Facebook Research Warned of 'Tipping Point' Threat to Core App - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facebook-secret-research-warned-of-tipping-point-threat-to-core-app?pu=hackernewsotjyc7&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock&utm_content=facebook-secret-research <comment><USER3> I can say what has reduced my Facebook use, if anybody in a relevant position at the company is reading. It's the content Facebook shows me.

A decade or so ago, most of the content I saw on Facebook was _original_ content from people I know. Most posts were either text written by someone I knew, or a photo taken by someone I knew. Perhaps not everybody shares this position, but what I most want from Facebook is to keep up with people I actually know. Here are the first 20 posts I see now:

7 shared images from strangers/pages. 1 screenshot from a TV show uploaded by a friend. 1 page updated its website. 1 shared video from strangers/pages. 2 "suggested" videos from a page. 1 photograph taken by a friend. 1 "memory" containing text written by the person who shared it. 3 links to a news story. 3 posts by a page.

That's 2/20 posts of original content from people I know. I've noticed that if I _post_ original content, my friends are less likely to interact with it than a few years ago, probably because they, too are presented with such a huge amount of other content.

I know I can opt in to something like the old experience with the "friends feed" feature. Well, I can on the desktop site (if I bookmark it, click it each time, or use a browser extension); it appears to be missing from the mobile site and the Facebook Lite app. Anything I post is still disadvantaged though, because most people are using the default algorithmic feed.

On Instagram, _every one_ of the first 20 posts I see is original content by a person or page I follow. 16 of those are individual people. I see shared third-party content on Instagram fairly rarely, probably because its UI doesn't encourage that.

What would get me to use Facebook more actively is a change to the algorithm that advantages original content over shared third-party content.

<comment><USER4> Enjoy insta while it lasts. They are having more and more sponsored posts creep into the feed. I don't expect this trend to reverse. It's how they make money.

<comment><USER5> I have mentioned this before here - instagram ads are a bit too creepy. I have had multiple personal ads that were eerily accurate and I hadn't even discussed these things over any written form. I'm not paranoid to think they are listening to the microphone but the coincidence is super uncanny. It crossed the line for me twice in the past few months alone.

<comment><USER6> You should be, the Facebook app explicitly does listen to the mic unless you opt out. It has also come out that Google and Amazon are storing people's personal voice requests, and aside from that the mics are always on waiting to hear the trigger words. This means by default that the apps are listening and analyzing everything, though how much of the non word-triggered speech gets recorded is unknown.

Facebook's initial foray into the app/mic biz was troubled and their statement was "we only listen for popular music / TV in the background in order to help you." It also came out that they mine personal messages between users.

"I'm not paranoid to think they are listening to the microphone but the coincidence is super uncanny."

We need to get past the block where we label people as paranoid for thinking these big corps might invade user's privacy.

<comment><USER7> The Facebook app, on iPhone at least, requires you to opt in to giving it microphone access.

I've seen the myth that Facebook is targeting ads based on what it hears debunked several times. Do you have a source that shows that it is in fact listening?

I think it's more likely that the same reason someone is talking about something (they're in a demographic interested in that thing) is the reason that Facebook gives you ads for that thing. Add in the Baader-Meinhof effect and it seems like Facebook is listening to your conversations.

<comment><USER8> I am so frustrated by this "debunking", because it defies logic and experience.

Let's say Facebook NEVER listens to you... I'm 100% on board with them and their honesty. It still doesn't matter.

If you let ANY third party app listen to you, and identify you, for example the latest Candy Crush game, then your information along with preferences are being uploaded to databases for re-targeting.

When I do a big campaign in Facebook, or any sophisticated marketer does, I don't ask Facebook for users who like Cats and are looking for brands of organic cat food. I PROVIDE them a pre-vetted list of people looking for cat food that I generated and the emails associated with those Facebook accounts.

Facebook has NO WAY to know how I came up with my list, and no possible way to find out. It could have been from listening to conversations while someone played Candy Crush, or it could have been from a form submitted on my website.

One of these days I'm just going to actually document myself doing this and publish it to a website so more people understand what is happening and how easy it is to use data from people's conversations.

TLDR: Any time you buy a list of potential customers from a market research company, that data could have been gathered with conversation tracking. It's not Facebook's fault, it's just the reality.

<comment><USER9> You're not wrong. "Data laundering" is a thing. There's a lot of industry concern around the quality/accuracy of 3rd party data segments from various brokers, DMPs and DSPs, but often times they are complete black boxes in terms of their source data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am happy that we have Snapchat and iMessage as competitors to the Facebook Apps. I very much dislike their business practices of sucking up all the data they can get their hands on e.g. during the acquisition of WhatsApp where they had to promise to European [1] regulators to not combine the user data with facebook's and then did it anyway.

Also sad that they were so successful in copying Snapchat's story feature - <USER2> made Snapchat so unique. Now nobody is using Snapchat for it anymore and everybody is on IG instead.

All in all I know many people who really dislike FB and would leave it if they could, but the network effect keeps everybody locked in to WhatsApp at least in Europe/Germany.

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/7/18215143/facebook- whatsapp...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/7/18215143/facebook-whatsapp- instagram-third-party-user-data-combined-banned-germany-fco-competition)

<comment><USER11> > Also sad that they were so successful in copying Snapchat's story feature - > it made Snapchat so unique. Now nobody is using Snapchat for it anymore and > everybody is on IG instead.

I don't see what's sad about that, if the only thing that made SC unique is a feature that was so easily copied into EVERY FB app (messenger, instagram, even FB itself) then SC was anything but unique.

Ultimately execution is what matters, and snapchat had a terrible app (at least on android) forever.

<comment><USER12> The same feature is now also on YouTube, for some reason. I guess short video clips are just what the youth are into these days (Vine, TikTok, stories).

I wonder if they're regretting not taking the 30 billion Google was offering. Ephemeral image/video/message sharing has become a pretty oversaturated market since their popularization of it, and there isn't really that much more innovation that can be done in that area, I think. And it doesn't seem like they're trying other kinds of things beyond ephemeral communication. They may be in a Foursquare-like situation, except Foursquare actually did manage to pivot from a gimmick to more of a sustainable business (as far as I can tell).

<comment><USER11> > I wonder if they're regretting not taking the 30 billion Google was > offering.

I know this was Google's "we need to turn into a social thing, G+ all the way" era and everything but good god, 30 billion, that figure was insane. Even if you go with "but major social app are worth a lot" just comparing it with how much was paid for whatsapp and instagram makes it even crazier.

<comment><USER12> I think the only thing even more insane than that is the creator of an app that lets you set a timeout when you send images and videos thinking $30 billion was a lowball insult and that they're clearly worth far more.

<comment><USER10> Quote? From what I read it wasn't about the money for the founders but they thought they had something unique going for them which they wanted to have control over instead of selling. At least that's what they said when Facebook made multiple offers

<comment><USER12> I was definitely heavily hyperbolizing and assuming. I have no idea what their actual thought process or response was. I just think you probably have to be pretty arrogant to deny 30 billion from Google for your gimmick fad app, even if you really don't care about making money. It seems arrogant to think that that business could really grow beyond such a valuation. Why not take the 30 billion and spend it on a new company you want to make, or something? Is the Snap brand truly that powerful to them? Even if you're totally happy living modestly, you can do a lot with that money.

It might be hindsight bias on my part, though. The hype at the time was very high, and maybe it was actually rational for them to think they had serious longevity. But still, I'm not really seeking money, and I don't see how I could've turned down that offer.

For Zuckerberg, it made more sense to reject early offers, because he could see the mega-monopoly in the distance. I don't see how Snap could think they could make a monopoly out of their app. For one, the app's not really even a social network.

It was a good idea and good execution, but like so many startup founders, I think the success of the app may have gone to their heads. Users aren't buying into the Snap brand / ecosystem / network, they just like to send ephemeral photos and videos to their friends with minimal friction. This is not a new paradigm in itself; it's a feature. Like many startups, Snap is a cool new feature dressing itself up as a serious corporation, and features only remain new for so long.

One could say the same of Instagram, but the difference is they managed to get the social network stuff right, so they could sustain exponential growth. Maybe Snap could've done the same if they were more willing to branch off from their original feature earlier on in their company's existence. I'm not totally sure why Snap failed to evolve from a sexting app to a social network, but it was clearly their plan, and it flopped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I have a facebook account I'm not a big user, it's mostly for a few contacts that are only on messenger. I don't look at my "stream" a lot, and when I do it's mostly useless content like meme, self-centered post and whatnot that I personnaly have zero interest in, with maybe 1% of actually interesting thing in between like birth annoncement from acquaintances etc ...

I don't plan to delete my account because I want to keep the ability to be in touch with those few friends, and I haven't reached the point where I want to delete the messenger app, but the main FB/messenger duo just doesn't fill any major need for me.

But two things that struck me recently:

1\. When opening my stream just to gloss over, there is A TON of ads. Like, the first 4/5 posts are real, then it's one post one ad one post one ad. And the targeting is abysmal. The only ones that are kind of on target are the amazon retargeting, except in typical amazon retargeting fashion it advertises to me stuff that I have already bought (on amazon no less). At least google has the decency to show me stuff I may be interested in, if vaguely.

