away the moment I put a brace on. Only when I put a brace on, did my wrist get a chance to "heal" \- simply taking a break didn't help.

YMMV, but -man- I hope this advice happens to help someone - it took a long time for me to figure this out. I only figured it out because a physical therapist friend of mine told me it sounded a lot like certain kinds of tendonitis she'd run into with athletes, and suggested the brace.

<comment><USER9> Dr. Pascarelli recommends against the use of wrist rests while typing:

"The use of wrist rests is controversial. I prefer to call them wrist guides and ask my patients to use them only as guides, because resting the forearms on a wrist support while keying can be harmful for several reasons. First, they take the upper arms out of the process of keying, so you are overloading the forearm and hand muscles and increasing your chances of injury.

Moreover, the wrist support tends to encourage potentially harmful positioning, particularly wrist extension (bending your wrist up, as in pushing a door open). With the wrist fixed on the wrist rest, there is a tendency to use a windshield-wiperlike wrist motion, which is extra work and harmful. Finally, the wrist rest places pressure over the carpal tunnel area, which is not a good idea."

Using them while you're sleeping or resting is OK, but using them while you're typing is not a good idea.

I had wrist troubles a few years back. The only thing that helped was using a vertical keyboard: [http://safetype.com/](http://safetype.com/) No wrist motion, no more problems.

<comment><USER10> I'm under the impression that this doctor's argument is against wrist rests, as in the padded thing you put in front of the keyboard to rest your wrists on. Instead, the comment you are replying to speaks about a wrist brace, as in a bracelet that restricts certain wrist movements and redistributes wrist stress to a larger area in your arm.

Some of the caveats may apply, but I would say that the bulk of your comment does not...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had CTS surgery on my left hand back in 1998. Pretty ok since but the thing that killed me to start with was a big old mechanical IBM Model M and Windows Alt-Tab. The only keyboards I've used since are Cherry value line, IBM ThinkPad and MacBook Pro. No problems so far. I've also gone uber-careful on posture and working environment. I still have problems holding smart phones and touch devices.

CTS surgery recovery is horrid though. You can't hold anything for a few days. Forget work for a month at least and this wasn't even my dominant hand. The most annoying thing is that it really takes 6 months to heal properly and occasionally your hand just stops working. Didn't hurt a bit though after surgery.

Agree with the author - make every keystroke count.

</comment><comment><USER12> Every time I see photos of a startup or workplace where everyone is issued a laptop with horrible ergonomics, I think two things: 1) boy it sure was fun to be in my twenties, and 2) you're going to regret everything fifteen years from now.

</comment><comment><USER13> > Pain reminds you that your body is an entity of its own, that your body > isn't you. Rather, it's the machine that the mind utilizes to bring your > thoughts and desires into manifestation. And just like every other machine, > sometimes things go wrong. The problem here is you can't just call Toyota or > go to Apple and get a new one.

Bit off-topic, but I would disagree with this "proof" of mind/body dualism. If anything it shows the opposite: your body and mind are the same by virtue of your mind experiencing pain due to physical shortcomings of the body.

</comment><comment><USER14> Get one of these for programming: [http://specialneedscomputers.ca/index.php?l=product_detail&p...](http://specialneedscomputers.ca/index.php?l=product_detail&p=127)

And for writing English text, try Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

</comment><comment><USER15> (Almost) Obligatory comment:

If you work involves prolonged typing. then 1) Do not use laptop keyboards. 2) Look at ergonomic keyboards if your work involves typing all day. 3) Consider alternate keyboard layouts (Dvoark,Colemak)

</comment><comment><USER16> I had RSI even after 2-3 months of quitting full-time work, plus I would wake up with CTS, but eventually it has gone away but after spending significant amounts of time away from typing heavy work.</comment>


When ISPs hijack your rights to NXDOMAIN - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/17/dzuiba_virgin_media_opendns/ <comment><USER2> I see this with SuddenLink as well, and it's very aggravating just for usability reasons, much less the fact that they don't deserve the ad revenue.

Usually I'm one character off the URL I meant to type, and all I want to do is go to my location bar and fix it. But instead, I'm redirected to $NEW_URL, which requires me to completely retype the desired URL. And since I'm then angry because of the stupid ad page, I sometimes mistype it again. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> The solution to this is

      # apt-get install dnscache-run

, with the fringe benefit of not having to worry about whether your ISP has remembered to patch the BIND vulnerability de jour.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is this:

"In fact that Thomas Jefferson was a touch pissed when he penned the Declaration of Independence because the Royal Mail printed advertisements on the letters that were returned to him undeliverable, and he thought that was a little shystery."

true?

</comment><comment><USER5> China Telecom and CNC do this as well, but funny when you mis-typed domain like google.com] then it hijack to a ASP.NET SQL error page. I guess someone can even SQL inject their database if you manipulate the HOST header manually.

Anyway I have my private DNS server, blacklisted ISP's IP's and tunnel DNS queries through IPv6 to avoid GFW's DNS spoofing.

</comment><comment><USER6> Dziuba is my favorite. I wish uncov were back up.

Still, it seems like a simple case of electronic fraud, if they're rewriting packets. If they're only doing this for customers querying their own DNS servers, let users vote with their wallets, I say.

</comment><comment><USER7> Comcast started doing this (they call it "Domain Helper"). It looks they've at least made some effort to make it less evil than, say, Verisign's "Site Finder" from a few years back. It seems to only intercept NXDOMAIN where the hostname is www.*, and they offer a way to opt out at <https://dns-opt- out.comcast.net/> .

<comment><USER8> I never noticed this as we don't use Comcast's DNS, but I just opted out to express my disapproval.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those using Optimum Online, you can opt out of their "DNS Assistance Service" by going here: <http://www.optimum.net/dnsassist/optout></comment>


For the first time, N Korea openly threatens to use EMP, which changes the game - <AUTHOR> http://m.torontosun.com/2017/09/03/north-korea-openly-threatens-emp-attack-for-the-first-time-changing-the-game <comment><USER2> This article appears to be an opinion piece, containing links back to the author's book on Amazon. Not much to see here.

Similar discussion on this topic from yesterday, though not really any more insightful:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15159919](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15159919)

</comment><comment><USER3> Article is nonsense a high altitude detonation would in no way prevent retaliation. After reading this i stopped wasting my time.

</comment><comment><USER4> The article summarized: "NK has EMP!!!1 Buy my book!"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> also remember, the US can not shoot down ICBMs.

what i fear most is that US initiates an attack on N korea and then when things look bleak, the north retaliates with an icbm as the last resort.

i dont think we should corner them.

the powers at play seem tremendously dangerous, theres china, russia, iran.

<comment><USER5> Valid points, assuming NK has ICBMs. Being able to theoretically hit Japan is one thing; being able to target SF, NYC, or DC is quite another.</comment></comment>


Samsung Galaxy S3 Vulnerable to Remote Factory Reset - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/samsung-galaxy-s3-vulnerable-to-remote-malicious-reset-7000004771/

<comment><USER2> This isn't limited to the Galaxy S3 or even to Samsung phones.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4569686>

Here is an application to block the attack.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4573357></comment>