Climate and Unsheltered Homeless in the Continental United States - <AUTHOR> https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/climate-and-unsheltered-homeless-in.html <comment><USER2> Not a statistical analysis, but my intuition is homelessness in general correlates with how easy it is to go someplace better. From Orlando, $100 gas money provides a lot of options. From Vegas, not so many. From San Francisco, $100 of gas might not even get you to the state line. Even if it does, there's not anything better there and not anything better on the way.

San Francisco is a local minima/maxima. Vegas has more diversity of options within 600 miles. Orlando is just another place in the east. Consistent with my intuition/hypothesis, the report says Hawaii has a much higher than predicted unhoused homeless population. Objectively you can't get anywhere better/different with $100.

<comment><USER3> i'm not sure i agree.

$100 of gas gets you about 24 gallons at california average prices, even at 20mpg that's 2x what you need to get to reno (218mi), on the way to reno you travel through sacramento. there are alternately many other central valley options at less distance from SF (from which many uber/lyft drivers commute to SF for their day -- for example stockton, modesto). redding is also 217mi from SF if you want to go north instead. eureka is only 271mi. grants pass OR, and los angeles are both in the 380mi ballpark, still within the $100 budget.

i'm not sure why you think vegas has a wider diversity of options -- it could be i don't understand your criteria for options. vegas is central in a vast amount of desert. it's 271mi to LA, 286mi to bakersfield, 302mi to phoenix and 421mi to salt lake city. a massive amount of NV north/northwest of vegas is off-limits military test range -- population density is extremely thin in most directions from vegas.

sources: gmaps for distances, and AAA for gas price ([https://gasprices.aaa.com/?state=CA](https://gasprices.aaa.com/?state=CA)) i rounded up to $4.20/gal. 20mpg i picked semi-arbitrarily because i didn't find a good hit in the first search i did.

<comment><AUTHOR> The eastern US has numerous major metro regions within an hour or two's travel from one another, where "major" is 1-2 million or more in population.

The west coast largely doesn't, and the intermountain and west plains region is far less populated still. See:

[http://modernsurvivalblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/06/pop...](http://modernsurvivalblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/06/population-density-map-united-states.jpg)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistical_areas)

Dense population centres as vertical relief:

[https://i.imgur.com/a8tsVUP_d.jpg?maxwidth=1024&shape=thumb&...](https://i.imgur.com/a8tsVUP_d.jpg?maxwidth=1024&shape=thumb&fidelity=high)

The "whys" of this are interesting, though I suspect much of this revolves around water and transport. How much it affects homeless populations is an interesting question as well.

The climactic factors Doreen mentions are undoubtedly a factor, though I suspect the ease/difficulty in finding nontraditional means of support (odd jobs, busking, panhandling, gig work) likely matter. The options for other than traditional single-family and long-term apartment dwelling, and the relative costs of mortgages and rent also undoubtedly matter, as does the ability to get too and from residence, work, and/or services.

My experiences travelling through the US are:

1\. The changes in density are hugely apparent, with the almost wholly unpopulated region between California's central valley and the eastern front of the Rockies being most pronounced. There are marked transitions at, say, SF, the 9 bay counties region, Sacramento, Reno, excepting Salt Lake / Wasastch next Denver / Front Range, Omaha, Chicago, and then points east. The density of development along the East Coast, from Boston well into Virginia is hard to appreciate for those who are only familiar with California. And even more rural regions east of the Mississippi and well through the South are far more developed than most of California is. The stretch of CA-99 from Roseville to Bakersfield being only slighly comparable -- it's a linear belt whereas through the Eastern US you'll find comparable or higher densities in all directions.

From San Francisco, for two hours' travel, you have ... more or less two destinations: Sacramento or Stockton. Going north or south, there's nothing until Portland, OR, or Los Angeles. And once you pass Sacramento, there's _very_ slim pickings until you cross the Rockies, or better, the Missouri or Mississippi rivers, which is at best _days_ travel by car or bus. And once you arrive, options may be few and attitudes not particularly welcoming.

2\. Density alone isn't vitality. There are relatively habited regions which offer little economic opportunity. That's pointedly obvious as you travel through the Mississippi Delta region, much of Arkansas, and old rust-belt regions of Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Even with density and clement weather, and despite low costs, support is scarce.

The feel of regions that _do_ have some level of wealth or at least money flows is _palpable_. Aspen, CO, Seattle, WA, and Menlo Park, CA have tremendously different feels than Clinton, IA, St. Louis, MO, or Gallup, NM. Even attractive tourist-based regions often seem to have an edge of concern based on a mix of past indigenous sources of wealth (often mining and timber) now gone and a fear for what happens when the travel fad fades. What passes for generally vibrant in most of the US would be considered strongly depressed in much of California, where the distinctions between even thriving core and outlying regions of the SF Bay Area are severe.

3\. Local attitudes matter. Homeless, housing-challenged, car- or van- dwellers, and the like, are more evident where support and services exist, all else being equal. Over the past few decades, I'd say they're more evident _generally_ , and aren't strictly limited to the west or even coastal regions generally.

4\. Much of coastal California, as well as the central valley, has and has long had its homeless or transient populations. I strongly recommend Steinbeck's _Grapes of Wrath_ as a backgrounder.

The question of _why_ homelessness suddenly emerged in the late 1970s / early 1980s is one that's interested me. I've had an occasional correspondence with Doreen since replying to a comment of hers on HN about a year ago based on some research I'd done on the question at the time. How much of the phenomenon is simply nomenclature and semantics, and how much is an increase in the number / visibility of the unhoused, is something I still don't have a good handle on myself, though I do strongly suspect the problem is getting worse. Failing to offer options _other_ than detached single-family dwellings or rabbit-hutch apartments or housing tower blocks seems another. There really ought be a sensible middle range. There isn't.

Doreen has been advocating for SROs as at least a partial solution. She may be right on this, though I see it as at best only a partial element. Co-housing, intentional communities, boarding, and other options may also be useful. As well as a widely implemented land value tax.

Treating housing and real estate as financial assets rather than essential societal services seems to me a very strong component.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18499697](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18499697)

That last element turns up in another item I've found fascinating, a 1937 analysis of resistances to technological innovations which includes among other sectors housing, by Berhnard J. Stern:

[https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/pag...](https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/page/39) (Markdown copy: [https://pastebin.com/raw/Bapu75is](https://pastebin.com/raw/Bapu75is))

My attention had been first brought to that by Stern's research assistant for the project, a young Columbia University graduate student named Isaac Asimov.

There are a whole slew of valuable lessons from that piece. I've submitted it a few times to HN though discussion's been light to date.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20532443](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20532443)

All told, though, this is a problem that's proved stubbornly resistant to technological (or any other) solutions attempted to date, and for which awareness and understanding are at best limited. Doreen has direct experience (I really don't), and her criticism of what I'd seen as a generally sensible and surprisingly sympathetic White House white paper is cogent.

<comment><USER4> > The question of why homelessness suddenly emerged in the late 1970s / early > 1980s is one that's interested me.

My understanding is that deinstitutionalization plays a large role here. The US institutionalized about 500k people nationwide until 1965, when that number cratered to about 100k by 1980 [1]. Not everyone who is released this way ends up homeless, but a recent study in Massachusetts in Ohio found that about a third of people released from mental institutions have no known address within six months [2].

You seem to have thought a lot about this topic, what is your take on the role of deinstitutionalization? Institutionalization seems cruel, but our current system pushes many people with severe mental illnesses onto the streets or into prisons, which seems worse.

[1] [http://bpr.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Mental- Ho...](http://bpr.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Mental-Hospital- Numbers-300x290.gif)

[2] [https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/fixing-the- system/fe...](https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/fixing-the- system/features-and-news/2596-how-many-people-with-serious-mental-illness-are- homeless)

<comment><USER2> Denstitutionalization had a significant impact on the demographic composition of the homeless population. But urban renewal in the years following the Second World War reduced the stock of cheap housing. Single room occupancy and boarding houses became rare. In many places they became extinct.

The quality of housing at the left of a price histogram became higher. But so did its minimum cost. There's less transient and temporary housing. The overall population is larger. Hope VI continued the removal of the least expensive housing under the rubric of urban renewal policy right up to the twenty-first century.

<comment><USER5> This is a huge part of the problem. I've been researching the history of US housing for at least two decades at this point and I feel clear that this is a consequence of WW2, post-war prosperity and the existence of the Baby Boom generation that mostly grew up with unprecedented wealth, didn't need cheap housing and essentially imposed it's ideas of "minimal, acceptable housing" on the nation as a whole.

Then demographic and economic reality changed, but we've been both reluctant to rebuild the cheaper accommodations that got demolished and we face serious logistical barriers to recreating such. Cheap housing tends to be _older_ housing. New construction is generally built for the middle class or the wealthy. Poor people don't finance new construction.

So we currently have a huge shortage of housing that works for lower income people. It's not just a factor of rent price per se. We also have created a situation where most Americans cannot live without a car, which is de facto another substantial financial burden and logistical barrier for anyone with physical barriers to being able to drive. On top of that, we just straight up do not have a lot of decent housing options for anyone who prefers a smaller home for some reason.

I'm still trying to figure out out how to document and communicate the shape and extent of the housing problem. Using the term "affordable housing" fails to be helpful in talking about the issue. In fact, it's counterproductive.