2\. I'm not sure when this was added to android, or if this is a specific samsung thing, but I had a weird warning that I had never seen before: my phone warned me that messenger, while not being open, was trying to access the "microphone" permission. Kudos to android for blocking it and warning me, so I could disable that permission for good. I can't think of a single reason for that app to do it that isn't super evil.

I'm also 99,9% certain it's not even legal where I live (France), I can't record my customers without asking or warning them __on each instance of a conversation __and with a clear non hidden message, so I doubt they can do that no matter what 's in their TOS.

<comment><USER13> The microphone permission is used for you to be able to record a voice message to send to someone.

I don't know why it would suddenly ask but I have pressed that voice message / microphone button by accident in the past. Or maybe it's just something the app requests globally on newer versions.

<comment><USER11> I was not asking why the microphone permission is needed, but why it would be used with the app in the background, not being used.

> I have pressed that voice message / microphone button by accident in the > past

App in the background. It's not due to a keypress or to do any user-initiated action. Googling it, seems it's not a one off and that the app does indeed access the microphone from the background from time to time to do god knows what

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the focus on Stories is a huge mistake. Disclaimer: I'm too old to "get it". I've only used stories a few times, they feel like a huge time sink vs a normal FB/IG post, and that investment seems less worthwhile for something that doesn't stick around like a vacation photo album that I or someone else might refer back to later. I've only used stories when (say) traveling solo, and I want to post more mundane shit because I don't have a ton going on. Keeps folks at home more apprised of what I'm up to, but not the kind of content that's 'important/curated' enough to keep forever.

So on to why I think it's a mistake. Yes, both the core business and the stories rely on the network effects of social networks to gain/maintain popularity. But encouraging users to share ephemeral content makes the switching costs much lower. If some new "yourspace" competitor came along, I'd be hesitant to switch because I _LIKE_ the library of content myself and my friends and family have built up over the years. If literally all that prevents me from switching is where my friends are, I can use both until everyone switches, and then just drop the one entirely.

Don't get me wrong, Facebook is still almost worthless to users without friends using it, but the switching costs are still higher when there's old content.

<comment><USER15> Ephemeral content means you must check all the time. If you are like me and you want to check your friends original content or some event calendar once every 48h or less, you are probably not in the user group they see as "profitable"

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is why, as Ben Thompson points out in his Stratechery emails, we should focus more of our anti-trust efforts on blocking mega-acquisitions than on regulating the giants. If Facebook were currently competing with Instagram and WhatsApp, it would be in a lot more trouble.

<comment><USER17> just curious, this assumes that companies being in more trouble would be a good thing. why is that the case?

<comment><USER18> Because they would be inclined to offer a better service as their competitors? They'd have to make more effort to please users. My guess is this would mean show less ads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was talking to my 15yo niece, and I already suspected that Facebook is losing young people. So I asked on which platforms she spends her time. "No Facebook, mainly WhatsApp groups, and also private Instagram".

Facebook is dead, long live Facebook.

I must say that their aquisition strategy is impressive.

<comment><USER20> Isn't it fairly well known at this point that FB isn't used by young people?

<comment><USER19> Yes, but the impressive thing for me was that she and her group of friends swithed to other Facebook owned platforms. Not SnapChat or some other competitor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting to see that Facebook, being big tech+data driven company, needs a year to gather such statistics.

I would imagine it to be almost real time there...

<comment><USER22> There's probably a TONNE of cleaning/reconciling/deduping that needs to go on if they are trying to connect cross-platform users (like WhatsApp and Facebook) - especially over historical data. Sure, maybe going forward refreshing these reports might be quick but don't underestimate the inertia of having to go through that pain of integrating the data for the first time.

Any analysis worth its salt will also need to go through rounds of sense- checking + checks for statistical robustness: this all takes time

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Facebook is kind of like my email Spam folder now. I check it once or twice a month to see if anything useful was caught there but I otherwise ignore it.

It took me way too long to notice, but facebook stopped being an enjoyable thing a long time ago.

</comment><comment><USER24> I miss why this considered _bad_ news.

Facebook spent billions pickup up Whats-app and Instagram (and probably a fair chunk developing and maintaining messenger).

This wasn't solely to pick up untold millions of new users who'd never used "original blue facebook" \- if it had been, you'd need a facebook account to use Whats-app. Point was to ensure you didn't stray from the blue-app, onto something Facebook didn't own/control.

In my humble view, the keeping of messenger and whats-app separate by Facebook is smart - as they have two offerings that appeal to different people (and to many people that happily use both).

You know from all the rumours of "ads on Whatsapp" that internally in facebook they're trying to work out how to leverage all our eyeballs on all those different apps - but the reason they haven't merged them all, is they've worked out they keep more people if they keep the apps separate.

To take my favourite anecdotal example, I used to use latitude on google maps to work out where my friends were (I'm in the pub, when are you turning up?). Then google killed that functionality to try to make us all move to google+.... We didn't, it died.

Now, if a few of us are trying to co-ordinate say a drink after work, we'll use whatsapp. Google lost that feature I use to Facebook.

<comment><USER25> Facebook's superpower was that everyone was on it. If half their users are on Insta and the other half on WhatsApp and the other half left for other random networks, then they're just a holding company for brands with less network effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think FB caught onto this a long, long time ago. Back when they saw the adoption & activity rates of the then competing WA & Instagram. The only difference being at the time of this analysis FB owns most of the apps people are migrating to.

Its not that threatening - as they already proved they know how to counter through acquisition or competition and have a good track record of being able to monetise new properties.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is this really surprising?

The strength of a network is n^2:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law)

It makes sense that the more people leaving a network then the utility of said network will decline.

What seems odd is why they care if people move to Insta or WhatsApp, since FB owna both.

<comment><USER28> This, I removed FB a few years ago and never even tried Instagram, but my gf has both, and we speak everyday on Whatsapp, and I have a picture on Whatsapp, so they still know pretty much everything about me if they scrap the conversations for keywords or something more advanced.

Tried removing Whatsapp for something like Telegram but couldn't since I need to convince my parents and sisters and gf and friends to move there too.

<comment><USER29> Have you tried to tell them that they are constantly being watched? How receptive were they about recent articles on data breaches in facebook? What would happen if you only reply to them over SMS or Telegram?

I'm also struggling with this issue and I've been contemplating about either moving all of my interactions on a mailing list or a mastodon instance. I don't know how to move the network of my friends into that space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I used to think they would follow the xanga / myspace train and be blown out of the water by something but that's not the case anymore. They have proven they can just buy any competitors or quickly copy their features, and "all my friends are on fb/insta/whatsapp" will keep the vast majority of the users entwined in one way or another. Regardless of usage metrics, if you only use their apps for social, that's a win in itself.

</comment><comment><USER31> This should be at the very least a reminder to try and use wrappers and disable/uninstall as much as you can from your phone facebook.

</comment><comment><USER25> I sometimes try to use the Facebook ("blue") app to do messages and then I remember Facebook nerfed it's own app so it can't send messages and then I give up.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is in progress. The most avid FB users are 55+, and FB is unknown 25-

<comment><USER33> Source?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is it just me, or do "secret" have negative connotation? Because for me it does, and I am really sad from journalist when they use "secret" or "secretly" in headlines, when it just mean internal, or just not disclosed. What is interesting that the article does not contain word secret, and they always use the word internal.

<comment><USER35> Is "secret" not one of the classifications for internal documents? "top secret", "secret", "confidential", "restricted". While this classification is usually used to classify access to documents of the state, it could also apply to internal documents in large organizations.

<comment><USER36> It can be but I'd be surprised if that document had anything like it. Very few things are confidential internally at Facebook. Compensation, seniority level and review are the most common "Confidential" category but they are typically marked as "personal and confidential". A few things are permission-access- controlled (think things involving the Police where rules of evidence apply) but I don't remember if they had a name; "Talk to legal" was the short-hand.

Source: I used to work at Facebook & I know Tom C. personally. I've written similar documents four years ago. There were publicly visible internally. Few people really cared outside of senior Product people.

<comment><USER37> How can seniority level be secret?

<comment><USER38> "seniority level" an in "what level have you been promoted to".

At Google you don't have to disclose your level, but most people do and most of my coworkers know I'm L5. At Facebook my understanding is they've tried to build a culture where people don't know each other's levels, to focus more on "what can you do" instead of "what does management think you can do".

<comment><USER39> Then why have different levels at all and just pay more or less? Why hide someone's position/level.. why even have levels? Is this a shield for management.. you shouldn't know Jim is more valuable.. easier to pull the wool over employee eyes?

<comment><USER40> You have levels to guide HR in making compensation decisions relative to the rest of the market. For example, Google might set their target at 105% of the top range of the market in order to retain the best employees. 105% of a fresh graduate's salary is very different from the same rate for a top-of-field industry recognized veteran. Even in those cases, that's a guide so exceptions are made as merited.

