Ethnic violence in Ethiopia has been supercharged by hate speech on Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-facebook-is-pushing-ethiopia-dangerously-close-to-a-genocide <comment><USER2> A big problem with freeing up communications from everybody is how toxic some people and groups will be to others. Facebook is just a mirror, a fun-house mirror that magnifies some things and minimizes others, but it's not adding the content. Some "information" is best kept under wraps.

<comment><USER3> I think one of the reasons why folks are mad at Facebook is it uncovered the uncomfortable truth that freedom of speech is not a first-order good. I used to be a free speech maximalist, but it is clear that lack of education and aggressive state-actor PsyOps is simply too high a hurdle to overcome.

I wouldn't be surprised if when historians look back in 50 years, that they determine that the Pandora's box of free information interchange from the Internet hastened the end of free society.

<comment><USER4> I remain a free speech maximalist.

Bad ideas and aggressive state actors (doing "PsyOps" or otherwise) were the norm before social media. I see no hard evidence that social media has made any of these problems much worse, other than making people much more paranoid about state actors and the uneducated. (In reality, the traditional press has seeded much of this paranoia. Traditional press feels threatened by social media competition, and so has spent over a decade now raising the hue and cry about social media's "dangers"; they apparently wish to retain their monopoly on fear- and rage-inducing mind viruses only for themselves.)

Furthermore, I see no evidence that in the absence of free speech, state actors will be less aggressive or people will be more educated. I see plenty of evidence that both would get worse in a regime of restricted speech.

<comment><USER5> >I remain a free speech maximalist.

What does this mean? Do you oppose laws against defamation, child pornography, fraud, violent threats, etc? No developed nation has truly free speech. The debate is where the line is drawn. Pretending it is a binary choice just ends up hiding all the smaller choices that we could make that could actually lead to a better society.

EDIT: There is irony in "free speech maximalists" downvoting questions like this rather than trying to answer them.

<comment><USER6> Do we really have to go to asinine level of detail given that freedom of speech has been a constitutionally protected right for over 230 years? We have plenty of legal precedent for what should be protected. There's no reason to move those markers. Ethiopia has many problems and Facebook is but one.

I think social media is toxic, but not because it allows freedom of speech. Social media rewards virality and outrage is inherently and unfortunately one of the most viral things you can put out on social media. The problem is the platform, not the speech.

<comment><USER5> I would argue the fact that the rules were first created 230+ years ago is an argument in favor of reevaluating them not an argument in favor of them being infallible. The laws were written before social media, the internet, and the foundations go back to before any real form of mass media. What is the harm in questioning if our laws are setup in the best possible way?

<comment><USER6> I would argue that the founders were students of Greek and Roman history which preceded them by almost 2000 years. The lessons encoded in the bill of rights were in fact, timeless and speak to the innate nature of human beings. As a species we haven't evolved much in 200K years. Freedom of speech is an important check against a monopoly on ideas. Propaganda is one of the most powerful and dangerous forces and the only way to fight it is with opposing propaganda or debate. Freedom of speech guarantees the right to have that debate. The printing press was a form of mass media. The problem is not the speech on social media. The problem is the platform. Who knows if social media will even be a thing in 10 years? It could just be a temporary fad in history, like disco, that just fades away. It already is starting to wane. More people are tuning out and gen Z is just not as into Facebook or Twitter as my gen was. The need to protect speech and debate will always be essential, however.

<comment><USER5> >I would argue that the founders were students of Greek and Roman history which preceded them by almost 2000 years. The lessons encoded in the bill of rights were in fact, timeless and speak to the innate nature of human beings. As a species we haven't evolved much in 200K years.

Which is why it took until just within the last century to guarantee voting rights to people besides white men? It is bizarre how we want to pretend that those who came before us had some magical foresight to setup rules to govern a world they could never imagine while we ignore so many clear mistakes they made such as calling rights inalienable while simultaneously disenfranchising a majority of the population.

<comment><USER6> Voting rights as a whole are about 2 centuries old. The United States, as young as it is, is the oldest continuous democracy in existence. The United States came out of a world of empires and war and conquering, which is how the world was for almost all of human history. Not a square mile of it hasn't had blood spilt over it several times over. At any rate, it was Thomas Jefferson who encoded the bold words "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." in our founding documents. That the world wasn't ready for its eventual conclusion didn't matter. A seed was sown. And that same language was used by MLK (himself taking full advantage of the first amendment to effect change). Lot of powerful and timeless ideas there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This happened after the invention of the printing press as well. Pamphlets and broadsides recounting (often fictitious) atrocities committed by protestant against catholic and catholic against protestant were circulated widely before and during the 30 years war. We figured out how to prevent that from happening again with print media. We don't have to start from scratch with digital media, but it sure feels like no one is paying attention to what happened last time.

<comment><USER8> There is a counteracting technology known as borders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does Facebook cause this or does it simply fuel the fire that was already raging? I think you could argue either one.

<comment><USER10> The correct way to reason about this is stochastically. Facebook/unchecked mass communication increases the rate and chance that resentment turns into a mob or violent action. It's rather meaningless to debate the causality of individual cases, but more important to look at the effect in a broad sense.

Also the question to your answer is likely both, as in there's a feedback loop between real world violence, causing more conflict on social media, fuelling yet more violence.

<comment><USER11> > Facebook/unchecked mass communication increases the rate and chance that > resentment turns into a mob or violent action.

Is there any evidence of this? Do you have any research showing the correlation of the rise in Facebook to increased mob violence in the world. The world has actually enjoyed a few decades of low violence compared to the historic mean.

<comment><USER10> The genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar is probable the clearest example, which Facebook has even acknowledged itself[1], after a UN fact-finding mission investigated the relationship between social media and the racist sentiment in the country[2]

 _" The Mission has examined documents, publications, statements, Facebook posts and audio-visual materials that have contributed to shaping public opinion on the Rohingya and Muslims more generally. The analysis demonstrates that a carefully crafted hate campaign has developed a negative perception of Muslims among the broad population in Myanmar. This campaign has been the work of a few key players: nationalistic political parties and politicians, leading monks, academics, prominent individuals and members of the Government. This hate campaign, which continues to the present day, portrays the Rohingya and other Muslims as an existential threat to Myanmar and to Buddhism_"

I'm not even sure I can take the second point in good faith. Violence having decreased compared to historical high points has literally nothing to say on whether social media itself causes violence. Other factors can easily explain an overall decline, which obviously is not uniform. If you live in one of the countries in which social media is used as a means to instigate genocides, I can tell you that more safety in a US city will matter very little to you.

[1][https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar- facebo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar- facebook.html)

[2][https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/FFM- Myanm...](https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/FFM- Myanmar/A_HRC_39_CRP.2.pdf)

<comment><USER11> You have basically responded with an ancidote. Nearly all forms of media can and have contributed to violence. What evidence is there that Facebook is especially noxious? Facebook isn't especially old, I remember a world pre- Facebook book and we still had things hate and violence in roughly the same proportion.

Furthermore did the lack of Facebook produce better outcomes for Muslims in China? The world is complicated place, the answer probably isn't as simple as "Facebook is bad".

<comment><USER10> A case study of a nation-wide butchering of more than 24000 people is not an anecdote. If that's not enough then I'm not sure what sort of evidence it is you're looking for.

And again, the issue is not the state of violence in the world or just Facebook, which is why I used 'social media' more generally at the end of my last post, it's the ways in which those companies uniquely contribute to violence.