But the huge loss of entry-level housing is a large part of this problem space and the period of its active destruction coincides with the findings by dredmorbius that at some point our terminology changed in a way that suggests the issue of homelessness fundamentally changed such that it is inherently more serious, problematic, chronic and long term.

<comment><USER2> The stigmatization of poverty is an Anglo-American tradition going back at least as far as the 1536 English Poor Laws.[1] Among it's intellectual benefits is a convenient absence of necessary inconvenience upon the wealthy.

Stigmatization of poverty is not the only tradition at play in America. San Francisco's namesake advocated poverty and homelessness. The city was literally established by homeless men who lived in poverty.

The "affordable housing" problem limits solutions to those meeting some criterion for "economically deserving." It precludes pursuit of universal shelter security free of _relative_ political disability. Affordable housing allows eviction from public housing when a family member is criminally charged. Affordable housing allows assistance disqualification for past drug offenses fully paid. Affordable housing is premised on scarcity not abundance.

At the macro-economic scale affordable housing has the delusional premise that there's a housing market that exists in an independent way. The delusion that there's a housing market that can reach equilibrium. Housing is not just one among many alternatives for achieving returns on real-estate investment.

It's one of the worst because conversion of real-estate to housing is sticky. Conversion of housing to more productive commercial, industrial, and agricultural uses ranges from hard (rental trailer parks) to near impossible (multiple single family fee simple lots). Politically, housing houses voters. Economically, homeowners have an incentive to hold out during aggregation.

Real-estate investment is primarily a vehicle for preserving wealth. It's long term. Cashing out is only rational when the returns are high. Cashing out into housing only makes sense when the cash value of the housing at time of delivery exceeds the potential long term value of other uses minus the increased risk from liquidating a perpetual real property title into goods, chattels, and/or financial instruments.

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

<comment><USER5> Your use of the term "affordable housing" suggests you are talking about government run poverty relief programs, aka The Projects. I am not. This is one of the reasons it isn't useful terminology for my purposes.

I see our current homeless crisis as a crisis that emerged out of the success of past generations, much like London burned to the ground because as big cities finally emerged from a growing population, it wasn't obvious beforehand that thatched roofs and the like would be a disastrous detail when building a lot of housing under conditions of population density that had not been previously seen.

I am aware that classism and other evils exist. I experienced classism first- hand while homeless.

But I don't find it constructive to focus overly much on that and I don't feel that framing is particularly accurate. I think the majority of the problem is due to factors like blind spots on the part of the privileged.

In a case where you have a mix of root causes, it's generally better to focus your effort on the more readily resolved pieces of the problem. When one of those pieces is prejudice, addressing other pieces of the problem is an effective means to combat prejudice.

Condemning people for their prejudice tends to entrench the problem, not remedy it. Casting light on the fact that their assumptions are incorrect is far more productive.

I believe that this problem exists not because most people in power actively desire to be abusive assholes punishing the lower classes for existing but because they don't have good answers. I think the best thing I can do is do the research, figure out how to effectively communicate it and make it freely available on the internet for anyone interested in the topic.

That still leaves me with an unresolved question of how to pay my own bills. I'm off the street, but I still struggle to make ends meet. I'm currently nearly broke and facing a week where I am likely to go hungry for a few days.

This is an all too common occurrence in my life. Ads are "dead" so to speak and I don't know how to get enough tips and/or Patreon supporters to turn my writing into a middle class income for me.

But other than the detail that it isn't paying enough, I feel pretty confident that this model of _1\. Do the research and 2. Put out good info for free_ is our best hope for finding a viable path forward on some of our current hard problems.

Thank you for your participation in this discussion. Your comments have been enormously helpful for me.

<comment><USER2> Sorry for not being clear. I agree that "affordable housing" is not a particularly useful starting point for addressing housing insecurity in a meaningful way. I agree that it is a way of maintaining wealth and power.

I think in the context of homelessness, "affordable housing" is used to muddy the waters. "Affordable housing" gets people off on the tangent of home ownership and the American Dream expectations of FAANG engineers. And when that connotation starts to gain traction, "affordable housing" can be used to derail that conversation by bringing homelessness into the mix. No matter what I mean, "affordable housing" has another meaning that can be used to derail my point.

I am really glad you are writing what you are writing and sharing it on HN. It makes Hacker News a better place.

My perspective on housing has developed over the thirty years since I studied architectural drafting at vo-tech and later an MArch. I worked nearly exclusively in housing from 2001 until just a few years ago. With and for developers and homebuilders plus some time in government as a planner and building plans examiner. I watched Hope VI go down in grad school. I worked on some Tax Credit housing projects when I had an independent practice.

Anyway, if I can help, my email is in my profile. Thanks for making HN better.

<comment><USER5> _Anyway, if I can help, my email is in my profile._

Thanks.

I did write you about my latest project. If you don't see an email from me, check your spam folder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We need to invest in proper public housing, pay for its upkeep, and avoid the massive public skyrises that are so expensive to maintain.

We need to allow up zoning and get rid of detached single family only zones.

Heck, I'm all for fully decomodifying housing - which I recognize is radical - but the incentives for buying and building housing today don't align with housing the most people in the best conditions possible.

<comment><USER7> > fully decomodifying housing - which I recognize is radical - but the > incentives for buying and building housing today don't align

The incentives for commodity housing are to build more if the price is high. There aren't a lot of incentive structures that improve on that.

The only alternative that doesn't have strictly worse incentives are if the government builds and assigns all housing. I'd bet that turns out to be worse in practice, but if it has ever worked out anywhere ever I'd be interested in the case study.

It would be a much better idea to stick to non-radical things like tweaking the zoning so developers aren't banned from building things.

<comment><USER8> > The only alternative that doesn't have strictly worse incentives are if the > government builds and assigns all housing. I'd bet that turns out to be > worse in practice, but if it has ever worked out anywhere ever I'd be > interested in the case study.

This is how Singapore works. It has been working great there.

<comment><USER7> I'll read up on it, but it wouldn't surprise me if Singapore had more land devoted to urban development than they do countryside.

Their policies aren't going to be optimising for general welfare as much as they are working around the fact that they have no land to play with when compared to anyone else. Their system looks like it makes sense for those conditions, but it would be a massive burden elsewhere. Look at the complexity of their quota system, for example [0]. So people are not going to be living where they want and everyone is going to be in the same part of the city anyway because Singapore is small - I could walk the long edge of their land in a single day.

So basically, point taken that it works for Singapore. But Singapore is facing unique geographical constraints and it probably causes a lot of pain in practice that we don't hear about [1]. under normal conditions it would be far cheaper and easier just to build some high density government housing rather than trying to decommoditise. I expect it will turn out that nobody with alternatives should try to copy that aspect of Singapore.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore#Re...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore#Resale_flats)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index) \- See Singapore, entry 151 of 180

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We should be focusing on getting mental health treatment for many of these homeless people instead of focusing on the fact that they have no home.

Mental health is usually the root of the problem. Many homeless people had jobs, homes, families that would take care of them and now that's all gone because they can no longer hold down a job, are usually on drugs, and family can't or won't deal with their behavior any longer.

<comment><USER5> No, mental health issues really are not a direct cause of homelessness per se. That narrative is popular because it's a convenient way to paint homelessness as a personal problem that is the fault of the homeless individual. It's a convenient means to wash our collective hands of the responsibility of addressing societal factors, such as national housing policy and how that strangles the availability of low cost housing that works without owning a car.

We say homeless people are all "junkies and crazies" and blame their lack of housing on them. Meanwhile, there are junkie millionaire musicians and actors. We don't use their existence as an excuse to conclude "drug addiction leads to wealth!"

I get told over and over again that housing costs aren't a factor in homelessness at all. In reality, it's a known and proven factor, but it's one that doesn't feed the narrative that homelessness is fundamentally an individual problem rather than a systemic societal problem.

<comment><USER9> "No, mental health issues really are not a direct cause of homelessness per se."

So how do you explain people that make a good living to living in a box by the railroad tracks if not some sort of mental illness? It has nothing to do with the cost or availability of housing. If the rent gets too high, a person not mentally ill would just move to a more affordable city/part of the city rather than live on the streets.

"We say homeless people are all "junkies and crazies" and blame their lack of housing on them"

Giving someone a house that can't even feed themselves won't fix the problem.

"Meanwhile, there are junkie millionaire musicians and actors. We don't use their existence as an excuse to conclude "drug addiction leads to wealth!"

Why would we? Most drug addicts aren't wealthy. Wealthy people are sometimes drug addicts. That's a ridiculous argument.

"it's a known and proven factor, but it's one that doesn't feed the narrative that homelessness is fundamentally an individual problem rather than a systemic societal problem."

It is a systemic problem. Cities like San Francisco won't address the problem with mental illness and they have laws in place that allow homeless people to shit and piss in the streets with impunity.

There are tons of shelters in and around the city (and most big cities), but most won't go because they won't be able to get drunk or high.

<comment><USER5> _Giving someone a house that can 't even feed themselves won't fix the problem._

I am not for a Housing First model. I'm for increasing the availability of market based housing that makes sense for small households (1-3 people) who may not have/want a car.

 _Most drug addicts aren 't wealthy._

Drugs cost money. Taking enough drugs to qualify for a label of _addict_ isn't cheap. Some drug addicts manage the high cost of addiction by becoming dealers.