And no, I don't work at Google :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What It's Like When the FBI Asks You to Backdoor Your Software - <AUTHOR> http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/security/319544-what-it-s-like-when-the-fbi-asks-you-to-backdoor-your-software <comment><USER2> What a missed opportunity. The proper response would have been to "take it under contemplation", get his name & ID, and get as much documentation of the request as possible (enough to verify, does this guy actually work for the FBI, or is it some random "jokester" of the kind that hangs out at security conferences).

As it stands, it's basically one level up from an urban myth. Some guy asked her to do something shady at a security conference, and it's easy for the FBI to claim they don't know anything about it.

<comment><USER3> > Her lecture concluded, she proceeded to grill the agent. "I asked if he had > official paperwork for me, if this was an official request, who his boss > was," said Sell. "He backed down very quickly."

<comment><USER2> "Backed down" in this context seems to mean "went away politely without answering any questions". Leading with verification and diatribing afterwards leaves you with some documentation, or a strong implication that they're a troll. She just went in the wrong order, which is honestly understandable but leaves us with an unverifiable story.

<comment><USER4> >she lectured him on topics ranging from the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution, to George Washington's creation of a Post Office in the US. "My ancestor was a drummer boy under Washington," Sell explained. "Washington thought it was very important to have freedom of information and private correspondence without government surveillance."

Don't forget that lecturing the FBI comes after verification and documentation as well. If that was an FBI agent he probably concluded she was not a desired partner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds more like a marketing sham than a real FBI encounter to me.

Really? The FBI agent approached her and started talking to her before she had even removed her mic? And everybody (including the agent) heard?

Let me guess, she vehemently denied the offer? (I'll admit I didn't even bother to read past the second paragraph of this "article".)

I don't think so...

<comment><USER6> Yeah it reads like a PR puff piece. I am sure that is what it is. It follows the template described in [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html).

<comment><USER7> I agree. A real FBI agent would have handed her a letter imposing a legal obligation to keep silent about the conversation, and she would be in jail now. In the alternative, it was a social engineering attack, and we're supposed to admire how they didn't fall for it.

More to the point, if it's possible for her company to compromise customers' communications unilaterally, then the service is insecure, regardless of what promises they make or what type of encryption they (claim to) use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 'in addition to employing who Sell calls the "best crypto people," Sell said that individual messages are bound to their intended device. "Even in 20 years or 100 years, if the NSA miraculously breaks these [encryption] equations, they still wouldn't be able to read these messages."' uhh, right. And of course this awesome uncrackable crypto relies on private keys stored on teenagers iphones.

</comment><comment><USER9> Or possibly that agent wasn't really an FBI agent but rather was somebody who wanted to test them.

<comment><USER10> Bit of a risk, considering that impersonating a federal employee is a felony.

<comment><USER11> Impersonating a federal employee, as itself, is not a felony. Otherwise David Duchovny should have been arrested for impersonating an FBI agent in The X-Files and John Ratzenberger for impersonating a postal service employee in Cheers.

The law is in 18 U.S. Code sec. 912: Officer or employee of the United States:

> Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting > under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or > officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or > obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under > this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

That is, 1) impersonating a federal employee, and 2) using that impersonation to get or demand something of value.

This account does not have the person actually getting information, nor demanding access, so does not appear to be felonious.

For example, suppose it was private citizen X impersonating an FBI agent to test Sell's resolve. The query was "if she'd be willing to install a backdoor into Wickr that would allow the FBI to retrieve information", not if citizen X (impersonating an FBI agent) can get that information.

That doesn't seem to be illegal according to the impersonation law.

<comment><USER12> Note that the "something of value" does not have to be tangible. Information has been held sufficient. See United States v. Sheker, 618 F.2d 607, where all that was done was ask about someone's location.

If this was done to ascertain information about the company, and their willingness to participate in government surveillance, it is likely to be held "a thing of value" under such precedent (which explicitly holds that things with value in the broader senses of the word count under the statute)

As a pragmatic approach, it is unlikely you are going to be find judges willing to let you slide on this kind of thing :)

<comment><USER11> Thank you for pointing that out. "I am not a lawyer" and all that, but I do enjoy, oddly enough, reading judicial decisions.

That one says:

> We do not embrace the government's sweeping position that 18 U.S.C. 912 > extends to anything that has value to the defendant. Such a broad reading of > "value" negates any limitation the word could imply. By the same token, we > cannot accept Sheker's suggestion that 18 U.S.C. 912 covers only things > having commercial value. Information can be a thing of value. Whaley v. U. > S., 324 F.2d 356 (9th Cir. 1963). In normal English usage commercial worth > is not the exclusive measure of value. For instance, state secrets might > trade hands without cash consideration. Information obtained for political > advantage might have value apart from its worth in dollars. In each case the > information sought would have value to others, in addition to the seeker. > Such is the case here. Stokes would see value in keeping his whereabouts > unknown to Sheker. The criminal justice system, concerned with the safety of > witnesses, has a similar interest.

(In Whaley, Whaley impersonated an agent of the F.B.I and got information which he later paid paid $9, if I interpreted it correctly. Thus the information definitely has commercial value. In Sheker, the judge extends that to value other than commercial value.)

The information sought here is "is Sell (or Sell's company) willing to provide a back-door to the FBI?" This is just after Sell stated publicly that the "service wouldn't have a backdoor for anyone."

I honestly can't tell if this is a "thing of value."

If the answer is "yes", then I think that's a thing of value. That information might be revealed later to embarrass or otherwise affect Sell's company.

If the answer is "no", then there's no value. The statement to the public is the same as the statement to the alleged impersonator.

Given the context, it seems very likely that most people would have expected Sell to say "no." Thus, the overall value is very low.

It can't be that asking a question where the answer isn't already 100% known is illegal. The judge says that the law doesn't '[extend] to anything that has value to the defendant'.

But I don't know how that line is drawn.

<comment><USER12> The line is essentially going to be drawn pragmatically in most cases, because the precedent is so vague. Judges generally don't take kindly to people impersonating agents, so i would expect a bit of stretch to find an issue.

For example, if you look, the judge says "We do not embrace the government's sweeping position", but then in practice, did exactly this. They went to great pains to find some way to ascribe "value" to the location of another human being.

<comment><USER11> Yes, which is why I can't figure out how to interpret that case. It seems the judge says you can't ask any questions, since any information has some value.

A police officer can ask questions of anyone, including "can I search this bag?" The legal theory is that an officer is also a citizen, and any citizen can ask that question, even of strangers.

Apparently the uniform and knowledge that it's a police officer isn't supposed to make people feel any extra obligation towards the officer, compared to a stranger.

But there has to be a limit to that, yes? Can the officer for money? Strangers do that.

Anyway, were I to judge this matter, I would say that if a person would reasonably give the same answer to a stranger as to an imposter, then there's nothing of value.

Yeah, and I'm sure as Sunday that most judges won't agree with me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "What it's like when the FBI asks you to backdoor your software" : You say 'No' in the most emphatic terms while giving him a dressing down like a boss, apparently.

<comment><USER14> My guess is that shortly thereafter her tax and investment records were getting a good going over by the DOJ and IRS.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-joseph- nacchio-a...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-joseph-nacchio-and- the-nsa-2013-6)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't trust any of them. Period. It makes absolutely no sense to trust any of them. Not when peoples lives are at stake.

At this point, if I wanted to use my phone for any truly critical communication (e.g. like in middle eastern countries where lives are literally at stake), I'd only use open source software.

You could start a company that had the all of following people as founders:

      Ron Rivest
      Adi Shamir
      Leonard Adleman
      Phil Zimmermann
      Whitfield Diffie
      Martin Hellman
      Dan Bernstein
      Bruce Schneier
      Edward Snowden
      Keith Alexander
      Theo de Raadt

Even if every single one of those people were telling me to trust the software, I still wouldn't. Not without source.

Show me the source code. At first glance, I didn't see that option as available at the Wickr web site.

BTW stupid of Wickr to not obtain the wickr.com domain. I'll let people google for the real URL just to make my point.

<comment><USER16> How do you compile your code? (Thompson reflections on trusting trust)

And beyond source-code:

How do you shield your equipment? (tempest, also active attack)

How do you guard your equipment? (evil maid)

Real life is the triumph of convenience over security :(

<comment><USER15> Convenience is exactly what I use in _my_ real life. My texting security is whatever Apple implements in iMessage. I'd be a lot more paranoid if I were a "smuggler" or "revolutionary".

There's also the wrench cryptanalysis discussed in xkcd.com/538\. For most people the mouseover text nails it:

      Actual actual reality: nobody cares about his secrets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sounds like a publicity stunt or a hoax.

<comment><USER18> It doesn't sound like that to anyone who has worked in security. This is their routine MO.

<comment><USER17> Right, that explains why we hear about this exact scenario playing out all the time... oh wait.

<comment><USER19> Ok, while you are right that _this exact scenario_ (of an entity approaching a dev in a public place while at a conference and asking them to weaken something) does not happen very often, you need to understand that the person you are replying to is saying that in general, it is well known and well documented that various three letters have been active in weakening implementations in all kinds of projects over the years. Remember the clipper chip, Promis, OpenBSD's IPsec stack, NSA_key, or any of the more recent ones we have heard of, and for every one of those there are probably 10 that adhere to their NSL's or other forms of gag orders.

