Bonchat - client-side encrypted web chat for the truly paranoid - <AUTHOR> https://bonchat.org/

<comment><USER2> This is insecure. It is using Unix time as a nonce for CTR mode: <https://bonchat.org/js/aes.js>

Clients may send messages encrypted with the same keys and overlapping counters. This could allow the server to recover information on the message contents.

There's also no authentication on the encrypted messages. A corrupt server can alter messages sent to a valid client without detection. This is trivial to do in counter mode.

Also, as people have already mentioned, if the server is compromised, then the Javascript is compromised.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's using millisecond precision time for the nonce, yes. Nonce collisions in a normal volume chat are unlikely. If you'd like to suggest improved counter code, however, I'm all ears. :)

A corrupted server could alter messages without the key _if_ it had both the plain and encrypted versions of a text. But to get that, the javascript would have to be compromise, and at that point the server might as well just steal the key anyway. This has already been discussed above, and if you're worried about it, the solution is actually pretty trivial. I especially like Whimsy's suggestion of a Grease Monkey script for verification.

<comment><USER2> It's not just two messages colliding on the exact millisecond. They can collide on subsequent blocks. So if Alice sends a 10 block message that starts at T_0 and Bob sends a 5 block message that starts at T_5, then the server learns information about half of Alice's plaintext and all of Bob's. Each client should use an independently-chosen and unpredictable IV.

You are incorrect on your statement that the corrupted server needs both the plain and encrypted versions of a message to send bogus messages. Without authentication, the server can flip arbitrary bits of a CTR message. This opens up several types of attacks. You should apply a MAC to the ciphertext.

I think that the encryption needs to happen entirely in the client and you can't rely on code downloaded from an untrusted server.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the insightful comments, and for taking the time to read the code! I really appreciate it.

I've added a pseudo-random component to the nonce, and a MAC to the messages.

I certainly agree that you can't rely on code from untrusted servers, but I think doing the encryption in the client with code that is publicly viewable, even if it can be compromised at any time by a malicious server, is the best we can do for web apps unless/until major browser vendors incorporate client- to-client encryption. Right now there is no reliable protection against a compromised server, but I would like to at least see web apps strive to be more accountable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> _No, it's not as secure as your browser and AES._ It's exactly as secure as Bonchat's servers and application code, because your browser is going to trust any Javascript fed to it from Bonchat.org, whether or not that code subtly destroys the security of the AES encryptor.

Why even bother with JS AES? If you're served a court order, you can be forced to transparently record everything being said on the site anyways, without anyone being the wiser.

<comment><AUTHOR> Transparently? Without anyone being the wiser?

The javascript is there for the auditing. The server-side code is not, but you're completely free to analyze the client-side code to verify that it never sends your password to the server. I've avoided minifying any of it (save jquery.js, which you can diff against the official release to make sure I haven't modified it) to make it more auditable.

It's true that you probably won't check the javascript _every time_ to make sure bonchat.org hasn't started serving up a compromised version. Just like I don't tcpdump my network traffic every time I boot up my OS X machine to make sure FileVault isn't secretly beaming my password home to Apple. The point is that I _could_. More practically (hah), I can randomly sample.

Actually, it would be pretty easy to verify the javascript each time. As long as you're satisfied that any version of the js is secure, you can save a copy to your hard drive and write a script (curl | diff?) to verify the server's copy every time you load up a bonchat.

No, it can't guarantee that the server is free from tampering. Nothing can. But I believe it's the first web chat secure/transparent enough that you can protect your data _even if the server is compromised_.

<comment><USER3> "The javascript is there for the auditing" doesn't mean anything. Javascript is the worst possible environment for running crypto code: it's accepting and running code delivered over a network from untrusted hosts bound in all sorts of unpredictable ways to an extremely complicated markup format optimized for display, _and_ , on top of that, almost every single feature in the language can be overridden from the code.

Even if you were among the 0.00000001% of potential users who could possibly look at a block cipher implemented in Javascript and judge whether it was intact (and among the 0% of people who would actually do this), you can't just look at one piece of code in JS and know what it's actually going to do. You have to have a way of assuring every single bound function in the entire Javascript runtime.

That mechanism of ensuring the entire state of a Javascript context in a browser? It doesn't exist yet in any modern browser.

Your last sentence? What a huge dodge. If your server is compromised, _your users lose_. My browser trusts your server absolutely. If you'd like me to demonstrate this to you vividly, you can catch me offline and we can arrange terms.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your objections seem to boil down to a superstitious distrust of javascript. The web may be a messy platform, but javascript is not a particularly difficult language to read, and (if I may say so) the relevant chunks of bonchat are written in a pretty plain style.

I'm not making any promises of 100% perfect security with no effort and no room for attacks. Bonchat is merely an experiment in securing content against servers as well as network snoops.

I trust Linux more than Windows. I haven't personally audited all the code on my Linux box, and I don't know any one person who even has the skill to do so. But the code is there to be audited, which gives me more confidence than when I use a opaque operating system. The same applies here. Bonchat isn't perfect, it's just trying to be _easier_ to keep honest than a normal web app.

<comment><USER3> You say "po-TAY-to", I say "po-TAH-to".

You say "to-MAY-to", I say "no thank you".

You say "supersititious distrust of Javascript", I say "a day job finding, breaking, and fixing the horrible things people try to get away with doing in Javascript". (Or, less charitably: "knowing how Javascript works in browsers.")

Trust me on this one. It's a cool little hack. It's even useful if you get rid of the vanity crypto. But you are asking for someone to write a really mean blog post about you and your actual understanding of how crypto works. That's drama you don't need. Don't bother with the AES stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you would like to propose improved crypto code, I would _love it_. Honestly.

But "javascript is a messy language" is not inherently an attack. You can obfuscate just about any language. Do you actually have an attack in mind _based on the fact that it's implemented in the browser_?

It's true I don't have a deep understanding of the AES algorithms, and the AES code, as stated in the attribution, isn't even mine. Again, I'd love improved code. But you have yet to make any rational argument that javascript in the browser is inherently unsuited to encryption.

I completely agree that the many attempts to make SSL irrelevant by doing all the encryption in JS (and usually horribly naive JS) are foolish. That's not the point. Bonchat isn't a shopping cart or a mail reader. SSL is for securing communication _to the server_. Bonchat is an experiment in securing communication _against the server_. Do you have a better way than client-side encryption?

<comment><USER3> You seem intent on evading the point. Most security systems don't depend on me being able to read the code every time I use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most _web_ security systems don't even give you the option. You sends your data off and you trusts your server. You can't read the code at all because it lives on a box you don't have access to.

Any security system you didn't code yourself does rely on _someone_ you trust having read it at some point.

Is it more secure than some audited local code you compiled months ago and haven't touched and don't have to re-download? No, of course not. Is it more secure than chatting on Facebook? Potentially, yes. The necessary transparency is there.

This is _not_ an innovation in protecting your data from network snoops. In that sense it's no improvement on SSL and it's not trying or claiming to be.

What it does do better than other web apps is protect your conversations from the middleman you can't avoid -- the web server itself.

<comment><USER3> Nick. Please. It doesn't do this thing you keep claiming it does, because you left out any mechanism for the client to verify the code the server sends. You keep implying, directly and indirectly, that clients can do this by hand. People keep telling you, no they can't. When I give a specific and unintuitive reason why people can't manually verify your code in a browser, you throw out a smokescreen about how Javascript is a fine language to write things in, which of course has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

( _By the way, thing you don't want to hear from the guy offering you super- secure communication system? "You have a superstitious paranoia about Javascript"._ )

And, as Steve Weis took the time to point out, even if you had invented some new system by which browsers could verify the state of a Javascript interpreter fed by an app that, among other things, had until a few hours ago a bunch of obvious Javascript injection flaws, you _still_ wouldn't have been secure, because you don't really understand how CTR mode works and implemented colliding nonces. (Why did you bother with CTR mode anyways?) You also don't seem to understand the relation between encryption and authentication; not having a MAC would just be an embarassing oversight if you hadn't then _argued_ with Weis about why it wasn't necessary.

The security model behind this application is just a really bad idea, Nick. I know that's tough to hear, since you obviously put some time and effort into it, but you're going to need to zag instead of zig now and come up with something cool about this chat system _other_ than the notion that it's somehow more secure than Campfire or any other https chat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually I really appreciate Weis' comments, because they're actual concrete problems and implementable solutions. (A bit-flipping attack is not particularly interesting by itself, since the server can inject gibberish any time it wants anyway, unless it can be used to insert _meaningful_ content. But I will be happy to add both a MAC and a better nonce.)