But the addicts and alcoholics I've personally known were pretty comfortably well off. Seriously poor people with very low incomes simply can't afford to stay drunk or high. They don't have enough money to buy that much booze or drugs on a consistent basis.

 _There are tons of shelters in and around the city (and most big cities), but most won 't go because they won't be able to get drunk or high._

I neither drink nor do drugs. I was homeless for nearly six years. I never stayed in a homeless shelter because they are often basically a cross between a prison and a shit hole.

They have mold problems, theft problems, highly constraining rules that middle class would not accept to get housing themselves (such as curfews), etc.

Yes, cities like San Francisco that are trying to not be monstrously uncompassionate and trying to avoid the evils of criminalizing poverty are all too often doing things that don't actually resolve the issue and tend to help entrench it.

I'm the author of the piece under discussion. Before I was homeless, I was studying to become an urban planner.

I've researched this problem space for at least two decades. I'm trying to come up with actual solutions that can help make a real difference.

Some of the things I would like to see:

1\. More SROs and Missing Middle housing.

2\. More walkable and bike-friendly communities and better public transit so cars stop being a necessity in the US and lack of a car stops being a huge barrier to having a middle class life at all.

3\. More flexible employment for people who don't fit in to "regular jobs" and better programs for helping such "misfits" find employment that makes sense for them.

4\. A real solution to America's health care issues which are a huge financial burden for far too many people and a factor that helps push some people out into the street.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why does it seem like the author has an oozing derision for the "chronically housed"? Presumably the goal of any homeless program is to make those people also into chronically housed?

<comment><USER11> Just a guess: being subject to oozing derision _from_ the chronically housed, makes it emotionally difficult not to respond in kind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Unsheltered, unclothed humans are pretty much limited to south of the Line of Palms. Living north of the Line of Palms requires either or both clothing and shelter. With effective clothing, minimal shelter is needed until conditions become quite severe. The military has experience with this, such as having men survive with rudimentary shelter outdoors through a Korean winter. Besides clothing and shelter, diet is important, and people who work outdoors in severe climates burn a lot of calories.

<comment><USER13> What latitude is "Line of Palms?" I've never heard that term, and a Google search led nowhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> The latitude varies with specific location, as temperature ranges vary considerably at different longitudes. It's much further north in Western Europe than in Eastern North America, for example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Update: generally 44 N/S, maximum, though most palms are native to tropical regions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Democrats Introduce Federal Bill to Collect Online Sales Tax - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2389490,00.asp

<comment><USER2> The thing to keep in mind is that internet retails will have to keep track of and pay out to more than just the 50 state-level tax jurisdictions. Many counties and municipalities impose their own sales tax rules, which are often more complicated than just a blanket X% of sales. For example, some states exempt clothing and basic food items from sales tax, and some have periodic tax holidays.

I understand the desire to eliminate the tax advantage internet retailers currently have, but I think it would be better solved by a federal sales tax (either directly or indirectly disbursed to states) than by forcing retailers to hire a team of tax accountants to keep up with thousands of sets of sales tax laws.

<comment><USER3> The frequent and dangerous assumption here is that a federal sales tax means the end to state sales tax.

Obviously that didn't work for income tax, and I would go even further to argue the feds should not be paid one bit of direct tax.

When the feds collect money and disperse it to the states, the states become enslaved to the federal government and loose their sovereignty. More importantly, without this sovereignty there is no competition or experimentation amongst the states.

<comment><USER4> I saw someone had downvoted you and went to upvote and gave you another downvote by accident, sorry.[1] I think you are entirely correct, state competition and experimentation is a good thing, as is decentralisation. Even if someone disagrees with your points, I don't see the need to downvote them.

I like the idea elsewhere on the thread of standardizing a database to enable the calculation to be readily done by the seller (and those places with systems so complex that they can't be represented with a couple of fields - state, tax level, exceptions - can just lose out).

[1] pg can we please have some more space between the up and down vote buttons for touch screens?

<comment> mkr-hn I downvoted because of the inflammatory language.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, sometimes my writing style just comes out that way.

To make my point differently and maybe to make it more tech specific:

I would rather pay individual companies for software I want to run on my PC than to pay Microsoft a lump sum and have them give me a bunch of software they think I need (and then distribute the funds to the creators how they see fit).

It could be argued that it would be easier for consumers to pay only Microsoft, saving them the headache of creating relationships with multiple vendors.

Or it could be argued that the chaos of the market is worth the competition that ultimately benefits the consumer.

I like the bottom up approach because it creates competition and choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The "Main Street Fairness Act"

If I got to congress, the first thing I'd do would be to introduce a bill to ban the use of cute and/or self-advertising names for bills. Let it be the "Sales Tax Collection Act of 2011" or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER6> >But Sen. Welch also noted that brick-and-mortar shops are also being used as display cases for products later bought online. "When a consumer can walk into a store, try out a product and then go home and buy it online without paying sales tax, Main Street businesses and downtowns lose," he said in a statement.

In my experience, sales tax does not account for the price difference, in most stuff I buy. What does account for it is the insane markup. Try buying an HDMI cable at bestbuy, then compare to the $1.50 at monoprice.com

<comment><USER7> I bought a Nexus S at the shop across the street from me. The price was the same as I could find online, but I paid an extra $40 in sales tax (NC).

I don't mind paying sales tax (I do enjoy having police, firemen, and teachers) but let's be honest - $40 is enough for someone to think twice.

<comment><USER8> Legally, others still must pay the $40. It's just that they get to pay it at the end of the year as part of their the "USE TAX" line item in their state taxes. They don't avoid the expense: they are deferring (er, perhaps, ignoring? the law).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _The Main Street Fairness Act doesn't ask anyone to pay a single penny more in taxes. Instead, it would help governors and mayors collect taxes that are already owed._

This seems to be an interesting selling point, except that people, in the main, seem to _not_ be paying taxes they actually owe. What I wonder as a non- American, though, is _how illegal_ is this practice? Is it essentially a form of tax evasion and, therefore, a crime? If so, why hasn't there been a random "shakedown" RIAA-style to scare people into declaring these purchases and paying the taxes?

<comment><USER10> They don't owe anything, the Supreme Court has ruled that you don't have to collect sales tax unless you have a presence in the state (a la the Commerce Clause of the Constitution). It isn't tax evasion, pure and simple.

Congress has the sole authority to tax and regulate interstate commerce, and if they choose to do so via this act, that is fine and dandy but that is a totally different issue.

<comment><USER11> You've got too many pronouns without antecedents in your post. The merchants are not liable to collect sales tax, but customers may be liable to pay it under their state law. This is called a use tax: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_tax>

Exact details vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction... and in fact that's the problem this bill is intended to address. A federal framework is necessary to avoid the problem of being required to track an arbitrary number of non- Federal frameworks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am a anti-tax libertarian type and also a affiliate marketer but even i think its an unfair advantage eCommerce companies have. Creating a nationwide eCommerce sales tax system is the best way to solve this

<comment><USER13> But they require no government services from states they're shipping to so it's unfair to tax them the same.

<comment><USER14> That's not how taxation works.

Also, presumably the goods they're shipping are traveling on government- maintained roads, right?

<comment><USER15> _Also, presumably the goods they're shipping are traveling on government- maintained roads, right?_

Presumably Fedex/etc pay state taxes in rough proportion to their use of the roads.

But I suppose that if you don't believe taxes are payments for public goods provided, but are instead fidelity owed by vassals to their lord, that doesn't really matter.

<comment><USER14> The point is that you pay taxes regardless of your personal service consumption. I don't consume medicaid and I live in a city so I don't see the work of the Fish and Wildlife dept that much. Tough shit. That's how taxes work because it'd cost way more than it saved to break out fine granularity at the billing level.

Fedex pays for their use of the roads? No, they pay for their corporate income. They have no billing related to their miles driven on federal, state or local roads (aside from toll roads, which are a minority case).

Spare me the rhetoric about vassals.

<comment><USER15> _That's how taxes work because it'd cost way more than it saved to break out fine granularity at the billing level._

Yes - in principle taxes pay for public goods which are provided to everyone in a geographic region.

But if you paid attention to the discussion, you'd realize we are discussing entities who _don't exist in that geographic region_. It's actually quite easy to figure out that I don't owe NY anything and you don't owe Maharashtra anything.

 _Fedex pays for their use of the roads? No, they pay for their corporate income._

The taxes they pay to the states in which they do business cover their use of the roads, no?

<comment><USER14> >The taxes they pay to the states in which they do business cover their use of the roads, no?

Yeah, and they cover grade school education, which FedEx doesn't directly use at all. That was my point about how taxes work.

Regarding your point about regions,

A) The tax is on the consumers, not on amazon.com (or equivalent, proper noun provided to eliminate pronoun confusion).

B) Whether or not amazon.com 'exists' in that region, they're certainly doing business in it, no? Otherwise there'd be no taxes to collect. Brave new world, used to be it was impossible to do business somewhere you didn't have a shop, mail order was nothing close to the web. That's why tax codes and enforcement methods need to be updated for the 21st century. It's less competitive and less capitalist to have different tax codes for the same goods (or even different goods, IMO, with rare exceptions).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone want to summarize the bill?

I'm not sure how a federal tax is going to help the states since it seems highly unlikely that the federal government would hand revenues over to the states.