Your snarky and snide tone makes it seem like you think they never try to get people to implement backdoors or weaken implimentations (for side-channels), and I'm sure that's not what you meant, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Even if this story were true (which I have no way to verify) all it takes is an NSL, or for that matter a visit in the middle of the night to you and your family with lots of guns, and suddenly your business plan changes.

</comment><comment><USER21> Never talk to cops. The end.</comment>


Reflections on a complaint from a frustrated git user  - <AUTHOR> http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2009/02/23/reflections-on-a-complaint-from-a-frustrated-git-user/

<comment><USER2> I use git for a few small projects at work, and I enjoy it. This article, however, falls prey to my number one gripe about the git community: "You don't really want to do that. Do this instead." In some cases, it may be better to do something in a different way, but not always. This article says to not use git push but to email patches instead. It never addresses the original complaint of how to use git push. At the end, it concludes by saying that sometimes people really do need to push, and, if you need that, bazaar is easier/better.</comment>


Facebook will be forced to go public after their deal with Goldman Sachs  - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40898422/ns/business-us_business/ <comment><USER2> If you think that Goldman hasn't done their homework, and consulted with their very close buddies at the SEC, then you're crazy. These guys have proven over the past several years in particular that they are the gods of finance, and if there are rules and regulations in their way, they will either find a path around them or convince government officials to craft a new hole instead.

<comment><USER3> Didn't they just recently get busted by the SEC and were not able to find a path around the rules and fines?

<comment><USER4> $550 million sounds like a big number but it represents less than 6 days of trading profits to Goldman. It was a drop in the proverbial bucket.

[http://seekingalpha.com/article/135785-goldman-sachs-why- are...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/135785-goldman-sachs-why-aren-t- trading-profits-raising-any-red-flags)

<comment><USER5> Reporting it as a fraction of _trading_ profits is a confusing thing to report.

After all, Goldman has lots of non-trading costs: buildings, salaries, software licenses, vendor payments, etc. It was actually 15.5 days of _profits_ for Goldman, plus the $90 million Goldman lost on the deal itself.

(Goldman wasn't just a perpetrator, they were also one of the victims. If you believe the SEC, Goldman helped Paulson to defraud themselves as well as others.)

<comment><USER6> >If you believe the SEC, Goldman helped Paulson to defraud themselves as well as others.

CYA

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article misses a very important point: that Facebook wouldn't be required to start reporting its financial earnings until May 2012, 120 days after the last day of its current fiscal year. <http://mashable.com/2011/01/03/facebook- ipo-may-2012/>

This week's move essentially buys Facebook 16 months of time until it has to IPO. So yes, Facebook will essentially have to go public, but it won't be for a while.

Goldman and Facebook knew exactly what they were doing.

</comment><comment><USER8> After reading this, I can believe GS & Facebook are _hoping_ the 'Special Purpose Vehicle' lets Facebook get further liquidity while staying private, while remaining ready for the SEC to rule against them, forcing public reporting.

At which point, they mock-begrudgingly reveal numbers better than anyone had expected, setting up a monster IPO as a consolation prize.

</comment><comment><USER9> 'Move fast and break things' apparently applies to finance as well as programming.

</comment><comment><USER10> Anybody think maybe Facebook got pwn'd by GS? As in, maybe Facebook's financials aren't that great and they wanted the GS money. GS offers a deal with the mock-promise that they'll deliver a special vehicle to get around the 500 IPO rule, when they really just want to flip FB shares to the public and pre-ipo traders for a short term profit.

<comment><USER11> haha that would be classic GS. "Um sorry we were wrong about the IPO rule." However, there is no IPO rule -- the rule only requires public disclosure of financials, not public ownership.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> They may be forced to disclose financials, but they can't be forced to do an IPO. Those are two different (but often interchangeable) things. I'm not sure if the restrictions on executives of public companies apply to all that must disclose their financials, or only companies being _traded_ on the exchanges.

<comment><USER13> From the article:

>A reminder: If Facebook is forced to register, it will not HAVE to offer stock to the public. But since it will be forced to disclose its financials anyway, we expect the company will go ahead and offer up some second class (non-voting) shares.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Facebook is aware of the rule in question. The Facebook restricted stock plan was designed so that the participants are not considered stock owners. I doubt that Facebook went ahead with this deal without carefully examining the issue.

<comment><USER15> FB asked for and received a waiver from the SEC for their restricted stock plan: [http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2008/tc200...](http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2008/tc20081120_566312.htm)

Basically since the restricted stock holders are employees that didn't directly invest money they're not being considered as counting against the 499 limit (which to me seems perfectly fair).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I enjoy boring reporting with a touch of analysis. the whole "But wait, there's more" and "most exciting financial news EVAR" sucks.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there any reason not to buy into the IPO with a lot of money? I'm thinking, how can it not go up with all the hype that will surround it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Whatever Goldman Sachs motivations are, you can bet they're not good.

<comment><USER19> They're good for Goldman Sachs.

<comment><USER4> the purpose of business is to make money. Goldman should have no other priorities but it's shareholders.

<comment><USER20> Absent force or fraud, yes. Not sure if Goldman always makes plays absent force or fraud though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The law does not apply to the Goldman Sachs. Facebook will not be forced to disclose anything.

<comment><USER22> I don't know why this is getting downvoted. It's not like cynicism with respect to the financial industry in America isn't a perfectly logical position to... oh right HN is about 80% libertarian troglodytes who don't have a single thought they didn't read in a book by Ayn Rand. Carry on.

<comment><USER23> This comment really adds nothing to the discussion. I imagine if people were downvoting the parent comment, it is because they made an extraordinary claim (GS is immune to US law), without providing any evidence. We're downvoting you because you's trollin'.

<comment><USER22> Not really trolling, at least not intentionally. The parent was glib, sure, but I see comments such as that all the time in more technical discussions on HN and they pass unremarked or even upvoted. Yet when it happens in a political discussion people lose their shit because we're all expected to be a bunch of little Montesquieus around here nowadays. Fine, GS is not _literally_ immune to US law, but surely you can imagine how someone might think that, in certain respects, _they may as well be or they appear to be_. And there is nothing wrong with making a snarky comment to that effect when it is clearly not meant to be taken literally.

I don't know if HN was always like this and we have more political links on here recently, or if it's a change in membership composition, but from what I can tell the range of allowed opinion in political discussion has greatly narrowed over the past six months or so compared to that in technical discussion. And that's too bad.

<comment><USER24> I made a relatively anti-capitalist comment last night and got voted up. I dislike the 'finance industry,' yet I voted your above comment (the second one, not the original) down.

It's about how you say it, not what you say. Also, you can't particularly be upset if the vast majority of startup founders are super pro capitalism; this is sorta ground zero for all of that, eh?

<comment><USER22> Well, I don't think there have been any anti-capitalist statements made here, unless you consider Wall Street an example of capitalism. And, I don't see any conflict between being a startup founder and suggesting that Wall Street does more harm than good.

<comment><USER24> I was just making an example of something that would be outside of the general 'groupthink' of HN.

<comment><USER23> I've made quite a few comments that were upvoted detailing things I learned on 4chan and what I like about that site. I'd think it's safe to say 4chan is not highly regarded around here. The key is to present your views in a way that people on HN will appreciate, say, to satisfy their intellectual curiosity.

If I say, "4chan FTW, lulz!", I will get downvoted, and rightly so. Compare:

"I think a lot of people on HN tend to dismiss 4chan as juvenile and immature without giving due regard to its tremendous creative potential and brand recognition. Just look at the Cheezburger Network, a multimillion dollar company whose sole business model is to recycle 4chan memes. Additionally, it would be hard to name a site as seemingly pointless as 4chan that enjoys its popularity or notoriety. Even Someething Awful, which arguably did what 4chan does, but better, never enjoyed the number of users or visibility that 4chan does. It's clear they're doing something right, even if they manage to piss just about everyone off."

Now I've presented a contrarian opinion in a way that presents a clear argument for why I hold it. These types of posts are far more palatable to people who, really, are just looking for interesting things to think about.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


An MIT Scientist Claims That This Pill Is the Fountain of Youth - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/08/is-elysium-healths-basis-the-fountain-of-youth.html?wpsrc=nymag <comment><USER2> >Because the two active compounds in Basis, pterostilbene and NR, are natural (occurring in blueberries and milk, respectively) and have long been available separately as supplements, Elysium has been able to skip the FDA gauntlet and sell its capsules immediately.

Combined with: > while animal studies have been encouraging, the company is selling a product whose effects on humans have yet to be proved.

Suggests this article is little more than Click bait.