You don't need to be responsible for all violence in the world to be held accountable for the violence you cause. The fact that the world is complicated and violent doesn't absolve actors from their responsibility. Social media is quite unique in many ways. From mass bot-networks to influence campaigns that disguise themselves as bottom-up, to speed and virality that no other medium has, to lack of accountability and the ease at which information moves cross borders and enables nefarious states to conduct sabotage.

And China is not a good example either. It's probably the prime example of a country that has used digital technologies, including social media, to build a dystopian surveillance network, including on Uyghurs, that could not otherwise function.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think the ancient wisdom apples here:

        Don't shoot the Messenger!

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but shooting the UX designer seems apropos...

Facebook design specifically impairs reasonable discourse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Facebook being used to inflame ethnic hatred in poor countries was big news several years ago in Myanmar. Via [https://www.lawfareblog.com/facebooks-role- genocide-myanmar-...](https://www.lawfareblog.com/facebooks-role-genocide- myanmar-new-reporting-complicates-narrative)

 _Alongside this developing body of evidence and consensus about the crimes that have been committed in Myanmar, debate has raged over Facebook's role in these events. In recent months, Facebook has taken steps to accept its role and responsibility. In a surprising concession before the Senate intelligence committee in September 2018, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg even accepted that Facebook may have a legal obligation to take down accounts that incentivize violence in countries like Myanmar. Sandberg called the situation "devastating" and acknowledged that the company needed to do more, but highlighted that Facebook had put increased resources behind being able to review content in Burmese._

Note that Facebook was aware the problem of being unable to review content in Burmese several years ago. The new Vice article points out that the same pattern is repeating itself in other parts of the world, and Facebook can't even handle the basics of translating its own community guidelines.

How hard can that be for a company with Facebook's resources?

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm a bit confused. The government shut down the internet for 2 weeks and it sounds like the violence ramped up at that point. The volunteer facebook moderators couldn't access it due to the shutdown. Were the violent attackers able to access facebook?

</comment><comment><USER16> Didn't realize machetes were such a prevalent thing to contend with over there. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJq_Wqw0a0o&lc=UgxRTCqLVWkWD...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJq_Wqw0a0o&lc=UgxRTCqLVWkWDWppCX14AaABAg)

<comment><USER17> Are there any groups fighting for knife control? Seems like a machete ban may be sensible

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> 1st amendment advocates are soon going to be put in the same position as 2nd amendment advocates to retain any semblance of freedom.

Speech doesn't kill people. People kill people.

Blaming this on Facebook instead of the people swinging the machetes is not going to solve the problem.

<comment><USER19> Do you think the second amendment should provide for an individual right to own nuclear arms?

<comment><USER20> Do you think the first amendment should provide for an individual to use a 10,000db loudhailer?

<comment><USER21> Pretty sure 10,000db is "destroy the observable universe" power levels so.....somehow worse than nukes?

That's a 10^1000 multiplier. It doesn't even matter what unit you use really...

<comment><USER20> Fair enough - so let's us a multiplier that makes the loudhailer equivalent to a 100 megaton nuke :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> there are just way too many people on a warming earth. This is going to get ugly real fast, real soon.

</comment><comment><USER23> > Hate Speech on Facebook

I despise the way Vice has to make such an important topic "Woke"

They are using dead Ethiopia's in a genocide for their own agenda. Could they not turn it off and be centrist for such an important topic.

I was interested how Rwanda was referred to, specifically cockroaches and radio at the time.

Some people did refer to it as hate speech - 1996 - [https://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/publications/rwand...](https://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/publications/rwanda- broadcasting-genocide.pdf)

Hate media was also popular when referring to the incident.

</comment><comment><USER24> I see that, unlike the US, Ethiopia has yet to learn how to draw strength from their diversity. A lesson the Balkans likewise failed to learn before their run in with ethnic cleansing and, later, splitting into separate countries.

<comment><USER25> I'm not sure whether that was sarcasm, but the US isn't doing great at drawing strength from diversity either at the moment. (It may still be doing better than Ethiopia, but the US is not a shining example of how to do it, at least right now.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> You don't need to go all the way to Ethiopia to see the harm. Hate speech on Facebook and Twitter is pushing United States dangerously close to civil war, too. People have literally died in this country because of social media radicalization. Perhaps amplifying the fringes wasn't such a swell idea after all.

<comment><USER4> Which people have died because of social media radicalization?

<comment><USER27> Most recently ones shot by 17 y.o. militia kid

<comment><USER4> You mean the 17 y.o. kid chased by an angry mob? The one who shot three people attacking him?[1] Your comment is ambiguous as to whom you are referring, but based on the evidence, I don't think the 17 y.o. kid was the radicalized one. I've also seen no evidence that any of the people involved are/were particularly active on social media (although the one who lived allegedly told his friend he wishes he emptied his entire gun into the 17 y.o.).[2] I also haven't seen any evidence that the 17 y.o. was in a militia (he apparently worked as a life guard), but maybe there is some.

This sort of proves my point, though: social media has "radicalized" people into believing claims that lack a factual basis and serve a particular narrative. But this is mostly perpetrated by members of the traditional press, not ordinary social media users. If anything, social media has only radicalized people by privileging members of the traditional press at the expense of the random people, no matter how crazy they are.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ro8hkfBDVw&bpctr=1600132912](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ro8hkfBDVw&bpctr=1600132912)

[2] [https://mobile.twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1299086141329563...](https://mobile.twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1299086141329563648/photo/1)

<comment><USER28> Why was he there with a gun and why was the gun loaded with lethal rounds?

<comment><USER26> Because there was a _riot_ there and he was protecting property and giving medical help (including to the rioters). Much of Kenosha is burned to the ground.

<comment><USER28> Aren't the police there for protecting property?

It seems to me that carrying a rifle with the intent to apply medical assistance is a military occupation, not a civilian one.

<comment><USER4> It turns out the kid himself has some thoughts on this.[1] (I'm linking to Noir's summary not because I agree with him on gun rights or whatever else, but just because he has a concise and factual argument, using the kid's own words from before the fact to cast light on intent and his state of mind, as well as the chaotic events later where he was being chased by a mob and shot at.) I think the boy made a very unfortunate decision to go out there, but the actions of the mob are self-evident justification for why he was carrying a weapon. If he wasn't, he likely would be dead or severely injured today.

He pretty clearly extinguishes a dumpster fire that several rioters were pushing toward a set of gas pumps. This enraged the mob, leading them to chase him and even start shooting at or around him. He only fired when he was cornered (whether surrounded by the mob or even literally on his back on the ground), and only at those who were actually attacking him.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSU9ZvnudFE&t=307s&bpctr=160...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSU9ZvnudFE&t=307s&bpctr=1600143898)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


High Performance Images, Preview Edition - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/s/sy646i0zei3qfln/akamai-oreilly-high-performance-images-e-book.pdf?dl=0 <comment><USER2> Took forever to load.

Is this another example of a "free" Oreilly book for one of those products that everybody wants to believe in but always fails (ex. Neo4J?)

So far as I can tell, CDNs are a scam. If you use http/2 and serve everything off one IP, you get fast loading consistently. Every DNS lookup you add to a website is just another chance for the web browser to go out to lunch for 30 seconds.</comment>


Southwest Airlines Considers A220 as 737 Max Replacement - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/southwest-airlines-looking-beyond-boeing-180900944.html <comment><USER2> Looks like clickbait to me. Original title: "Is Southwest Airlines Looking Beyond the Boeing 737 MAX?" Two paragraphs in: "However, Southwest's flirtation with the Airbus A220 -- or any other model for that matter -- is probably not very serious."

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope it happens.

I rode in an Embraer E175 and was impressed at the comfort compared to a 737 even though it is a smaller plane. It literally was like Buck Rodger's spacecraft in comparison.