Also anyone know the constitutionality of this? I can make arguments that it is discriminatory taxation of interstate commerce as well as it not being.

Would I get double-taxed if I bought online from a retailer in your own state? Does it apply only to online or also to mail-order and phone orders?

<comment><USER5> Also: what about people outside the US ordering stuff to be shipped internationally?

Fuck, if it turns out the cheapest way to buy something is to have it shipped from Washington to Australia and then back to California, I'm doing that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd much rather be automatically taxed at checkout than having to keep track of all my online purchases year-round when it comes time to file my tax return.

</comment><comment><USER18> Interesting to see Amazon on that side of the fence. If they ask people to report on their own, it won't happen. As much as I hate the idea of taxes online, this makes sense -- collect what is already due.

<comment><USER19> Reading the language of the bill, I'm unsure on one point: what about those states which do not have a sales tax? Here in Oregon my income tax is slightly higher but I pay no sales tax. This is good for:

* the poor

* local commerce (we get out of state folks buying)

* tax code complexity

If this bill passes and the "framework" enforces a federal sales tax I will be most put out.

<comment><USER20> My guess is that you will get a refund at the end of the year. Of course, now you'll have to track how much in "taxes" you paid, so you can ask for the right amount back.

<comment><USER19> Jolly. I suppose if this bill passes it will provide further incentive for me to shop locally or, indeed, exclusively--especially as Portland _has_ shops in which it is a joy to purchase goods. I dislike the further record-keeping burden it places on each citizen, though that's somewhat par for the course in the US tax code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The complexity seems like an opportunity for the Hacker community to build an open source, web-based tax computation service. Set up a WikiTaxes Foundation to pay for the servers, devise a simple API, publish sample code for various languages and there you go, complexity dealt with in one go.</comment>


Yelp lays off 1k workers, furloughs 1,100 - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/09/yelp-lays-off-1000-workers-furloughs-1100-to-make-severe-cost-reductions-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22822784](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22822784)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, how did they decide between lay off and furlough?</comment>


Local Motors Creates The World's First 3D Printed Car - <AUTHOR> http://tech.co/local-motors-3d-printed-car-2014-06

<comment><USER2> "You wouldn't download a car" takes on a whole new meaning ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU))</comment>


Revenge porn site founder loses $250k defamation suit - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/revenge-porn-site-founder-loses-250k-defamation-suit/ <comment><USER2> Not what I assumed:

>This particular defamation case was not related to Moore's revenge porn activities

I'm more curious how the cases involving his revenge porn sites will go.

<comment><USER3> > frustrated him to the point where he'd represent victims pro bono. "I want > to hurt them bad," he wrote. "If anyone out there has been scammed by these > crooks, contact me."

Presumably there's more in the pipeline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this "revenge porn" for real or is this another case of the media taking porn industry kayfabe at face value? Between 2257 record-keeping laws and various state anti-peeping-tom laws doing a profitable revenge porn site for real seems a lot harder and riskier than just faking it.

<comment><USER5> " _In professional wrestling, kayfabe (pronounced /ˈkeɪfeɪb/) is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true," specifically the portrayal of competition and rivalries between participants as being genuine or not of a worked nature._ "[1]

Was "kayabe" a new word for anyone else? The wikipedia article is remarkably long for a word I had never heard of:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe>

<comment><USER6> I looked up "heel" since it was used to describe someone, and seemed more specific than just "bad person", and wasted another 30-60 minutes learning about Kayfabe, Mexican wrestling, etc.

It's this kind of thing Wikipedia excels at, vs. Quora or forum sites or really anything since USENET.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What exactly is revenge porn and how does "defamation" apply in this case (I am aware that the suit does not involve defamation in a way related to revenge porn)? If it involves posting pornographic pictures involving others that approved of the pictures in the first place, how could that activity constitute defamation?

<comment><USER8> "Revenge porn" is posting pornographic pictures of your exes (or other people of whom you have such pictures, and don't have permission to post it publicly). The idea being that you shame your exes by posting your dirty photos of them from when you were dating. Apparently the sites also include real names and hometowns of the people posted, or in some cases even addresses and phone numbers, to increase the chances of them being embarrassed by people who know them finding the pictures.

This particular defamation suit has nothing to do with revenge porn per se. It just happens that the founder of a revenge porn website is a huge asshole, and started making (presumably) baseless accusations of pedophilia against someone who campaigns against cyber bullying and who helped shut down his first revenge porn site. The details are a bit more complicated, but that's the gist.

So the defamation lawsuit is about his pedophilia accusation, not anything directly to do with the revenge porn sites, though I think there are some other pending privacy lawsuits about them too.

<comment><USER9> >"Revenge porn" is posting pornographic pictures of your exes

>Apparently the sites also include real names and hometowns of the people posted, or in some cases even addresses and phone numbers, to increase the chances of them being embarrassed by people who know them finding the pictures.

>It just happens that the founder of a revenge porn website is a huge asshole

Didn't see that one comming! Did M. Night Shyamalan write this post? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hope people will come to the right conclusion about the whole Hunter Moore incident : once a potentially harmful information leaves your control there is no good way to stop it from reaching people you don't want it to. Sexting is probably not a good idea, at least until our society normalizes to the age of free-flowing information.

<comment><USER11> Not sure why this was downvoted, it may not be nice but it is fairly accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seriously how the fuck can we earn money that way and still be considered as an honest citizen ???

</comment><comment><USER13> What is a "revenge porn" site? At work don't want to Google this....

<comment><USER14> Ex-girlfriend/boyfriend posting nude photos of their ex.

I think Moore claimed it was legal if the person submitting the photos actually took the photo, as they held the copyright, and even if they didn't he was protected under DMCA.

<comment><USER9> The person who takes the photo does own it. But despite owning the photo there are still lots of things you can't _do_ with the photo (like make money with it) without the signature of the "model" you photographed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great news. Scumbags like him will have to think twice now.

<comment><USER16> Scumbags all around in this case, unfortunately. The lawyer representing the other party in this case installs malware on the computers of people trying to pirate (one of his other) client's porn. The malware demands a paid settlement on a timer or it will lock access to the computer.

I shit you not.

<comment><USER17> I'm having difficulty imagining a set of circumstances under which the behavior described does not constitute a felony.

<comment><USER16> It's gay porn (Corbin Fisher). Maybe they're banking on the shame factor for some people.

I don't want to speculate on the legality of it but overall it's pretty damn offensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm usually not for vendetta, but with that punk i would not mind. Is this thing legal really ? or is it because the victim are not big corporations that can bribe lawmakers to make it illegal ?

<comment><USER19> It's an issue of copyright which means at best its a DMCA violation as long as he filled out his forms and registered his agent.

The owner of the site is in all likelihood not very liable and as long as he complies with the DMCA it's unlikely to go to a higher court where the whole concept of the site could be shutdown.

The whole defamation thing is silly as the 'antibullying' people really pose little risk to the site.

<comment><USER20> Wait, are you saying the revenge porn site is an issue of copyright? Because AFAIK, pornography distributors are required to keep records of the people in their photographs and videos, specifically so they can prove they are over 18.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> is this good or bad?

</comment><comment><USER22> this is the reason i detest facebook. People post pictures of others which links to their profiles. It is very similar to what this person is doing. Fb wouldn't falsely accuse people though.</comment>


How and why I built a Project Management Tool from scratch? - <AUTHOR> https://www.codementor.io/utsavsinghrathour/how-and-why-i-built-a-project-management-tool-from-scratch-dkzafw1k8 <comment><USER2> "Move fast and break things" great mantra</comment>


How do I optimize my website for mobile? - <AUTHOR> https://elogic.co/blog/mobile-ecommerce-design-a-guide-on-how-to-optimize-your-website-for-mobile/ <comment><AUTHOR> What do you think about this article?Is it useful or I need to read more on another source?</comment>


If elected, Clinton would support an "Encryption Commission" to help feds - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/what-is-trumps-tech-policy-not-even-the-nsas-former-lawyer-can-tell/ <comment><USER2> The article itself is actually very generous to Clinton, as it primarily questions Trump's policies, features a ridiculing picture of him, and praises Clinton's policy documents (focusing, actually, on the number of pages rather than their clarity, consistency or purposes). They also snub Trump for questioning whether the hacks of the DNC were supported by the government of Russia.

In doing so this article falls prey to much of what plagues the media during the election cycle. Broadly aligned against particular candidates and willing to take widely biased and selective approaches toward writing and editing about them, they fail to say much of anything substantive at all.

For instance this article can't come up with what a good policy might look like, any particular appraisal of either candidate's policies (it merely cites pages and makes an issue of known Clinton's backdoor policies).

The article mentions that both candidates consider Snowden a traitor, with Trump explicitly using the word and Clinton calling for Snowden to be extradited to the United States under investigation for violating the Espionage Act.

Reading between the lines the article emphasizes that Silicon Valley doesn't understand or trust the policies from either candidate, but appears to have a stronger majority support for Clinton due to issues not related to either campaign promises or policy directions.

EDIT: People below in the thread take issue with the term "libelous" so I replaced it with "ridiculing".

<comment><USER3> >The article mentions that both candidates consider Snowden a traitor, with Trump explicitly using the word and Clinton calling for Snowden to be extradited to the United States under investigation for violating the Espionage Act.

Only 15% of American believe that Snowden is a hero, 30% call him a traitor outright and only 25% of them believe that he should be offered any type of deal/pardon.

