What I suspect Google is up to with Native Client - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackerspews.com/?a <comment><USER2> There's some real confusion about Android here. Android already has its own bytecode format (Dalvik), and it's unlikely that NaCL would replace it, if only because NaCL is tightly tied to the underlying processor instruction set, while Android has already shipped on at least two (ARM, MIPS), and been ported to at least one more (x86).

It's also already the case that a third-party app which requests appropriate permissions can replace the standard contacts app --- in fact, there are several alternate contact managers already in the Android Market. Of course, the user must confirm that they want to allow the app to manipulate contacts, and apps that don't request that permission can't ordinarily do that. (Malicious apps can manipulate contacts without asking permission on the customized versions of Android shipped with several recent handsets, per news from the last few days, because the vendors doing the customization screwed up, but that's another rant altogether...)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're focusing too much on the underlying technology, Dalvik is ultimately little more than a layer of indirection, that could easily disappear deeply beneath the covers of a 22nd century OS, hidden by a simple click of a 'Build' button in an IDE, much like Win32 did.

Similarly, Contacts was only used as an example, as it is prominent and simple to understand. The main reference made there was to the data the Contacts UI represents, which ultimately backs on to some class library that ultimately is controlled by the platform (as I understand it).

<comment><USER3> > "...that could easily disappear deeply beneath the covers of a 22nd century > OS..."

So we have a bit of time to form a reaction strategy then. ;-)

Are we even sure Android will run on the quantum-singularity computronium that we will have by then, or that the Google meme-avatar will still be on, or near, Earth?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't get how NaCl can be a tool for controlling content, when it's easy to convert an NaCl app into a native app that can be downloaded and run at will. You can't really have Microsoft-style dominance over a platform when users can leave you as soon as they are slightly annoyed.

Not to mention that NaCl is open source BSD-license, so, yeah.

<comment><USER5> > when it's easy to convert an NaCl app into a native app that can be > downloaded and run at will.

In theory .NET JIT can emit native image code. But have you ever seen any framework-free .NET apps?

The dependences, libraries, ecosystem will lock you in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think Microsoft really missed a good bet by not embracing NaCl years ago. They have a huge preexisting native codebase. Probably a plurality of their development teams are native code-focused. Their customers employ hundreds of thousands of native developers and probably billions of lines of native code. C/C++ is such an inescapable part of their ecosystem that after almost a decade of selling C#/.NET as the future, they're increasingly proselytizing for the benefits of native code and C++11 in particular.

They could have leveraged all of this by buying in to NaCl and putting it into IE. Hard to see how Google says no, and once Microsoft has that level of commitment to the technology, they'd get a strong say in its evolution. As a multi-vendor standard with an open source implementation, NaCl could have gotten real traction, and suddenly every C++ developer inside Microsoft and working for their customers has a path to the web for existing code that's _slightly_ more plausible than rewriting everything in JavaScript and hoping the VMs get faster without also killing your laptop's battery (unlikely, I think).

<comment><USER7> Agreed. And I still don't understand Mozilla's problem with NaCl. They argue that js is now nearly as fast as native. Well...even if that were true it ignores the fact that as you point out there is huge investment in legacy code that NaCl unlocks AND it ignores the fact that js makes it easy to copy what may be valuable IP.

<comment><USER8> Mozilla's problem with NaCl is that Mozilla believes in open access to the web for everyone, while NaCl at the moment is tied to particular hardware architectures. The two seem to be fundamentally incompatible.

If PNaCl ever happens, that might change the situation, maybe.

As far as legacy code, emscripten unlocks it as well. Not with the performance of NaCl (and unlikely to get there), but it has the benefit of running cross- browser right now and not forcing people onto particular hardware platforms.

And copying "valuable IP" out of an emscripten-compiled program is just as easy as copying it out of a binary, of course.

<comment><USER9> As for PNaCl, I think "LLVM IR is a compiler IR" sums it up nicely: [http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2011-October/0437...](http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2011-October/043719.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think people who claim "Google is planning xxxx" miss the fact that Google isn't exactly some monolithic entity.

There are plenty of people within Google who'd love NaCI to take over the world. But equally there are lots who think it is a downright bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER11> I didn't even read past the third paragraph. It's not even the creepy, conspiratorial way he talks... who the hell puts up a single domain, with a single plain-text page of content, with a font big enough for my grandmother to read it, just to complain about Google? It's weird.