What I don't understand is why you think any unaudited code is secure. There is no mechanism by which code from an unknown source becomes trustworthy without someone reading it, or _being able_ to read it.

Nowhere am I suggesting that understanding the javascript source is quick or easy, but it is in fact _possible_ , which is the difference between encrypting client-to-server vs. client-to-client. Source code you can view is not automatically trustworthy. Of course not. But it is _easier_ to trust than code you will never be allowed to see. Can we at least agree on that much?

As far as trustworthiness, I would say: local code > remote code run on the client > remote code run on the server > closed source. This makes (a theoretically fatal-bug-free) bonchat-like system worse than PGP, but better than Facebook IM.

It sounds like your real complaint is with the "marketing", such as it is. Perhaps I should do a better job labeling it as experimental, or a proof of concept? These would be actual concrete criticisms.

Folks complaining of XSS vulnerabilities seem to be under the mistaken impression that it somehow secures you against _the people you're talking to_ , which is not the problem it's trying to solve. Unescaped HTML chat is vulnerable to XSS, which is why you shouldn't exchange raw HTML with random strangers. You wouldn't open an HTML attachment from a stranger, but you'd open one from your good web developer friend.

(A very fair complaint is that, although XSS is irrelevant to the intended use, I should've anticipated that people would want to test/demo the basic chat features by broadly distributing passwords. This turns it into, essentially, a plain text chat with two URLs you have to enter. Which is useless, but perhaps amusing, so I've added default HTML escaping.)

<comment><USER3> Nick, "bit flipping attacks" imply that attackers can make messages say whatever they want to. They do not simply mean attackers can inject "random gibberish".

Furthermore, your nonce problem doesn't mean attackers can inject messages; it means attackers can cryptanalyze messages.

It would be helpful, before trying to implement cryptographic security for other people, for you to spend some time researching cryptography. A great way to do that is to learn how to attack cryptosystems in other applications. Maybe that should be your next project.

Best of luck, Nick.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate your concern, Thomas, but you seem to be telling me that:

1\. no one will be able to gauge the integrity of a web app by reviewing the code, and

2\. I should fix the security problems sweis found _by reviewing the code_.

I wholeheartedly agree with #2 (and I'm working on it now), but it rather contradicts #1.

I threw this thing together because I'm a long-time open source fan and I've been watching as more and more code people entrust their privacy to moves behind the opaque border of the web app cloud. I'd like to find ways to deal with that.

Bug reports are interesting and useful, and I'm extremely grateful for them. My implementation is flawed, no doubt in ways beyond the ones sweis has already pointed out, and discovering those flaws is one reason I posted it somewhere like HN.

But simply declaring that javascript is an unsuitable language for encryption, or that web clients are an unsuitable environment, doesn't add anything factual. I think code transparency is a boon to security, and I would like more web apps to at least try to make their security reviewable, even if reviewing is a job for experts. If you don't think that code transparency adds anything useful, well, fair enough. I respectfully disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For any HN crypto nerds: I made a little web chat that even the server can't read.

Besides boring old SSL, bonchat.org uses a javascript implementation of AES to encrypt chat client-to-client. There are no cookies, no sessions, and no account registration. You never even send your password or plaintext username to the server.

If you chat with someone who knows the same password, you get a simple HTML/Markdown web chat. If you chat with someone using a different password you get gibberish. That's it. :)

It has a number of glaring flaws and no marketability, but by golly it's secure!

<comment><USER3> It's not by-golly secure; it's insecure in a way that drives me perpetually nuts and that pushes a grevious misconception about how crypto algorithms can secure traffic in browsers.

There is perhaps _no worse place in the world_ to do crypto than in a Javascript interpeter bound to an HTML DOM and hooked up to a network.

<comment><USER4> Got a specific problem in mind? How would you attack this?

<comment><USER3> See upthread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A couple folks have kindly pointed out that it's wide open to to XSS attacks, since it allows full HTML posting.

This is 100% true ... and doesn't matter one bit. The only information to steal via XSS is the password, and anyone who can submit an attack necessarily already knows the password.

You can exploit this to annoy friends you're chatting with. Try, for example, submitting:

<style>body { background: #cc3333; } a { color: #cc3333 }</style>

<comment><USER3> ... and of course, XSS here means "attackers can turn the crypto off."

<comment><AUTHOR> ... and why did you give your chat password to someone who will use it to turn off the crypto? >_>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm having troubles with it in Firefox on two different Ubuntu machines. The page is all red, and the javascript source code is showing up _inside_ the web page.

Then I tested it in the Epiphany web browser. It worked fine on one Ubuntu machine, showing up all nice and blue. But on the other Ubuntu machine I got the red page with the javascript source code showing up, just like Firefox.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yikes, thanks for pointing this out! I fixed a rendering bug in MobileWebkit and wound up breaking Firefox. It should work now.

Gotta love web development.

<comment><USER5> Brilliant, works like a champ now!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> <https://bonchat.org/cb9d007ac6e12605> pass: hacker news

<comment><USER7> as long as I am logged in, the password "new_pass" will also allow you to join this chat (abet with a messed up user list, but all text is readable) This is done by adding javascript to my username that changes the password in all those who log in normally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Heehee. Nice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cute, but unless you have some way to verify the client code every time you use it, it's only a bit more secure than a regular web chat site over HTTPS.

<comment><USER4> (Friend of the OP here.)

That's true, but it's a problem with pretty much everything. Google (or an impostor) _could_ , once in a million requests, send you JS that posts your Gmail password to Twitter. You probably don't trust this site as much as Google, but the JS is unobfuscated and you can dump your traffic. That's about as much as anyone can offer.

Personally verifying the code and hashing it every time you use it (or whatever) is a big headache. But if you're that serious about security, it applies to everything. Bonchat adds the unusual feature that, once you've done so, you know that the server can't even theoretically read your chat. (Assuming AES is unbroken.) This is a step above Gmail etc.

<comment><USER3> Yes. You are right. It is the problem with pretty much everything. The issue here is that you haven't solved that problem. So your application is no more secure than anything.

<comment><USER4> No. Assuming it's correctly implemented, it's more secure than an identical app that sends the password over SSL to the server.

This is not an innovation in cryptographic theory, but it's something you don't usually see in a web app.

<comment><USER3> It's something you don't see in web apps because the idea has been roundly rejected. Because in almost every setting where you could possibly implement crypto in JS, you have to run the app over HTTPS anyways, you gain only epsilon more security than if you would without added crypto --- and that's _if you get everything right_.

<comment><USER4> Sure. As this is designed now, HTTPS's prevention of malicious JS insertion is the big weak point I see. But it's implicitly asking what you could do if you found ways of getting around that, for example by using client-side caches of the code after a strict initial check.

The _real_ wow for me here is that JS is fast enough to do AES-128 at comfortable chat speed. That's really suggestive. It's an epsilon, but it's a fertile and interesting epsilon.

<comment><USER3> Nothing you just said is in the marketing material for this. Instead, it promises to be (paraphrased generously) so secure that not even the operators can tell what people are saying over the service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems broken for me; if I go to the url, bonchat treats it like a new chat each time, prompting for a password and my name.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the point. :)

Your password is never sent to the server or stored in any cookies. You have to enter it every time because it only lives in browser memory while you view the page.

A cute side-effect of this is that you can chat with yourself under two different names by opening the same chat in multiple tabs. (You can also try chatting with two different passwords to watch the decryption fail.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> you can insert html/javascript anwhere try sticking code in your username.</comment>


Xeno Kovah: macOS 10.13 EFI firmware integrity check - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/xenokovah/status/912011064304267264 <comment><USER2> In 10.12.6 (and perhaps earlier) there's already a /usr/libexec/firmwarecheckers directory. It contains an "ethcheck" binary (with some odd permissions, "-rwx--x--x"... why allow other users to execute it but not read it?).

One of the options provided is: "ethcheck --send-change-in-firmware enable: Will allow ethcheck to send unexpected change in firmware binary to Apple."

Is stuff like "Thunderstrike 2" ( [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/thunderstrike-2-root...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/thunderstrike-2-rootkit- uses-thunderbolt-accessories-to-infect-mac-firmware/) ) common enough that they expect to find it in the wild and are scanning for this?

<comment><USER3> I don't think something needs to be common in order to be protected against.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It'd be great if the message shown is a little more direct than "Your computer has detected a potential problem", because having an unknown EFI is pretty worrying. With the current wording, there's a good chance I'd ignore it.

<comment> X-Istence Until Apple can guarantee they have every single last version of EFI in their database, I think it is the best they can do. Those that know what that check is about are also generally the targets that would have to worry about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great to see this level of transparency from Apple's folks. (Also, hope he doesn't get in trouble for this!)