This article feels like an advertisement. Not necessarily for the drug, but the inventor, in an effort to revive funding

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't matter what scientists claim, it only matters what scientists can demonstrate, reproducible, and subject to review. I get it though, I wish I were a lot less skeptical and could believe in something that would ease the terror. Maybe in 30 years or so I'll choose on some level to fantasize rather than be terrified. Maybe there will be other options, but I doubt that this pill is one of them.</comment>


Ashton Kutcher Joins the Airbnb Team  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.airbnb.com/no-were-not-punking-you-ashton-joins-airbnb-t

<comment><USER2> Some of the comments here on HN about this are quite amusing, especially since many of the people who poo-poo Ashton's involvement in tech have no issues with a normal VC investment in a company. How is Ashton _any_ more annoying than the concept of some random dude thinking he knows whether or not your idea will fly, simply because he was entrusted with tens (if not hundreds, or even thousands!) of millions dollars' worth of capital from pensions, wealthy people, and others? He's just another guy with money, no different from any of the rest -- except he has massive visibility, and his public image means he is less likely to pull some of the inane shit I've seen many "respected" Valley investors pull on my friends (which, by the way, never gets called out, as they are the ones who are the "sources" leaking things to scoop-hungry newspapers and blogs).

I know the drama kids didn't sit with the computer club kids at the high school lunch table, but really... guys, stop being a bunch of haters.

<comment><USER3> I think it's because he has no expertise on technology, can give you zero advice, will actually probably give you the wrong advice, cannot help you with your scaling or implementation issues, cannot refer you to the right technical people when you need it. The one thing that silicon valley has that none of us in the rest of the world have is a vibrant network of like minded, able and willing to help people. It's perfectly ok to invest, but I guess that doesn't make you part of the silicon valley. Plus it's the old nerds/jocks war.

<comment><USER4> It's a serious and common mistake to think that the majority of the challenges faced by a startup are technical, especially in a consumer facing startup. More than half the battle is getting people to know about your product, and AK knows marketing and promotion well.

<comment><USER5> This, this, this. Ashton Kutcher is, in all likelihood, a much better representative of one of the demographics Airbnb would like to access (wealthy hipsters) than any VC would be. The whole game is understanding your audience.

He's a professional entertainer and producer - someone very skilled at connecting with the customers Airbnb want, half of whom probably grew up watching Punk'd - with ungodly reach on Twitter.

That's rarer, and harder to buy, than deep technical skill. That you can buy with cash and equity.

<comment><USER6> Exactly - 6 million Twitter followers and nearly 10 million Facebook fans make for a powerful strategic investor. In a crowded market flush with capital this kind of exposure is far more valuable than another funding round from a highly technical VC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been meaning to write about the absolutely horrible experience I had using AirBnB in San Francisco recently. It was a nightmare.

The place was filthy (the pictures online were taken on their best day ever), the people were unfriendly, the room was small and dank- with no way to even lock the door. It was really, really bad.

I suppose it would be worth a gamble if you have the means to change plans on a dime and pay for a last minute hotel- whatever the price. That's what I had to do. But then, those aren't the people AirBnB is catering to, right?

<comment><USER8> I guess I'm like Fred Wilson who said "Why would anyone want to rent someone's couch" - I'm probably out of touch or just mildly privileged.

But the idea of sleeping on some stranger's couch doesn't appeal at all (plus the unknowns like cleanliness, security, etc)

<comment><USER9> Using AirBnB for the first time -- currently staying at a great apartment in Manhattan. My girlfriend and I are both quite happy! Both of us, and the apartment owner, are first-time AirBnB'ers. It _can_ work, I believe, but you've got to vet things carefully.

We had to work around an understandable but (I think) misguided AirBnB restriction that makes it hard to get phone numbers in to messages -- it's so important to be able to talk to someone to understand who you're dealing with!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I lost respect for Ashton after the thing a few days ago where _he_ released the "Aplusk twitter app" with the tag line "...my latest creation..." and it's just another app rebranded. Seems he's just selling his name now.

<comment><USER11> Donald Trump does that all the time with properties, this is just the Internet version of that.

<comment><USER12> Who has respect for Donald Trump?

<comment><USER13> I have more respect for Donald Trump than Mark Cuban.

<comment><USER11> It used to be the other way around for me, until I saw him on Shark Tank (where he just came off as a huge bully).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've heard good things about the Kutch from people I respect.

This blog post is really bad poorly wrought though. I wonder how many different pens and motives went in to crafting this monument to celebrity PR garbage.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm calling it now: within a year there'll be a romantic comedy movie out called Airbnb (or equiv), starring Ashton, and involving, well, you can guess. Not only will it make for a great gimmick to hang that kind of movie around, but it would be massive "free" advertising for the company's service.

This and his Twitter following are the obvious, most likely wins for Airbnb.

<comment><USER13> Sponsored celebrity tweets can be obtained for a fairly reasonable fee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's his value add: Ashton's going to show that the service is so trustworthy that he'll start using it himself. You can't get that anywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think it's weird how there hasn't been more press coverage of celebrities getting into business and tech. Ashton Kutcher, 50 Cent, Chamillionaire, and other actors and musicians could be a pretty big inspiration to a lot of the teenagers out there.

<comment><USER13> Why is it weird? All the 'piracy' or lack of quality content has led to decreased profits through traditional movie and music products.

Did you know 50 Cent publishes a series of ghostwritten fiction books available on Amazon.com([http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_browse...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_browse- b_mrr_0?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3A50+cent%2Cp_n_feature_browse- bin%3A2656022011&bbn=283155&keywords=50+cent&ie=UTF8&qid=1306415082&rnid=618072011) )?

..or his Twitter pump-and-dump for OTC penny stocks?

These celebrities have a certain lifestyle to maintain and need to keep the cash-flow up.

<comment><USER11> I saw and brought attention to his OTC "pump-and-dump". It turned out that he was an active investor in and advisor to the company (I think it was Gunnar Optiks) and it seemed to be mostly an honest mistake.

<comment><USER13> _mostly an honest mistake_

What percentage was dishonest?

<comment><USER11> He was trying to encourage people to buy stock in the company, but it did not appear that he was attempting to pump and dump the stock, and it did not appear that he was aware of the potentially illegal nature of what he was doing.

Basically he was treating it just like he'd tweet and tell everyone about some new artist that signed to his label.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder what kind of value Ashton could provide through simply tweeting about AirBnB once a week to his audience - whether or not he had one half decent thing to contribute tech wise. That seems like a real big benefit for AirBnB if he chose to do it, because his influence and reach is so huge, and there is no marketing cost for him to do so.

<comment><USER18> Even more so, if he made a documentary, or even put some short youtube clips up off him staying at places listed on AirBnB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Makes me jealous as a techie in India, where our rich and famous show very little interest in startups. Congratulations and good luck to AirBnb.

<comment><USER20> Makes me jealous as a techie in Germany, where our rich and famous show very little interest in startups. ;)

I guess California is just a notable exception to the rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So if I list my place on Airbnb, is there a chance Ashton will come crash on my couch? Because that would be a great marketing gimmick.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think this used to be called celebrity endorsement.

<comment><USER23> I remember when companies would pay celebrities to endorse them, not vice- versa.

<comment><USER22> That was before companies became vehicles for multiplying money ;)

<comment><USER23> This reminds me of a random shower thought I had - we are living in an age of modern alchemy.

<comment><USER22> AKA - another bubble :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is this really a good thing? What does he offer?

<comment><USER25> Airbnb has done a great job already of promoting themselves (e.g., rent a country/village promotions) so I tend to think they know what they're doing. Kutcher could put his pad up there, get some of his famous friends to offer their places?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One word: Publicity. He will help them reach new audiences, and his audience is their target demographic.

<comment><USER27> I hope they have a plan to get a good director and _good scripts_

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Like Planet Hollywood and Flooz.com, MVP.com proved that celebrity endorsements are worth nothing in the long run."

via "Top 10 dot-com flops": <http://www.cnet.com/1990-11136_1-6278387-1.html>

</comment><comment><USER29> I guess it's good news if it means less movies starring him... Did you see Killers? <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1103153/> I did, and I'm sorry.

There was a great piece about Ashton and Demi by Fake Steeve Jobs; here it is: [http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/i-just-had-weirdest- meeting...](http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/i-just-had-weirdest-meeting-with- ashton.html)

That said I'm sure he's a really nice guy and all; but why would startups need celebrities? Having actors endorse your products in ads is one thing; having them hang around in the office is another... Isn't that a little distracting?

<comment><USER23> I didn't get the impression that he would actually be in the office all of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think you guys are being unnecessarily hard on Kutcher. It is a flawed assumption that being a celebrity (sportsman, musician) means you have no additional value.

There are medical doctors than when on to play football (the real one); Nigeria has a Cornell Physics PhD candidate that does rap. etc.

Why do you guys (critics) believe you can add better value to AirBnB than Aston.

I believe celebrities need to do a little bit extra to show they are more than what is seen on TV.

So take a moment to stop beefing and say

Congrats AirBnB for a nice coup.

<comment><USER13> It isn't that he is a celebrity, it is that he is Ashton Kutcher (Michael Kelso).

This isn't Natalie Portman we are talking about....

or even Dolph Lundgren:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolph_Lundgren#Education>

<comment><USER31> Michael Kelso is a fictional character.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> With the amount of followers Ashton have and the demographics of those followers a tweet alone could make it all worth it.