<comment><AUTHOR> The site is not tailored to readers who search for social proof in a WordPress theme; for multiple reasons this was an intentional choice. I'd suggest starting with the two years of my HN comment history.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wait wait wait.

Google is going to lock the world into it's "stewardship" with a couple open source projects and the cell phone market?

I can't help but feel that I've just been trolled. Unless someone can better explain this to me.

</comment><comment><USER13> NaCl may have a large role to play in the future, but I don't think this is a bad thing, or "dystopian". NaCl, Android, Dart, and Chromium are all open source and can be forked by the free software and open source communities and retooled for whatever ends should Google begin to play nasty. The big issue here is control of user data, which is orthogonal to the choice of software anyway. You can use all of the software above to connect to friendly data stores, perhaps ones you control.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, for example, Android Google devs do not take patches from other devs, and do not open Android til "its ready". Other devs, mainly CM do not submit patches (its useless) and it takes a long time to support devices because you need a lot of proprietary code that needs to be available, or specs,that also needs to be available.

So yeah, but no, you definitely can lock stuff in with "open source", no problem with that.

<comment><USER15> No -- you can't. You can lock people out of your project, but FLOSS doesn't mean everyone gets to play inside your project.

The license guarantees anybody who doesn't like the way Google is doing things can take the code and start their own project around it. The forks may not be easy to keep in sync -- this shouldn't matter if you don't agree with the way Google is doing things because you'll probably stop using their work after you fork anyway.

What you want is to have Google's engineers run their project the way you want, which is NOT what open source is about at all.

Aside: You're wrong about proprietary code -- awesome people like jbq and folks from the AOSP have consistently worked with hardware vendors to open up their binary blobs. They are actively fighting for this, not using it to keep people locked into the official Android project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> May I suggest a rather more innocent possibility wrt Google's intentions? They want us to be able to run high performance apps in the browser. And guess what - most of us would like that.

</comment><comment><USER16> If Google is evil, just fork Chrome. It's called Chromium. Chrome is not 100% proprietary. Nacl is open source.

</comment><comment><USER17> "it is designed and explicitly documented to run on an as-yet nonexistent virtual machine"

[http://code.google.com/p/dart/wiki/Building#Building_the_sta...](http://code.google.com/p/dart/wiki/Building#Building_the_standalone_VM)

<comment><AUTHOR> My mistake; omit the paragraph and continue reading.

<comment><USER17> I guess I don't get the $30 :) Just kidding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> New Rule: Whoever mentions Microsoft first, loses the debate and the thread is closed.[1]

[1] Obvious References: [1.1] Reductio ad Hitlerum ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum> ) [1.2] Godwin's law ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law> )

</comment><comment><USER19> It's funny, because what came to mind as the platform for apps that would be streamed from HTTP wasn't Chrome, but Mozilla!

After all, that was the promise of remote XUL+JS, which provided the user gave it the permissions, could access the XPCOM components to access the filesystem, run external applications and more.

Nevertheless it didn't caught on.

<comment><USER20> """Nevertheless it didn't caught on."""

Well, I was kinda hoping it would, but for one thing, the Mozilla guys:

1) never documented it properly 2) never made any usable developer tools, IDEs, etc 3) never delivered on their initial XUL/XULRunner promises 4) never tried to build a community around them

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _The main hack done to the compiler is that generated code avoids certain constructs that inhibit perfect static analysis, allowing the NaCL host (i.e. Google Chrome at present) to verify the behaviour of some untrusted binary before ever executing it (just like Java does)._

I am having a hard time with this. At first I thought this amounted to a claim that the halting problem had been solved, or else that Java and NaCl are not Turing complete. I'm guessing the problem is with the term "perfect." So something interesting must be going on or it wouldn't be worth mentioning. What's being verified? That the code can't execute data and won't call certain interrupts, or is something more interesting happening?

<comment><USER22> _At first I thought this amounted to a claim that the halting problem had been solved,_

That's not what the halting problem means! There is no rule that says you cannot prove a program is safe: the rule is only that you cannot prove _any arbitrary_ program is safe. NaCl gets around that by adding checks to the code (bounds checks, etc) to anywhere that it _can't_ prove is safe.

<comment><USER21> _Perfect static analysis_ is certainly halting-equivalent. What you're describing falls short of perfection, which is what I've suggested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> tldr(all) this is a paranoid rambling piece that may just have some sense in it somewhere but it's so incoherently written it's tough to find it.

