Facebook Backs Down on Censoring 'Napalm Girl' Photo - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/norway-accuses-facebook-of-censorship-over-deleted-photo-of-napalm-girl-1473428032 <comment><USER2> An interesting twist on free speech on the internet is that almost all speech on the internet is being done on private companies' websites.

No private company is considered required to promote or protect free speech. Each forum is able to say "don't like our policies, then go somewhere else".

This even seems quite reasonable. Why should any particular forum be forced to allow any particular kind of speech? Should Facebook be forced to allow porn as something that is protected by freedom of expression?

On the flip side, as more and more of meaningful speech occurs on these not- really-public forums of Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, there exists quite a bit of unease on my part for these global companies to insist on narrowing expression on these platforms to that which they deem acceptable by whatever internal process they desire.

Facebook's study that showed they could manipulate people's feelings by altering the feed algorithm indicates this is an awful lot of power handed to a company focused on making profits and staying on the good side of governmental organizations.

YouTube recently started changing their policies that has started to create problems for people using their platforms.

This would likely be okay if there were real public space on the web, but it currently operates more as a series of visits to other people's private property. The release valve is a persons ability to create their own corner of the internet, but even this must leap through various ISP and web host providers terms of service. Additionally, is it really speech if you're just doing the internet equivalent of talking to yourself on an island in the middle of nowhere?

Cases like this photo will only become more apparent as time goes on. I'm not sure how society will negotiate these ideas, but at present, the commercial interests are leading the conversation in their favor.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you. To continue your internet-as-a-physical-place analogue, Facebook is basically a mall where you are encouraged to hang out and intermittently enticed to buy things.

-No porn on Facebook is the equivalent to no nudity allowed at the mall.

-Banning users is the equivalent of kicking a person out of the mall.

-Censoring messages is the equivalent of... uh.. gagging a person just before they can say something you didn't want them to say.

-Direct messaging people or groups is the equivalent of talking to your friends, while an anonymous person videotapes and listens without really letting you know they're doing that.

-Posting a status is the equivalent of shouting what you're feeling or thinking to nobody in particular

-Facebook curating newsfeeds is the equivalent of putting you in a room and showing videos of the things your friends are shouting, intermittently throwing in advertisements, and just kind of letting you believe that what you're seeing is real and unadulterated.

Point is, if you look at Facebook like a physical establishment, it's a pretty weird place.

But as long as people continue to recognize that censorship and surveillance are not cool, they will continue to complain to the groups who engage in it, and constantly be on the lookout for better alternatives.

I personally recommend Snapchat for un-surveilled interaction with friends, Hacker News for news with uncensored commentary, and LinkedIn to stay connected with people. And I'm glad that there are reasonable alternatives to all of these

<comment><USER4> Both Snapchat and Whatsapp are a joke when it comes to privacy because the client software is closed source.

<comment><USER3> I know that to some extent, Facebook saves data on me using private messages I've sent to friends. I know that Google Hangouts does too. Snapchat tells me that nobody has access to messages I've sent to friends except for me and my friend, and that the message is deleted after the message is viewed. I have no evidence to show that they don't, and thus far no precedence not to trust them.

<comment><USER5> You have no evidence that they _do_ either, so you can't trust them.

<comment><USER6> Trust by definition is not evidence-based. Even if it were "open source", you would have no proof that the actual production code was the open source version. I understand and even subscribe to the default attitude of lack of trust, but it is not an actionable attitude when it comes to the web and saas.

<comment><USER7> > Even if it were "open source", you would have no proof that the actual > production code was the open source version.

There are ways to prove that. You can provide reproducible builds, where someone who builds the software will end up with bit-for-bit identical binaries to the production version. Then, anyone can verify that the available binary matches the available source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image > in documenting a particular moment in time.

Translation: if you document any of the numerous real human rights atrocities that are happening today then expect to get banned. If anything, the fact that this photo is already 'historic' and 'iconic' means that it's less important than what's being captured today.

<comment><USER9> Algorithms can't tell the difference between porn/gore and historically significant graphic images

<comment><USER10> If an algorithm mistakes this image for porn, it's pretty damn broken anyway.

<comment><USER11> Now see how many people can write a description of a way to discern the difference between the two using just the image. I hesitate to say it but experience suggests this probably is 'porn' for some sick person.

It's made to be porn by the context it's viewed in and by the reaction of the viewers - some people, I gather, are turned on by car crashes.

It's a harder problem than your comment seems to be suggesting.

Personally I think a blanket ban on images of full-frontal nudity of a person would be reasonable for both a public forum like Facebook and a newspaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> At least now we know the minimum bar to get Facebook to temporarily pretend to change a policy: be the leader of a first-world nation.

</comment><comment><USER13> Too little too late? They've set the tone when they deleted a post made by the democratically elected leader of a country.

That must surely be a tipping point?

<comment><USER14> _Too little too late?_

You and I _wish_ that was the case. This is a minor concession made by Facebook that they and their apologists be able to use for years to trumpet about how their content polices are oh-so reasonable, and that they're super duper flexible and thoughtful. That those very few rare cases where they overstep are reconsidered and rolled back.

If they fix all the high-publicity cases, then it's easy to sell the idea that they're always doing the right thing. Otherwise why aren't more people complaining?

<comment><USER15> You're not wrong. But your analysis excludes one salient point: This only works if we permit it. We need not do so.

<comment><USER14> I'm in agreement, but generally pessimistic that there will ever be a sufficient number of "we."

Voicing my dissatisfaction outside of a news cycle where they're in the mud gets me labeled a hater, neckbeard, out of touch, a hardliner, or any of the dozens of bog standard reasons to dismiss criticism.

<comment><USER15> Is it possible the problem lies at least somewhat in your approach? I appreciate that's not a pleasant possibility to consider, but my experience has been unlike yours, and I've been speaking against Facebook for a while now, both here on HN and with random people over drinks in bars.

I would like this to be the kind of thing I would discuss with friends, but that would require having friends. I did, once. Then Facebook happened. My comment history here, mostly just a few pages in from the top, details the whole story, if you're interested. (Sidebar: I've been thinking I should probably put together a list of links to some especially salient posts from there, in order to make it easy for people who aren't already interested to understand where I'm coming from and the nature of the problem I see. If you decide to go poking through my back numbers, perhaps you'd be so kind as also to mention whichever, if any, of those comments spoke strongly to you, so that I can be sure to include them in that list.)

In any case, what I do seems, if not necessarily to work, then generally not to fail. Here on HN, I almost always find a sympathetic ear, which I gather is pretty unusual for anyone talking about anything even remotely controversial. In real life, not everyone is interested, and that's okay. But I have noticed that, on lately less rare occasion, that people seem to take a mention of Facebook in a negative light as an opportunity to unburden themselves of their own complaints. These mostly seem to revolve around privacy concerns and platform lock-in, which is totally reasonable. That seems to be happening a bit more often lately. It's not something I really mention a lot here, on the one hand because those aren't really my stories to tell, and on the other because I also go to bars to drink, to enjoy myself and the company of others, and to remind myself that it is in fact possible to have an enjoyable social life that totally excludes Facebook. Quote-mining that wouldn't be much fun. So I don't do it.

You're right that it can be trickier to make these kinds of points outside a news cycle that includes Facebook having fucked up somebody's life again. It is far from impossible, but it does take a bit more effort and delicacy. And is it just me, or do such news cycles seem to be happening more and more often lately?

I understand your pessimism. Sometimes I feel the same. But it's important not to surrender, because to do so makes us useless, and since we refuse to help make money for it, useless is exactly what Facebook needs us to be. That by itself seems sufficient reason to me for us to be otherwise.

(Oh, and - if you actually do have a beard that extends down onto your neck, consider trimming and shaving to maintain a neat border along the underside of your jaw. Perceptions matter. If you look like Richard Stallman, people are less likely to take seriously anything you have to say. Perhaps that shouldn't be true, but it is, and we ignore the truth of the world at our peril.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not a facebook user, so I've never run head-long into this policy, but why doesn't facebook allow photos of nude children?

It seems awkward and creepy to consider all photos of nude children to be pornographic.

The vast, overwhelming majority (surely more than 99.9%, maybe more than two nines) of photos of nude children have no plausible sexual tone whatsoever.

And, similarly, I presume that many images that are indeed pornographic depict children who are clothed.

What does one have to do with the other?

For adults, I kinda understand: sex is one of the main reasons adults take their clothes off. But kids, especially young kids, run around naked all the time!

Does facebook not permit pictures of birth?

<comment><USER16> It's all about what someone could plausibly imagine someone else finding arousing. Never mind intent, and never mind content; is there someone, hypothetical or real, who could get off on it? Can pedophiles enjoy it?

This policy is not about protecting anyone. It's about keeping up appearances. The same can be said about most policies.