[http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/edward-snowden-rasmussen- po...](http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/edward-snowden-rasmussen-poll-hero- russia/2016/09/23/id/749866/)

So both candidates either appeal too or represent to the vox populi.

<comment><USER4> >Only 15% of American believe that Snowden is a hero, 30% call him a traitor outright and only 25% of them believe that he should be offered any type of deal/pardon.

According to that poll. I think it's a reasonable possibility that one of those buckets is shortchanged by the way polls are conducted.

<comment><USER3> Honestly, I was surprised that 25% of the US public/registered voters are willing to pardon Snowden, I would've thought that that percentage would be far lower.

You need to realise that even in the Huff's online polls e.g. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/05/edward-snowden- poll...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/05/edward-snowden- poll_n_3542931.html) Snowden was viewed unfavourably, and if online and the Huff is not pandering to a favourable demographic even tho on paper the poll might match the US demographics then I don't know what is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is no surprise. She has long wanted to create a "Manhattan Project" to backdoor crypto

Why the infosec community overwhelmingly supports her is an ongoing point of confusion for me.

<comment><USER6> Maybe because the alternative is Trump. Which is the lesser evil?

<comment><USER7> > Maybe because the alternative is Trump. Which is the lesser evil?

This is what we're reduced to? Voting for the "lesser evil"? Who in a first world country should tolerate this?

I'm not voting, but I hope Trump wins. Hopefully the resulting 4 years are so terrible that voters never tolerate a candidate like Trump or Clinton again.

EDIT: I'm against Clinton's encryption policies, her pro-fracking stance, her war hawk attitude, her backroom political dealings, and her stance on privatizing social security, just to start (almost forgot! The ACA is "good enough" and we won't ever see single payer). I don't care if she's the "lesser evil", that she's a woman, whatever. She's not just a terrible candidate, but also a terrible person.

<comment><USER8> Everyone in a democracy should work to get the best possible options in an election, but then choose intelligently the best (which is the same as the least bad) option in terms of expected result of voting when the election arrives.

A failure to secure the options you'd like to have in the head up to an election may prompt reflection and longer-term changes in approach to try to get better results in the future, but doesn't change that you ought to make the best (which may merely be least bad) available choice at the election.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm becoming very worried about what an increasingly likely Clinton presidency means for privacy.

The FBI carried a ton of water for Clinton with the email investigation. We already know what the FBI's top legislative priority is. And now she owes thim a big one.

Then you have all the Wikileaks hacking. I think it's probable that Clinton will see this as further demonstration of the "lawlessness" of the Internet and the need to assert federal authority over the net.

Finally you have the fact that Clinton was already a Dianne Feinstein on this issue. There was a leak where a staffer contemplated getting Clinton to say something good about Snowden or whistle-blowers while she was fighting off Bernie but admitted that it was against her nature to take that position.

I really think that Clinton is going to be a cornucopia of goodies for the police state and the panopticon.

(Disclosure: I'm a Bernie supporter and I've early voted for Stein).

</comment><comment> nv-vn Who in the intelligence community believes that it was undeniably Russia who hacked the DNC? And why is this article advocating for Clinton when her policy is pretty much just as bad: she wants Snowden extradited and she wants backdoors in encryption. Worst of all is her claim that Snowden could have done the same legally; I'm surprised her fact checkers didn't notice this one [1]. Other than the more explicit language and the part about executing Snowden, they basically said the same thing. A piece like this should have instead highlighted the people who are actually on our side: Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, Jill Stein, and Gary Johnson (2/4 of which have sadly been knocked out of the election, with the remaining 2 having no chance of winning).

[1] [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2015/oct/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2015/oct/14/hillary-clinton/clinton-says-nsa-leaker-snowden- failed-use-whistle/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Its simply astounding that in the 21st century the overwhelming favorite to become the ruler of the "free world" literally doesn't know how to use a computer. She doesn't even know how to read and send email on a computer. Absolutely frightening.

[http://thehill.com/policy/national- security/267727-clinton-d...](http://thehill.com/policy/national- security/267727-clinton-didnt-know-how-to-access-email-by-computer-state-dept)

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't know that Trump cares much about encryption by itself, except perhaps indirectly by bolstering the NSA to protect against foreign attacks.

Though, Hillary blowing a few million(or tens of millions) on some cryptography research wouldn't be the worst thing a president could do.

After Wikileaks, Trump might be more sympathetic to whistleblowers like Snowden. He seems to be making corruption a central point in his more recent rallies. And I can't imagine Clinton would have much sympathy for whistleblowers, probably associating them with Assange.

</comment><comment><USER12> While there are certain issues on which I don't agree with Clinton, here's why I'm still voting for her: she believes in man-made climate change and, in my opinion (I know a lot of people don't agree with me on this), a vote for one of the third-party candidates is largely wasted.

<comment><USER13> What high expectations.

I'm hopeful this election will be the trigger that makes the mainstream consciousness reflect on democratic republic systems' grave shortcomings.

<comment><USER14> "reflect on democratic republic systems' grave shortcomings."

And do what in response? Abolish the current system of government? In favor of what?

<comment><USER13> Who talked about abolishing?

If the only way to change the status-quo is to completely discard the current system, that means it's clearly not flexible enough and indeed has to be abolished. But I doubt that's the case. Open up, experiment on small scales, improve incrementally.

We keep calling that system "Democracy" as a shortcut(/newspeak), maybe it'd be good to indeed try pushing it toward a real democracy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Typical apologist bullshit.

<comment><USER16> We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748319) and marked it off-topic.</comment></comment>


Using the Best Date Format - <AUTHOR> http://xqt2.com/p/tiny_date_encoder.html <comment><USER2> YYYY/MM/DD is the best format(edit: it's the same one used in article ofc), since it is also sort-able

<comment><AUTHOR> I like YYYY-MM-DD as it is also sortable and doesn't require any escaping as a file name on windows or Linux. It's part of ISO8601.

<comment><USER2> slashes or dashes makes no difference to me, still the most readable formats, since we are used to the biggest number first, from our numbering system :)</comment></comment></comment>


Life is a Laughing Matter - <AUTHOR> http://www.deliberatism.com/blog/life-is-a-laughing-matter/

<comment><USER2> My condolences.

I try to consistently remind myself, it is the journey, and not the destination.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, and sometimes lose sight of this. I often find myself so busy creating goals lists and rushing from one thing to the next that I don't stop to just take a look around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sad story, but what the hell does this have to do with startups or technology ??

<comment><AUTHOR> Your startup (or business) will likely consume your every waking moment. If you aren't careful, you might miss the ride.

<comment><USER3> It's sad if it takes the death of a friend for you to realize that.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is, but sometimes we get so overwhelmed by what we're doing that we lose track of what's important. (My hunch is that you probably do the same from time to time.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the oldest software you still use today? - <AUTHOR> Inspired by the thread on ever-lasting software. <comment><USER2> Maybe tar? First version is from 1979.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_(computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_\(computing\))

Although mine was written in 2010.

      % tar --version
      bsdtar 2.8.3 - libarchive 2.8.3

Edit: Actually it's probably telnet which I use to get into lab equipment. First version is from 1973. The version I run was written in 1993.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oldest as in oldest origin or oldest release?

Irfanview comes to mind as the default image viewer for Windows

</comment><comment><USER4> Deoxyribonucleic acid

<comment><USER5> It's a shame the source has been lost so everybody has to modify the object code in situ. An utter revision control disaster!

<comment><USER6> Or, potentially, the best version control system ever? Automatically forgetting dead code is a pretty sweet feature :P

<comment><USER5> Sadly there's tons of dead code just lying around in the chromosomes just waiting to be activated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm guessing that some of the included BSD tools on my Mac are pretty old, because they're so simple. [https://gist.github.com/pete/665971](https://gist.github.com/pete/665971)

</comment><comment><USER8> Does using a recent version of something that's been updated for a while count? Adobe Illustrator's first release was March 1987, making it 32 years old this month; I use it pretty much daily. I'm currently using last year's version.

If not then I think it's Neko. [http://splook.com/Software/Neko.html](http://splook.com/Software/Neko.html)

Lately my Mac has been warning me that Neko will stop working soon once Apple drops support for 32-bit apps and that will be a sad day indeed.

</comment><comment><USER9> VLC for sure.

>The VideoLan software originated as an academic project in 1996

</comment><comment><USER10> Warning: nerd at work. The question may be ambiguous. To highlight: compare "what's the oldest software you still use today" to "what's the oldest software you use today". The first one refers to software you have been using over a longish(?) period and the second to software that may be old that you are using even though you may have only begun using it. I hope my pedantry (pedanticism?) isn't too inane...

<comment><USER11> _I hope my pedantry (pedanticism?) isn 't too inane..._

Or, you surreptitiously hope it's much too inane, much as people do with puns. What should we call those who secretly love pedantry? "Pedantophiles?" Oh what a difference one syllable makes!

<comment><USER12> I think that would be someone who secretly loves pedants, which isn't quite the same thing as secretly loving pedantry.

Am I doing this right?

<comment><USER11> I don't know. I got downvoted, so apparently I'm doing it right!

<comment><USER10> Actually, I like your sense of humour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Command line: basic Unix utilities (cd, anyone?)