The A220 is a similar class of plane but even more technologically advanced. If Southwest doesn't pick it up, JetBlue will, and will put them out of business.

<comment><USER3> The comfort and amenities have little to do with the base aircraft selection; it has to do with how the carrier chooses to outfit them, how old the fleet is, and how well-maintained the planes are both long-term and between flights. One of the reasons Southwest's flights are so cheap is because they remove all the legroom, all the amenities, shrink the restrooms, etc. No matter what they order, you're still going to be packed like a sardine into a dirty, no-frills environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not true.

Go to the official web page of any airliner that isn't the 737 and you will see passenger comfort as an attribute of the plane... But Boeing doesn't have anything good to say about the comfort of the 737.

For one thing, the 737-class plane is at a local minimum of seat width. If you make the plane just a little smaller, you can fit five across and get a little more width in economy. Airlines can't do anything to take that away. (And don't need to, because A220 class planes have lower cost per seat mile)

Also thanks to the limitations of 1967 aircraft design, the 737 has a circular cross section. "Widebody comfort" is really about having more height, not more width.

A220-class planes have better industrial design that fits the human body better -- the 737 is like the old American boat cars that were huge on the outside but small on the inside, the A220 is like the Japanese cars that were small on the outside and big on the inside.

A220-class planes also have improved comfort because of fly-by-wire riding out turbulence and with modern geared turbofans they are an order of magnitude quieter than 737-class planes.

More comfort, not just for the passenger, but for people on the ground who hear them go overhead.

You might find it hard to believe, but if you ride in an A220-class plane you will be a believer. That's why Boeing has tried so hard to make sure you won't get the chance to fly in one.

<comment><USER4> There are a number of categories to comfort. The aircraft itself makes a big difference. However, what the airline choses to do is also a massive factor. Seat width, AV boxes, padding, leg room, color choices, cabin temperature, entertainment selection, headphone quality, and so on.

<comment><USER5> There's only so much you can do with a 1967-era chassis. It's just like cars: putting nicer seats and stereo in a 1967 body isn't going to make it like a 2019 car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Never mind that none of Southwest's current pilot's would be able to fly while recerting on the A220, or at least would be able to fly less since they'd have to work on building up A220 flight hours.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hopefully everyone will stop buying Boeing planes and they'll go out of business. They deserve it for what they did with the 737MAX.

<comment><USER7> Boeing employs over 150,000 employees. Do you think they all deserve to lose their jobs? Do you think the millions of connected family members that would be impacted by that deserve it?

<comment><USER5> Airbus doesn't have enough capacity to fill the global demand for new airplanes.

If Boeing goes out of business, there will suddenly be 150,000 skilled and experienced employees, plus a couple of huge airplane factories available for a large airplane manufacturer to buy up at a bargain-basement price and immediately put to work building better airplanes.</comment></comment></comment>


Dropbox kills grandfathered Public/ folders - <AUTHOR> Unbeknownst to me, Dropbox phased out Public/ folders new accounts as of 31 July, 2010[1]. As an existing user I never noticed and continued to use my Public folder to distribute some little freeware apps.
Today I got an email saying,
> We're always looking to improve the Dropbox sharing experience... we'll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Public folder until September 1, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.
The part about links being "deactivated" is troubling. It is true that one could easily create new Dropbox "shared links" to the files one wants to share. However, bit.ly links and similar are forever! There is no way to redirect or edit "bit.ly/my_great_freebie" or change "goo.gl/aRgle" to point to a different place. And once you've made such links public, you have no control over where they are re-posted and no idea who might try to use them in the future.
So a major unanswered question is, after 1-9-17, what will a user see when following a link to a now-private file or folder? Will there be any way for the owner to customize that from the default 4xx error page -- or possibly even redirect it?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4114474 <comment><USER2> > _However, bit.ly links and similar are forever! There is no way to redirect > or edit "bit.ly/my_great_freebie" or change "goo.gl/aRgle" to point to a > different place. And once you've made such links public, you have no control > over where they are re-posted and no idea who might try to use them in the > future._

First of all, neither bitly links, nor Dropbox public folders are "forever". Both would die immediately if the company shut down, or pivoted, or merely decided to drop the feature (as Dropbox did exactly now) or change the url scheme and deprecate all the old links after some grace period.

The only thing that would be "forever" would be links on a custom domain you control -- and these only for as long as you remain interested in keeping them up and paying for the domain.

<comment><USER3> > The only thing that would be "forever" would be links on a custom domain you > control -- and these only for as long as you remain interested in keeping > them up and paying for the domain.

Just use IPFS. The link remains the same for as long as the content exists and isn't modified.

<comment><USER4> So IPFS is there forever? Why so?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dropbox is probably aware of what happened to MegaUpload, and doesn't particularly want any more attention from the movie industry.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a limit on uploads, 2GB for free accounts and 100GB for paid. They virus-check everything in the Public folder and block it -- as I know to my cost, when recently a zip file containing a PyInstaller-made .exe tripped their detectors and resulted in my Public folder being blocked for 5 days until customer service reviewed it.

So no, that isn't the issue. Anyway, under the new regime you can distribute shared links to anything you upload.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like dropbox is best suited to answer your question. Ask them?

Edit: This two-in-one example of the perils of relying on free cloud services. Here it's the whims of Dropbox and the immutability of bit.ly/goo.gl links that have broken OP's setup.

<comment><AUTHOR> Link shorteners are important because the generated links to shared content -- at Dropbox or MediaFire or wherever -- are impossible to dictate or manually type.

Also, I've got a Pro ($99/year) account, so it isn't a free goddam service. Do you know of any free or paid cloud services that let you share uploaded files using custom, short, pronounceable links?

<comment><USER7> Your own domain. You only need to setup a redirect from my-awesome- stuff.com/the-app to whatever storage provider you use.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, fair answer. I don't really want to own a domain, but that would be a solution: it gives me complete control over the form of the link, and makes it editable and redirectable.

<comment><USER8> You don't need a domain for S3. It's usually something like mybucket.s3.region.amazonaws.com.

<comment><USER9> Using S3 does not solve the problem. It just postpones it to the unknown future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're not happy about this news, make some noise and upvote my request for Dropbox to change their minds: [https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox/Don-t- kill-Public-fo...](https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox/Don-t-kill-Public- folders/idi-p/198003)

<comment><USER11> Best upvote is a public announcement of switching to competitor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dropbox owes you nothing. Zero. You need a new setup. Consider hosting your own domain.

</comment><comment><USER13> As far as I can tell, they'll just see an error page if they follow a link to a now private file or folder.

Which means I'm gonna have to find a place to rehost a bunch of files too. Probably one of my own servers, again. Thanks Dropbox, gonna need to move about 200 files now.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is why I chose to host my own cloud server. Be dependent of a cloud platform for your data, you have to accept each move this industry make to its product. Such a nightmare.</comment>


I'll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.com/ill-never-bring-my-phone-on-an-international-flight-again-neither-should-you-e9289cde0e5f <comment><USER3> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13645825](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13645825)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ack! I wonder if it would hurt HN to remove any anchor tabs so we can avoid duplicate submissions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article says

"It's totally legal for a US Customs and Border Patrol officer to ask you to unlock your phone and hand it over to them. And they can detain you indefinitely if you don't. Even if you're a American citizen. [...] Barring the use of "excessive force," agents can do whatever they want to you."

and

"[I]t's illegal in most countries to profile individual travelers"

I don't think any of these things is accurate. Although courts have been extraordinarily deferential to customs authorities, they've also ruled that _many_ things done in the name of border enforcement were unreasonable!