<comment><USER6> The thread's gone.

<comment><USER7> [http://archive.is/6IIDb](http://archive.is/6IIDb)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would like to know a related thing with regards to mac EFI firmware. Does it support low battery ACPI events? How does macOS trigger low battery alarms? By polling?

I'm running Linux on my MacBook and it is irritating I cannot use a simple udev rule on to trigger suspend. To be fair most PCs don't support this either. Only some ThinkPads. It's usually my litmus test for Linux compatibility.

<comment><USER9> Macs use the ACPI Smart Battery Subsystem. The Linux SBS driver should be polling regularly and also receive GPEs when the battery reaches certain thesholds. But the polling frequency should be in the order of seconds, providing constant battery level progress and time to suspend at a critical condition.

<comment><USER8> Thanks. I didn't know SBS was the particular kernel module responsible for this. However, lsmod reports it's loaded by default in my stock Arch kernel and I assume it has always been.

I have never been able to get events through acpi_listen when the battery reaches particular thresholds. Thus, udev rules for critical battery levels never work.

Any ideas why this is not working? I'm using a MBA 11 inch late 2012. Possibly the most Linux-compatible Mac machine ever. All stock Intel hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Xeno, please don't get yourself fired from Apple for leaks! Us apple users need you behind the coal fires keeping us safe!

</comment><comment><USER11> Huh, and it was just deleted. Anyone screencap the whole thread?

<comment><USER12> Summary here: [https://eclecticlight.co/2017/09/24/high-sierra- automaticall...](https://eclecticlight.co/2017/09/24/high-sierra- automatically-checks-efi-firmware-each-week/)

<comment><USER13> _"This will allow eficheck to send the binary data from the EFI firmware, preserving your privacy by excluding data which is stored in NVRAM"_

How can they know that's sufficient to preserve user privacy? The code sends data they don't know of to Apple. That could contain anything, including compromising photos (not that likely) and private keys (slightly more likely)

<comment><USER14> Why would any of that be embedded in your EFI firmware blob?

<comment><USER13> Apple cannot guarantee I will not include any of that in my firmware.

They also should not be _that_ surprised to find photos in my firmware, as they have shipped photos in their firmware in the past ([https://www.nycresistor.com/2012/08/21/ghosts-in-the- rom/](https://www.nycresistor.com/2012/08/21/ghosts-in-the-rom/))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We need a TDR (Tweeted, Didn't Read) for things that should really be a blog post, not some long rambling series of Twitter posts.

Same thing for those bullshit screen shots of news releases that get posted to Twitter. Actually, those may be worse.

/offtopic

<comment><USER10> Apple doesn't like their engineers writing blogs. At best we can get a quick tweet storm before apple internal affairs finds the thread and gets it nuked.</comment></comment>


China's Top500 leader with their own 260-core CPU design [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.netlib.org/utk/people/JackDongarra/PAPERS/sunway-report-2016.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> What's interesting is that IIUC it also is the leader in the Green500 list. This is quite the feat and exciting given there are no SPARC, x86, POWER or ARM designs involved in the machine. From what I gather it's a distant relative to DEC's Alpha design, and given the children like AMD64 that came out of Alpha, I cannot wait to learn more. Who wouldn't want capable competition to spur the likes of Intel to create better designs and not sit on their laurels, in addition to having access to a competitive alternative.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Archive of the PDF: [https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.netlib.org/utk...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.netlib.org/utk/people/JackDongarra/PAPERS/sunway- report-2016.pdf)</comment>


Why Berlin's 15 Year-Old Airport Has Never Had a Flight - <AUTHOR> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ll58ZrIupKA&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> It's appalling, but given the recent incident of the American government's safety agency asking Boeing, "would you say your plane is safe", and Boeing saying, "yep! this is just like our old 737, no need for retraining!", I hardly feel like we can cast aspersions on Germany in this regard.</comment>


Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/17312/tesla-model-3-sets-new-ev-cannonball-run-record-of-50-hours-16-minutes <comment><USER3> I drove the Model 3 last week. It's a properly good car in it's own right - <USER2> reminded me of the MOdel 3 from BMS in how it handles, of course the performance curve is totally different. The rethinking of the dashboard is perfect for the cell phone age. It's Apple Good (back when Apple was good).

The performance curve - the instant power at any point is addicting. The seats were comfortable, and the trunk space was ample.

The build quality, at least on the unit I saw is _better_ then the S or the X right now. This is primarily due to the simplification of the assembly compared to the S and the X. Honestly, having driven both, I would buy a 3 before buying a S. The only killer feature I see missing is the air suspension, and we know that is coming for the 3.

They are going to sell a million of the 3s.

For the record, I'm not a EV or a green evangelist. I don't have a snarky license plate, or solar on my roof. But I will be picking one of these up. It's perfect for my use cases. People will compare it with the Bolt, but people forget that SUperchargers are Tesla only right now. Want to get from LA to NY? Easy in Tesla. With a Bolt, there are places that you just can't go.

It looks like (judging by VIN allocations, which is not a great method, but also by drone videos) that Tesla hit 1k a week the last week or two of December. Assuming no huge bottlenecks remaining, that takes them solidly half way up their ramp, with one more huge jump - to 3-5k a week - remaining.

<comment><USER4> Comments like this make me think the Model 3 is going to be the Ford Model T of electric cars.

<comment><USER5> The doubt on Tesla is not whether the cars are great, it's whether they can scale production. You need both to be a Model T.

<comment><USER6> People had the same questions about the Model X, the Model S before that, and even the Roadster before _that_. In every case, Tesla eventually was able to get production up and deliver. Tesla has no problem producing enough S and Xes.

The question is not "whether" but "when."

<comment><USER7> To be fair, Roadster production was never really "up". I'm not sure demand was at any point satisfied before the model was discontinued. Less than 2,500 were produced.

<comment><USER8> which is a shame, because it was a lovely car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Arguably, Tesla & Elon Musk already achieved their goal of speeding up the adoption to EVs away from combustion engines: all car companies are working now on or have plans for electric vehicles.

Elon Musk has already succeeded big big time.

<comment><USER10> Without a doubt, It seems like everyone is playing catchup, I'm still shocked how far behind the German car manufacturers are. I recently switched from a BMW M5 to a model S. It's been a great switch for me. Slightly lacking in build quality but made up for in that 0-60 excitement!

<comment><USER9> Spot on. I live in Germany and fear for its car industry. Still, I hear good things coming from Audi or even still BMW. Mal sehen.

<comment><USER11> They had every oppertunity to get on this. They have government friendly for green cars, they have the scale to build charging infrastructure, they have the programming knowlage and so on.

They could also have jumped in with the Supercharger network and profited from the global network that Tesla is building.

Well, lets see how they recover, by now Tesla is way ahead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a Tesla fan, but in the middle of the article, it says:

"The two completed the cross-country drive in 50 hours and 16 minutes, setting a new electric Cannonball Run record."

That's not quite the same as the headline...

It looks like petrol cars have done it in under 27 hours

[http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/03/ny- la-26-hours-28-m...](http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/03/ny- la-26-hours-28-minutes-gt-r-powered-dual-control-infiniti-q50/)

<comment><USER13> But the title clearly says _EV Cannonball Run Record_ , how is that unclear?

<comment><USER12> Hmm, either the title changed after I started writing the comment, or more likely I totally missed EV from it!

Sorry if it's the latter..

<comment><USER14> Don't feel bad, I had to read it twice to spot the EV in the title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> While I appreciate the record, the GPS fast forward video shows frequent texting while driving. Is this legal in the US? Here in the Netherlands we have statistics showing car accidents up after a downward trends with texting while driving as the leading cause. It makes me wish people were back to using cellphones without carkits, at least people had more chance of eyes on the road.

<comment><USER16> I've not watched the video but it's possible Tesla autopilot was engaged at those moments. I'm not sure if that changes the legalities though.

<comment><USER17> It doesn't change the legalities. As a Level 2 system, the driver has to behave like a driver, constantly alert.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is so much negativity about Tesla. Watching Tesla reminds of the the quote

"We hoped for flying cars, but what we got was 140 characters"

(or something similar, I don't remember it verbatim)

Every time I think about Tesla, I am reminded of the thousands of brilliant engineers toiling away in Silicon Valley trying to optimize online advertising. Maybe we could be a bit more closer to Fusion energy, maybe we could be a bit more closer to lesser carbon footprints. That small bit really is crucial, especially when we are fighting a losing battle with mother earth. Perhaps the world has too much information. When information flow is cheap, the cost of propaganda is low enough to create legitimate confusion. Imagine a world without Google, FB or Twitter, perhaps there would be concerted efforts by governments towards educating the masses about global warming. Perhaps such efforts could not be subverted by foreign governments or fringe groups. Looking back, the true value addition by SV will be companies like Tesla, Solar City & SpaceX.