Airbnb is successful but still need much more traction. I think this will help them.

</comment><comment><USER33> But there's no bubble.

<comment><USER34> Airbnb has a solid business model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hey now, I say if MC Hammer can promote good products (Flipboard), so can Ashton Kutcher.

<comment><USER36> MC Hammer also promotes crap products, like 49ers WR Michael Crabtree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Congrats to the Airbnb team!!

</comment><comment><USER38> the press release (read: blog post) was nauseating in its saccharine bullshit, but hners aren't the target audience... it was written for the legions of ak fans who know ak but not airbnb.

</comment><comment><USER31> Valleywag's take on Ashton and Demi: [http://gawker.com/5793552/ashton-and- demi-are-the-horsemen-o...](http://gawker.com/5793552/ashton-and-demi-are-the- horsemen-of-the-tech-apocalypse?tag=valleywag)

</comment><comment><USER39> Ashton who?

</comment><comment><USER40> He made a wise move, and I think AirBnB rocks, but I wish the guy would just go away.

He's not worthy.</comment>


FanGamb is hiring two Rails devs in Dublin, Ireland - <AUTHOR> http://jobs.fangamb.com/rubyonrails.html

<comment><USER2> That "billion euro company" wouldn't happen to be a bookie, would it? The prospect of a thin wall between the proven addiction machine of "social" games and actual cash money gambling makes me a little queasy.

</comment><comment><USER3> I upvoted because I met Rob and he's an awesome guy.</comment>


Domain squatter wants $150,000 for Ebola.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/14/the-merchant-of-disease-who-wants-six-figures-for-ebola-com/

<comment><USER2> This is a pretty bad article. It seems like a hit piece trying to paint the guy as a war profiteer, because...ebola? I have no real love for domain squatters, but the guy isn't any worse because he happens to own a domain name related to a disease that is in the news. Lines like:

> _Doesn't he know that Ebola has killed more than 4,000 people in West > Africa, has breached the United States, and that international health > officials now warn of state collapse and widespread chaos? Doesn't that tug > at his heart strings?_

just make me roll my eyes. The idea that he should be so _very ashamed_ of himself for owning ebola.com (and should then obviously give it out of contrition and the goodness of his heart to...someone else) is odious.

Who should _legitimately_ own ebola.com? Ebola, Inc? Pfizer? It's difficult to make an argument that it should be owned by the government, since we have the entire .gov tld for that purpose.

<comment><USER3> The true irony is that immediately after "Doesn't that tug at his heart strings?" is an advertisement. If it's not okay for Schultz to capitalize on the popularity of ebola then why is it okay for the washing post to capitalize on both the popularity of ebola and the supposedly despicable thing Schultz is doing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Meh, somebody has to own ebola.com and birdflu.com.

And whoever buys ebola.com for $150,000 is doing it because it's profitable for them. Maybe the manufacturer of ZMapp wants the domain to sell their medications? Why shouldn't Schultz make a profit selling it?

How is this any different than a real estate investor? I could buy several acres in Detroit and sit on it for a while, hoping the city rebounds and I can sell for a profit. Does that make me evil too?

<comment><USER5> Or buy a patent. Sit on it for a while, hoping the technology becomes valuable. Profit.

<comment><USER4> I realize that's probably said tongue-in-cheek, but I agree with the statement. The problem with patent trolls isn't that they exist. The problem is that patents are being granted for things that are obvious (Do X, but now on a PC!). And, the courts appear to be correcting that problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Domain names are a market just like any other. If someone buys a domain name to make money from affiliate links that's their choice, I don't have a problem with that. Don't like it? Come up with a more profitable use for the domain name and buy it from them.

</comment><comment><USER7> What the article doesn't address is whether this guy's business actually makes any money. It might make sense as a good bet if he paid $9.99 for birdflu.com, but $20,000? Has he actually resold any of his domains for large sums?

<comment><USER2> And if he does, so what? Who exactly is harmed by it?

As best I can tell, it's just moral outrage at someone who dared to capitalize on public awareness of ebola, written by someone who is capitalizing on public awareness of ebola by writing stories like this in order to garner a few ad dollars.

<comment><USER7> Oh I wasn't making any judgement on the business itself. Just pointing out that, if anything, he probably hasn't profited as handsomely as the article implies.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, I wasn't meaning to attack you - I was more piggybacking on your comment. Sorry I came across that way!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Libsodium Audit Results - <AUTHOR> https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/08/libsodium-v1-0-12-and-v1-0-13-security-assessment <comment><USER2> No fuzzing?

<comment><USER3> Fuzzing will catch C related bugs - it won't generally detect crypto implementation bugs, which this appears to have focussed on.

There's a lot of people who can write a fuzzer in their spare time and I'd be surprised if libsodium had never been a target. Comprehensive crypto audits on the other hand, are a different story.

Edit: It does state dynamic analysis was performed for classes of C bugs</comment></comment>


PEP 584 – Add + and – operators to the built-in dict class - <AUTHOR> https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0584/ <comment><USER3> > An alternative to the + operator is the pipe | operator, which is used for > set union. This suggestion did not receive much support on Python-Ideas.

That's disappointing. It's always been on my Python wish list that dicts would subclass sets, as dicts are essentially sets with values attached. Pretty much everywhere you can use a set you can use a dict and it acts like the set of its keys. For example:

        >>> s = {'a','b','c'}
        >>> d = {i: i.upper() for i in s}
        >>> list(d) == list(s)
        True

Dictionaries have been moving in this more ergonomic direction for a while. Originally, to union two dictionaries you had to say:

        >>> d2 = {'d': 'D'}
        >>>
        >>> d3 = d.copy()
        >>> d3.update(d2)
        >>> d3
        {'a': 'A', 'b': 'B', 'c': 'C', 'd': 'D'}

Nowadays, as the PEP points out, you can just say:

        >>> {**d, **d2}
        {'a': 'A', 'b': 'B', 'c': 'C', 'd': 'D'}

There's no reason you shouldn't have always been able to say d | d2, same as sets. Now I finally get my wish that dictionaries will behave more similarly to sets and they use the wrong set of operators.

<comment> dan-robertson The most compelling reason to not do this is that (I claim) it's not super obvious what to do when the keys are equal. In:

      { 'a' : 1 } | { 'a' : 2 }

Should the result be:

      { 'a' : 1 }

(prioritise the left hand side), or

      { 'a' : 2 }

(prioritise the right hand side), or should it raise an error? Maybe a fourth option would be do downgrade to sets of keys and give:

      { 'a' }

A fifth option is to magically merge values:

      { 'a' : 3 } or { 'a' : (1,2) }

For the first two choices one loses commutativity which means that code then suddenly has to have previously cared about it (or it will do the wrong thing), even though it didn't previously matter, and one is always potentially losing data. The third choice is safe but could cause unforeseen problems later if shared keys only happen rarely. The fourth choice also forgets a bunch of information held in the dict.

In a language like Haskell, one can use traits to specify how to merge values (Monoid) but without traits (and a way to choose which trait to use) I think some kind of magic merge is not great.

I claim the operations one should really want with dicts are not set operations but rather more relational ones, ie {inner,outer,left,right} joins on the keys followed by some mapping to decide how to merge values.

<comment><USER4> In case the values match you could supply a collision callback to define what to do, eg to add the values,

      d1 = {'a': 1}
      d2 = {'a': 2}

      d3 = {**d1, **d2, add_func)

      def add_func(a, b):
          return a+b

Or something along those lines

<comment><USER5> Why not raise a ValueError and let the programmer figure out what The Right Thing To Do is when you add two dicts that have the same key with a different value?

I assume the same key with the same value would be OK, but I'm not really sure it's a good idea for it to be OK.

<comment><USER6> You can't do value comparison without making dict item comparison a pissed in function or making dict values immutable. If you're doing something that really looks like a mathematical Union that will raise if there's any overlap then it's a really confusing abuse of notation. I don't think there's a way out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> len(dict1 + dict2) does not equal len(dict1) + len(dict2) so using the + operator is nonsense.

The operators should be |, &, and -, exactly as for sets, and the behaviour defined with just three rules:

1\. The keys of dict1 [op] dict2 are the elements of dict1.keys() [op] dict2.keys().

2\. The values of dict2 overwrite the values of dict1.

3\. When either operand is a set, it is treated as a dict whose values are None.

This yields many useful operations and is simple to explain.

merge and update:

        {'a': 1, 'b': 2} | {'b': 3, 'c': 4} => {'a': 1, 'b': 3, 'c': 4}

pick some items:

        {'a': 1, 'b': 2} & {'b': 3, 'c': 4} => {'b': 3}

remove some items:

        {'a': 1, 'b': 2} - {'b': 3, 'c': 4} => {'a': 1}

reset values of some keys:

        {'a': 1, 'b': 2} | {'b', 'c'} => {'a': 1, 'b': None, 'c': None}

ensure all keys are present:

        {'b', 'c'} | {'a': 1, 'b': 2} => {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': None}

pick some items:

        {'b', 'c'} | {'a': 1, 'b': 2} => {'b': 2}

remove some items:

        {'a': 1, 'b': 2} - {'b', 'c'} => {'a': 1}

<comment><USER8> So much better! Overloading addition for something that behaves differently is not good.