Fortunately I'm working with some lawyers on a new version of a border search guide, so hopefully we can get some informed legal information out there.

<comment><USER5> It's not that I don't believe you but there are numerous examples of Canadians who have been denied entry to the United States because they refused to allow CBP to access digital devices or they allowed it but had 'incriminating evidence' like Muslim prayer videos or photos taken from areas in conflict as part of photojournalist work.

Also afaik, the ACLU has lost cases pertaining to defending liberties at the border

<comment><USER4> The border situation is _very_ difficult. (If you do have "numerous examples" of that, please let me know, because it's relevant to our writing and legal analysis. I care a lot about this, but I don't want anyone to get the wrong intuition about how frequent or infrequent a particular scenario or, as the lawyers say, fact pattern is. Maybe in the second case you're thinking specifically of Laura Poitras's experiences, or do you have some other cases in mind?)

I also agree that some border and immigration challenges are lost in court and that it's a legally difficult context in which to defend individual rights, and I was responding to the article's claim that the _only_ court-recognized limit is "excessive force", which is unnecessarily pessimistic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the article (emphasis mine):

> This may upset Customs and Border Patrol agents, who are probably smart > enough to realize that 85% of Americans now have smart phones, and probably > 100% of the Americans who travel internationally have smart phones. They may > choose to detain you anyway, and force you to give them passwords to various > accounts manually. _But there's no easy way for them to know which services > you use and which services you don't use, or whether you have multiple > accounts._

You can be damn sure the government has a list of possible email addresses associated to individuals. That'd be be the first thing any modern SIGINT program would compose so as to link accounts. Assuming they have that ( _which again I 'm assuming they do_) it's trivially easy for them to go from " _John Q. Citizen / SSN: 123-45-6789 / Podunk, USA_" to a set of emails to cross reference against service providers.

Add five minutes in a dark room with piece of hose and... well you know the rest.

<comment><USER7> You can always claim that you don't know the password because you use an offline password manager that you don't have with you. Also, use 2 factor authentication of course.

<comment><USER8> One can refuse whatever way they want, but he/she can be detained and the device forfeited. And for non-citizens, they can be denied entry to US.

<comment><USER9> It is so easy for the 'bad guys' to carry a burner phone with fake google, Facebook, twitter, etc, accounts and log into them when requested. That way they don't have to refuse anything and there is nothing suspicious. This policy harms law abiding citizens and travelers but is completely ineffective when it comes to stopping criminals.

<comment><USER10> The majority of "criminals" CBP deals with each day are people coming in on the wrong visa. Saying tourist but having no plans to leave, or planning to work, for example. This system will be very effective there: Turn on phone, see text "baby can't wait for you, we're finally gonna be living together", question why their boyfriend is writing them that and why they didn't mention it, deny entry.

I don't think anyone really believes it'll catch a ton of "good to have you here, the bomb is ready"\- or "whew so nervous carrying these 50 pounds of contraband!"-bad guys.

Also I'd slightly question the ease of creating burner accounts. Facebook will show your sign up date, and something too recent will be suspicious. Other things like "why don't you have pictures of your FB friends on your phone" and on and on could be clues to a fake account. Not saying it's really hard, but it's not something you'll whip together a week before your trip.

<comment><USER11> We have ~40 million foreign arrivals each year:

[http://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2016-I-001/table1.asp](http://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2016-I-001/table1.asp)

And apparently ~500,000 Visa overstays.

How many of the 40 million should we put off traveling here to catch a fraction of the 500,000? What ratio of turned away violators to hassled travelers is "very effective"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm thinking not bringing the phone or deleting all apps before landing won't help much if they ask you to login into your accounts on a computer (or stay detained for hours if you refuse or claim that you don't use facebook/email, your pick).

<comment><USER13> Can they even ask you to do that? My understanding was searching your phone is allowed because that's treated similarly to searching your luggage. But you're not carrying your facebook or email accounts with you, so I don't see why they'd have any right whatsoever to demand to "search" your facebook/email.

Or is this something they've already started doing? And if so, what makes it legal?

<comment><USER14> Yea, why would they need to. Can't they just get a subpoena to make Facebook and Google give them your info?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder how possible it would be to create a jailed environment on Android or iOS that can not access any of the data on your phone and could be entered by putting in a false password. That would allow you to enter your "password" on- demand and then only present a jailed process to those seeking to violate your privacy. It could appear to be a full experience, but not actually contain any personal data, or contain false data.

I imagine it would be illegal, but there may be a market for it.

<comment><USER16> Why would it be illegal? They told you to put in your password, and you put in one of your passwords. If they want to fuck with technology and they're too stupid to understand it, that's their loss.

<comment><USER17> They aren't all too stupid to understand it, which would be why it would eventually be illegal to use such technology to deceive border patrol or other agents of the lawful government.

<comment><USER18> It's already to lie to border agents (And unlocking only one of your hidden partitions, when requested to, is a lie.)

Whether or not they will find out about your lie is a different question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "I'll never carry my phone when entering the US from abroad again. Neither should you"

<comment><USER20> He mentioned other countries moving towards this kind of thing, and if you look around then that wouldn't be surprising for places like the UK as well.

<comment><USER21> But that's completely speculative, there is no documented instance of another country doing the same at the moment.

<comment><USER22> Canada has done it (it's even linked in the article).

<comment><USER23> Canada also makes it illegal to import various pornographic materials depicting drawings of fictional characters, and certain sex dolls. An American had his laptop searched at ths Canadian border, and was detained, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We're really talking about access to accounts (e.g. gmail), not the devices themselves (or the former is of more interest, anyway). What's to stop these agents from simply demanding you turn over your email/facebook/whatever credentials, regardless of whether you're carrying electronics on your person?

IIRC they're actually already demanding Facebook credentials from certain travelers.

Unless you literally have no internet accounts, or what you do use is obscure enough to give you plausible deniability, it seems like you're fucked either way.

<comment><USER25> Well, you've stated the solution. Don't have a gmail account. Don't have a facebook account. Don't use centralized services. It's not that hard once you start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can someone clarify how if I can be compelled to unlock my password protected phone, they can't do the same with my social media, email, and other accounts? I feel like this author advocates for a stop-gap that may not even help in the long-run.

<comment><USER6> They can hold you indefinitely for effectively whatever reason they'd like (or really no reason).

If they say they're not letting you go until you unlock your phone, you get to decide if you want to stay there in the interests of your privacy.

<comment><USER26> Sorry, my question was can they do that for my account information as well? Could they setup kiosks for me to sign into Facebook? The author in the post advocated uploading my data into the cloud and factory resetting my phone, though I don't believe this will work if they can just ask me for my Facebook.

<comment><USER27> If you have 2FA then some of those accounts may not be accessible without your phone. For instance, if I didn't bring my phone with me (which I use to authenticate) I wouldn't even be able to log in to my email.

Or, taken a little further, I don't even know my email password anyways. Its locked in a password manager which requires 2FA. I would myself be locked out of almost all of my accounts if I didn't bring my phone.

<comment><USER28> And that makes resetting it a non-starter too doesn't it?

<comment><USER27> Sure does, though my post was leaning towards leaving it at home so not resetting it (and thus not being able to login to at a kiosk).

But this also raises the question of them believing me that I can't login because I don't know my password.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Supposing all this is true, and you leave your phone/laptop at home, what stops the the border control agent from demanding that you log in to your email and social media accounts on a device they provide before allowing entry?

<comment><USER30> Change the password to something you cannot recall. A long randomly generated password that you leave at home.