Here is a guy who is scarily close to being a real-life Iron Man, doing something that has shown verifiable results and actually progresses humanity far more than FB/Twitter and to some extent Google.

But all I feel is constant negativity. I really feel sorry for Musk. I sincerely admire him for what he is struggling for and I really wish he'd get more support.

Note : I do understand his background and that the seed money for SpaceX was from paypal and all, but even then, paypal was a different business than just online ads.

<comment><USER19> One thing that put me off about tesla, if you overlook all of the manufacturing issues that pretty much every analyst says will doom the company, is that for some bizarre reason the models were intentionally named in order to spell out S3XY. After Harvey Weinstein I think we all need to take a good hard look at the men who are in charge of things and ask, "why?" People don't get a free pass on being creeps just because they are blowing a lot of money anymore.

<comment><USER20> >People don't get a free pass on being creeps just because they are blowing a lot of money anymore

The man wants his car designs to evoke an image of being sexy and you consider him a creep? That's a way over-dramatic interpretation.

<comment><USER19> Yes, if you overtly sexualize something for which there is no real reason to take the conversation in that direction then you are very likely a creep. They could have been cool cars but I just don't like that.

Incidentally I was responding the comment that mentioned there is a lot of hate for Tesla. What I mostly don't like about Tesla, aside from that stupid naming convention, is that they missed all of their manufacturing targets and are about to hit a brick wall with investors, regardless of how "sexy" one thinks the car design is.

<comment><USER21> I don't know where you are from, but it worth remembering that the use of the term "sexy" is much more commonplace for inanimate objects and has different connotations in the English speaking world outside the United States. And the CEO of the company in question was raised outside the US.

<comment><USER22> I think this is true even in the US, at least as far as my American English takes me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's interesting what would be the equivalent result for Chevrolet Bolt, as it's pretty much an equivalent car, but without the advantage of Tesla's supercharger network.

<comment><USER24> I don't think it would be possible in anything like a reasonable amount of time. Non-Tesla fast chargers have huge gaps for a cross-country run. You'd have to spend days waiting for 6kW commercial chargers or 240V RV plugs charging you at 25-35MPH.

<comment><USER25> DC fast chargers aren't as common but charge the Bolt at supercharger-like speeds if you have the option

<comment><USER24> That doesn't really address what I'm saying. The ability to use a DC fast charger doesn't help if there aren't any to use. Last I looked, there were _no_ cross-country routes available using non-Tesla fast chargers. You'd need to cross large gaps on 240V charging alone.

Edit: just to show what I'm talking about, here's what plugshare.com shows for CCS chargers in the middle of the US:

[http://mikeash.com/tmp/screenshot_F67FD9DD-D048-43EC-8DDF-9E...](http://mikeash.com/tmp/screenshot_F67FD9DD-D048-43EC-8DDF-9E94AB19900E.png)

That gap in the Nebraska is 336 miles long. Utah to Colorado is likely to be quite challenging with the mountains. East of St. Louis is another tough area.

I think you could do the trip entirely on DC chargers if you took some of the legs _really_ slow to extend range.

<comment><USER25> The Bolt is EPA rated at 238 miles but on a long highway trip with not- terrible-weather it's trivial to drive and get 300 miles of range without resorting to hypermilling. A Level 2 charger would cover the 36 mile gap.

You'd expect to use a mix of DC chargers and Level 2 chargers. I think it's doable in both cars but I'd personally never take that trip in either of them. I don't know how often people are doing LA to NY trips that they'd ever decide between cars over their ability to do that vs just renting a car (or flying).

<comment><USER24> I'm surprised you can get so much additional range. My Tesla typically gets the EPA rated range in good weather at 65-70MPH. A 25% increase in range would require driving significantly slower than the speed of traffic. Is the Bolt's range really so understated?

LA to NYC is a pretty unusual trip. The Bolt is still a difficult sell for more typical long car trips, though. I've done a dozen thousand-mile legs in my Model S without a problem, but they'd be really tough in a Bolt. The chargers do exist for the routes I've taken, but they're not very conveniently located and often are single units, leaving you vulnerable to being blocked, broken, or in use.

I think the Supercharger network is adequate for road trips, but it's the bare minimum to make it reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> How much time spent charging?

Charging time is what make petrol win. Drive 500 miles, take 5mn to charge up and you're good for 500 more miles.

Until EV can do this (surely through charging stations like petrol cars) they won't good at anything more than daily commute if you can plug your car at at home and at work.

So battery technology is where the interest should be. We already know how to make efficient electric motors, we know how to make small vehicles. All wee need is fast charging energy stores. All some kind of electrical rails available on highways EV could use. Maybe setup specific separated lanes with no speed limit, EV rail but only if using some autonav which responds to the highway command to optimize the flow. Yes, you'd get something like trains for individuals.

<comment><USER27> Yes, refuling will always be faster than recharging. That is physics. The question rather is: at which point (and for which driver profile) is it no longer a practical problem? Elektric cars already save you a lot of refuling stops in day-to-day driving, if you plug them in over night. And the Tesla supercharger network is basically almost fast enough, that it reasonably fits with the breaks one would take on long trips when not racing for time. And of course, electric cars give you all the benefits of electric cars, like no exhaust, no noise and better torque, no gear shifts.

<comment><USER28> Personally, I think it's when an EV can make a 9-hour drive without needing more than about 30 minutes of total charging.

9 hours is (in my opinion) the max amount of driving you can seriously do without at least a couple hours of resting.

That'd be about 540 miles total, maybe a bit less if you could make those 30 minutes of rest stops at a fast charger.

Right now, EV's are clearly the future. I'd say that when they have a 500 mile range with an MSRP that matches ICE vehicles, they'll go from being "exciting new technology" to "the obvious choice for most people."

<comment><USER29> A problem here is everyone's personal anecdotes are different. I have an uncle that has driven 10-12 hour hauls between Kentucky and Louisiana enough that he doesn't blink at doing it all in one day, with as minimal a break as possible.

On the flipside, I know that my limit before wanting to murder people and/or feeling bone-weary exhaustion is somewhere between 4-5 hours _cumulative_ in a day, regardless of the number and length of breaks, but overall better with at least one >30-minute break every two hours and/or 15-minute every hour. (For me, EV's are clearly the present. I'm pretty happy within their travel limits.)

There's such a huge range of extremes with what people are comfortable with.

I've also met a lot of people that need more breaks than they actually take, but don't realize that self-care advantage yet. It's possible that forced, longer recharge breaks with an EV could be a _good_ thing for overall road health. More drivers overall with slightly more opportunities to stretch and rest could be an amazingly useful thing for US traffic and calming some long distance road rage, given the chance.

<comment><USER30> You make some really good points here. I'm no stranger to long roadtrips; I do Detroit-to-NYC at least every few years, and I've gotten pretty comfy with Detroit-to-Orlando with an overnight stop. It's been a few years since doing Vegas straight-through with a co-driver, but I've done that a few times too.

The trips where I have plenty of time and can stop and go for a jog, or hike up some scenic terrain and take some photos, feel a lot safer than the ones where I'm nose-to-the-grindstone the whole time. I'm simply more focused when I get back in the car because I've had those minutes to let my mind and body wander.

I do feel like 15-20 minutes every 4-5 hours is a good and comfy amount of rest on a roadtrip. I've tried to do the 5-minute fuel stops and it just adds more stress than it's worth. Now, if more Supercharger stations happened to have a park or a gym nearby...

<comment><USER29> I would think EV chargers should be a tourism gold mine in the near-ish future. A 20 to 30-minute-ish semi-captive audience should be making a lot of business owners drool right now.

I'd been considering for some time that if I were McDonald's corporate right now, I'd be examining EV chargers right now for a potential amenity to sell to franchisees (or possibly even to require from franchisees ahead of demand curves to create favorable headwinds).

I hadn't thought about gym chains, but that's also a great idea. "EV charging at any of our gyms around the country" / "Stop in on your next road trip" just might be an amenity that could sell some gym memberships.

<comment><USER29> Thinking about McDonald's comment a bit more: McDonald's optimized for fast turnover, so maybe they aren't the best fit. Instead you might want a sit-down restaurant chain like one of Darden's, such as Olive Garden. Picture "Unlimited soup, salad, breadsticks, and EV charging."