<comment><USER9> Addition as defined in mathematics behaves differently depending on context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unlike some of the other commenters, I'm fine with the + specification. + hasn't been commutative in Python for a long time.

But the - bothers me, and nobody else seems to have mentioned this. {"a": 1} - {"a": 1} = {}, sure, but it is _way_ less obvious to me that {"a": 1} - {"a": 2} = {}, and not {"a": 1}. If you consider dictionaries as an unordered list of tuples (key, value) where keys happen to be unique and as a result of that you get nice O()-factors on access, that doesn't make sense. You went to remove ("a", 2), but saw ("a", 1) and thought, "eh, close enough". But it's not the same thing.

If you think of a dict as a set that happens to have associated values, the specification makes more sense, but if you dig into that line of thought, that turns out to be a rather weird way of thinking of them. Values really shouldn't be thought of as second-class citizens of a dict. If you are going to go this route though, {"a": 1} - {"a"} = {} (where the right-hand side is a set) actually makes _more_ sense, without the spurious value on the right-hand side.

I'd actually rather conceive of the - operation as a "dict minus an iterable that will yield keys to remove". This has the advantage of recovering the original {"a": 1} - {"a": 2} = {} semantics that probably is what people want in practice, just via a different method. But locking the right-hand side to a dict makes it weird.

<comment><USER11> Its consistent with iteration over a dict:

      for k in my_dict:
          print(my_dict[k])

In this example it is implied that unless you specify .items(), you are only considering keys in the iteration. This would apply to the + and - <USER2> too as I understand

<comment><USER12> Using - to mean "here's a dict and a seq -- remove all the seq's keys from the dict" would be useful and consistent, but they specifically prohibit that. They require the rhs to be a dict, too, even though the values are never used. Why?

<comment><USER11> Good point, although you'd need to make sure your seq only has unique values. Other than that I don't see why you should have to write

      {k: v for k, v in d.items() if k not in seq}

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Analogously with list addition, the operator version is more restrictive, > and requires that both arguments are dicts, while the augmented assignment > version allows anything the update method allows, such as iterables of > key/value pairs.

        >>> d + [('spam', 999)]
        Traceback (most recent call last):
          ...
        TypeError: can only merge dict (not "list") to dict
        >>> d += [('spam', 999)]
        >>> print(d)
        {'spam': 999, 'eggs': 2, 'cheese': 'cheddar', 'aardvark': 'Ethel'}

While I get the "Because this is what lists do"-argument, I am still wondering why there is a difference in the types allowed for `+` and `+=`?

<comment><USER14> The difference is because + in Python is intended to be a reflexive, declarative operator while += is a directional, imperative operator.

If the + has heterogeneous operands, there should be a promotion process to the most specific type that generalizes the operand types so that the addition works the same regardless of order, as exists for numeric types. But for general types (and collections particularly) the concept of most specific generalized type including two other collection types is not always sensible, so requiring homogenous operands makes more sense.

With += there is no intended symmetry between operands, the left side is the receiver into which the right side is added.

<comment><USER7> I don't find this convincing at all.

> so that the addition works the same regardless of order, as exists for > numeric types

\+ is not commutative for lists, tuples, or dicts. So the promotion process need not be commutative either. There is no good reason why list + tuple should be forbidden, or dict + items should be forbidden.

a [op]= b is commonly and easily explained as "a = a [op] b, where a is mutated in place". Python should not break that explanation with mysterious inconsistencies.

<comment><USER14> > \+ is not commutative for lists, tuples, or dicts

Yeah, that's a good point. I think I was thinking on the type level rather than the value level, but I am unsure that makes a convincing argument for the behavior here even if it is otherwise true (which I'm not sure it is always, even at the type level.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For sets I can understand what + and - means: you can add or subtract the sets (not add or remove an element directly). This should be like lists, e.g.

        [10,20] + [30]

But what + and - would mean in the case of dicts is obscure. Better to just use full method names imho.

<comment><USER16> All my students disagree with you. They all try addition, and all expect a resulting dict with keys from both dicts. The fact the keys from the one side are prioritized is something they will learn once, just like with dict.update().

<comment><USER15> That's something a student _may_ learn. But there will be plenty of people reading Python code that don't know how "+" works on dicts; and it is difficult to find out what it does because you can't easily Google/grep for the function name. Doing experiments with dicts is not something you want to be doing while you are reading other people's code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The + operator looks great – I've personally experienced the papercut this solves multiple times, where it would be most natural to have "combine two dicts" operator:

        return {'a': 'b'} + other_dict

but instead I had to assign to a variable and mutate with .update(), which is much more verbose:

        x = {'a': 'b'}
        x.update(other_dict)
        return x

_However_ , I was working in Python 2; Python 3 has

        {'a': 'b', **other_dict}

and even

        {**one_dict, **other_dict}

though the PEP mentions that the latter doesn't work in all circumstances. Still, it will be nice to have a more general operator; I personally don't really care whether it's called + or |.

On the other hand, the - operator seems... strange, in that it only considers the keys of its right-hand argument, and ignores the values. Seems like a footgun.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think overloading + so that a + b != b + a is problematic.

I know this is the case for strings and lists, but those cases are very well established.

<comment><USER16> And a = 1 is not equality.

Welcome to the world of programming, where we don't all try to match mathematical conventions because many of us suck at maths and are practical.

<comment><USER18> There is not rule of math stating that + must always be commutative. It is commutative for real numbers, yes, but there are plenty of use cases mentioned elsewhere in this discussion where + is not commutative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reminds me of Scala Maps[0].

Edit: after reading more carefully,...

> Analogously with list addition, the operator version is more restrictive, > and requires that both arguments are dicts, while the augmented assignment > version allows anything the update method allows, such as iterables of > key/value pairs.

But why? Consistency in API behavior is important, and as a user I don't want to have to read that I can add lists of pairs only with assignments. I hope the draft gets fixed.

[0]: [https://docs.scala- lang.org/overviews/collections/maps.html](https://docs.scala- lang.org/overviews/collections/maps.html)

<comment><USER20> You can always allow it later, but deprecating such a "feature" is a pain. And subtle errors/outright abuse can happen with some of these automatic coercions, so Python tends to be a bit more conservative than other dynamic languages. The most (in)famous example being comparison (edit: not addition) of an integer and `None`. Allowed in Python 2, non-intuitive IMO, and responsible for a few bugs in its time. Disallowed in Python 3:

> TypeError: '<' not supported between instances of 'int' and 'NoneType'

<comment><USER21> Do you mean _comparison_ with None?

      Python 2.7.12 (default, Dec  4 2017, 14:50:18)
      [GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux2
      Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
      >>> 1 + None
      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
      TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'NoneType'
      >>> 1 < None
      False

vs

      Python 3.5.2 (default, Nov 23 2017, 16:37:01)
      [GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux
      Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
      >>> 1 + None
      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
      TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'NoneType'
      >>> 1 < None
      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
      TypeError: unorderable types: int() < NoneType()

<comment><USER20> doh, you're absolutely right, cheers! edited the parent for posterity, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Python continues to introduce more non-intuitive semantics that may be a small boon to the the expert class of programmers, but comes at the expense of ease of adoption for beginners. It started by making everything a generator, which are not very easy to master, and for which there were plenty of perfectly good substitutes (e.g., xrange, iteritems). And now you "add" sets of items (which you can't do in math) and when the update function worked well.

Python 3 is such a sad mess.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I hate this. Now dict.items() become not thread safe just because of iterators. It could crash anytime just because you modified dict in another thread while iteration is in progress

<comment><USER24> I'm pretty sure that the situation you're describing was not thread safe in Python 2 either.

Sure, once you're in the body of the for loop, the dictionary must have been copied to the list so you're safe. But _while d.items() is being evaluated_ at the start of the for loop, there is an internal iteration that could be preempted by the other thread. The GIL doesn't save you because Python operations aren't guaranteed to be atomic, and I doubt something that complex would be (it would be a serious problem if iterating over a large dictionary in one thread held up all other threads for an arbitrarily long time). Even if it is GIL-atomic, you're risking breakage if you move to another implementation (e.g. pypy) or if Python changes its atomiticity in future.

In general, if you want to modify an object in one thread and read it in another thread, you should add locking to prevent this happening simultaneously.

It is however true that the Python 2 items() method allows you to modify the dictionary in the body of the same for loop. But this is a surprising exception compared to iterating over a list or other container, so it makes sense overall to demand you explicitly make a copy if that's what you want.

<comment><USER25> What do you mean by "threadsafe" here? Could dict.items() actually break in Python 2? I've never seen that happen.

<comment><USER26> Unexpected/undefined behavior?