Works best if you are a citizen of the country you try to enter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It looks like it is going to be a new norm in the name of "security" \- across the globe, not just US (or UK, or Canada...). Doesn't it point to something much more troublesome than what it seems? Thinking about the real motive, the root cause of all this kind of stuff (mass surveillance, security issues, privacy wars, encryption need, etc.), I could see no other reason than a flawed nature of human - the greed of power and sustaining it. You can do many kinds of tricks like wiping your devices, using multiple (fake) accounts, leaving your electronic devices at home while travelling and etc. But what if the using a smart phone, having a FB account become a mandatory thing by law in a couple years? That doesn't sound irrelevant now. It's a passing game between security forces, government(s) and wealthy people - they watch for each other's interests. I don't know if it sounds senseful to you. If it is, how do we fight that?

</comment><comment><USER32> You most likely will need your phone when you're traveling, an easier solution is to remove all apps and data on the phone and then reinstall when you get to where you want.

<comment><USER33> My thought was actually to shut it off and pack it in my luggage so it's not with me through security. I won't see it until I reach the baggage claim.

<comment><USER20> Customs inspect checked luggage.

<comment><USER34> FedEx. You're without phone for a day, but still easier than being without a phone for an entire (possibly business related) trip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The article claims that they can hold you indefinitely if you do not turn over your password. What could happen if I smashed my phone?

<comment><USER32> If you don't cooperate, they don't have to let you into the country. They can simply tell you to turn around and go somewhere else.

<comment><USER35> As a US citizen with no other nationality, where do I go exactly?

<comment><USER36> To a free country? The US has lost so many cogs of its democracy... How far is the day when some US citizen (journalists, intellectuals) start begging for political asylum in countries that don't pride themselves for being free (like Russia, Iran, Thailand or just even Europe)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> After one had to give a phone to the US customs and border patrols for 'inspections', best to throw it away afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER38> Really? Seems like a pretty silly conclusion. If you have important stuff on your phone, you should back it up. If you back it up it's not a deal to wipe it.

Wipe it, restore after crossing the border, it's not really a big deal.

</comment><comment><USER39> Wouldn't it be equally weird to not have a phone on you on a flight or an international flight? Meaning merely suggesting that you don't have a phone with you I think would cause more/similar trouble.

<comment><USER40> Ideally you would have a separate phone that isn't logged into any of your important accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> There is a lot of misinformation and jumping to conclusions in the article. The US border is not outside of US jurisdiction. A search warrant is not needed to search either a citizen or non citizen from entering the US. They can take your phone, but they cannot deny entry to a US citizen for refusing to unlock a phone. They can deny entry to a non US citizen for any reason at all, including failing to unlock a phone or provide a password.

</comment><comment><USER42> >"The border is technically outside of US jurisdiction"

IANAL but reading other articles on this topic I don't think this is true - <USER2> think it's just that the 4th amendment rights that all searches and seizes have to be with done with warrant or probable cause are suspended at border due to doctrine of "border search exception".

</comment><comment><USER43> One other important point: who knows what they might _install_ during those brief minutes. Encryption backdoor?

DO NOT BE COMPLACENT.

</comment><comment><USER44> _" They may choose to detain you anyway, and force you to give them passwords to various accounts manually. But there's no easy way for them to know which services you use and which services you don't use, or whether you have multiple accounts."_

So next year that's what they will know.

</comment><comment><USER27> I also wonder if this will have an impact on the camera market as I'm sure there are more like me who no longer own a separate photo/video camera.

<comment><USER45> Hah, I do, and I'm actually going up to Canada tomorrow with both phone and camera. I've never had an issue at the border where they've gone through my digital devices, however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I have always followed this rule for phone but I have found it impossible to do with laptop. Generally my phone would be a subset of my laptop data.

</comment><comment><USER47> Imagine everyone starts doing this. Would they start to ask for your FB/Gmail login credentials?

<comment><USER48> I don't think you've been paying attention: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/fear-materialized- bord...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/fear-materialized-border- agents-demand-social-media-data-americans)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> With so many used phones, just bring an old phone with all data wiped.

</comment><comment><USER50> > _But before we do, take a moment to think about all the apps you have on > your phone. Email? Facebook? Dropbox? Your browser? Signal? The history of > everything you've ever done — everything you've ever searched, and > everything you've ever said to anyone — is right there in those apps._

If you personally do not care about your privacy, why should someone else care?

<comment><USER51> Privacy is a right afforded others.

Your particular risk model may or may not include CBP, both others' might. Immigration lawyers (for whom attorney-client privilege should hold), immigration NGO workers (for whom it almost certainly doesn't), journalists, asylees, among others.

The protections which apply to you also apply to them, and aren't granted conditionally. Which is why, if you believe in civil liberties, liberal democracy, and freedom, you should fight like motherfucking hell for them.

Unless, of course, you don't.

<comment><USER52> I mean, this whole thing sucks, but I can't think of any apps that I'd actually go through the inconvenience of uninstalling just so someone at border patrol can't see them, including "treasure troves" like Gmail/Drive. I'll just unlock my phone, let them look for whatever they're looking for, and carry on with my life.

It's an invasion of privacy (to what extent is debatable, but I'd rather not make a stance there), but so is going through my luggage, x-rays, etc. I understand why they're there, and I have a tiny twinge of "what if they find something weird" every time I go through the airport, but I also trust the system (again, to some extent) and recognize why these processes exist.

Fun fact: I've accidentally tried to go through security post-9/11 with a half-dozen hunting knives in my carry-on (after a camping trip) and they were very concerned at first, but just asked some questions, told me to throw them out, and let me through.

Saying "if you've got nothing to hide, why worry?" is a trope by now, but I'm clearly not the person they're looking for and I'm not too worried about a mild, temporary inconvenience if they mistake me for a Bad Guy.

<comment><USER51> The privacy you're divulging is far more than your own:

[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/vv0bq6oia_06z_yjnmjwzw](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/vv0bq6oia_06z_yjnmjwzw)

<comment><USER53> Very interesting read. Shocking how G+ moves from "hey, you don't need to manage 100 logins" to "Hey shady people, come siphon data from people that don't understand privacy".

The Android ecosystem had already gone down that rabbit hole years ago. I think we're at the stage where it doesn't seem like a commercial identity provider is going to look out for our privacy at all. Definitely a challenging space, but one where we can wrestle back a lot of privacy we've lost.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


First language influences brain for later language-learning - <AUTHOR> http://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/first-language-wires-brain-later-language-learning-257068 <comment><USER2> Terrible headline.

They found that Chinese children who were adopted into French-speaking families processed language in the brain more like Chinese/French bilingual children than like French monolingual children.

<comment><USER3> Additionally, apart from Pimsleur, language courses are structured very differently from how one first learns to speak.

<comment><USER4> Pimsleur is a child of it's age; a so-called audio-lingual method that has its roots in Skinnerian behaviorism. I think no language acquisition researcher takes it seriously any more. Check This out for a modern viewpoint: [https://youtu.be/X1LRoKQzb9U](https://youtu.be/X1LRoKQzb9U)

<comment><USER3> I see what you mean, but I've learned several languages using Pimsleur and native speakers are almost always shocked at how well I can speak their language.

<comment><USER5> That's still n=1. It might just be that you're particularly good at language acquisition, and you'll succeed no matter what method you use.

<comment><USER6> Or just particularly receptive to the method: _X_ is the best method _for me_ to learn a language is a very different proposition than _X_ is the best method _for people in general_ to learn a language.

<comment><USER3> > Or just particularly receptive to the method

If this is true, then my anecdotal experience is still evidence against this:

> I think no language acquisition researcher takes it seriously any more

<comment><USER6> Actually, "X works particularly well compared to other methods for one person" (even if demonstrated -- which your experience does not do, though it is one of many possible interpretations of that experience) is not evidence against "No language acquisition researcher takes X seriously".