GUI, used regularly: BBEdit, 1992

GUI, used infrequently: MS Word, 1983

GUI, not updated in forever: abandonware games played in DosBox

</comment><comment><USER14> Winamp 5.6, on all my Windows PCs. It's my most missed software on my Mac. I'd even install it in my car if I could...

<comment><USER4> Why 5.6, specifically? What was it about that version?

<comment><USER15> That's the last official release, 5.7 & 5.8 are leaked betas.

<comment><USER4> Well, that makes perfect sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have been using the same web browser, in terms of codebase, ideology and heritage, for over a quarter century now.

NCSA Mosaic -> Netscape 2, 3, 4/4.78, 6 -> Firebird -> Firefox -> Waterfox.

I have run other web browsers such as Opera and Vivaldi, but my main browser has always been and will always be a Mozilla product.

</comment><comment><USER17> Assuming we count recent versions of old-school software mine are:

foobar2000 vim (I was still being breastfed when Bram started)

</comment><comment><USER18> Probably vim.

<comment><USER12> I use vi on occasion when I'm in a new BSD box and haven't installed vim yet, so there's that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I still use xv by John Bradley regularly.. the most recent version 3.10a was released on 29/12/1994 !

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_\(software\))

</comment><comment><USER20> GNU grep. If you cheat and count years since the original grep it's pretty old.

<comment><USER21> Not sure if that's cheating - most of the suggestions on this page go from the original version of something. A kind of 'Ship of Theseus' problem - there's no natural or obvious definition of 'what counts as still the same thing' (except 'all parts exactly the same', I guess).

Wikipedia says grep is from 1974.

Cat, chmod, chown, comp, cp, date, df, du, ed, find, ln, ls, mailx, mkdir, mv, nm, od, pr, rm, rmdir, sort, strip, tty, unlink, wc, who, and write are from Version 1 Unix - Nov 1971!

The page for ed says: "It was one of the first parts of the Unix operating system that was developed, in August 1969."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unix_commands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unix_commands)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> My father, a chemistry professor, still uses PegasusMail which has been around since approx the year 1990. He is also good at handling his mail through `pine` program over a terminal.

</comment><comment><USER11> On the gaming side: Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters. I'll still play Battlezone once in awhile, which goes back to 1980.

</comment><comment><USER23> Oldest still supported? Probably gotta be GCC.

Oldest unsupported? I have some VB6 tools I use to make tilesets for Sega Genesis homebrews.

</comment><comment><USER24> winamp 2.7 from 2001 for my mp3s. Still works fine on windows 10

<comment><USER25> Nah, need 5 for Unicode support. :) using the classic skin it's pretty much the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> ed, emacs.

<comment><USER12> Do you actually use Ed, or the series of other programs that are based on it, like vi(m) and sed?

<comment><USER26> I occasionally try to use ed as a distraction free editor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Emacs and GHC

</comment><comment><USER28> ls for showing files.

</comment><comment><USER29> Xixit!

If only for the music tracks.

</comment><comment><USER30> GNU coreutils.

</comment><comment><USER31> SAP

</comment><comment><USER32> WordPress?

</comment><comment><USER33> I still use Reaktor by Native Instruments. It's been on the market since like '96 or something and it's ugly and clumsy as hell but it still sounds way better than anything else...

</comment><comment><USER34> PaintShop Pro 7, about 18 years old.

<comment><USER35> Paint Shop Pro 5 and 9 here

<comment><USER36> PSP 5 here. Build date of March 30, 1998.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Cool Edit Pro (Adobe Audition has never been nearly as good)</comment>


The FBI says you should reboot your router. Should you? - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/how-to/the-fbi-says-you-should-reboot-your-router-should-you-explainer/ <comment><AUTHOR> Last Friday, the FBI issued a report recommending that everyone reboot their routers. The reason? "Foreign cyber actors have compromised hundreds of thousands of home and office routers and other networked devices worldwide."</comment>


Show HN: Play – a workplace coach for new grads - <AUTHOR> http://play.seenontheinter.net/ <comment><AUTHOR> Ever since I have been a new grad in the workforce, I have wanted to be coached in typical workplace scenarios like handling my first job and asking for help. I never thought I would collect my experiences and 10 years later launch something of my own but here I am. I would appreciate any and all honest feedback - the goal is to become a coach and a companion, helping people who are just entering the tech workforce</comment>


Marksy - easily translate between markup languages on the fly, in your browser - <AUTHOR> http://marksy.arc90.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Marksy is both an online service (<http://marksy.arc90.com>) and a Chrome Extension ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/marksy/glncdocnokp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/marksy/glncdocnokppgopgpblpeohhhcjggbnl)) which lets you quickly convert between different markup languages.

The full writeup is here: <http://lab.arc90.com/2013/02/20/marksy/></comment>


Show HN: I made a simple and registration-free alternative to Google Finance - <AUTHOR> https://www.modelmode.io <comment><USER2> FYI - clicking through to create a portfolio, my corporate firewall blocks it as malware. Idk how you fix that though.

<comment><USER3> This site has a JS Miner which is probably the reason why your firewall blocked it. See previous submission:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18237457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18237457)

OP: JS Miners are not seen as a good thing so you need to be upfront when posting sites like this. This is your second submission and seems like JS miner is still there.</comment></comment>


The source of the e1000e corruption bug (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/304105/ <comment><AUTHOR> I saw this linked reading a different LWN and couldn't resist posting. I'm not sure why I haven't heard this before since imho this rivals "The case of the 500-mile email" [0] and "Car allergic to vanilla ice cream" [1] of crazy bug finds.

Any other famous bug stories I should know?

[0] [https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html](https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html)

[1] [http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/smann/IceCream/humor.html](http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/smann/IceCream/humor.html)</comment>


Review my startup idea: disrupting the Trading Card Game industry - <AUTHOR>

I'm a big fan of trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, and Cardfight! Vanguard, from the story being told by the cards, to the possibilities available with each draw of a card. However, I live in a city that doesn't have a game shop where I can find people to play with, and I can't drive.
There are three main questions I want my product to answer. 1. How do I make it easier for publishers to create awesome games for both iOS and Android? If I want TCG publishers to make versions of their game, I feel it's my job to make the API smart so the developers can worry more about the look and feel and not the details. I want the API to "know" the rules for each supported TCG, along with card effects and rulings, keeping track of life points, and stuff like that.
2. How do I make it easy to find people to play with, both online and in real life? At the heart of the product is a social network, where players can add cards to their collection, build decks, get deck advice, talk about individual cards, set up games, and more.
3. How do I make it easy for people to add cards to their online collection? How do I spot counterfeit cards? My first thought was to use a customer's phone, and using an OCR provider, but I'm not sure how to spot counterfeits, I'll keep working on it.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave a reply or send me an e-mail. Thank you for your time and consideration. <comment><USER2> I think that your three points are three different startups. I've paraphrased them and provided a few thoughts:

(1) Provide a technology framework for potential TCG designers. They bring the art and game design, you bring the rules engine, UI and networking.

Cons: Limited market size (many fewer TCG designers than TCG players out there), software may be complex (scripting designer-defined card rules, real- time multiplayer, securing the server and other clients from malicious card scripts that steal credentials or abusively consume resources), responding to DMCA notices (because people will inevitably use your platform to make unauthorized versions of games they don't own the rights to)

(2) Provide a matchmaking service to allow card game enthusiasts to find each other and socialize.

Cons: Network effects may be required for success, questionable value-add over existing TCG-specific communities and sections of other communities like Facebook groups or sub-reddits

(3) Provide inventory services or online mirroring of card collections.

Cons: Game publishers may view this as copyright infringement, individually scanning cards in large collections is tedious for users, some games have existing services in this space (have you tried Magic: The Gathering Online?)</comment>


Billionaire claims he has been harassed after blocking access to public beach - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/17/silicon-valley-vinod-khosla-martins-beach <comment><USER2> California's coastal laws and how they are practiced are no secret: if you want to develop anything in proximity to the coast, you _are_ going to open up public access. Opening access is a one-way door; once opened, there will be no closing or reducing access.

Khosla's behavior in this matter is bizarre and entitled. He appears to me, a third-party observer, to act as if he believes money can buy the ability to do anything he wants by bullying others in court to obtain special privileges. Maybe he doesn't really think like that, but his behavior sends that message loud and clear.

Worse, even a cursory examination of established Case Law should have shown him the utter futility of even trying. He appears not to have learned the lessons of King Canute: some things literally cannot be accomplished.

<comment><USER3> Camp Pendleton is developed on the coast, and does not allow public beach access. There has been a reduction in access.

<comment><USER4> Are you really surprised that a military base has an exception?

<comment><USER3> Of course not. That is the point: exceptions do exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> _"It was routinely closed for private events and in the winter. They did not apply for a permit and were never told by any public official or entity that a permit was required," said Khosla's attorney, Dori Yob, in a statement._

 _"However, when the subsequent owner continued these practices they were met with threats and harassment in an attempt to coerce them to forfeit their private property rights and allow public access to the property on terms of the County and Coastal Commission's choosing," she added._

As if Khosla's permanent closure of the access road (and effective annexation of the beach proper) were in any way comparable to a "continuation" of the previous owner's practice of occasionally closing the road for private events.</comment>


Cloud Kit Framework Reference - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/CloudKit/Reference/CloudKit_Framework_Reference/index.html <comment><USER2> CloudKit is very exciting. It have a very narrow scope , IOS only App with a simple Web service. But for those developer looking to develop only for iPhone customers, it will be great to write all code with a single language and single platform on the client and server side. This desire exist out there with web platform like node.js, that seek to united the discrepancy between the client and server development in mobile applications. Will love to try this out, and if work properly , free myself from azure/amazon EC2 in simple iOS apps.</comment>


Ask HN: What features would you like in an "pastebin" for images web app? - <AUTHOR>

What features would you like in an "pastebin" for images web app? I'm working in a new one, limited to 1mb uploads
EDIT:
I'm using this app to (also) test django-nonrel on google app engine but i'd like to build something useful ofc.
The use case for the tool is quick uploading images (screenshots and etc), not permanent storage. <comment> tomh- not limited to 1mb uploads would be nice, you take care of the resizing, not me..