It's funny because it could be evolutionary pressure back away from the drive- through model. You could even imagine the classic Drive-In model making a big comeback. A Sonic restaurant already looks like a modern EV charger facility from a distance. (Though personally, I don't ever eat in my car, so that has less appeal to me.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It will be interesting to see how the next Roadster is able to do once it actually becomes available. With a 600 mile range and likely the ability to charge significantly faster, it should be able to smash this number. Eventually.

</comment><comment><USER31> I agree. Summer time would consume less energy than Winter time.

But waiting might not be an option if you want to be the first!

It's an awesome record for Model 3 that has only 310 mile range which is less than Model S with 335 mile range!

</comment><comment><USER32> OK, what was the previous EV Cannonball Record?

<comment><USER33> It was set by other Teslas. The Verge has more information in their story at:

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842816/tesla- model-3-la-...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842816/tesla-model-3-la- new-york-record-cannonball-run)

The relevant quote reads:

 _Not only did the time best what Roy and a team did in 2016 when they did the run using a Model S and Autopilot by about 5 hours, but it also beat a record set just last summer by friends Jordan Hart and Bradly D 'Souza in a Model S 85D by more than an hour._

("Roy" refers to Alex Roy, editor-at-large for the Drive, who was on the trip.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Nice news, but when will they deliver? Maybe its time they start to answer that question first.

<comment><USER35> They are getting started. Mass producing a vehicle is not an easy task and takes a lot of expierence, equipment. Every manufacturer starts slowly but we don't notice it as drastically because there is usually less demand. If Model A is not available, most customers choose Model B or Model A-like from company B. Or chances are they have not even heard of that Model and just don't look for it. For Tesla it is different.

Tesla needs to announce them far in advance so they get funding. They can't just create another Model, start mass production and delivery without anyone noticing and caring to post it online. So they capitalize on the hype and sell as man as they can.

Furthermore there is no Tesla Model 3 from any other company. There is not even a Model S or X from any company. There are some products that are close but lack some desirable features such as being purely electric or being "techy". For the Model X there is the Volvo XC 90 plug-in with 19 miles of range which wouldn't get many people to work in the winter. The screen is a bit Tesla like but from what I have heard is that Tesla's screen (and infotainment system) is much better.

For the Model 3, the only true competitors are the i3 and Chevy Bolt. The i3 is selling ok but does not have a lot of range and is a small vehicle. For its price, it is not really a good deal unless you are looking for any ev. The Bolt is a much better choice but many do not like its style. It is also not really available because it is often seen as a complicance vehicle. I have heard that people were laughed out of the store when they wanted to buy it. It is also not available in Norway where it is anticipated the most. My guess is that the 2018 Nissan Leaf will be the best choice this year but compared to a Model 3 still a compromise because it lacks (amongst all non Tesla) a proper quick charging network.

So the real question should be: __when will the other manufactures start delivering? __

<comment><USER36> > _For the Model 3, the only true competitors are the i3 and Chevy Bolt. ... > My guess is that the 2018 Nissan Leaf will be the best choice this year..._

The Nissan Leaf isn't new in 2018, it's been around since 2011 and is (I think) still the most popular pure electric car. I'm aware that the 2018 should have some significant improvements, but I'm confused why you don't count either the current models or the 2018 as a competitor to the Model 3?

<comment><USER24> The pre-2018 LEAF has around an 80 mile range with a passsively cooled battery that does very poorly in the long term. The new version is better but still not in the same league as the Model 3 or Bolt.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-01/nasa-says-aluminum-fraud-caused-700-million-satellite-failures <comment><USER2> The linked DOJ report has far more detail [0]. On the penalties themselves:

 _According to court documents, SPI has agreed to plead guilty to one count of mail fraud, and SEI has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in connection with a criminal information filed today charging the company with mail fraud. As part of the plea agreement, SPI has agreed to pay $34.1 million in combined restitution to NASA, the Department of Defense's Missile Defense Agency (MDA), and commercial customers. SPI has also agreed to forfeit $1.8 million in ill-gotten gains. The plea agreement remains subject to acceptance by the court at a plea hearing currently scheduled for May 13, 2019, before U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady. The DPA with SEI is conditioned on the court's acceptance and SPI's satisfaction of the plea agreement's terms.

SPI also agreed to pay $34.6 million as part of a related civil settlement to resolve its liability under the False Claims Act for causing a government contractor to invoice MDA and NASA for aluminum extrusions that did not comply with contract specifications. Government contractors purchased aluminum extrusions for use on rockets for NASA and missiles provided to the MDA. Under the terms of the civil settlement agreement, SPI will satisfy the $34.6 million settlement through credits totaling $23.6 million for its restitution payments as part of the criminal plea agreement, plus additional payments of $6 million to NASA and $5 million to the MDA._

[0]: [https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion- manufactur...](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-manufacturer- agrees-pay-over-46-million-defrauding-customers-including)

<comment><AUTHOR> The deferred prosecution agreement essentially means that as long as the SEI adheres to the financial terms of the plea agreement the government will eventually drop the charges [0]. That's an amazing deal in its generosity and I'm sure that the financial penalties levied are outweighed by the financial gain realized over the years of their fraudulent activity. The rationale for not pursuing the company for the full $700 million dollars lost escapes me. The damages were entirely foreseeable.

[0] [http://www.mololamken.com/news- knowledge-18.html](http://www.mololamken.com/news-knowledge-18.html)

<comment><USER3> > _rationale for not pursuing the company for the full $700 million dollars > lost escapes me_

Satellites are usually insured. (Not sure about NASA protocol, though.) If that's the case, the insurer will sue. Shareholder lawsuits will also, naturally, follow, as will suits from all the other customers.

Agree, though, that it's shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea.

<comment><USER4> > it's shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea.

They are though. From the justice.gov article:

"Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI's computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius also instructed employees to violate other testing standards, such as increasing the speed of the testing machines or cutting samples in a manner that did not meet the required specifications. Balius pleaded guilty in July 2017 and was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay over $170,000 in restitution."

You can't send SPI to jail though, because it isn't a human.

<comment><USER5> >because it isn't a human.

This is especially interesting in the context of corporate personhood[1]. You can't send a corporation to jail, but you can disband it entirely, or prevent it from operating. A lot of the practical solutions try to leave badly behaving company operating, though, since if we shut them down there is a lot of collateral damage in the form of lost productivity in the economy and lost jobs. IANAL, but my opinion is that there needs to be a better non-nuclear option for an actual guilty conviction for corporations. As I understand it, if a company actually goes to trial and is convicted, they are not allowed to operate anymore, hence the plea deals and fines.

Please correct me if I am wrong, though.

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

<comment><USER6> > As I understand it, if a company actually goes to trial and is convicted, > they are not allowed to operate anymore, hence the plea deals and fines.

You know, I am a lawyer (a corporate one who freelances as a white collar crime journalist at that!) and I don't even know how this would work. I can't even think of a single criminal case against a corporation that I've reported on that went to trial. It just doesn't really come up. I suspect because it's much easier to charge the directors of the corporation with racketeering or fraud.

That being said, I can't imagine a criminal conviction of a corporation would dissolve the entity. We don't execute people for committing fraud so I'd be surprised if a judge would execute an entity. I'm also not sure what would stop a corporation from quickly winding up if it seemed criminal charges were on the horizon. After all, you can't charge a "person" with a crime if that "person" isn't there to defend themselves.

<comment><USER7> _you can 't charge a "person" with a crime if that "person" isn't there to defend themselves_

Individuals charged with crimes are defended by attorneys without visibly participating in their criminal trials all the time.

 _I can 't imagine a criminal conviction of a corporation would dissolve the entity._

No need to dissolve it, simply place it under the same kind of restrictions that someone in prison is placed under - no direct financial activity, severely curtailed communications, etc.

<comment><USER6> > Individuals charged with crimes are defended by attorneys without visibly > participating in their criminal trials all the time.

Lack of visible participation is far from lack of participation. In the US due process requires the defendant's presence to commence a criminal trial. Once charges have been brought the defendant has a right (that can in some circumstances be waived) to attend and participate in every stage of the trail. Barring a few narrow circumstances[1] once proceedings have commenced a criminal trial _in absentia_ is unconstitutional.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_in_absentia#United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_in_absentia#United_States)

<comment> munk-a I feel like if we were scaling this to a corporation then all shareholders would potentially have a right to be present for the trial? There might (terribly) be some sane precedent set prior to the 13th amendment regarding the rights of slave owners to be present at trial for their slaves - I'm 100% anti-slavery but it is the last instance I'm aware of that might yield light on what rights legal persons who partially own other legal persons who have been charged with a crime have.