<comment><USER3> you originally said

> X is the best method _for me_ to learn a language

if this statement is true, then it is evidence that researchers should not dismiss it.

This:

> X works particularly well compared to other methods for one person

is not the same statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if the children who had forgotten their original first language would learn it again more easily than the children who had never learned the language at all.

That would be an interesting study.

</comment><comment><USER8> That reminds me of some research I read a few years ago about savings habits for people speaking a language that has a time concept (passed, present, future) and languages that don't (chinese for example).

There was a pretty explicit separation on people having no time concepts saving more and putting more importance in the future, or something like that. It was pretty interesting to read how the way your language works shapes how your brain thinks and influences your habits.

edit: [https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_aff...](https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money?language=en) :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd be curious to know what else this sort of thing shapes. Reminds me a bit of Ken Iverson's 'Notation as a Tool of Thought.' Programmers often talk about how learning different programming langauges improves their ability to conceptualize problems differently. I wonder if the same is true for spoken/written langauges?

</comment><comment><USER10> Since there is other research indicating that bilingual children on average have a slightly higher IQ, most likely due to the brain being trained to compartmentalise information earlier, I wonder if that effect is notable in these former bilingual children too.

<comment><USER11> I thought those studies concerned more that the bi-lingual children had an extra flexibility at understanding a concept, rather than a more developed compartmentalization process.

<comment><USER10> You may be right, I said this from memory. Maybe we're talking about the same thing from a different perspective though? My recollection was that it had to do with the need to switch between languages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd like to see this developed for relearning language after a stroke.

Have a friend whose first language was Spanish, but lived her life in the English speaking world and had limited Spanish skills as an adult After a serious stroke, she initially couldn't speak, but recovered ability in Spanish first. The court and language therapist marked down her communication skills because they were so English-centric. Caused a sad story.</comment>


Don't Regulate Facial Recognition. Ban It - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/evangreer/dont-regulate-facial-recognition-ban-it <comment><USER2> I'm trying to decide what makes facial recognition more dangerous than the tracking beacon we carry in our pockets that is famously being used by every bad actor on the planet to perform population surveillance for fun and profit.

Just riffing, I think the core differences are probably:

1) Your phone has _some_ security, so only your telecom or manufacturer can spy on you easily and consistently if you take some precautions.

2) You can leave your phone at home, switch it off, or put it in airplane mode.

3) There are wiretapping laws already on the books that probably make it difficult to use certain evidence in court.

Whereas with facial recognition:

1) The recognizer is controlled by random property managers, both public and private. This makes it easy for bad actors to create systems of surveillance where they share with each other.

2) You can change your phone, but you can't change your face except in bad movies.

3) Fewer laws on the books to make abusing this data easier.

4) It's only semi-accurate, which is a plus, because a random detection gives you probable cause to fuck with people so long as you claim high accuracy on a carefully concocted test sample. The semi-random terror is a feature not a bug.

5) You can find people that are off grid that the community is hiding from the state or private security (undocumented immigrants, leftist activists, etc).

So much potential here.

<comment><USER3> I think the comparison with smartphones misses the point,

>You can leave your phone at home, switch it off, or put it in airplane mode.

Makes it something entirely different. The core characteristics of facial recognition are

1) No need for a cooperative, consenting subject

2) Not alerting the subject being identified and no protection against being identified without noticing

3) Unchangeable identification characteristic

We already have reliable easy to use systems for characteristic 1 and 3, fingerprints, and I see how there might be a need for such systems at specific locations. For example at a police station or border checkpoints.

Then we have facial recognition which is a lot less accurate and its only additional benefit is point 2. Point 2 however has no positive use cases, its a purely totalitarian instrument aimed at its scale-ability. For not only being used in specific places but everywhere. You cant even make the argument which makes nuclear weapons a worthwhile technology to have, the possible usage for war against a foreign aggressor. Facial recognition is only beneficial to keep a population suppressed.

<comment><USER2> Good analysis. I hadn't thought of the lack of consent angle (though information leakage / hacking from phones renders them able to do similar things).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Buzzfeednews does ok sometimes but I'd have to disagree with this. Even as a staunch privacy advocate facial recognition could do wonderful things to benefit society, is not the real problem overzealous governments and wideranging police powers lauded over innocent citizens?

Maybe there really needs to be a discussion about how intrusive we are going to allow them to be and the dangers that poses. It's a silly kneejerk response to say "we should only allow human beings to stare at cctv cameras, not an algorithm"

The cat's out the bag, the technology isn't the problem, tech is amoral, it's the people using it we need to solve.

<comment><USER5> > _is not the real problem overzealous governments and wideranging police > intelligence agency powers lauded over innocent citizens?_

Yes, they're the real problem. That doesn't mean it's futile to take away a powerful tool for them to use.

> _tech is amoral_

Tech is not amoral. It doesn't exist in a vacuum -- it has a context of who created it and what human actions it facilitates.

For example, ransomware is amoral. Sure, the tools used to build it are neutral, but that's true of anything if you zoom out far enough (e.g. steel is amoral, but CIA drones aren't).

> _it 's the people using it we need to solve_

You can't "solve" people. There will always be selfish, stupid, and shortsighted people in the world. All you can do is make sure that they don't have concentrated, unilateral power over others.

Technology gives people that kind of power, and we can at least make sure that law enforcement in liberal countries doesn't misuse it.

<comment><AUTHOR> ITYM ransomeware is _immoral_?

<comment><USER5> Yes, I did. Too late to edit now. Thanks for catching that typo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two malls in the province where I live got in trouble recently for secretly deploying facial recognition.

[https://globalnews.ca/news/4355444/chinook-mall-calgary- faci...](https://globalnews.ca/news/4355444/chinook-mall-calgary-facial- recognition-technology/)

Edit: consider supporting the Canadian civil liberties association! They speak out about these sorts of things when others don't

</comment><comment><USER7> I do think that facial recognition has it's place in society, after all the cat is already out the bag. But I believe it should be reserved ONLY for border integrity and very high-level national security incidents. For example, I do not have any issue with facial recognition being implemented at all points of entry with it's data being purged after a randomized time with a set undisclosed minimum time frame. It is entirely within a country's rights to know who is entering and leaving their country in my opinion. This would strike a middle ground in both security and privacy and it's not like countries don't already have this information.

Private & for-profit use in any capacity should be banned.

Basically, the technology isn't bad. Humans are bad. So we should close off any and all avenues of abuse from a human agent. An AI system should be in place to create, access, store and retrieve the data with no human middle-man. The request to retrieve the data should follow the same procedures as for a warrant, but should require a high-level, non-partisan court order and should only return whether the subject was recognized and those specific frame of footage. The procedure should have sufficient checks and balances so no one can arbitrarily access this data. Every. Single. Request should be audited before being processed by multiple parties.

Stopping governments that abuse this technology should be encouraged. But that is naive thinking. It has definitely already begun in China for example. All we can do is keep it out of the hands of private corporations.

</comment><comment><USER8> I doubt HN is the best place to have discussions about design of societal/civil norms, culture and laws. Surely, there are people who are more expert than us who have well-researched, historically informed opinion on human behavior and intricacies of changing the balance of privacy vs centralized powers.

One thing is for sure. All of the technological advantages is creating asymmetry in information and hence power balance. This cannot be without serious ramifications to the society.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a less perfect forum than I'd hope (original submitter, BTW), and often fails to meet my expectations on important tech- and startup-adjacent questions. But it remains better than most online fora, and the questions _should_ at least be raised or presented (if not adequately discussed or answered) here.