<comment><USER2> also, take care of creating thumbnails and several different resolutions

<comment><AUTHOR> the limit is 1mb due to app engine blobfield limitations and my budget :) 1mb is enough to be useful. I was wondering about resizing images above 1mb to fit the 1mb automatically. Yes thumbs are a must.

<comment><USER3> can't you just upload them to amazon s3?

<comment><AUTHOR> i could use the BlobStore but i have almost zero budget for this atm and these kinds of services take a lot of bw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't help but think of imgur, so the ability to create galleries would be nice.

Uploading more than one image at a time.

An API would be an excellent thing to have as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes i'm thinking on an API. As for galleries, there's Flickr, Picasa and so on, i don't know if it makes sense

<comment><USER4> It might at least make sense to group several images; if I'm trying to show someone a series of screenshots (e.g., "I click login, and then I see this, but then I click on the dancing banana, and suddenly this!") it would be easier to send a single url.

<comment><AUTHOR> humm i see, will think about that

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Provide a browser plugin/native app/something so that I can get screenshots onto a remote serve painlessly. I hate the whole printscreen-photoshop-paste- save-upload cycle.

<comment><AUTHOR> duly noted

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I usually find the ads on sites like this to be so intolerable, do them well or not at all!

<comment><AUTHOR> will do :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> i have the current version of the app running on <http://www.pic1mb.com/></comment>


'Popcorn Time' Gives Users Anonymity With a Free Built-In VPN - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/popcorn-time-gives-users-anonymity-with-a-free-built-in-vpn-140607/

<comment><USER2> It should be noted that this is the Popcorn Time fork that is actually _not_ open source (unlike the original, and the other main fork). The VPN provider they are using here also seems to keep logs:

[https://en.kebrum.com/faq](https://en.kebrum.com/faq) (Technical Questions)

Oh, and according to these two posts, the app actually runs in an iframe with the code hosted externally with a non-secure connection:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/241y7i/remember...](http://www.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/241y7i/remember_to_tell_anybody_that_time4popcorn_is/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/time4popcorn/comments/24a7qd/why_tim...](http://www.reddit.com/r/time4popcorn/comments/24a7qd/why_time4popcorn_is_incredibly_dangerous/)</comment>


I opened a link some random person sent me and I got raided (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.haschek.at/2015-that-not-so-awesome-time-the-police <comment><USER2> Something similar but less intrusive happened to me. 10 years ago I was in the early stages of building a price comparison website, still hosted at home. It scraped product prices of several hundreds of online stores. One day I got a letter from the police asking me to come to the police station. I called them asking what this was about, but they said they couldn't tell me on the phone. I said fine, but I won't bother to make the trip if this is not something serious. They then told me I was suspected of fraud.

So I made an appointment and talked to the investigator. He told me someone placed an order at a web shop, then hacked the iDeal transaction, the electronic payment system in the Netherlands. My home IP address showed up in the logging. I asked him what the IP address was and I confirmed it was indeed my IP address. For the investigator, this was a sure sign I was the hacker, because who on earth knows his IP address by heart unless you're a hacker? Yeah, I know, not a very smart move.

I told him why my IP address had shown up: the scraper had visited the store to update prices. And I told him if I was able to hack iDeal transactions I wouldn't have bothered to make a transaction for a few hundred Euro's. In the end it turned out someone had just placed an order, had it delivered, but didn't pay the invoice afterwards.

After a couple of months I received a letter stating I was no longer a suspect, and that seemed the end of end. But not quite: whenever I buy some form of insurance, one of the questions is if I have ever been suspected of fraud. Answer yes and there's a good chance the insurer will refuse. Answer no, and I'm actually committing fraud and the insurance may not be valid. It's also inconvenient as the same question comes up during screening (I'm a security officer now).

Lesson learned: my home router now routes all traffic through Mullvad. Just in case.

<comment> cc-d I'm not familiar with the legal dynamics of the netherlands, but this is a good example of why you should never talk to police without a lawyer present in the United States.

<comment><USER2> Good general advice, but I'm not sure if that would have made a difference in my case. I was a suspect already. Giving a statement didn't have any negative consequences for me. Maybe it prevented a raid like in the OP's case.

<comment><USER3> > whenever I buy some form of insurance, one of the questions is if I have > ever been suspected of fraud. Answer yes and there's a good chance the > insurer will refuse. Answer no, and I'm actually committing fraud and the > insurance may not be valid. It's also inconvenient as the same question > comes up during screening (I'm a security officer now).

This seems like a negative consequence

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > I told them about the script kiddie, the link and that I wasn't using a VPN > because I did nothing wrong but of course they were sceptical even thought > one of the agents said my story sounded plausible to him.

A) This is a weird thing to tell the cops. "I wasn't using a VPN cause I wasn't doing anything illegal, I only use VPNs when I do illegal things!" Uh... you don't want to tell the cops you do illegal things and have opsec procedures for when you do illegal things! No wonder they were skeptical!

B) This story is literally the explanation of why "If I'm not breaking any laws, why would I worry about my privacy from the police?" is the wrong attitude. You don't have to have known you did something wrong/illegal, you don't even _actually_ have to had done something wrong/illegal -- for the police to really inconvenience you. It could have been a _lot_ worse than this. Even people who never knowingly/intentionally break laws have an interest in keeping their activities from police notice. As this story demonstrates. "If you have done nothing worng you have nothing to hide, why do you mind police surveillance" \-- nope nope nope.

<comment><USER5> surveillance state is the price we pay for a civilized society. abolishing that would mean , like 1% more crime. nobody wants to live in a world like that

<comment><USER6> A surveillance state wouldn't be such a burden if the rights we had actually could be enforced on the spot the moment they were infringed by a police force.

The fact that you can be imprisoned (borderline indefinitely it seems at times) as well has basically need a lawyer even though your issue is straight up black and white really shows the failures of a police state. Whats the point in having rights in a surveillance state? The government will just make stuff up against you anyway.

<comment><USER7> Where you say "really shows the failures of a police state." It's a great success, the greatest actually. The people who fail to enforce anything against the police are the same people who need them to act as the tip of their spear. The purpose isn't everyone compliance - just the compliance of those with the potential to change things. Think FBI and MLK, or Aaron Swartz. It's like spear fishing vs mass spam, tracking the individual agents of change and their social network vs fire hoses and dogs at protests.

<comment><USER6> I guess I was coming from the philosophy of why it's bad on a liberalism mindset. I totally get why it's good for a governing body to assume control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So keeping all of his computers for a year sounds like a major pain in the ass since he's innocent (I'm not that surprised they did it, it's understandable if you're the head detective, perhaps, but being in tech myself I'm more understanding of "I just clicked a link" and wouldn't consider that much of evidence). I'd lose sleep too just at the thought of the pending investigation and the headache that inherently is even if you're innocent of what they suspected you of. But honestly it's refreshing to read a story about a police raid where the police knocked, the warrant was in order, they were polite and sat down to talk, they explained what was going to happen next, and an agent even acknowledged in front of him that his story was reasonable. I've had a few police departments around me that routinely do none of those things.

<comment><USER9> The same thing would happen in the USA too. If you were suspected of hacking into the Democrat or Republican party websites, the FBI would come and confiscate your computers and hold onto them until after your trial had finished. This would easily take a year or longer.

<comment><USER10> Would it happen the same way though, with a polite knock on the door, a calm chat and orderly evidence collection? In the US they'd probably break the door, pin the guy down on the floor while armed men ransack the house. Call me cynical...

<comment><USER6> And also throw you in jail and keep you there indefinitely regardless of evidence of you committing a crime.

<comment><USER11> It's true, the jails are so clogged that pre-trial offenders can be held for months and sometimes years without a conviction in the U.S. Not to mention the indeterminate number of people who just disappear out of the computer system and end up being held for months beyond their release date.

<comment><USER12> What's worse, you could be thrown in jail if you're a witness, even if you're not even suspected of a crime. Some witnesses have been in jail for years.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-39662428](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39662428)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The lesson here is not to avoid clicking random links, because that is an unrealistic expectation.

So what is the lesson?

Realize that you can get raided at any time, without any warning, due to random life circumstances. Live life accordingly.

<comment><USER14> I was raided (secret service) thanks to a boneheaded roommate. Woke up to guns drawn and shouting. My advice:

* Don't talk to the police

* Maintain off site backups because they will take everything, even the whole machine in my case

* Encrypt everything, this event really reinforced that for me

<comment><USER15> I've been hearing stories of people being detained for refusing to decrypt their drives.