Edited - reworded "persons" to "legal persons" in a few places.

<comment><USER6> This would be an interesting law school exam question :) Is there a de minimus ownership that triggers a shareholders right to be present? Were slave owners permitted to mount a defense on behalf of their accused slaves?

Post your question on r/legaladviceofftopic I bet you'll get some very interesting answers...

<comment><USER8> And this discussion demonstrates the absurdity of corporations = people. If you prick it, does it bleed? If you tickle it, does it laugh? If you poison it, does it die?

<comment> munk-a So, this point bugs me. I am dead set against the decision to allow corporations to participate in our political system but nobody has ever said "So, mom, dad... this is Purdue Pharma - you can call him Fred for short - we're uh, we're getting married!". Corporations aren't people, they aren't human beings and they aren't homo-sapiens what they are is, quite accurately, legal "persons" when it comes to how a lot of US laws are worded.

There are things that you do and a corporation do that a river can't do, and to describe this set of things laws use the term "person" this makes sense but the name is terrible. In the US, for instance, you can't sue a mountain if you fall and hurt yourself - you can sue a mining company that left equipment there, or maybe the national parks service for having unsafe trails or maybe even your friend Fred (i.e. Purdue Pharma) for pushing you off the edge of the cliff (maybe, more accurately, for failing to inform you of a dizziness side effect in a medication they sold you that caused you to fall) but you can't sue the mountain itself and, likewise, there is no way a mountain could be punished that we can comprehend - again, maybe if this mountain is owned by someone then, as a result of this suit, you are awarded partial mining rights or ownership of the mountain - but that is a compensation granted at the loss of some other entity, maybe a mining company, or the property owner or even the US government.

Either way, corporations and human beings have some legal commonalities that aren't shared with mountains.

elliekelly as you're actually a lawyer, can you express this better or clarify it?

<comment><USER6> I think what you're getting at is the distinction between "persons" and "natural persons." Typically when a law applies to "persons" (sometimes it will say "legal persons") it applies to both corporations and humans for the reasons you've mentioned above - we need to be able to sue them, tax them, regulate them, etc. And when a law applies to "natural persons" it's intended to apply only to humans which is why, as much as you might love Amazon, you can't marry it. (So far no legal terminology to distinguish mountains that I'm aware of... )

To your point, corporations have always had "rights." The government can't just show up to your house and take your property without due process and, because corporations are "legal persons," the government can't just show up to company headquarters and take corporate property either. Corporations need some of the legal rights we grant to natural persons or else the corporate entity is pointless. But corporations also _can 't_ have the same rights as natural persons or else every stock broker is also a slave trader.

The reason the Citizens United ruling was such a big deal was because the court extended first amendment rights to corporations when those rights had historically only been given to natural persons. If you get a chance you should read the opinion because the rationale seems much more reasonable on paper than it is in practice. Contrary to public opinion, the court didn't rule that "corporations are people" (technically they always were) but rather that corporations are _associations_ of natural persons and since natural persons can form associations to exercise their first amendment rights then they can form corporations to exercise their first amendment rights.

But for an entity whose purpose is to exist somewhere between human (definitely a person) and mountain (definitely not a person) it doesn't make sense to extend _all_ of the rights of personhood to that entity just as it doesn't make sense to treat the entity the same way we treat a mountain. Lawyers can form associations to practice law but we certainly wouldn't allow a group to incorporate and have the entity sit for the bar exam... right? Citizens United certainly muddied the water in where the law draws that line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When interviewing for a job at a company making pressure sensors primarily for the oil industry, I got a look at their testing rooms. The sensors were usually placed deep in some well or at the bottom of the ocean, so had to function for ages without maintenance. Switching out a faulty sensor is either _very_ expensive or impossible.

The final testing room had a window with a couch and table in the adjacent room. The interviewer said most customers would have a representative fly over to overlook the final tests in person before accepting the sensors.

<comment><USER10> They missed a great opportunity to stick a porta power on the wall and let the customer choose to apply the test pressure themselves. That says "we're so confident it will work you can test it yourself."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> the best thing is how the "company" (or corporation) is to blame.

so none of the actual individual humans who did this is at fault here. at worst they would be fired and go to work somewhere else. which is compeletely fine.

and with a fine like that, this is just a "cost of doing business" for the corporation.

maybe one day terribly criminal corporations should be forcefully disbanded as punishment.

<comment><USER12> This is completely inaccurate. Corporate liability protection only extends to civil financial issues, any real property crimes (ie. fraud, murder, etc) 'pierces the corporate veil' and ultimately are filed against the people who performed it.

<comment><USER13> According to other comments here the company plead guilty to (criminal) fraud. So no it is not completely inaccurate.

<comment><USER12> See here: [https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/corporate- lia...](https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/corporate-liability- for-criminal-acts.html)

"When a corporation is criminally liable, the responsibility also falls on individuals. The board of directors, officers, and other high-ranking officials will almost always be criminally liable as well (just look at the Enron fiasco). A individual can be held criminally liable for another employee's illegal act under the accomplice liability theory."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> this kind of fraud is absolutely rampant in the automotive industry for example.

Speaking from experience as an engine mechanic, Ive had to replace transmission parts for a certain well-known japanese SUV maker. They also make a "luxury" version of this SUV with more horsepower and a turbocharger setup. The transmissions however are virtually identical with a very major exception: the M5PVL transmission gear for the luxury SUV has 15% more nickel than the non-luxury. These parts are not interchangeable, but shadier parts dealers will often interchange them. placing the regular gear in the luxury SUV has life-threatening consequences, and this has been documented in recall data from the manufacturer.

under turbo-load, once the gear is engaged, it basically explodes. These failures often exit the transmission case, breach the cockpit of the vehicle and wound the occupants.

<comment><USER15> I'm scratching my head as to the possible identity of the mystery SUV. Luxury SUV, Japanese, uses a turbo... maybe the Acura RDX? And the transmission housing is not stout enough to contain gear shrapnel?

<comment><USER16> Toyota / Lexus ?

<comment><USER17> He's referring to Toyota. They are globally recalling Toyota Corollas for failing torque converters. [https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/toyota-2019-corolla- hatch...](https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/toyota-2019-corolla-hatchback- recall-cvt-problems/)

Clearly Toyota didn't know it was happening in their supply chain, but now they do.

<comment><USER18> That article is for CVT's, which don't use shiftable gears. Google-fu leads to this forum post from 2009, which references Acura directly:

[https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1473068&cid=30...](https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1473068&cid=30382138)

<comment><USER19> Not to jump to any conclusions, but judging by the common user name, it seems possible that that's the same poster as the GGGP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wonder if Hydro in turn will file criminal charges. They bought the business unit at fault here in 2000[1]. Surely they could hold someone accountable for fraud that way? They thought they bought a business capable of producing quality parts, but didn't end up getting that.

Like the other posters in this thread I feel like the $46m fine shouldn't be the end of this.

[1] [https://www.hydro.com/no-NO/media/news/2019/hydro-reaches- ag...](https://www.hydro.com/no-NO/media/news/2019/hydro-reaches-agreement- with-u.s.-department-of-justice/)

<comment><USER21> Only governments can file criminal charges.

<comment><USER22> As a blanket statement this is incorrect. Many common law jurisdictions permit private prosecution of criminal cases.

<comment><USER23> > many

Isn't it basically just the UK?

<comment><USER22> Only if you think Canada and various American states are in the UK.

<comment><USER21> Where in the US can a non governmental entity charge someone with a crime?

<comment><USER22> Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, and Idaho among other jurisdictions.

<comment><USER21> Interesting, I wonder how that even works. Can anyone just "charge" someone with a crime? I always thought the district attorney or someone similarly qualified and presumably unbiased had to vet the evidence and decide whether or not to charge someone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Some relevant Wikipedia links that add color to the lost vehicles:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotaur-C](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotaur-C)

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(satellite)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_\(satellite\))

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

</comment><comment><USER25> Interesting. Extruded aluminum profile is one of the items that is under anti- dumping tariffs to discourage Chinese imports. There's a lot of rhetoric from US suppliers like this one about why we need high quality US aluminum.

<comment><USER26> We need to build with high-quality American fakes, not high-quality Chinese fakes!

<comment><USER27> On the other hand, at least the American supplier was fined and someone went to prison. Fraudulent Chinese suppliers routinely escape justice altogether because they largely operate outside of US jurisdiction.

<comment><USER28> That's the essence of the issue exactly. There is fraud everywhere, but in most of the world fraud isn't a successful business model. In the PRC, it kind of is.