<comment><USER17> Well they'd better start banning pictures of tile patterns! [http://imgur.com/gallery/DowgNSg](http://imgur.com/gallery/DowgNSg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Would we say:

1\. The process worked. Facebook looked it over, reasoned about it, and changed their minds. Kudos to them for admitting a mistake.

2\. It took a media uproar to make a change like this. The process is broken. There has to be a better way to make these changes.

3\. There was no right objective answer in the first place, so the process is inherently political.

I am leaning towards #3. Want to know what the HN community thinks.

<comment><USER19> When "the process" that "worked" involved a head of state of a top 30 GDP country getting their post in support deleted before ending up coming up in your favor, then you _definitely_ do not have any evidence that there is a real process that can work.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, And in this case, it took a head of state to get one of the most instantly recognisable war photos of all time past the Facebook censors.

That photo was said by some to have been instrumental in bringing home to Americans the brutal effect of the war. It may have actually contributed to shortening the war.

Now imagine if the Vietnam war was underway right now, and that photo was taken 24 hours ago.

Would it be seen on Facebook? No way.

Their system is utterly broken.

<comment><USER21> This is an important point, particularly considering official Norwegian policy for most of the Vietnam war was to not question the US warfare.

There'd have been no way a Norwegian government at that time would have objected to censorship of an image like this, not least because everyone knew that the US would have reacted strongly, given that the most senior Nordic politician who dared speak up caused quite a stir:

When the then Minister of Education in Sweden, Olof Palme (later PM), took part in an anti-Vietnam war demonstration in 1968, the US withdrew their ambassador from Sweden. In 1972, he as a PM compared the US bombing of Hanoi to the bombing of Guernica, and the US froze diplomatic relations with Sweden for a year as punishment.

Norway itself saw a spate of people imprisoned for refusing conscription citing Norwegian NATO membership and the US war in Vietnam (I have an uncle that was in prison for that; my dad was also imprisoned for refusing conscription in part because of the past Norwegian attitudes to the Vietnam war, though his case happened after the war had ended - it took years before the Vietnam wars effect refusing conscription subsided)

It's easy to stand up for free speech when it involves something this old. It's far harder to stand up for it when it is happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Devil's advocate: I don't see why Facebook isn't allowed to choose what is or isn't displayed on their site. The only reason Facebook is a platform people choose to use is because of the editorial decisions they have been making. And the problem was that the policy was too consistent? That they were not making enough exceptions to the rule for important people?

<comment><USER23> Of course they're allowed to choose. And we're allowed to choose to criticize them in public for those choices. And they're allowed to choose to change their actions based on that criticism. Everybody is acting on the basis of their freedoms.

<comment><USER22> I'm reading this as a non-statement. Like I'm saying that no one should be outraged about this, and you are saying there is no such thing as outrage, just people acting in their own interests. Fine, that's very true, but then that takes the steam out of all arguments everywhere.

<comment><USER23> My point is that you equate outrage to "they're not allowed to," when that's not the case at all. They are absolutely allowed to. If you want to talk about the merits of outrage, you can't start with a false description of what it implies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I agree with the comments that having public forums controlled by single companies like Facebook and Reddit can be problematic if they start censoring what people are allowed to post.

What I do, and what I encourage family and friends to do, is to have your own blog and post substantial writings on your blog and use social media posts to reference your blog. I still use social media for posting vacation pictures, commenting on other people's posts, and links to interesting stuff to read on the web.

I think this is a good compromise.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder, do these restrictions also apply to Instant Articles? Because as much as Facebook wants to deny being a media company, if it is providing (and censoring) a platform news organizations publish through it most definitely is one. And it's worth stopping to think about what that means when compared to the open web.

</comment><comment><USER26> Oh...so Facebook "backs down" after another one of their censorship cases blows up on the Internet.

But how many thousands of similar cases don't find the same outrage online, but are still just as dangerous? We don't hear about those. That's the problem with censorship - most of the time you don't even know what you were supposed to be able to see, by the time it's censored.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why can't FB do like Flickr and deploy a system where people self classify their content and then subscribers can set whether they want all content or safe content as well as provide the "take me back to the kittens" if an image offends...

</comment><comment><USER28> Am I the only one concerned here about the posts with links requiring to sign up just to read?

for people like me, here a link not requiring a signup to read: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/09/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/09/facebook- reinstates-napalm-girl-photo)

</comment><comment><USER29> It would have made much more sense to say "no nude children" no matter what and consistently apply it. Naplam girl's photo could have been blurred a little and still be shown to convey the exact same message.

This sort of exception based polciies would lead facebook into same trouble as the way they were censoring conservative news.

<comment><USER30> What age are children, and is other nudity allowed? Pictures of states like David? It's not dimple to find a moral common ground for the entire world (or even some arbitrary selection of countries that are deemed to have "valid" morals).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Can Facebook be held accountable under monopoly laws? They are too big and too influential for our own good.

<comment><USER32> This generally applies when they do something that prevents competition. If Facebook made it difficult or impossible for you to use other social media websites, then maybe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> One thing that I don't understand is why all these people that complain about Facebook don't just switch to an open source, distributed Social Network platform.

It's not like anybody is forcing them to use FB or that there are no alternatives.

<comment><USER25> Quite literally, network effects. There is no point using an open source, distributed social network if you have no friends on it.

In many ways you don't _really_ have a choice about what social network you use, just whether you use one at all.

<comment><USER34> On the positive side, if you don't know anyone on the network, then it's a great opportunity to make some new friends!

<comment><USER35> Making new acquaintances is useless if nobody from your 30km radius is on the network or if it is hard to meet people inside this radius. Friendships decay really fast with distance, especially when there is no real strong bond.

As much as I am disgusted by Facebook right now, they do one thing right -- they make it fairly easy to connect to friends of friends and people that are in your social circles but you don't know them yet. (A large part is the amount of data they have, along with a good friend suggestion system.)

I'm pretty much invisible on Diaspora -- there is no way I can meet new friends from my area unless I start posting a lot with tags like #cityname and #countryname, and even then it all hinges on at least somebody being on the same server -- if they are on a different one, the tagged posts will not get there.

<comment><USER34> >Making new acquaintances is useless if nobody from your 30km radius is on the network or if it is hard to meet people inside this radius. Friendships decay really fast with distance, especially when there is no real strong bond.

I disagree, local proximity is not critical to maintaining a friendship. I have friends I talk with daily who live much further than 30km away, even some in other countries. A great thing about the internet is it allows people to connect over other similarities than physical location. I have some friends who I've never even met in person before, for example.

On the other hand, I've never really found facebook style physical "friend-of- a-friend" type connections to be that useful to me. Most all of my friends in meatspace are part of the same group, ie all our "friend-of-friends" are each other. The rest are people who aren't interested in introducing me to the rest of their social circle.

Now I don't think this proves anything, or even if there is any way of measuring the ease/quality of friends made on vs off line, but it's just an example from my own life. How well making friends with strangers online, strangers offline, or friends-of-friends depends heavily on your personality and current social group. The situation is a lot more variable than how you present it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> They backed down because they figured out who they were censoring?

</comment><comment><USER37> Inquiring minds want to know - was it a stupid algorithm or a stupid person at Facebook that deleted those posts.

<comment><USER38> It wouldn't even need to be a stupid person. Just a person who probably won't get in trouble for erring on the side of caution, but could face serious consequences for failing to enforce Facebook's policies.

That's usually a decent approach, and in most cases it doesn't cause an uproar. In the few cases where it does, the hot potato gets tossed up the chain of command until someone reverses the decision.

Or, as others have mentioned, the deletion was triggered automatically when the image was flagged by too many people. I sympathize with the deletion algorithm here. If I slave over a hot CPU all day just trying to do my job, the last thing I want to do is get sent to /dev/null because I failed to delete an image that really was inappropriate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can't we all agree that tech notwithstanding Facebook is just dumb in every way possible.

</comment><comment><USER40> previous discussion of the aftenposten editor's response, poster of the photo: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12457004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12457004)

</comment><comment><USER41> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12464883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12464883) Facebook to reinstate censored image of 'napalm girl'

<comment><USER42> Thanks, we merged the previous discussion with this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> why?

<comment><USER44> Says it right in the article. They made the wrong decision to censor a historically relevant photograph. So they backed down.

<comment><USER43> Who made the decision within the company? That's way more important than the fact the decision was made. Do they have a new position we were previously unaware of that handles requests for heads of state? What if the request is for the opposite? Who censors things explicitly? Who handles media relations? When? Why? Over what threshold do they consider it to be an issue?

Why?

<comment><USER45> I have no inside knowledge of Facebook's workings, but I speculate that the sequence of events was:

Employees saw this thread on Hacker News, posted on Facebook's meme network, the meme got a thousand upvotes, and someone did a one-off to reverse this decision.