There's also the fact that this issue and its regulation or prohibition may be a concern to numerous startups, existing tech companies, employees, investors, etc., among HN's readership and community.

This particular submission is doing relatively well, so far. Toes crossed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some more specific dangers other than "the rich will get richer" would have been useful to mention.

As with most AI scares, people forget that AIs only replace the even more faulty human brain. Bias in AI can be debugged and worked around. Bias in human brains is much harder. You get no insights into why your bank doesn't give you a credit. Is it because of your skin color? Because they didn't like your nose?

The scary scenario of an AI judging people's attitudes and ruling them criminals only because they had a bad morning: the scenario of a human mob believing somebody to be guilty is much more scary, and it happens on a regular basis.

It would of course be bad to leave the judging to an AI alone. Of course the whole justice system would still be in place. That is unrelated to AI. The surveillance camera is not calling a killer squad on an unsuspecting grumpy person on public transport. It could merely draw the attention of a human to the scene, who could then judge on needed actions.

The example of the illegal immigrants also seems weird. Isn't it a good thing to be able to expose illegal behavior? I sympathize with the plight of immigrants, but rather than tolerating illegal behavior, it seems better to improve the laws to make good, desirable behavior legal.

</comment><comment><USER10> I had added this comment just yesterday [0] -

>> All I'm wondering is how this would play out in a dystopian future where I'm recognised by everyone wherever I go. >> >> And in some cases they might even have additional information maybe in a probabilistic fashion. Like what kind of clothes I prefer or the kinds of food I like. And that would be the good version. >> >> The worse scenario would be that some malicious actor puts all this together to play on others' fears. >> >> The worst case, of course, being big brother!

Thinking about this again though, I'm wondering whether this kind of transparency will actually start favouring common citizens. Imagine being able to recognise every bad (and good) cop, every corrupt politician, every criminal wherever they go. Would the social pressure to commit immoral or unethical acts increase many fold?

I wonder...

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20470887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20470887)

<comment><USER11> The ones in power will always find ways to not be subjected to the same rules as everyone else. Proof: see human history for the last ~2000 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone believe that a ban would actually be effective? A talented teenager can already train a facial recognition model. In a few years, you'll be able to drop the "talented".

<comment><AUTHOR> Effective limitations on application, storage, transfer, admissibility (in criminal or civil courts), as well as substantial enforcement rights and noncompliance penalties, could reduce the risks to noise levels.

The major utility of such technolgies comes from centralised and intercorrelated records, sold for business use. Disrupt aggregation, transfer, correlation, and the business model, and you've effectively killed much the basis for establishing such tracking.

Banning FR-enabled monitoring cameras or surveillance systems (most deployments are not DYI), again, with bars on compiled databases (image collection does little without matching), and again, the effectve commercial basis is killed.

Specific targeted LEO or national intelligence aplications and deployments may persist, but the former would be of little use if barred by courts' evidentiary rules.

National intelligence use without commercial databases, and with bars on, e.g., sharing of state- and local-level identity documents or photos, again becomes much less useful for mass control, but instead reduces to fairly targeted investigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is going to be cryptowars all over again isn't it...

<comment><USER2> For what it's worth, the power dynamics might be different here. During cryptowars, we were trying to give people a power to hide from the state while the state already had the power to hide from the people. With this technology, while fun and gimmicky examples (like phone unlock, AR) come to mind for small scale uses, only dark and dangerous uses immediately come to mind which benefit the ruling class.

<comment><USER12> > With this technology, while fun and gimmicky examples (like phone unlock, > AR) come to mind for small scale uses, only dark and dangerous uses > immediately come to mind which benefit the ruling class.

That may say more about you than about the technology. You could use it to find the lost kid in a crowded stadium. Or find lost people with dementia anywhere.

<comment><USER7> And you are being incredible optimistic. No one is arguing that facial recognition can't be beneficial. We are discussing whether those pros outweigh the cons and honestly, with most government track record... I cannot say with a shred of confidence this technology will not be abused, both privately & publicly, without heavy, thoughtful and tech-savy regulations.

<comment><USER12> I will say with full confidence that this technology most certainly will be abused, regardless of whether it is regulated, and that the most flagrant abuses will be committed by organizations that are practically above the law. No regulation will stop the Chinese government, and there is not and never will be the political will to push through regulations powerful enough to constrain the NSA.

However, the regulations will be powerful enough stop any beneficial uses of facial recognition because say, the CDC, will follow the regulations to the letter and not spend the GDP of a South American nation in fighting it tooth and claw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> facial recognition is probably one of the hardest metrics to track someone

<comment><AUTHOR> Often it's the impression, threat, or procedural presumed validity of effectiveness that matters far more than actuality.

The history of debunked methods used in government regulation, court and criminal evidence, or business practices is high. Simply posting "this area under visual surveillance" changes behaviours, and animal studies show dramatic differences in behaviour and detectable stress indicators under conditions of surveillance or predator presence. Even alpha predators react strongly negatively to the presence of human voices:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/humans-p...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/humans- predators-mountain-lions-landscape-of-fear/594187/)

Vigilance stress is almost certainly deeply innate. Humans are just as much affected:

[https://www.healthline.com/health/hypervigilance](https://www.healthline.com/health/hypervigilance)

[https://www.healthcentral.com/article/hypervigilance-in- anxi...](https://www.healthcentral.com/article/hypervigilance-in-anxiety)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone ever play Orwell?

[http://fellowtraveller.games/games/orwell/](http://fellowtraveller.games/games/orwell/)

</comment><comment><USER16> It is impossible to ban an idea or an algorithm.

<comment><USER17> It's impossible to ban , but it's possible to prevent people from implementing and carrying out that idea. There's a difference here.

<comment><USER16> Is it? What are you going to do? Burn the machine learning books? Good luck

<comment><USER18> Murder is illegal, but that doesn't physically stop you from killing anyone either.

Banning facial recognition wouldn't prevent you from doing it, it would prevent anyone that doesn't run a crime syndicate from using or selling it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Best and Worst Jobs for 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303772904577336230132805276.html?mod=rss_Todays_Most_Popular

<comment><USER2> Funny: most new software engineers I know didn't have the bad experience I did, but neither have they proclaimed it the Best Job Ever.</comment>


Show HN: Component Based Design System with Styled-System - <AUTHOR> http://varun.ca/styled-system/ <comment><USER2> Interesting article from what I could view, but it crashes Safari on the latest iOS available on iPhone X.</comment>


Remote Developer Jobs Board - george-field http://devremote.io <comment><AUTHOR> The animation of the stereotypical web developer is engaging and done well.

edit: The links on the top right of the page do not work with Firefox 77.1.</comment>


Who Mourns for Dr. Dobb's? - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.intel.com/evangelists/2014/12/17/mourns-dr-dobbs/ <comment><USER2> I fondly remember reading the print editions of both Dr. Dobb's Journal and the C/C++ User's Journal (later folded into DDJ).

Part of me misses this sort of curated content. Getting an article accepted in such magazines got one a healthy dose of respect amongst colleagues.</comment>


Peter Norvig: A Look Back at a 1966 Scientific American Article - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/at-scientific-american/2011/08/23/systems-analysis-look-back-1966-scientific-american-article/#

<comment><USER2> previous discussion <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2921506></comment>


Taking back control of website seized by the US Government - <AUTHOR> https://designate.com/2020/02/21/taking-back-control-but-from-whom/ <comment><USER2> > signing a document that both acknowledges our innocence and removes our > right to claim against the US Government for any damages incurred.

this is extortion. they should not have to give up the right to sue for damages

</comment><comment><USER2> that's a good reason to avoid .com domains, but can other governments do the same for their country specific domains</comment>


Poll YC: Mandatory Replies. - <AUTHOR>

I think that every vote for downgrade must have a reply.<p>I would like to know your comments! <comment><USER2> No. My least favorite part of HN is all the meta-debates about karma, downvotes, "is this HN?", etc.