<comment><USER29> Although fraud is no doubt rampant in Chinese industry, the penalties are... rather more severe. You had better make sure your scheme doesn't piss off the wrong people. The PRC's military and aerospace supply chains are probably in pretty good shape.

<comment><USER27> Agreed, but the scenario we're discussing is a US company sourcing parts from a Chinese company. The PRC's stiff penalties don't protect the consumer in this scenario.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> SpaceX also had failed a mission due to a 3rd party strut failing the spec.

> The strut that we believe failed was designed and material certified to > handle 10,000 lbs of force, but failed at 2,000 lbs, a five-fold difference.

[https://www.spacex.com/news/2015/07/20/crs-7-investigation-u...](https://www.spacex.com/news/2015/07/20/crs-7-investigation- update)

<comment> T-A A closer analogy was the Proton launch failure and subsequent suspension of launches in 2017, after it turned out that Voronezh Mechanical Plant had switched materials in the engines and falsified the documentation.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/russia-recalling- doz...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/russia-recalling-dozens-of- rocket-engines-sacks-head-motor-builder/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> They really should be held accountable for the amount of loss that their fraud caused, not just what they gained from the fraud.

<comment><USER32> What they did was despicable but that's not really fair either. If defective aluminum they sold was direct cause of 2 billion bridge collapse would they be liable for that amount?

<comment><USER33> Generally, yes.

Put yourself on the other side. Someone breaks into your house, steals a painting and pawns it off for $500. Unbeknownst to them, it was worth $10,000. Breaking in, they broke a window. Unbeknownst to them, you're traveling, and that leads to $50,000 in flood damage. Guess who is liable: the crook or you?

It might be unfair that they took on a $60,000 liability for $500 worth of gain, but it's far more fair than if you took on a $60,000 liability.

Base damages are usually the greater of the damages caused to the victim and the gains to the culprit. There are exceptions (treble damages, statutory damages, etc.), but that's a fine baseline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why wouldn't the QC at NASA include testing at independent labs for anything mission critical? That seems like a failure on NASA's part as much as it is fraud by the supplier.

<comment><USER4> It may be that actually fully stressing the parts is avoided, as it may risk weakening the part.

I've heard of various non destructive testing methods being used to check the integrity of metals in aerospace, such as ultrasound and radiography. This may well be enough if the part is actually made of what it's supposed to be.

<comment><USER35> > It may be that actually fully stressing the parts is avoided, as it may risk > weakening the part.

Couldn't they just buy an extra and destructively test that?

<comment><USER36> +1 Make that part of the deal. We only need 2 items, but you will produce 4. We will then randomly pick 2 of them for testing, and then and only then if those 2 pass will we actually use the remaining 2 as needed.

This happens all the time in construction of multistory buildings. When the floors of concrete are poured, they also produce smaller sections of concrete from the same batches. As the concrete cures, it's strength is tested. This ensures that the concrete can support the weight designated in the plans. Better to watch a test pour fail than the building collapsing when cheap concrete fails under load.

[edit] oops, just read comments later in the thread stating the same thing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why is NASA asking for less than 14% of the actual damages?

<comment> Max-20 Most likely more would bankrupt the company and they would get $0.

<comment><USER38> They should get the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Chinese suppliers did this to a mining company in Australia.

Put fucking asbestos brakes on the ore cars (train). Cost a fortune to clean up.

<comment><USER40> Link to learn more?

<comment><USER41> [https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/asbestos- fo...](https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/asbestos-found- in-3500-rail-cars-imported-from-china/news- story/6fe40f41aa5be21e63dab806ac935f6c)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> NASA published an investigative summary of the failures of the Taurus XL T8 and T9 rockets that goes into further depth [0].

[0] [https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/oco_glo...](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/oco_glory_public_summary_update_- _for_the_web_-_04302019.pdf) (PDF)

</comment><comment><USER42> You are kidding me, right? Years of hard work of scientists are lost. The scientific loss is huge if not quantifiable. You defraud the best and richest space research agency on earth for years. And you are getting away with just paying a fine?

A justice system where the Rich pays their way out, and only the Poor get punished.

</comment><comment><USER43> Which satellites? I presume OCO and some other one?

And how do journalists so frequently fail to include core facts in their articles?

<comment><USER43> OCO and Glory, according to space.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > A metals manufacturer faked test results and provided faulty materials to > NASA, causing more than $700 million in losses

...

> the current parent company of Sapa, agreed to pay $46 million to NASA, the > Department of Defense and others to resolve criminal charges and civil > claims related to the fraud

</comment><comment><USER45> Lucky it was only a $700million satellite

in another application people could have died

<comment><USER46> If you value human time by $1 million per year then that is a waste of 700 man years or 8 people's worth. Of course they got paid and received "free" training for their job so it wasn't a complete waste but there certainly are better things to use those man years on, like a functioning satellite.

<comment><USER47> You can't extrapolate from the price of a human spending 8 hours following limited corporate instructions to the value of their other 16 hours.

First of all, value and price diverge for many reasons all the time. Secondly, most people on Earth produce more value after work than during, but that value is not fully priced or marketed yet (try as captains of industry may).

That used to be more true in the colonial powers as well (most value was not marketed, and stayed on homestead).

Humans do exist now whose labor is fully marketed but they are rare, mostly men, mostly rich. And even them, they still produce a lot of extra-economic value in most cases.

Many humans labor is entirely unpriced, like full-time parents or schoolteachers, social workers, artists, and other "passion professions.

Humans are invaluable.

<comment><USER48> > Humans are invaluable.

They're really not, as far as managing risk goes. If you try to avoid assigning a value, you're going to do a worse job, and more people will probably die.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> j-pb It's amazing how companies in the US can cause a billion in damage, wasting years of highly talented people, put climate science years behind, and get a slap on the wrist. Yet, some kid carries a few grams of weed and goes to jail or gets killed by the cops.

<comment><USER49> Both of your assertions are exaggerations.

1) It is far from certain that the falsified test results "cause[d] a billion in damage." Press releases about settlements are not court judgments. At trial, the government would have to prove "but-for causation." For one of the failures, for example, the government would have to prove that the launch vehicle's faring would have opened fully had the aluminum met specifications. If the government cannot prove that, they recover zero. Even if the government proved that, if anything else went wrong in the launch too, it would have to rebut the defendant's case that some other component, not the out-of-spec aluminum, was the primary cause of the launch failure.

2) It's not typical for "kid[s]" to be put in prison for carrying "a few grams of weed." It might happen sometimes (in a country of 330 million people, everything that can happen will happen sometimes) but it's not typical.

The government settles cases for a reason. Often, it's because the case isn't a slam dunk for trial. Sometimes, it's because the company wouldn't be able to pay the judgment anyway. In government contracting, there is also the consideration that if you put a company out of business for something that was the fault of lower-level employees (as here), that reduces competition going forward. (There's probably not a ton of options for space-worthy aluminium fabrication.)

(Conversely, the government usually settles drug cases on very favorable terms because they're easy to prove at trial. You should see the police reports that accompany these plea agreements. "The accused tried to sell drugs to an undercover officer. After arrest, the officers searched his car and found more drugs. Then they searched his house and found still more drugs. A search of the accused's text messages revealed extensive records of drug sales." In such cases, the government has no need to put an expert on the witness stand to convince the jury what would have happened to a rocket launch in a counter- factual scenario.)

<comment><USER50> > _It 's not typical for "kid[s]" to be put in prison for carrying "a few > grams of weed." It might happen sometimes (in a country of 330 million > people, everything that can happen will happen sometimes) but it's not > typical._

First, this shouldn't be a "sometimes" thing, it should be a "never" thing. You get convicted for drugs, regardless of how much, and your life is forever changed.

Second, for all the made, think about how many times police used the bullshit excuse of "I smell weed" to violate and harass citizens.

OP was right, this country's justice system is broken but it's not beyond repair. We are finally seeing changes in the political landscape that will address many long standing injustices.

<comment><USER49> > First, this shouldn't be a "sometimes" thing, it should be a "never" thing. > You get convicted for drugs, regardless of how much, and your life is > forever changed.

Communities have the right to declare certain things unacceptable and police their citizens accordingly. The regulation of vice and harmful substances is one of the core functions of state and local governments. In a country of 330 million people, that means that "sometimes" people will exercise that right in a way that you or I think is undesirable or even unjust. But the self- determination of communities is a more fundamental right than the right to consume whatever substances you want.

<comment><USER51> > _But the self-determination of communities is a more fundamental right than > the right to consume whatever substances you want._

Pretty sweeping statement there. What if a majority of a "community" decides its residents shouldn't eat meat?