Because it was obvious to everyone that it was the wrong decision. It was also probably obvious to everyone that the mistake that lead to this decision will keep happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Good, are we done with fake outrage ?</comment>


We may need 300k contact tracers to defeat Covid-19. We have 2,200 - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/we-may-need-300000-contact-tracers-to-defeat-covid-19-we-have-2200/ <comment><USER2> One of those "solutions" that's worse than the "problem."</comment>


Ask HN: I'll die about 2068, will most games still be written in C/C++? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> No, because the bottleneck for most games is typically GPU performance, with a side of memory allocation. There is no magic dictating that every game needs deep instruction-level massaging, and many of the interesting bits that do need it can be turned into library code. The stack for a high performance game of 2068 might still be "low level" relative to other applications, but it has as much reason to shift towards a higher average level of abstraction as any other piece of software.

</comment><comment><USER3> With the move to mobile gaming, very possibly. Programmer convenience may not be as important as battery power.

<comment><USER3> It's an issue even with console gaming, where noisy fans, and fire risks on carpet floors hamstring advancement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most games aren't written in c/c++ today. Maybe most AAA games are. Most games are written in various engines that use other languages whether it's c# in unity or the language in game maker etc...

<comment><USER5> Yeah, not really, the engine aka Unity or Unreal is still written in C/C++. Also, any game that requires performance that doesn't use one of these pre- made engines such as Factorio or Prison Architect, still requires C/C++ at it's core, but can use Lua or something for gameplay.

<comment><USER6> > Yeah, not really, the engine aka Unity or Unreal is still written in C/C++.

That's kind of like saying that most websites are written in C/C++ because that's that the browsers are written in.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. The question is what language at game developers working in. I mean, at the end if the day, everything's machine code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> well that's 52 years from now, and for some perspective, FORTRAN was released 59 years ago. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that a paradigm shift will happen in half a century.

</comment><comment><USER9> no, no more games will be written after you die. At least from your perspective.

</comment><comment><USER10> No.

Most games won't be written.

<comment><USER11> Elaborate! Do you mean AI or visual coding and editing tools?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most games with good graphics. Yes. There is no alternative.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your Docker workflow? - <AUTHOR> There's too many application out there that seem to cover the basics, but the nitty-gritty details are left out.
Basic question is: How do you edit, version and deploy your app? I'm sure it's gets very tricky when I want things like Let's encrypt or CI/CD setup.
I'm looking for simple workflows that would reduce vendor lockin to minimal. The promise of Docker is very appealing that I can switch a cloud provider easily, but it would be nice to see how you do it in practice. <comment><USER2> I don't see Docker as part of deployment. Docker is a way to run something in a sandbox.

My app runs on an operating system. I include a setup script that prepares the OS so my app can run.

If the OS runs on bare metal, inside a VM or inside a container makes no difference for the app.</comment>


"Not" Neutrality? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/not-neutrality/ <comment><USER2> I like how the first comment on the blog is:

"Face it: You are simply trying to defend your CDN business as it is being bypassed by direct connections between content providers and last mile ISPs."

Its clearly a telecom employee that wrote that or someone who is ignorant. If they weren't, they'd realize [https://www.netflix.com/openconnect](https://www.netflix.com/openconnect) was Netflix offering to do that for free.

Netflix is paying to get the data from their datacenters to the LEC regardless.

<comment><USER3> Is this the logical conclusion? Everyone puts a CDN box inside the local ISP?

Doesn't this cease to scale at some point?

<comment><USER4> Does it need to?

At the moment netflix is 50% of internet bandwidth.

If that could be delivered from a CDN within the ISP, that takes a majority of traffic off the congested pipes and leaves enough room for all the current demand with quite a bit of overhead.

<comment><USER5> Ugh. I think it's very Brave New Worldish that half of our global telecommunications grid is saturated by people watching TV.

<comment><USER2> We are in the Brave New World, my friend. That is just the open internet. Now add all those lovely people who watch cable, satellite. ;)

[http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv- movies/americans...](http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv- movies/americans-spend-34-hours-week-watching-tv-nielsen-numbers- article-1.1162285)

People spend more time watching TV as they do working on average. [34 + 3 = 37]

[http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm)

34.5 hour work week average

<comment><USER6> More accurately, we live in an eerie mix of Brave New World and 1984 :(

<comment><USER2> True. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could Netflix start offering discounts to customers of more reasonable ISPs?

<comment><USER8> That'd be great, but I only have one choice where I live.

<comment><USER9> Do you not have cable, DSL, satellite, and LTE?

<comment><USER10> Cable is generally the primary option of high-speed internet ( > 10 Mbit).

DSL (when not of the ATT U-verse variety) barely gets over 10-Mbit in practice, with speeds closer to 3-Mbit being fairly common.

Satellite can't really be considered high-speed due to latency.

LTE coverage is still poor, and I've yet to see hardware suitable for a home connection for it. (Tethering via a cellphone doesn't count.)

So, no. There's really generally one, _maybe_ two choices for home high-speed internet so it's not like customers can vote with their dollars and move to a Netflix-friendly ISP.

<comment><USER11> It still surprises me that US government hasn't gone the same way as Canada and the UK and opened the lines up to competition. By forcing ISPs to offer up their "last mile" lines to competitors at reasonable prices, I've seen prices and plans get a lot better where I live over the last few years.

<comment> T-hawk Regulatory capture. Interests concerned with protecting ISPs' monopolistic profits have more government influence than interests concerned with the good of the consumer.

<comment><USER9> It's not like they don't have regulatory agencies in the UK or Canada. It's a pretty weak, handwaving argument to just assert that their agencies are less prone to capture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What about class action consumer lawsuit for false advertisement? You are not selling me 1Gbps if you are deliberately congested at the LEC.

<comment><USER13> Or maybe the FTC could step in. [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140608/07411627511/forge...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140608/07411627511/forget- fcc-should-we-be-looking-to-ftc-to-save-open-internet.shtml)

<comment><USER14> I think there's a valid argument for them to step in here.

This is an issue of customers not being able to use what they purchased, eg The Internet.

The water was arguably muddy when they were advertising "Speeds up to X", but now when their own infrastructure is incapable of providing what they're selling and they are fully aware of this, they no longer have a leg (or argument) to stand on.

<comment><USER15> I dont see how they can get in trouble for not providing their advertised speeds so long as the speed degradation only occurs outside of their direct network.

<comment><USER14> Are you choosing to ignore the fact that Level3 has offered to pay for the equipment and labor to upgrade their peering point and the ISP has refused, or are you choosing to imagine that the peering point is outside of that ISP's "direct network"?

Either way you cut it, the ISP is in the wrong. The peering point is 100% within their control, and Level3 has gone above and beyond to try to ease congestion, the ISP has outright refused.

How on earth can you side with the ISP on this - do you work for one?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wish they would've named the ISPs, but I'm sure they'd probably get in trouble for that heh

<comment><USER13> LEC 2 is probably AT&T. (With congestion like that, I guess I won't bother to sign up for "GigaPower".) Verizon is LEC 1 or 3 and I'm not sure who the other LEC is.

<comment><USER17> EDIT: Disregard this I'm dumb

Comcast? Comcast and Verizon were the big two Netflix signed deals with.

<comment><USER18> It's probably CenturyLink, which is the 3rd largest LEC behind AT&T and Verizon. (Comcast isn't classified as a Local Exchange Carrier, it a cable operator.)

<comment><USER19> It definitely is CenturyLink. Their Level 3 interconnects have been saturated for awhile, longer than March.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When is a high tech Silicon Valley company going to pop up providing high internet speeds through wifi or data signal?

Would be a booming startup for sure. Very surprised google has not taken this one on. I hate being forced to have only once choice for internet (cox). You know that there is not much of incentive for them to do a good job when they have no competition!!!!

<comment><USER21> 4G speeds is pretty much the state of the art in production ready systems. While there is a lot of speed available on LTE, once it is shared across a reasonable number of people the performance drops. This is why bandwidth caps are so tight on mobile networks, they can't have all their subscribers pulling 200gb of data a month, else everyone is going to get DSL 1 speeds.

This problem is a fundamental issue of RF Spectrum, and these problems tend to be addressed by blue sky research that occurs at a university.

Google is trying to address this in the most cost effective manner possible... google fibre. Wireless is unlikely to be any cheaper then simply rolling fibre / copper to every home.

<comment><USER22> I think it may have a lot to do with regulation.

I've been looking around, to see whether I could find information on the total bandwidth of the DVB-T(2) spectrum for some country, but I couldn't.

I want to know because I'm wondering if, perhaps, the technical abilities are there, but we can't use them because only a select, small set of frequencies are allowed for data transfer.

I'm still not sure whether that's the case though.

<comment><USER23> It has nothing to do with regulation, it has to do with physics. Wireless is not nearly as good a communication channel as fiber or cable. Intuitively this is because of interference with other signals, reflections and obstructions, all of which are continuously changing.