</comment><comment><USER23> what's the unicode symbol for bong hits?

<comment><USER24> I laughed hard enough at this comment that I woke my wife up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Matt "lol bongs" Cutts, your mockery proved a meaningful critique. Often people laugh and act juvenile when otherwise they might cry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "guys, let's replace javascript with the most advanced modular program distribution and compilation toolkit known to mankind. hell, we could even implement javascript on top of this toolkit to let people have their cake and eat it too. oh wait, nevermind, some person on the internet told us this is evil. my bad"

</comment><comment><USER5> What's more interesting is the Chrome Remoting technology. It allows you to render webpage/webapp in a desktop chrome process but display it on another remote device, even mobile device. It's like Microsoft 3389 RDP without fullscreen but each individual window.

<comment><USER26> "It's like Microsoft 3389 RDP without fullscreen but each individual window"

Sounds more like plain old X forwarding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am not really favorable to the all-in-the-cloud trend at Google. NaCl seems to be the exact opposite to that and I am as other users (as expressed in a comment above) happy with that. Another point is that it is not a replacement to DirectX. WebGl is this replacement, and WebGL is a common initiative, not a Google's invention.

<comment><USER28> WebGL is not a replacement for DirectX, it's just a replacement for Direct3D. What's the rest of the stack?

<comment><USER27> It is a frontend for browser apps to OpenGL that is an alternative to DirectX (or a part).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why is the performance impact of the sandbox with Intel code only 1% while the AMD and ARM code 7%? Is it just because they haven't focused much on optimizing for those or any other reason? I would expect them to at least focus more on ARM, especially if they are porting it to Android.

<comment><USER30> As quoted on the article, the segmentation technique it uses is only available on x86.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Gives Google too much credit, on the one hand, by saying they will create an elegant OS that unifies desktop, web, and mobile (a sort of "holy grail" actually)... then says this is a bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is this site designed to be read from across the room?

<comment><AUTHOR> Implemented a partial compromise, but IMHO all sites should be designed to be read from across the room. Comments on the article text welcome.

<comment><USER33> I think this is the first site I've never had to zoom in on to actually read. (2560x1440)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 "in particular, it lacks the elegance necessary to lend credence that this was ever a research project"

How does one judge this subjectively?

<comment><USER34> As a researcher, I was surprised that the author assumed that any of my work was ever elegant. Research projects are ugly and messy because you know that they'll never need to scale. If you can actually make it work, that's when you start on elegance.

<comment> brown9-2 This is exactly what I had always assumed, but felt like I couldn't rely on much of conventional wisdom in an argument like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The sky is falling! Oh noes!

</comment><comment><USER36> Wait, wait, wait.

Because a platform is near-native performance, is cross platform and may run in a virtual machine, they are becoming Microsoft and locking people in? WHAT? (Beyond the absurdity of leaping to that conclusion, it's an open spec and the main implementation is open source. I understand that alternative implementations are needed for "open spec" to have significant meaning, but still).

That and the last set of bullet points are all true. Just like Google... except without the near native performance of NaCl. Which is why it was created. To be just like the rest of the HTML/JS stack. They're trying to get to actual "Web 2.0" (bleck), where Dart and NaCl are viable additions to the traditional stack. I see no reason why this is nefarious.

RE this whole conspiracy (not mocking it by calling it that...) and the Android connection especially... that's what I've been assuming and hoping for from day one. Portable LLVM bytecode is another step in that direction as well. I'm excited.

<comment><USER37> > _RE this whole conspiracy (not mocking it by calling it that...)_

Then I will. It's a conspiracy theory, worthy of all the mocking typically associated with such a thing.

Anyone who's been watching Google long enough, closely enough, knows how out of character this would be. Such efforts, not to mention the purported motivation, is not in their nature.

Google employees start hundreds (thousands?) of new projects every year with little coordination. Some of these end up becoming big, official things, and we end up with Gmail. They throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

There might be some group inside Google thinking along the lines this guy is. I doubt it, but it's possible. It might even be the native client guys. What there isn't, is a massive internal conspiracy crossing every product team up and down the chain of command, aimed at making Google the sole arbiter of what can run on your device.

Even if the executives wanted it to happen, it couldn't. How do I know this?

Because Google is full of hackers who would instantly revolt. They've had enough problems with things like their real name policy and the handful of places they've had to acquiesce to DRM.