And the author writes:

> I was also asked for my password and if I had any encrypted data on my PC

<comment><USER14> You should first consult with an attorney before making any statement to the police, much less handling over incriminating evidence. I'd rather keep the option open to fight over it in court than just giving up the key and hoping that the police will view it in my favor. Also, encryption is a must in case of theft.

<comment><USER16> In some countries, lying or withholding information is a crime itself. The USA is fairly unique with the "right to remain silent."

<comment><USER17> Sometimes saying anything at all might incriminate you because you're the only suspect. Don't talk to cops without a lawyer basically is the way to go in the USA.

<comment><USER18> In Japan, you are currently allowed a lawyer to be present when being questioned, but it wasn't that long ago that you weren't. However, there was a bit of a hack: you _were_ guaranteed to have a _translator_. It didn't matter how good your Japanese language skills were, you could demand a translator (assuming you spoke another language!) and they had to be present during all interrogation. While not as good as a lawyer, at least you had a witness if something untoward happened during the interrogation (which was apparently quite common in those times). I have heard that since the latest reforms in the last 10 years (lawyers present during questioning and allowance of a trial by jury) the incidence of untoward occurrences has decreased. While police here are an extremely friendly feature in society (very different than any other country I've lived in), you definitely don't want to get on the wrong side of the law one way or the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What's even scarier is when your browser "clicks" on the link by itself [1] and you don't even realize that you've just sent a request to some 'random' server and that server now has the log of your IP. If you browse 'questionable' sites, definition of which is growing by the day, you should be careful in which log your IP might end up in.

I now disable page prefetch on every browser I use. Some browsers don't even use it (which is a sensible thing in 2020 given the risk vs rewards of having it turned on).

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

<comment><USER20> It took me a while to find the setting -- search Chrome preferences found nothing for "prefetch," and a how-to article I found claimed the setting was called "Use a prediction service to load pages more quickly," which also returned nothing, but I finally found it under Advanced -> Privacy -> Preload pages.

I was quite pleased, however, to find that this had already been turned off for me, and enforced, by uBlock Origin: [https://imgur.com/a/9seIFEU](https://imgur.com/a/9seIFEU)

<comment> rickety-gherkin you can find the option in FF in about:config by searching "prefetch", but mine was also disabled already because of uBlock origin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > After getting my drives back I checked one of my USB drives and it had a > .docx file on it that didn't come from me. In this Word file there was a > photo of some guy (unpixeled). I have no idea who that is (maybe the script > kiddie?) but the federal agency must have put it in there by accident.

Plot twist:

I opened a word document some random agency put on my USB drive and I got a federal trojan.

</comment><comment><USER22> > After getting my drives back I checked one of my USB drives and it had a > .docx file on it that didn't come from me.

Booooo. Die BVT dropped the ball on preserving the chain of custody for this evidence. They should have used equipment that bars device writes.

<comment><USER23> Or leaving the .docx file was intentional and by opening it, the guy triggered a hidden payload which installs malware which the police use to monitor him.

<comment><USER24> If they had his hardware for a year I don't think they would need him to trigger a hidden payload.

<comment><USER25> Its to allow them to continue monitoring his activities going forward, without the need for annoying warrants and physical searches.

<comment><USER26> I think the point is that they could have just installed the malware since they had physical possession for an entire year.

<comment><USER27> And the counterpoint is that he'd obviously got a new computer and any further surveillance would benefit from access to that one.

<comment><USER24> That's a good point. I was assuming the old hard drive was loaded on old equipment but that's not necessarily the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It isn't entirely clear to me that Script Kiddie was actually setting Security Researcher up rather than bragging, but let's assume.

The interesting aspect is the weaponization of legit LE - this is similar to swatting. This can easily be extended to harassment by all sorts of random government agencies depending on context. It isn't even really new - you can think of false OSHA reports and the like as similar.

I think the new aspect is about the expanded reach of social connections, combined with people's willingness to be much more vicious when the interaction is virtual.

<comment> rickety-gherkin My first thought was that this was a setup by the Script Kiddie (maybe they did know what they were doing). If you knew that your actions were going to come to light then you might as well messy up the trail for investigators. I wouldn't be surprised to find out this was a planned maneuver

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Clicking random links is exactly what HN is all about ;)

<comment><USER30> That's why I never read the articles, I'm security conscious!

<comment> martin-adams What article?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why does a security researcher not use a VPN while on IRC? The security community is crawling with bad actors.

</comment><comment><USER32> >Don't click random links!

Alternatively, consider always using at least some kind of VPN.

In the modern climate of VPN ads all over tech videos I doubt it is terribly unusual if you have one, yet it immediately makes this kind of bullshit considerably less likely.

I feel Wireguard (for those not in the know: a VPN protocol and software suite like OpenVPN) provides the kind of performance and latency that is completely acceptable for almost all traffic other than video games, and if you are a Linux user you can even play with things like network namespaces to force some apps through Wireguard (and maybe some through bare metal.)

I am not affiliated with any VPN but I am a happy customer of Mullvad for years, and I don't recall any time they've ended up in the news for bad reasons. I've also heard ExpressVPN and PIA are good options.

<comment><USER33> Will that help at all? The VPN itself will keep track of all your activity, just a warrant away, that's how they make real money.

<comment><USER32> >The VPN itself will keep track of all your activity

\- The trouble here is that the ISP is in the same country as your police. Having a VPN that is in a different jurisdiction requires international warrants. (IANAL.)

\- Mullvad claims they do not log, as many VPN providers. I have a tin foil hat usually but I think their track record warrants an unusual amount of trust.

\- You can also do multi hop through Wireguard, if you're into that kind of thing.

>just a warrant away, that's how they make real money.

Now that is unbelievable. You are suggesting to me that the police are paying VPNs for logs? Why would they pay if they have a warrant?

I don't think the data that ISPs or VPNs have is actually worth that much. For VPNs most of it is probably genuinely torrent traffic and HTTPS traffic. Even DNS can be encrypted nowadays (and should be imo.)

It's one thing to say they are selling logs, but it's hard to believe that's where they make the real money from. And either way, it's a completely unsourced claim.

<comment><USER34> >Now that is unbelievable. You are suggesting to me that the police are paying VPNs for logs? Why would they pay if they have a warrant?

I'm not leaning in either direction here but worth noting that warrants are hard to get without evidence. Illegally obtained information can be used for ostensibly legal targeting, pre-warrant. It's a dangerous, clandestine abuse of power called parallel construction [1].

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

<comment><USER32> I know parallel construction exists. But I highly doubt VPN services make their 'real' money selling logs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > I was also asked for my password and if I had any encrypted data on my PC > (which I didn't have at the time).

Today you probably encrypted everything, right? Would they force you to tell your password, or what was the intention of just asking for it?

<comment><USER36> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#Germany)

Laws in the UK are pretty Orwellian to say the least: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_King...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingdom)

<comment><USER37> One of the comments above mentioned that police in the UK (and western Europe) tend to be more polite than the often aggressive police in the U.S. This is believable, so too is the notion that police and the justice apparatus in the US are also more punitive than their western European counterparts. With these things in mind, it's rather ironic that the U.S turns out to be the much better place for protecting ones digital privacy by refusing to disclose passwords. Since it's not even legally allowed in the US due to the Fifth Amendment... (border crossings still being extremely ambiguous places on this).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The author of the post says

"I was on a site around the time it was hacked and I had no proxy or VPN."

How would a VPN would have saved in this situation. A free public proxy might hide the original ip address to some extent. The VPN would still be linked to his real identity straight away. Right?

</comment><comment><USER39> It seems odd to me that the lesson here wasn't reporting to the police when some rando you met on IRC has apparently hacked into a political party. Especially given all the state-sponsored meddling in politics recently.

They might have done the same thing and taken all your computers but you probably would be in the clear a lot sooner.

</comment><comment><USER40> Is it safe to open the article, though? 8)

</comment><comment><USER41> Google search by image reveals its a doberman.

[https://www.pictshare.net/500/f8df258bbb.jpg](https://www.pictshare.net/500/f8df258bbb.jpg)

<comment> martin-adams Okay, so who is brave enough to click that link?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm wondering if this happened to me if I would report it and the result might be quite different?

</comment><comment><USER43> This might be a good use case for a RasPi for web browsing. If it gets taken, you have not lost much money. You could PXE boot and have the OS run from ram, so you don't even need a hard drive. It really should not use much power. The PXE boot device could just be a generic cheap consumer NAS. If you need to save a file, just https post or sftp it to the cloud somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> have you ever surfed the web on a Pi? even a 4.. it's not fun :D

<comment><USER43> I have, but I also tend to not visit sites that have a lot of bloat. El Reg and Scientific American are about the most bloated site I visit and I only pull them up once a day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> ( .. opening link with Startpage's anonymous feature .. )

</comment><comment><USER45> For US readers it must be quite incredible to read all this took place amicably and - you weren't SWATed with guns drawn and would even talk to the law enforcement people by yourself (as opposed to only through a lawyer) - which was probably unwise even in Austria - they could have not have people experienced enough or just wouldn't want to admit a mistake

<comment><USER46> FYI, this was in Austria, the BVT is an Austrian agency, this website is on an .AT domain and he writes in his about page that he is a Texan living in Austria =)

<comment><AUTHOR> Born Texan, that's right but haven't been there since a was a few years old. Still feel strangely connected though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Hey random person, I'm not falling for it!</comment>