<comment><USER24> It's also due to the fact that there's only a few GHz of spectrum in which cheap equipment can broadcast a powerful enough signal to go any useful distance. WiFi operating in 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz are tricky but not impossible to use for anything longer-range than a single building. Much higher frequency, and you have to use pretty powerful transmitters and well-aimed highly directional antennas. Current tech allows for a few bits/s/Hz, so there's only a few gbit/s of bandwidth to be allocated between all long-range communication uses. If you want to offer gigabit speeds to households over wireless, you have to deploy a mesh network that's so dense it would be cheaper to just lay fiber.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> adam-f FYI: I'm running a 1920x1200 screen rotated, so with my browser (FF32) as full screen I'm just at the point that the annoying #dd_ajax_float element is shown, but it covers the left edge of the first paragraph.

<comment><USER25> 1920x1200 landscape, same issue.

<comment><USER26> Here also. It's awful UX/UI.</comment></comment></comment>


My Apology to Naomi Wu and the Make Community - <AUTHOR> https://makezine.com/2017/11/19/apology-to-naomi-wu/ <comment><USER2> It's really quite ridiculous, because if you watch some of her videos where she's doing a build, it's obvious she's doing all the cutting, soldering, drilling, etc

But more then that, if you watch videos where she is being interviewed talking about being a Maker (e.g. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcnChnrHwXg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcnChnrHwXg)) she talks just like a real hacker. She uses the exact terminology and process you'd expect, knowing you're not an expert in something, but just scraping a whole bunch of different other projects that other people contributed and made tutorials on, and tweaking them and combining them to make it your own.

It's like this CEO didn't spend even 10 minutes watching her videos and just decided to believe a conspiracy theory.

<comment><USER3> what is a Maker?

<comment><USER4> It's a made up term. Titles are suppose to be specific. I made a nice dinner yesterday myself. Guess I'm a maker too(no recipe used,original as well!)

Since they are using "maker" to describe persons that are engineering electronics related work,why not just call themselves "electronics engineer"?

Edit: seems I stepped on toes with my comment,I don't know how else to react to a term like "maker". Could have been less sarcastic but I'll eat up the downvotes and maintain what small amount of common sense I have.

<comment><USER5> Every term is made up. That's how language works.

<comment><USER4> When you describe what you do with a term (made up or not),that term should at the very least give your audience some idea of what you do.

Everyone is a maker. The point of a language is to communicate information,not to obscure it. Would it be a proper use of language if a programmer called himself a "writer"? After all he is writing. "programmer" or "software developer" is used to distinguish what type of writing he/she works with for a living.

Sorry if that offended you,but from my perspective,it just does not communicate the nature of their work efficiently.

<comment><USER5> I'm not offended, I just thought that was a really silly criticism.

Lack of specificity is a much better one.

<comment><USER4> Fair enough. This is why I would not ever be able to keep a silicon valley job.

Sure language is made up,but isn't an obstacle to clear communication bad language?

I find it hard to accept unreasonable logic(even the popular and trendy kind).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> _I consider the issue with me resolved. This apology is more comprehensive and I have been promised tools with which I can repair my reputation here in China._

[https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/932363497647751168](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/932363497647751168)

<comment><USER6> That Twitter page is NSFW. Although the username should have warned me.

<comment><USER7> Why is a warning downvoted?

<comment><USER8> I didn't downvote but the page is perfectly SFW. There's skin on display but no more than in, say, a one-piece swimsuit ad (on average- there's four or five pictures).

There's no inappropriate body parts on display. I'd feel safe to show this to my boss, though my boss's mother would probably disaprove.

<comment><USER9> Really? I wouldn't dream of showing that page to my boss or coworkers.

Honestly, doing so could plausibly and understandably make many women and some men uncomfortable.

<comment><USER10> I agree these may be uncomfortable for some. But they're definitely SFW.

I'm ok with some things being uncomfortable. We got past the idea that women can wear trousers to work. We can get past this as well. Some progress can be uncomfortable.

<comment><USER11> It's almost as if... there isn't a single universal definition of NSFW and different workplaces have different expectations! I know—-crazy, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, Dale Dougherty just saved his career. He was going to lose this one. Naomi Wu has taken on challenges before and built things in front of an audience. Dale Dougherty is a publishing guy from print media. He acts like he's the head of the "maker movement", but he himself isn't a "maker". Unlike Jim Newton, the former head of TechShop, who is really into tools. He could have become a negative-value asset to Make Magazine and the Maker Faire operation.

Make Magazine is dated, anyway. It's a print publication. Instructables is the go-to site for how to make things. That's now run by Autodesk, which encourages hobbyist use of Autodesk software in hopes that some amateurs will become pros and buy more Autodesk software.

Naomi Wu's videos are often funny. She has a wry sense of humor. She converted a 3D printer into a wearable device worn on her back. It runs off batteries and prints as she rides the subway and walks through malls. The manufacturer for which she did that can now show that their unusual device is really robust.

When it doesn't work, she's honest about it. She did an evaluation of a 3D printer / CNC mill / laser printer combo. The thing is an X-Y-Z platform with changeable tool heads. It wouldn't home consistently, and Wu gave it a very negative review.

She has some nice techniques. At one point, she needed to punch a hole through a nylon covered foam pad, so she could put a bolt through. She heated up a screwdriver with a butane torch and pushed it through the pad, leaving a clean hole.

</comment><comment><USER13> The best article I've read on the backstory: [https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046)

<comment><USER14> I've only skimmed it so I may be missing something, but what did Dale Dougherty actually say about Naomi Wu? All I'm seeing is "Dale Doughtery tweeted a single line questioning Naomi Wu's authenticity."

Possibly unrelated, but I'm looking at Wu's Twitter ([https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg)), and this is something I struggle with. People should absolutely be allowed to dress how they please without fear of judgment. As the article says, "I do my best engineering when sitting half-naked at my desk." There's nothing wrong with that. But when a person or product deliberately cultivates a hypersexualized image in a field and setting that has nothing to do with sex, that's weird and off-putting to me. To swap the genders, I'd have no problem with a male engineer who does his best work half-naked at his desk at home and likes to do sexy cosplay sometimes, but it would be weird if that engineer's professional Twitter was topped with a dozen pics of him shirtless in leather pants--not "fake" or "inauthentic," just weird.

I realize I know nothing about Wu except a glance at her Twitter, so I apologize if I'm missing something.

<comment><USER15> I didn't downvote you, but I think you may be getting downvotes because of the sentence that begins with "But."

> People should absolutely be allowed to dress how they please without fear of > judgment. As the article says, "I do my best engineering when sitting half- > naked at my desk." There's nothing wrong with that.

That's it. Full stop. There's nothing to add after that. You don't need to add "but..." and then state the _exact opposite_ of that sentiment.

You find something weird about someone? Guess what -- we're all weird. Somebody out there probably finds something about _you_ weird. But who gives a shit! Life's a lot better once you just get over it and accept people despite their weirdness. Or even better, _because_ of their weirdness.

<comment><USER16> I think _PhasmaFelis_ has a valid point.

I'd add that what she's doing is not the healthiest role model for young girls growing up, given the issues with sexism in tech/professional industries.

Tech achievements aside, the flaunting of her breast implants is sad. In the unlikely case she has not had plastic surgery, she still seems to be asking people first to "check out my body" and then "btw, I make things too".

I would have the same problem with a man who got 6-pack implants and flaunted his abs with his tech profile. It's short-term shallowness, and undoes the achievements in her field. And so I won't be following what she does, and will now leave this discussion for others.

<comment><USER17> Why is it sad? I think that its refreshing to see a woman be fearless in expressing her femininity / sexuality AND her interest / expertise in tech. They're not mutually exclusive. A woman saying "check out my body, I'm sexy" shouldn't disqualify the "btw I make things." The tone of your comment is along the lines of "she was asking for it" :\

<comment><USER16> There's nothing fearless or feminine about implants.

The "camera review" videos on her channel where she walks around with selfie stick pointing at her boobs. That's just poor taste click bait, not "expressing femininity". View count jumps above 1 million the less she wears, but at what cost?

I've no idea about the main story of apology, I just found this today and commenting on her channel and choice of brand promotion. This to me would easily cause lack of trust with whatever she does, simply because of her willingness to self-exploit for view count.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That was a real dick move by Dale. All you have to do is watch a couple of Naomi's videos and you can see she is not a fraud. She is comfortable and competent with all the tools she uses in her videos and not just in a studio setting either but out and about she will hack on something.

I am glad Dale has apologised as it was long overdue IMHO. I'm not sure I could be so forgiving as Naomi is though. For 2 weeks her reputation has been trashed.

<comment><USER19> Yeah - 2 weeks which I strongly suspect Dale spent arguing "What? I didn't do anything wrong!" while legal and PR tried desperately to convince him to publish an apology...