Can we just skip all the meta-debates, and focus on interesting hacker news? So what if you have 50 less karma than you think you should? So what if there are 4 articles that you think aren't hacker news? (Just don't click on or upvote them).

<comment><USER3> I don't even know how to "downvote". My interface only shows up arrows. I agree that simplicity is key assuming you can rely on community decency.

<comment><USER4> You need a certain level of karma before it becomes a issue. I think it's 50. Possibly 100 or it's 50 and then you can flag submissions at 100. Anyway, there are cutoffs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It sounds good in principle but in practice I think it'd add a lot of noise to threads.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, it would be needlessly noisy in public form. However, it can be helpful for people to get feedback directly.

Would a private reply that only the submitter can see be valuable? It would help the community give direct feedback to the submitter or commenter without adding noise.

<comment><USER7> Seriously, are you really taking your posts to HN as so important than they need to receive review from peers? It's a forum. It is informal, it is not a vetted peer-reviewed journal. If someone wants to reply, they will, and it should (generally) be public (and if it shouldn't, the responder will look up your email address and send you a message, assuming that's possible)...if they don't, it's dumb to try to force them to (privately or otherwise).

<comment><AUTHOR> I was not thinking in karma, actually I don't care about it, at least not now but my point is that hacker news is to share knowledge or ideas and if you are going to say that you don't like a post then you should share with the community your point of view so we can learn from each other. (btw: sorry for repeat this post)

<comment><USER7> I didn't mention karma in the comment you're replying to. I understand your suggestion, and I disagree with it very strongly, and I said so and explained why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A simpler solution is to upvote comments you think are unfairly downvoted.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think it would be neat if downvotes took a point of karma away from the downvoter as well.

That would provide incentive for the downvoting user to comment so that people would have a chance to mod him up to recover it.

Yes, yes, I know "don't pay attention to your karma", but it's one of the primary pieces of information about our posts/comments that we're given by reddit/this system.

The site would function identically if article, comment, and user karma values were all hidden. I wonder what the impact would be on the dialog.

<comment><USER10> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=298768>

_Charge money for voting. For example: every 2 votes costs 1 Karma point._

There are lots of other interesting Karma suggestions in the main Requests thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Redundant. I _only_ downvote posts that I think are outright flames, or otherwise completely counterproductive to conversation. Downvoting is not a way of saying "I disagree with you," it's a way of saying "You're detracting from real conversation." Explaining downvotes only adds to the noise.

I do, however, upvote to agree. If I disagree but I think it's a legitimate comment, I don't do anything.

</comment><comment><USER12> This doesn't work because it would mean every dumb "FIRST!" type comment would result in a chorus of posts saying "I voted you down because you just said 'first'." This is much worse than simply downvoting such posts into oblivion.

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh, and this kind of post is also against the site guidelines:

 _Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading._

</comment><comment><USER13> No. If people want to downgrade, don't vote up.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hells no. Don't be so bloody sensitive. Your HN karma is not a measure of your worth...accept downvotes and move on.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was not thinking in karma, actually I don't care about it, at least not now but my point is that hacker news is to share knowledge or ideas and if you are going to say that you don't like a post then you should share with the community your point of view so we can learn from each other. (btw: sorry for repeat this post)

<comment><USER7> Doesn't matter. Dumb idea is dumb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=297260>

_ericwaller 21 days ago | link | parent | flag

It'd be interesting if a down vote were actually a special case of reply and required an explanation._

      .

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=57134>

_aswanson 374 days ago | link | parent | flag

You could make down votes more expensive by forcing someone to type a rationale of why_

</comment><comment><USER10> Feature Requests:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363></comment>


California DMV may have registered noncitizens to vote - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/California-DMV-may-have-registered-noncitizens-to-13291524.php <comment><USER2> Edit: "Fixed" it, but failed to deregister them.

"The latest problem occurred when DMV customers, including some noncitizens, accidentally filled in the wrong voter eligibility response on driver's license applications and asked staffers to make the corrections, the audit said. The revised responses were not correctly logged.

The error has since been fixed and affected customers will be notified, the DMV said."

<comment><AUTHOR> They "corrected it" in the sense of allegedly fixing the problem for _new applications_ , but they have done nothing to deregister any of the 1590 who were illegally registered. The most they are doing is _sending a letter_ to those who were improperly registered.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I read it again and agree. Interesting that they call this a fix. If they are on the voter rolls, then I'm not comfortable with how they've presented the 'fix'.</comment></comment></comment>


Perl and Perl Module Administration in the Modern Era - <AUTHOR> https://speakerdeck.com/djerius/perl-and-perl-module-administration-in-the-modern-era

<comment><USER2> curl -skL <http://install.perlbrew.pl> | bash

Please stop doing this. At the very least, do it over HTTPS.

<comment><USER3> That's going to go terribly awry with today's mention of ISPs that inject their own code into HTTP responses. I mean, aside from the "inspecting the barrel of a loaded gun" factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is stupid. The entire reason that people have issues with multiple versions of software is that they had to "roll their own" and don't bother to update it, thus they hit incompatibilities and need some sort of "bundling" utility like this.

If you're running any form of Unix, it's very likely that you already have a package management system. It's also likely that system has more features, and is better designed from a management and consistency perspective than any one of CPAN and it's descendants (gem, cabal, etc.).

A much better solution - either make your own packages, or use a tool like FPM (<https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm>) to make native packages, then deploy the result as you would any other package.

I hope for an era when running CPAN or gem interacts with the package manager, building a real OS-level package and installing/deploying it, rather than the current "you need to run this script incantation on every production machine, oh, and you need the whole toolchain too" idiocy.

<comment><USER5> You're missing (at least some of) the point. It's _useful_ to have different versions of the interpreter installed (at the same time) and easily accessible, and it's also useful to be able to switch between them easily. With the addition of easily switchable library paths (per version, as they show) as well, this makes it easily to test entirely different stacks easily.

Additionally, there's the problem of perl (python as well for the last decade) being used as glue for _many_ OS-level tools. Have you ever tried replacing the packaged Perl on a n RHEL box? It's not fun. Also, since it's relied on by so much within the distro, the chances they are going to go through the trouble of updating the version and risk problems is very small. On enterprise distros, you are essentially stuck with an out of date Perl before the distro ships, and stuck with it for the long support lifetime.

This is frustrating to the perl community, as anything that requires "new" features faces limited adoption as a significant portion of the community can't run those versions.

That's not to say that packaging perl isn't the way to go. I believe in many cases it is. I also think it depends on your targets. Three webservers does not make the same argument as a farm of boxes. Even so, the ability to easily test and iterate in your dev environments, before committing resources to building packages and pushing them to QA, is a _good thing_.

Edit: Changed redundant "additionally" to "also" so it wouldn't bother me anymore. :)

<comment><USER6> I don't work with Perl anymore, but the same problem has played out in the Ruby space, with the same conclusions.

<comment><USER5> I think this is the natural state of things for any successful language.

Useful languages will be used.

Used languages will evolve.

Evolution may introduce problems with code written to an older version.

People that rely on older code will have some resistance to newer versions.

A natural friction will arise between those who wish stability in order to maintain, and those who which change in order to evolve.

IMHO if nobody cares about breaking older stuff, that just means that nothing useful has been written yet.</comment></comment></comment></comment>