<comment><USER49> I think California could ban eating and selling meat, both under its power to regulate health and the power to regulate public morality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> > Corporate and personal greed perpetuated this fraud against the government > and other private customers, and this resolution holds these companies > accountable for the harm caused by their scheme

Did he misspeak or are only the companies being held accountable? I don't think a company can exhibit "personal greed." Is he implying there are individuals responsible as well who aren't being held accountable?

</comment><comment><USER53> As Nasa is a government agency, I wonder if lack of regulation and oversight played a hand in this.

This sort of scenario is exactly why I'm concerned about the recent trend towards rampant free market economics and libertarianism. Those ideas have merit in certain situations, but also increase risk to the public as witnessed here by losses that are proportionately much higher than any efficiency savings.

I'm also concerned about how many other agencies and companies might be affected by this sort of fraud that we haven't heard about yet. We saw the same thing happen with faulty (mostly imported) capacitors, insecure voting machines, increased healthcare costs, illness/financial hardship from GMOs and pesticides (again, mostly oversees), the list goes on.

It didn't used to be like this when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. We had different fraud then (for example monopolies and duopolies that held back telecommunications, the savings and loan scandal, industrial waste superfund sites...), but also a stronger manufacturing base in our economy. I'm just going to throw the idea out there that we're seeing a link between deregulation, fraud, increased costs on the public sector, and a slowing economy.

<comment><USER27> Honest questions:

1\. Is there any compelling evidence that this incident is attributable to "free market economics"? It seems equally possible that it's attributable to notoriously poor incentive structures in government agencies. In my view it seems most likely that it's neither, in this particular case.

2\. Is there evidence that there is a "recent trend towards rampant free market economics and libertarianism"? Again, this is an honest question; I've not seen a claim like this made before.

<comment><USER53> I'm not sure about your first question, but for your second question the evidence is everywhere. My news feed is filled with multiple articles per day about cutting regulations on just about everything, but mostly impacting the environment, or social justice issues:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=deregulate&tbm=nws](https://www.google.com/search?q=deregulate&tbm=nws)

Part of the issue is geographic. Being born and raised in Idaho, I've found myself surrounded by libertarians. Conservative-leaning people tend to move here from more liberal states on the coasts.

Now where it really gets interesting is when libertarian think tanks do the opposite of what might be expected:

[https://www.hjnews.com/montpelier/voter- initiatives/article_...](https://www.hjnews.com/montpelier/voter- initiatives/article_3bb9ee74-46a6-51da-8004-d98ba6640f5f.html)

In this case Idaho Freedom Foundation (a local libertarian think tank) is against public voter initiatives (which may someday lead to the legalization of marijuana in Idaho) but is for getting public approval for urban renewal projects like the Boise city library teardown/rebuild and new stadium.

You just can't make this stuff up.

<comment><USER54> Do you really think Google search trends are indicitive of "recent trends" on political leanings on regulation?

If so, you might be interested to see that there is appears to actually be a relative swing toward regulation: [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=r...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=regulate,deregulate)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Somebody at Sapa, probably somebodies, need to go to prison. For 19 years, to match the time of the fraud.

</comment><comment><USER56> But why? They tested not sold metal. The only possible reason is the metal company paid them.

</comment><comment><USER57> It's NASA, not Nasa.

</comment><comment><USER58> Not to stoke a fire, but I just wondered how the same failure would be viewed if it was done by a Chinese or Indian Manufacturer. Immediately it would have reinforced a stereotype of outsourcing being cheap and that being the issue. When in reality the truth is that there are frauds, lazy and useless people everywhere on the planet.

<comment><USER59> Hopefully viewed even worse as the question would then be "why is NASA outsourcing spacecraft critical component construction to India/China?".

<comment><USER58> Damn, did not think of that #facePalmToMyself. Yeah, such things shouldn't be outsourced</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook IPO dips below IPO price - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/txegi/130654022_bn_facebook_shares_drop_below_38shr_ipo/

<comment><USER2> Title should read "Facebook shares dips below IPO price". As of writing this, FB = 33.68; IPO price was 38.00.</comment>


Programming languages shape the way their users think - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/536356/toolkits-for-the-mind/ <comment> joatmon-snoo A personal anecdote: I'm a uni student in my last year, and I was working on the first assignment for my networking class today, a small <100 LoC Java app, designed to (1) be a Java refresher and (2) introduce us to raw sockets.

Halfway through the assignment, once I'd figured out what the "protocol" for the communication was by messing with netcat, I found myself immediately writing a wrapper for sockets for the code, and couldn't help but wonder what my natural instinctive approach would have been if I had been writing the code in Python (the one language I actually have experience writing production code in).</comment>


ColorKitty: Find palettes from pictures - <AUTHOR> https://colorkitty.com/ <comment><USER2> Hi, hackers.

I'm the developer of this little website. Really excited to be on HackerNews. It is really a pleasure to see so many people like it, so I decide to opensource it. You can check the source code of it here: [https://github.com/Hopsken/colorkitty](https://github.com/Hopsken/colorkitty).

And, thanks for all the kind advice. You guys are really awesome.

<comment><USER3> Nice to see an alternative app for this. I made one a while back - [https://apps.hoyd.net/hexcolors/](https://apps.hoyd.net/hexcolors/) which does the same using flask, python and bash. Been using it quite a bit for extracting colours from images. Also set up a Twitter not to find colours in satellite imagery: [https://twitter.com/FiveEarthColors](https://twitter.com/FiveEarthColors)

<comment><USER2> Nice work! Really love the idea of finding colours in satellite image.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> NEW PALETEE

Small typo bang centre of the page, but it is with the help of HN criticism that these things get ironed out.

I thought the product was really nice. If I was to suggest a useful addition and that is to make it software as a service with an API. If you are building an ecommerce catalogue then it is useful to be able to automatically get the colours of products and a third party app with hooks for the likes of Magento could be useful. Of course the algorithms for doing colour palettes can be done with some Imagemagick code but most people are not very aware of how colours work. Even though people use colour pickers and have heard of 'HSV' doing anything algorithmically with images and colours just has this obstacle in the way of programmers not necessarily being into colours - that is for design and the two may never mix!

The interface is clean and can lure people in, put some API together and a few tiers of plans and this could find a niche.

</comment><comment><USER5> How do people make these gorgeous web applications? I know what are the tools, but I wonder what this specific site uses.

<comment><USER6> This one uses [https://ant.design/](https://ant.design/). Figured that out with [https://www.wappalyzer.com/](https://www.wappalyzer.com/).

<comment><USER7> Ah, your comment came in while I was typing. First I've heard of wappalyzer though, I just checked the inspector for interesting tag patterns. Neat!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is wonderful. Well done, I've been looking for somewhere to get my branding colors for my side projects!

</comment><comment><USER9> Very nice! Might be great to add an option to crop pics and possibly also change brightness/contrast of the source pic. I got a beautiful pallette out from a pic I had but realized it's dull because the source pic exposure was poor. Wonderful tool!

</comment><comment><USER10> Where is the link to buy a custom picture frame using the palette???

</comment><comment><USER11> nice project. I was looking to extract a palette for a custom color scheme for my syntax highlighter based on my cat's colors. I was too lazy to look for a tool, now I have no excuse. and yeah I love my cat. she has to listen to my rants about my own code all day.

<comment><USER12> Nice coincidence that the project is called ColorKitty too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _" Some unexpected error happen, please try again"_

Seems like the site may be under load at the moment.

<comment><USER14> Yes, it seems kaput. No way to upload a palette-derivation image or, well, anything.

<comment><USER15> It worked for me just now. Proof: [https://imgur.com/a/4QorTg6](https://imgur.com/a/4QorTg6)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's no explanation of what the site does, who built it, or how to use it.

<comment><USER17> _" Find perfect palettes from delicious pictures"_

Upload or provide an URL to an image, see the two hamburger menus (left+right) for more controls.

Pretty neat that you could see and change where the colors were sampled from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> i tried going to the 'buy me a coffee' link, but 404. the author's personal website link also was broken</comment>


Ask HN: Suggestion for resources on AWS / MongoDB - <AUTHOR>

Can anybody point me to the best resources to get started with Amazon Web Services and MongoDB besides the user guides?
Is there a Python framework that works with MongoDB seamlessly as far as support for libraries/modules go?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> AWS has the most cloud documentation out there.

MongoDB's site should point to a python MongoDB library.

If you use Zabbix to monitor AWS/MongoDB this resource is helpful: <https://code.google.com/p/mikoomi/>

I'm not sure what you mean by get started though. Anyway, you're not using obscure brands, so there should be plenty of results in looking them up.</comment>