He gets no credit from me for a 2 week late apology that's helpfully published with an accompanying Chinese translation. There's no sense of personal acknowledgement of wrongdoing here, just a corporate response to a paying- customer backlash.

<comment><USER20> Well said. This is exactly how I feel about this whole situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> this was his second "apology"

his first one was just a generic, "i'm sorry if i offended anyone" after he publicized a conspiracy theory about naomi.

then it was revealed that andrew huang (who worked a lot on reverse engineering the original xbox), was asked in private by dale if naomi was real, and andrew vouched for her. yet he chose to go with the conspiracy theory story instead.

this is a, "i better do this or my ass will be fired" deal. the original story was never posted on hackernews (that i recall) but if she didn't continue to fight for her reputation this dale would have just let this blow over.

</comment><comment><USER22> An interesting bit of translation:

English original: I specifically apologize for the tactless use of quotes around "her" in a tweet of mine that was offensive to Naomi and all women.

Chinese translation: 我还要特别为我那句不得体的在"her"加双引号的暗示她是变性人言论抱歉,这不仅冒犯到Naomi而且对其他女性来说也是不公平的。

Chinese translated back to English: I am especially sorry for my tactless use of quotes around "her", alluding to that she is transsexual, which is not only offensive to Naomi but also unfair to other women.

<comment><USER23> That's a good find. Topics related to political correctness are often mistranslated due to cultural differences; western-style political correctness isn't really a "thing" in China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What I really didn't like about this whole saga is that when miss Wu decided to strike back she got banned from Twitter for twelve hours.

<comment><USER19> Twitter's a fucking trashfire these days. Be an openly public Nazi? Oh no, we'll remove your blue verified tick! Use Twotter to send rape and death- threats? "No contravention of Twitter community guidelines..." Tell a nazi who threatens to kill you to fuck off? Get your account suspended... I feel Dale and Jack are from the same cult...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Background: [https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/7b1eqz/ceo_of_m...](https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/7b1eqz/ceo_of_make_magazine_dale_dougherty_claims_that/)

Cofounded O'Reilly Media, too: [http://radar.oreilly.com/dale](http://radar.oreilly.com/dale)

</comment><comment><USER26> I am super happy to see this response from Dale. I was horrified at what he posted, as it sounds completely out of character of him from what I know of him. Glad to see him own it and move onwards and upwards. I hope that this fixes Naomi's situation.

</comment><comment><USER27> He turns his personal flaws into a collective bias. His first paragraph tries to shift responsibility from the individual to a larger category of people.

> _"...the negative impact of my tweets was amplified by the fact that I, _a > white, Western, male _CEO of a key company in the Maker community, publicly > questioned a young, female, self-employed Chinese maker. "_

<comment><USER28> He's not trying to make the whole group responsible for his mistake, he is trying to highlight that white western males are powerful over marginalized groups and hold unconscious biases both collectively and individually. When someone with large white western male following sends racist/misogynist/whateverist signals, those signals are easily amplified and overpowering to whatever marginalized person/group is on the receiving end. So no, the entire group did not make that mistake. But it is every group members responsibility to understand these power dynamics and educate/change both themselves and their peers to not abuse this power be it on purpose or unconsciously.

When a member of the group looks at a situation like this they need to reflect on if they are guilty at all and (regardless of if they are) how they can help change the culture. Your comment on "shifting responsibility" is not productive in that regard and only comes off as defensive. Not trying to say you're a white western dude possibly guilty of abusing power dynamics over marginalized groups, but something to keep in mind.

Also read this[0] blog, much more eloquent and detailed than my response here.

[0][https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This seems to be a rare case of a woman turning a stumbling block into a career stepping stone. Given the amendments being made, I hope future press for Ms. Wu on HN is for her work, not her gender, wardrobe or being slandered.

</comment><comment><USER30> Fascinating story. In the end, I'm happy to have learned about a new maker hero to follow. (Naomi Wu, not Dale Dougherty.)

</comment><comment><USER31> What's with this invitation to the Western Maker Faire? The ones in China aren't equal?

<comment><USER32> The ones in China are probably not organized by the company directed by him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Firstly, the public apology was required, she's clearly a maker and was wrongly accused of being a front person.

>my response reflected my unconscious biases; and the negative impact of my tweets was amplified by the fact that I, a white, Western, male CEO of a key company in the Maker community, publicly questioned a young, female, self- employed Chinese maker.

Fair point about unconscious bias. It's difficult as we are creatures of habit and purposely always look for patterns, mostly to our advantage but sometimes to our disadvantage. It's tough. I have seen countless times though that gender based unconscious bias is present in reality, more times than not against males - although rarely reported (schools, Universities and work places).

The next point about how being a CEO for a company in a large engineering community and then publicly discrediting another person is massively impacting on the person being attacked. In general it seems to be that the more powerful your voice, the more you should think about what you say. Even then, powerless individuals can quickly be amplified for the purpose of being attacked or held up as a leader of some opinion.

The next part grates. What has the combination of "white", "Western" and "male" got to do with the apology? Would the CEO's voice be any less effective if it was from an equally positioned black, African female? I would hope not. I think this could equally have been any other person of this power apologizing for doing little to no research. How did we get into the position where people are apologizing for features they are unable to control, somehow meaning they can or can't take part in some opinion/discussion? I bet the answer to that can't be made without discriminating.

And looking at the actions being taken in response, it doesn't make much sense:

>* With permission from Naomi, we will feature Naomi and her work on the cover of the next issue of Make: along with a full-length story about her work.

>* We will invite her and help her obtain a VISA to a USA Maker Faire in 2018, covering her travel and expenses.

>* We will be publishing a diversity audit of Make: as a company and our properties, and will be setting goals to drive progress on these issues.

>* We will be assembling advisory boards to work with our Maker Faire organizers to ensure our events are representative of our entire community. We will invite Naomi to be part of any advisory board for events in China.

Why is there now going to be a diversity audit of Make? What happened to question the diversity of Make and how does that prevent this public discrediting from occurring again? Surely a way more effective preventative measure would be to just turn off the CEO's Twitter account and stop any one person representative of Make from having unfiltered access to large audiences.

On the other hand, featuring her work is a good gesture to counteract the incorrect public statement made. The advisory board position is over the top and again, seems to suggest that there is something wrong with the Make community when it was the actions of the CEO.

 _Edit:_ Bad newline formatting for bullet points.

<comment><USER34> Nowhere in the piece does he apologize for being a white, western, male. You are arguing against or being grated by a straw man that's not there, he didn't do that.

He did say that "the negative impact of my tweets was amplified" by his social position, including being a white, western, male. I guess you disagree that this amplified the negative impact of those tweets? And this disagreement about assessment of negative impact bothers you for some reason?

He also, I agree, suggests, by the 'actions' they are taking that this social position probably made it more likely for him to have made this mistake. I guess you disagree? And are inflamed by this disagreement for some reason? Except you did write "fair point" about unconscious bias going on here.

I'm not quite sure what is irritating you so.

<comment><USER33> >Nowhere in the piece does he apologize for being a white, western, male. You are arguing against or being grated by a straw man that's not there, he didn't do that.

>He did say that "the negative impact of my tweets was amplified" by his social position, including being a white, western, male. I guess you disagree that this amplified the negative impact of those tweets? And this disagreement about assessment of negative impact bothers you for some reason?

Being white, Western and male is an attribute, not a social position. There's not a single social thing Dale can do that changes those attributes, unlike being rich and a CEO. Saying those seems to imply (from my perspective) that those attributes are in some way connected to his behaviour or his power. Put another way, there wouldn't be a scenario where if Dale was a black and female I would be saying "well, this could have been a whole lot worse if she was white and male".

The reason this bothers me is because the next time something bad happens in Silicon Valley and they happen to be white and male (which is likely given the overall demographic), they get grouped together and raise this general feeling that white men are an evil group of people.

>Except you did write "fair point" about unconscious bias going on here.

Everybody has unconscious bias, or at least everybody with a functioning brain. If I say "banana", almost guaranteed you think of something yellow, because we make assumptions to reduce the amount of information that needs to be interpreted about an idea. It's often difficult to work against. It's also not a property of just white, Western males either. It's shared throughout the world as an evolutionary advantage.

>I'm not quite sure what is irritating you so.

I know it's only a small thing, but it adds up over time towards this negativity that's building up in various media channels for or against different demographics.

<comment><USER34> Being white, Western, and male are totally social positions. That's why they matter, in a way an 'attribute' like your shirt size doesn't. Because our society is literally structured around them.

Still not something you can do individually to change them, not something to apologize for being, not something to feel guilty about it. But something to be aware of? For sure.

Disagreeing that being white, western (when talking to/about China) and male amplified the negative impact of the tweets is to pretend society is different than it is. It's not one's _fault_ one is in that social position, but it _is_ a social position, and it matters.