<comment><USER23> There are a lot of cases when you don't need strict consistency and current state is enough for processing. For example you want to save requests stats from web servers. Would you stop all operations until you counting and writing to DB to be precise? Off course not. Some current number that you have is good enough for you. Off course you need to be aware of side effects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> dict.merge(d, ...) and dict.diff(d, ...) are more expressive and have a cleaner semantic.

overloading arithmetic ops for string, list or dict ops might only look elegant at first sight, but discrimination needs to be done at runtime, slowing down the most important arithmetic ops, and do not help much the casual code reader. It also cannot be used in normal python code as older python will fail, only in special internal code.

normal method names can be provided by external modules, so they are backwards compatible and will find more widely adoption.

<comment><USER16> Teacher here.

All my students eventually try {} + {}.

I'll bet on it to be the most intuitive.

<comment><USER28> It's intuitive to try, but it's not obvious what it actually does when keys overlap.

<comment><USER29> It's obvious what you want done, and thankfully that is what's going to be done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's weird to use + for a non-commutative operation, right?

<comment><USER31> \+ is already non-commutative for list and tuples for example.

<comment><USER32> And for strings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > The implementation will be in C. (The author of this PEP would like to make > it known that he is not able to write the implementation.)

I hope this is for a reason other than the author being unfamiliar with C. Otherwise the author is cheating themselves, because adding functionality to an existing code base is probably my favorite motivator for learning a new language.

<comment><USER29> C isn't the hard part, rather the Python api, and dev workflow.

<comment><USER33> I've contributed code to a handful of open source projects. Learning how to do that is also a worthwhile (and sometimes humbling) experience. I haven't contributed to Python but it has an entire guide for how to do so, which already puts it above many projects:

[http://devguide.python.org/](http://devguide.python.org/)

The CPython API is as straight-forward as any I've seen.

So my original comment still stands. :-)

<comment><USER29> I agree it is quite worthwhile. However, it will take longer than expected for a new person, and most of have obligations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't like the idea, because a + b should produce new list c without modification of both. Which is not memory optimal and cost of it is not obvious. Also dict is used a lot for sub classes and that could break a lot of existing functionality with potentially no benefit for most of the developers. I don't think that merging is very common operation for dicts and even so it could be done with 1 or 2 update function calls, but that will be obvious in that case, while '+' in deeps of duck typing code is not. Also absence of '+' operation for dicts is kind of guard for type validation in case if someone passed dict instead of integer. Which is pretty common when you parse some JSON from client.

<comment><USER16> It does produce a new list/dict, etc. That's what you want to avoid side effects in many cases. Modifying is actually an exception. Handy to have, but not common. Even numpy arrays recreate everything every time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the long awaited features, rejected by Guido many times, and finally accepted. Maybe we'll get list.get(), functools.partial() as a c written builtin, pathlib.Path() as a primitive or inline try/except, one day.

<comment><USER34> I don't think this has been accepted yet?

<comment><USER16> No but Guido said yes [https://bugs.python.org/issue36144#msg336848](https://bugs.python.org/issue36144#msg336848) and even if he is not BDFL anymore, it usually means it will be done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35>
        def __add__(self, other):
            if isinstance(other, dict):
                new = type(self)()  # May be a subclass of dict.
                new.update(self)
                new.update(other)
                return new

Is there something I'm missing? To me it would be cleaner and more memory/time performant to just `self.update(other)` rather than having a third list instance at operation time. But that would really only apply if you have truly massive dicts.

<comment><USER31> Yes, Python supports in place operators to avoid this:

        def __iadd__(self, other):
            if isinstance(other, dict):
                self.update(other)
                return self

This would get called for `d += other`.

<comment><USER35> My follow up question would be why not do this for both union functions? I don't see why they would want to have two functions that do the exact same thing (called differently, though) be written in two different ways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Is there a real-world demand for the dictionary difference operator or is it just being proposed for completeness? I'm racking my brain to think of reasons to use it that would be more expressive than simply giving a list of keys to delete.

</comment><comment><USER37> I like this. The current kwargs syntax is _very_ confusing since it behaves very differently from funcall kwargs syntax.

<comment><USER31> What exactly differs?

<comment><USER37> For example multiple values for the same keyword argument are not allowed in funcall so you can't "update" default arguments with a dict of arguments that need to be changed.

<comment><USER31> Thanks, I did not know that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is what you get when you try to implement general mathematical concepts in a language that is horrible at expressing them. What a clusterfuck python is going to be in a few years.</comment>


Ask HN: Naming an App is brutal, What did you consider? - <AUTHOR> Trying to name an App Racked my brain for days. Of course almost everything is taken.
It is a social space (we don't have enough of those apps right)
I have a few names.
#1 Is made up word that is easy to say and a bit related to a real word I would like to use (but another app is using the real word). If you say it most people would be able to spell it when searching on app/play store
Though the made up word a few people have said it vaguely reminds them of a male body part/something dirty. One person said it could be name for gay hookup app.
If you google the made up word there are less than 75k results and nothing specific or dirty/naughty.
I wonder if the possible vague connotation would prevent people from downloading or effect branding?
#2 Is an existing word but missing an "e" (think flickr). Easy to say, can get any domain with alternative spelling (but .com)
Only problem is when searching people would most likely
include the "e"
Could also use full name also though for that google returns 150m results. While there is no other app with the exact name, there are a decent amount who have it in there description. Might hurt finding it in app/play store?
#3 Same name as a generic product but with different first letter but sounds the same. Only 600k results on google, most for the generic product. Might sound too much like pure chat app, and to lite sounding for the app, not convey meaning of the app. (Though one can chat in the app).
Thoughts on what you considered when naming an app? Or thoughts on what my thinking is (and if wrong) would be great. <comment><USER2> This decade-old guide has always been my favourite in regards to naming: [https://www.igorinternational.com/process/evocative- product-...](https://www.igorinternational.com/process/evocative-product- company-names.php)

Based on this guide "CockroachDB", a perennial favourite of HN to argue about, is one of the best out there. (Some) negative, or complex, emotions are absolutely acceptable for a product, even desirable. They highlight "Plan B" for the morning-after pill as an example.

You may want to tag on something generic/descriptive if you're going for discoverability in the AppStore (as opposed to people searching for your product specifically).

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't know about this guide, checking out now and the discussion on CockroachDB's naming discussion.

(I see a title: "CockroachDB Skitters into Beta" which is great).

For me it makes me think a database that can't be killed. I think it is good but will read the threads to see what others think

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Figured I'd offer the legal perspective on this question:

For #1, how close to the "real word" is it? And how related is your app to the other one using the real word? Are you opening yourself up to a lawsuit from the company that offers the other app?

For #2, why are there a decent number of apps that use that name in the description? Is it because the word (with the "e") is descriptive of what the app does? Is it descriptive of what your app does? If so, you'll have difficulty protecting your brand name.

For #3, is what your app does related in any way to the generic product? Again, I'd be concerned about your ability to protect the name. Changing the first letter to another that sounds the same will do almost nothing from that point of view.

I know you're really looking for more marketing-related feedback. But figured this could be helpful as well :)

</comment><comment><USER4> I picked my name based on what I feel to be a key feature of my product: ease of use and less time from start to a finished product. That made me come up with Breakneck Install. It is installation creation software (currently EXE but the true v1 will only do MSI and will look a lot better than what the current version does) with a goal of getting out of your way to make it the easiest experience when creating a MSI.

</comment><comment><USER5> I brought some name ideas to MTurk and asked 200 people for feedback. Very glad I did this. Was fascinating seeing similar comments come up repeatedly but entirely independently - comments I hadn't anticipated. I presented seven names. Of the best two, one was much more popular than the other, but the things that people who liked the second name liked about it were much more diverse and interesting. It didn't have the broadest support but it had the deepest support. I'll likely go with it. There are lots of necessary sources of stress when naming, but one unnecessary one is wondering how representative your own intuitions about names are. Asking people and having your fears validated (positively or negatively) feels great.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why are you so reluctant to divulge the candidate names you've chosen? Probability of gaining valuable feedback is far greater than your concerns over stealth or theft.

I like to use naming conventions. Non-english vocabulary tends to hit my sweet spot. For a period, all my code names for internal tools were short japanese words that did not have widespread recognition in American English. "jisho", for example, which translates to "dictionary" makes a great name for a library of hash functions. Currently digging on Sanskrit. "prem" which means "love" and sounds like heaven itself is recognized around the globe. Or "autamika," perhaps less well known, but means "the highest place in the heavens where the Gods make their thrones" or "to head in a northerly direction".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I didnt know Prem means love, I have seen it South/South East Asia.

I may post names though for now might hold back...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pick a name composed of two simpler names like Facebook or Snapchat. I ended up with Sublevel.net as a domain 3 years ago.

<comment><USER8> to go further, make it sound like a bad Chinese translation (Face book, snap chat).

Let's apply this to various kinds of apps:

Dating and marriage -- Love house

Hookup -- Sexy Quick

Chat -- Talk Now

Email -- Letter Exchange

Photoshop -- Photo Change

does it work? I think so. I could see all of the above working as well as Facebook or Snapchat do. Writing the above lines took me just seconds and I could see any of them working.

Excellent advice TBH. Never thought of it before. By the way I totally forgot htat Exchange is a letter server: and a wildly successful one. (From Microsoft). For this reason you would have to choose something different for that - like Letter Trade. still, the point stands :)</comment></comment>