This may be a stretch, but being an SF reader, it's helpful to imagine an SF story about, say, aliens that take over the earth and set things up so they're in charge. Remember the 80s show 'V'? That's pretty much what's really going on, except not with aliens. Doesn't mean the aliens in V had to feel guilty for being aliens, and they couldn't change being aliens. But some of the acted against the other aliens plans to steal all the earths water and eat the humans, others for them, and others just went along with it. But pretending things weren't set up to give aliens power over humans wouldn't have helped anyone (well, except power-hungry aliens).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Glad he apologized and offered to right what he wronged. I hope Naomi accepts the apology as well. That said,unless you were personally wronged by this man,please let it go and consider this whole drama history. I wish either party didn't make this about a struggle between genders and classes. Guy acted like a jerk and apologized,something any one of us can do(regardless of gender,skin color or nationality)</comment>


Wikipedia founder brands PM's porn filters plan 'ridiculous' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23558865

<comment><USER2> Of course it's ridiculous. Why does it take Jimmy Fucking Wales saying this for BBC to run a story saying that?

Either David Cameron is an abject moron or he (and his cronies) don't understand this whole internet thing. It's probably the latter. AFAIK, everyone who didn't grow up online doesn't seem to "get" it.

<comment><USER3> No, I'm afraid _you_ don't understand it. What Cameron proposes is perfectly do-able if you have a) billions of pounds b) physical access to the submarine cables and c) buy your computing power by the acre. GCHQ ticks all those boxes. The people saying "haha I'll use a VPN" are the ones who don't "get" it.

<comment><USER4> The thing I take issue with is that the government DOESN'T have billions of pounds. This is a government of austerity that consistently derides the previous government of stupid spending. They take any opportunity of insulting Labour about how their bad spending habits have ruined our economy yet then want to fund something as stupid as this?

Kids will see porno, whether its blocked of not. It's the same as people being able to download torrents after the pirate bay was blocked or making drugs illegal doesn't stop people getting drugs.

This is a deeper issue that can't be solved by closing off parts of the Internet. We need to improve society in general, not make it harder for the people who want to seek this sort of thing out.

<comment><USER5> I don't believe Cameron is proposing the Govt to foot the bill and/or to host the equipment; that will be foisted upon ISPs. Having said that _some influential_ companies and government departments will benefit from said structure.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for clarifying that, this makes it easier to stomach.

There will still be a large expenditure on the side of the government, as is with most things in government. Such e penditure would be best spend influencing innovation and business, not requiring a sector to implement mandatory technology which probably has large costs.

It seems like the consumer will really foot the bill here. It seems a lot of decisions are made which cause the average joe to spend less, which isn't great for the economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is my problem with the vitriolic nature of politics in general - when a truly, profoundly stupefying idea comes along, we've run out of proper words we can use to aptly convey how utterly incomprehensible and devoid of rationality the idea is.

Our outrage can be reasonably seen as just another political discussion when in fact it's composed of literal and unbridled flabergastery the likes of which have not thusfar been witnessed by mankind.

</comment><comment><USER7> > _" Additionally when we use cases of a paedophile who's been addicted to > child porn videos online, you realise all that Cameron's rules would require > him to do is opt in and say, 'Yes, I would like porn please'."_

Am I missing something? Or have people genuinely made the argument that this filter will help prevent _child_ pornography? Surely the existing laws already block these sites?

<comment><USER8> They've genuinely made the argument that that justifies this, yes. No, they can't work computers, but neither can the people whose votes they hope this will net.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Jimmy did once own a porn site of course, which they might mention. Not that I disagree with him.

<comment> cupcake-unicorn Yeah, I was just going to add the very same thing, since it doesn't exactly make him the most neutral and unbiased person to talk about the subject. I think he's even tried to get his own Wiki page edited to remove or tone down that fact.

But like pretty much everyone in comments, yes, of course it's a stupid idea. I'm not sure why Jimmy is somehow an "authority" on this though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In truth, some of the content on Wikipedia is sensitive and would brand the site in more than one of the blocked categories. While not strictly pornographic, Wikipedia does get quite explicit, including entries and descriptions for things like fellatio, etc.

<comment><USER7> Fingers crossed they also ban dictionaries so that children can't find any words like "fellatio" in them either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It will be very interesting to see the criteria for a site to be labeled as porn. Is [http://500px.com](http://500px.com) going to be deemed a porn site because it has a "nude" section?

<comment><USER12> I suspect there will be different criteria at each ISP, kept secret in the name of protecting children without anyone taking responsibly for that list when it inevitably gets abused.

Secret until leaked that is.</comment></comment>


SkyTran innovative transport system to be tested in Israel - <AUTHOR> http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.600947

<comment><AUTHOR> It can reach speeds of 240km/h ?</comment>


Is the US past its prime? - <AUTHOR>

Having watched both this country's recent economic events, its loss of leadership in science and technology, and its drift away from reason, I'm coming to the conclusion that the US is no longer really the "place to be".  Do you agree?  Why or why not? <comment><USER2> Disagree. Where else would you go? Every other country, viewed in objective terms and not "OMG USA suXors. I read it on reddit", seems worse.

I do think that if the current trend and velocity continues for another 10-15 years, this may no longer be the case...

<comment><USER3> Lets say you could go to UK. What are the objective terms in which UK is worse than US?

<comment><USER2> Higher consumer debt per capita, and growing faster:

[http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2006/11/brits_against...](http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2006/11/brits_against_d.html)

Surveillance cameras in all public places:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108496.stm>

Harder to start a business:

<http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings/>

And worse weather. ;-)</comment></comment></comment>


The RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture - <AUTHOR> http://riscv.org/

<comment><USER2> It did not look like Adobe would render this pdf in my lifetime so I gave up.</comment>


Apple's Move to ARM-Based Macs Creates Uncertainty - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/apple-macbook-arm-chips-ea93c38a-d40a-4873-8de9-7727999c588c.html <comment><USER2> This just in: Human scared of change, tells internet about it</comment>


A little example of how a few words make a huge difference - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lawlytics.com/a-little-inspiration-to-help-get-legal-writers-writing

<comment><AUTHOR> This article was written by Kit Cramer, who spent 20 years in marketing in Chicago, SV and Madison Ave. While it's meant for attorneys, the lesson is universal and the meaning is uplifting.</comment>


Hackers who broke into Equifax exploited a flaw in open-source server software - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1073221/the-hackers-who-broke-into-equifax-exploited-a-nine-year-old-security-flaw/ <comment><USER2> To give nuance to the clickbait:

"The vulnerability in Struts was just recently discovered by security researchers, who announced it earlier this week on Sept. 4. According to the researchers, the bug has existed since 2008."

<comment><USER3> Equifax discovered the hack on July 29, more than a month before this vulnerability was discovered.

<comment><USER4> A month before this vulnerability was discovered _by these specific security researchers_.

<comment><USER5> A month before it was _disclosed_ by these researchers.

Given the magnitude of this hack, it is entirely possible they embargoed it for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Take this with a grain of salt: They claim that the Struts vulnerability in question is specifically CVE-2017-9805, and cite a William Baird & Co. report [1]. However, the report in question says nothing about a specific CVE, only that it was "the Apache Struts flaw". Struts has had multiple vulnerabilities recently, such as one back in February (CVE-2017-5638). It's possible it was one of these that they failed to patch.

[1] [https://baird.bluematrix.com/docs/pdf/dbf801ef-f20e-4d6f-91c...](https://baird.bluematrix.com/docs/pdf/dbf801ef-f20e-4d6f-91c1-88e55503ecb0.pdf)

<comment><USER7> I just hope the EFX breach used an older exploit and not a zero-day. That may have some influence on their perceived liability.

<comment><USER8> Why do you hope that? Do you _want_ them to be liable?

If it was a zero-day then they legitimately may not be at fault.

<comment><USER9> Forget about the zero-day for a minute.

They should be liable for poor storage practices around sensitive PII. Take for example SSN. With SHA2, there is no good reason for them to be stored in plaintext.

If you don't need it, don't store it. For SSN, you just need a function (SHA256+Salt) that would give you a one way mechanism of Creating an identifier that masks the original in an irreversible way.

The prevalence and misuse of SSN as an identifier for people is so out of date at this point and weak. We need something different.

<comment><USER10> If you're just hashing with SHA2 and a salt, an attacker with a run-of-the- mill GPU could crack any given hashing quite quickly. It might still take quite a bit of time to get all 143 million, but that's fine. Sell off the score in blocks of 10,000 and let the customer know they have to reverse the hashes themselves.

BCrypt with lots of rounds would be best.

<comment><USER9> Yes. You're correct of course. We should be treating these like passwords, except that they can't be rotated...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find the title irritating, as it seems to impugn open source software as a category. Why is the licensing model even relevant? A better phrasing would be something like "...flaw in a popular web framework" or "...flaw in Apache Struts."

<comment><USER12> > Why is the licensing model even relevant?

Licensing model directly affects the availability of source code, and this technically facilitates exploit discovery.

<comment><USER13> Also, many open source proponents claim that open source software is more secure because the "many eyes" theory will lead to bugs and vulnerabilities being discovered sooner. This and other high profile exploits like heartbleed show how well this theory applies in practice is questionable.

<comment><USER14> I find that conclusion presumptuous. Unless you can say how many bugs would have been discovered had the source been closed, then it doesn't make sense to claim the opposite.

Also, do we know that e.g. this and Heartbleed were discovered by reading the source? If they weren't then the availability of the source code is inconsequential IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is based on a report from Baird Equity Research.

Some key items from that report:

* "Our understanding is data retained by EFX primarily generated through consumer interactions was breached via the Apache Struts flaw (i.e., core databases not believed to have been breached)."

* "Key EFX databases are not known to have been breached as part of the incident, including the consumer credit file, TWN, NCTUE, IXI, or its commercial credit database. Our understanding is that data entered (and retained) through consumer portals/interactions (consumers inquiring about their credit reports, disputes, etc.) and data around it was breached via the Apache Struts flaw."

* "the breach is believed to have occurred from mid-May through July" and was discovered on July 29.

It's not clear whether this is referring to the Struts problem just announced or if it's the Struts problem earlier in the year, but if it's the just- announced one then it means that someone was actively exploiting it in the wild since at least May of this year. The timeframe would fit better for the early-2017 vulnerability [1] which was apparently also being exploited in the wild in March.

Obviously if they had enough access to the system it would be possible to connect through to the databases being accessed, but if this was all scraping of data passing through rather than at-rest then it may also indicate a lot more sophistication in the attack - unless there's a small number of points where the attackers could copy out data, this likely required a fair amount of analysis of Equifax's code to shim things in and grab data without breaking things.

The other interesting question is more along the lines of "If you haven't interacted with Equifax and haven't applied for anything involving credit, does that lessen the risk that you're impacted?"

[1] [https://cve.mitre.org/cgi- bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-5638](https://cve.mitre.org/cgi- bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-5638) (Apache Struts Jakarta Multipart Parser file upload vulnerability for RCE)

<comment><USER16> I find it curious how one can implant code like this into existing codebases. It takes us a while to code review and deploy, and when we deploy we overwrite what's already on production

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Regarding CVE-2017-9805, I'm genuinely in awe over how remote code execution in Java is even possible. Why should it even be possible to deserialize data on the wire into executable code?

Also, can someone shed light on the technical side of this? E.g., how does the JVM compile Java code it receives on the wire into Java byte code? Does the JVM runtime have a built-in Java compiler that outputs Java byte code that it itself can execute?

[https://lgtm.com/blog/apache_struts_CVE-2017-9805](https://lgtm.com/blog/apache_struts_CVE-2017-9805)

<comment><USER18> I had shock and awe when I learnt how to exploit PHP's unserialize() vulnerabilities, shock when I learnt Python had the same thing with unpickle, and then somewhat lost the plot reading about a previous Rails vulnerability which looks very much like this struts vulnerability.

It's unsurprising someone, somehow, built the same thing for Java, but I wish we'd move from "don't unserialize unless it's safe" to "this language should not have this feature".

<comment><USER19> Well, the intended goal of the plugin in question is to enable Rails-like functionality [1]. So if they took inspiration from there it's not that surprising if they end up with the same vulnerabilities.

[1] [http://struts.apache.org/docs/rest- plugin.html](http://struts.apache.org/docs/rest-plugin.html)

<comment><USER17> In my humble opinion, when a remote code execution vulnerability appears in an application written in a memory safe language, you know you've chosen the wrong way to model a problem.

The art of writing code is defining the problem space, which is avoided completely when you allow the consumer of your interface to execute arbitrary code. The whole point of interfaces is to restrict the possible actions of a consumer of it — i.e. the inverse of arbitrary remote code execution — which is the hard part of software design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> (Also posted in the discussion for an article re the lawsuits being filed vs Equifax for the leak)

Credit card companies could provide other businesses such as Equifax distinct mere-reference numbers which the customer doesn't see and which can't be used for purchases - just to absolutely identify which card, for all parties. These could be added to the magnetic stripe or chip in the card, for example. (It might be gilding the Lilly, but many such reference numbers could be used for a given card, re privacy issues or otherwise. But then those numbers couldn't be usefully passed between companies for all purposes.) There's no need for anyone but the customer and Credit Card company itself to retain the actual credit-obtaining-number (other than to allow future purchases with permission, which is the rarer case, often needs to be prevented not facilitated, and doesn't excuse Equifax having more than a reference number.) Yet the credit card companies don't do this. Why not? 'Cause humans are idiots, all of us, that's why. PS - run to the patent office and you might be able to make a ton of money patenting this, since patents are now given to whoever shows up at the patent office with the appropriate fees first. Precedence doesn't matter. You would be implying that you thought the idea up independently, of course, but you're smart, right? That's totally the sort of thing you could think of independently. Then when you're rich, you too can help choose what the patent laws look like, and whether rich people should pay taxes.

</comment><comment><USER21> > a popular plugin called REST

Why cant tech 'journalists' get someone who knows what they're talking about to proofread their articles?

<comment><USER22> Remember this the next time you read anything in the news about an industry you don't understand.

<comment><USER23> The Gell Mann amnesia effect - [https://seekerblog.com/2006/01/31/the-murray- gell-mann-amnes...](https://seekerblog.com/2006/01/31/the-murray-gell-mann- amnesia-effect/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hah! Surely a memory-safe language cannot have security vulnerabilities. /s

I find it telling that in this case it was NOT a C program being responsible for the hack, even though the affected machine was likely running many orders of magnitude more C than Java code.

I've always said it and I will repeat it here again; higher level languages fail in ways that are much more surprising, complicated and hidden than your typical "insecure" C program.

</comment><comment><USER25> Humm, just got an apache struts security update from Redhat, and confluence doesn't have an update for it. Interesting...

<comment><USER26> I believe the more recent vulnerability doesn't apply to the atlassian tools (I'd love to know if I was mislead). My understanding was the latest struts vuln requires you to be using a specific REST plugin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> On what proof?

</comment><comment><USER28> TIL people are still using Struts in their crazy old enterprise applications. Jesus...

</comment><comment><USER29> Wrong emphasis. It must be read "flaw in open source _Java_ software.

The problem is Java, not Open Source.

<comment><USER11> I'd leave it out of the title altogether as irrelevant. The fact that Struts is distributed with a particular license is no more important in this case than the fact that the foundation that distributes it is incorporated in Delaware.</comment></comment>


Is it time to upend the idea that land is private property? - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/is-it-time-to-upend-the-idea-that-land-is-private-property <comment><USER2> I'm not sure that I'm prepared to give up private land ownership.

But instead, the real core issue that this touches on, is that we as individuals, but more importantly as groups that make up corproations, etc, need to act conscientiously. It is cheaper to dump waste in the river instead of deal with it properly. In that moment, we put some ephemeral company entity's benefit ahead of ourselves. We need to all be stewards of ourselves and others and refuse to allow the groups we are part of to neglect the wellbeing of society.

</comment><comment><USER3> How about, technological progress is property of all and not of corporates?</comment>


NoSQL: Not Only a Fairy Tale - <AUTHOR> http://dev.adcloud.com/blog/2012/07/13/nosql-not-only-a-fairy-tale/

<comment><USER2> Already posted ? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4171401>

<comment><AUTHOR> yep. cross-post. still noteworthy. I think.

<comment><USER3> You mean repost. Cross-post would mean it was posted to a different site.

<comment><AUTHOR> repost to hn. and the article was cross-posted in @tisba and @adcloud blog.

btw: I think the article is valuable. this thread is not.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dissecting the Massively Over-Subscribed Lockitron Launch - <AUTHOR> http://danielodio.com/dissecting-the-massively-over-subscribed-lockitron-launch <comment><USER2> Regarding the 'Kickstarter style', I think it's a bit disingenuous to refer to the people that preordered as 'backers'. The term connotes an investment, when this seems to be a cut-and-dried preorder - the production run is certain, and there is no risk of the project failing and taking all the money with it like there can be with Kickstarter.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree. On a first production run of a new product, there's the very real possibility it won't work out. Now that they have over 1,000 pre-orders it's obvious that it's a hit, but if you're "backer" #1 you have no idea if it'll come to fruition or not.

What I would agree with is that since they're not collecting $$$ until they ship, there's no risk. But that doesn't mean the term "backer" is misleading. Any early adopter of a new product would be a "backer" of its adoption.

DROdio

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I thought this was going to be a rant but was pleasantly surprised.

I really liked the product page breakdown – sort of rudimentary, but pretty helpful. I'd be really interested in seeing more launches/product pages dissected like this.

Anyone know of a blog/site/resource that does this type of thing on the regular?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey @joelrunyon, agreed that it'd be great to see this done on a more detailed basis. I just threw this one together because I was impressed with how they copied the Kickstarter approach, which I hadn't seen done in exactly this way before for a launch (an obvious approach, but effective).

If you want to add more detailed feedback in the comments section on my post (or here) I'll be happy to dig into it more.

Has anyone actually pre-ordered that might have more feedback?

DROdio

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most interesting indeed is the Kickstarter approach outside of Kickstarter. Someone should launch a Kickstarter-as-a-Service startup.

<comment><USER5> Hey I know a great business plan for a kickstarter-as-a-service, you let businesses create campaigns using the service in trade for a percentage of their revenue. You could call it.. Kickstarter!

<comment><USER6> Yeah, but you need to remember that the new "Kickstarter is not a store" rule means that companies/projects need to host their own page like Lockitron. Basically the rule created a market opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm interested in the "white-labeled Kickstarter" style approach. As I recall, app.net did the same thing. Are there services out there that help do this?

<comment><USER8> yes its called a webpage with a payment processor like stripe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is nice to see that they've come so far from the days of _"Lockitron (YC S09) Lets You Unlock Your Door With Your Phone"_

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2546752>

</comment><comment><USER10> But how did they get oversubscribed in the first place?

<comment><USER11> Indeed. This is the most interestng question here.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW some great feedback in the post comments from Lockitron co-founder Paul with more detail on how & why they took this approach: [http://danielodio.com/dissecting-the-massively-over- subscrib...](http://danielodio.com/dissecting-the-massively-over-subscribed- lockitron-launch)

</comment><comment><USER12> I heard about Lockitron via an email from a friend before I saw the article on HN. Perhaps the huge interest is due to the concept going viral?

Most of the techy articles I read on HN I wouldn't bother forwarding to my non-techy friends or family; this however I would share for the "Wow! The geeky future!" factor.

</comment><comment><USER13> somewhat OT, but for those curious the blogging engine this guy is using is tynan's sett.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I wrote a post about it and did a Skype interview with @tynan about SETT: [http://danielodio.com/moving-from-wordpress-to-sett-a- social...](http://danielodio.com/moving-from-wordpress-to-sett-a-social- blogging-platform)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is more 'dissecting the landing page'. Paul's comment there was by far the most interesting part.

I was looking for more of a how people got to the site etc.. but i suppose it was mostly just [YC] > [HN/Reddit] > [TechCrunch] > [Twitter].

</comment><comment><USER15> After I saw the white-label Kickstarter thing on app.net I wondered if there was anyone out there offering an embedded service. Doesn't look like there is.

</comment><comment><USER16> hey danielodio,

please stop removing my comment on your blog. im trying to ask a question and you keep deleting it.

thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey @iamjason89, I'm not removing anything -- although I am using a new blogging platform that's still in beta. So maybe that's why it's not working for you. I'll ask @Tynan to reach out to you; he's the creator of the platform.

Sorry for the trouble. Bleeding edge :-/</comment></comment>


Pedestrian Bridges Make Cities Less Walkable. Why Do Cities Keep Building Them? - <AUTHOR> https://www.itdp.org/2019/10/01/pedestrian-bridges-make-cities-less-walkable-why-do-cities-keep-building-them/ <comment><USER2> They did this in Portland, OR. All of us that live here are like wtf? What a huge waste of money for a bridge I will never use.

We need another car bridge because traffic is horrible on the only main bridge to get to WA. Why not build a bridge for cars, people and the max train?How stupid of the city to allow this.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilikum_Crossing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilikum_Crossing)</comment>


How Did Anonymous Attackers Steal Apple UDIDs? - <AUTHOR> http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/none/302310-how-did-anonymous-attackers-steal-apple-udids

<comment><USER2> > "Hackers aren't necessarily smart, but operate from a set of well-known > principles, Graham said. "If I have an e-mail list of victims, and a new > 0day appears, I'm immediately going to phish with it. It's not Chinese uber > APT hackers, it's just monkeys mindless following a script," he said."

Define "hacker" and "smart." This is a mostly-useless article with little-to- no actual information in it. Oh, but the title claims to say how Anon stole Apple UDIDs, so now its on the front page of HN.

..

<comment><USER3> "monkeys mindlessly following a script" -- social engineering is a script that is ridiculously successful at achieving its goals.

Humans are always the weakest link.

What's ironic is that if it hadn't been for all the FUD in the 90s against PGP, maybe PGP signing of messages to verify identity would have become the norm for email and it would be much more difficult to spoof.

I wonder if anyone has ever thought of an option in gmail/googleplus for supporting PGP?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's entirely plausible that antisec could have obtained the Apple UDIDs elsewhere, as part of an orchestrated attempt to embarrass the FBI.

But its also possible that the FBI is simply in deny mode, which isn't surprising considering it's the FBI. Either way you look at it, Apple UDIDs were stolen somehow; the data did not magically pop out of thin air.</comment>


Turn Off the Noise and Start Creating (An Entrepreneur's Manifesto) - <AUTHOR> http://www.erica.biz/2011/noise/

<comment><USER2> Good article: Motivates me to hire a programmer for some little jobs, instead of doing everything myself.</comment>


Zoom Is Leaking Peoples' Email Addresses and Photos to Strangers - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7e95m/zoom-leaking-email-addresses-photos <comment><USER2> "By default, your Zoom contacts directory contains internal users in the same organization, who are either on the same account or who's email address uses the same domain as yours (except for publicly used domains including gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc) in the Company Directory section." [0]

As this is switched on by default in Zoom, which is a horrific privacy- violating idea and given its recent popularity surge, you might as well now call it _Facebook Zoom_.

Ladies and Gentlemen of HN, keep them Zoom posts coming.

[0] [https://support.zoom.us/hc/en- us/articles/115004055706-Manag...](https://support.zoom.us/hc/en- us/articles/115004055706-Managing-Contacts)</comment>


Whatever Happened to News.gmane.org? - <AUTHOR> https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2020/01/06/whatever-happened-to-news-gmane-org/ <comment><USER2> First of all, thank you Lars for running this invaluable service for so long!

And second, regarding the question "Is it even useful for anybody any more?":

Definitely _yes_. I have often used news.gmane.org to selectively read for example emacs-devel and other mailing lists without having to subscribe to all of them. The NNTP gateway allows very convenient browsing of messages, and also posting and responding, from within Emacs and especially via Gnus for which we can also thank you.

It is great that this will now continue at news.gmane.io, so thank you once more!

<comment><USER3> For the case when you want to read a mailing list but do not want to subscribe to it, I've been using kill-the-newsletter a lot ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12949154](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12949154))

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To answer another question from the post:

"But do I want to do this? Asking mailing lists admins to trust me again, with a new domain after the previous debacle, is a bit too much, isn't it?"

I'm a list admin for a mailing list available on gmane. Granted, it doesn't get much traffic. As a list admin, I feel that Lars -- via gmane -- is providing an invaluable service for my list. At least for me, it's not too much to ask, though I'm a sample size of one.

I appreciate being able to use Gmane to read and contribute to so many mailing lists, all from the comfort of my favorite newsreader (gnus). Rather than having many sporadically-followed lists delivered via email, I can access them over NNTP, saving disk space etc. I'd miss it if it were gone.

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks Lars! For Gnus and for Gmane! For your code, your time, and the (donated because of you) news and web servers.

Don't beat yourself up over the loss of the domain name. You have given more to your community than most people ever will. Your (structured [0]) procrastination likely lead to your contributions in the first place. So if they lead to some hiccoughs as well, then we, the beneficiaries, can take the bad with the good.

This downtime that seems significant now, may not be. Users of a free service I co-run came back in droves after our similar lack of attention led to an "unexpected" 32bit ID roll-over that took _months_ of downtime to resolve. Our users came back in droves (and though never back to the same level as before) with nothing but thanks after having tried the alternatives. Gmane was a breath of fresh air when you released it, and I suspect nothing compares still today. It may not warrant as much of your time today as it once did. So it goes.

Also, allow someone to help. I never could have handled our failures on my own.

[0] [http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/](http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> The company formed to hold the assets is proposed to be struck off: [https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10325734](https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10325734)

I wonder if gmane.org will get renewed anyway, as it's due to expire in March.

\-- A previously-happy user

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess C is cloudflare; But have no idea who Y is - perhaps Yahoo, but then they would be O[ath] by now....

<comment><USER8> It was some smaller company, one that I had never heard about until they picked up Gmane. The name is probably somewhere in the gmane mailing list archives (available via nntp) but if Lars doesn't want to name them, I think it would be polite not to publish it here.

<comment><USER9> It's named in a previous article linked in this article.</comment></comment></comment>