A coordinated effort to make Google into The One True Gatekeeper into your electronic life on a scale unmatched even by 1990s Microsoft? I await the flying pigs.

<comment><USER9> There is not a single company in history that failed to get away with malicious behavior due to being "full of hackers that would instantly revolt". Engineers do not have executive power within companies. Executives do. Engineers "revolt" by quitting, and at Google they are easy to replace.

<comment><USER37> You're right, they do revolt by quitting. I don't see a big exodus. I have several friends there I know would be out the door in a heartbeat, and 5 years ago I knew one of the guys who is now one of the most senior on the Chrome team. Unless his character has been very fundamentally altered, there's not a snowball's chance in hell he would aid such an effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Careful, people might accuse you of being a right-wing conspiracy theorist, even if you do present evidence that Google is becoming the new Microsoft.

<comment><USER39> [http://standupforamerica.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/conspir...](http://standupforamerica.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/conspiracy- tin-foil-hat.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity</comment>


We Fight for the Users - <AUTHOR> https://www.dreamhost.com/blog/we-fight-for-the-users/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a convenient time to remind folks that it is incredibly important to stand up against this kind of government action not only when it is conducted against your political allies, but _especially_ when it is conducted against your political enemies. Even if this were a pro-Trump website being subpoenaed, this should sicken you nonetheless. Short-sighted political gain might be had by allowing the government to stomp all over political dissidents you don't agree with, but in a few short years you might find yourself on the receiving end of the same treatment you endorsed. My hope is that those in the alt-right will realize that supporting this kind of action may hurt themselves just as much as it hurts the anti-Trump folks.

<comment><USER3> Maybe the government action is warranted here ? A few searches bring up nothing good.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZSfhd1X_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZSfhd1X_8)

And by the looks of it alt-right sites soon will barely have domains, they don't need to worry about the state requesting something like this.

<comment><USER4> That's a strawman. The real issue is that Trump's DOJ is abusing its powers in this case to do a dragnet collection of 1.3 million of its most fervent political opponents.

<comment><USER3> How is it a strawman exactly ? Is it ok to do anything you want just because you don't like trump ? It would be abuse if it was illegal surveilance, but this ? How exactly is this abuse ?

<comment><USER5> If you have probable cause getting a targeted warrant is not an issue. For or against Trump has exactly ZERO baring on that. If you want records for 1.3 million people you're in the realms of claiming there's a criminal conspiracy and a measurable fraction of adults in the USA are in on it.

Or you're doing dragnet on your political enemies.

It's wrong if someone working for Obama does it, it's wrong if Reagan does it, it's wrong if Hilary does it, it's wrong if _anyone_ does it. Including Trump. He's not special, he's the same whether you like him or not.

<comment><USER6> For or against Trump is an issue. He is the president. You cannot threaten the president and expect no action from the FBI and secret service.

<comment><USER7> Are you saying 1.3 million people directly threatened the president? Really? This is a dragnet plain and simple. Will they find a few threats? Probably. My guess is 1.299 million Americans will needlessly be harmed by this action.

<comment><USER6> How will they be harmed? What do you suggest FBI should do to protect American interests? Will Google and other hosts block this website just like they are doing with neo Nazi domains? If yes, then probably FBI can rest. Otherwise they have to take measures that ensure the safety of America's elected president.

<comment><USER8> The actions of privately-owned registrars are completely irrelevant to this discussion.

<comment><USER6> It's not irrelevant. What Google and go daddy did is tantamount to censorship. And that actually does prevent somebody from exercising free speech.

<comment><USER9> Private corporations and government are different, legally and philosophically. You won't be able to apply a law written specifically restricting the government to private citizens or corporations without a constitutional amendment.

What Google and GoDaddy did was the private citizen equivalent of hearing someone else state their opinion, allowing the words to enter their brain, think about them, and then decide they do not espouse those opinions, so they will not go around stating them to other people as fact. That is not censorship, it's just good sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Free speech is not just a constitutional amendment, it's a cultural value. It happens when DreamHost protects a website that is organizing legal protests, spending more per hour on legal fees than the website will pay over its lifetime.

It happens when Cloudflare refuses to cancel service to some of the most disgusting sites on the internet, even though they're on the free plan and Cloudflare has no legal obligation to continue to host them.

It happens when reddit fights tooth and nail, at great expense and with no reward forthcoming, to maintain some of the most toxic communities on the internet, only agreeing to close them when there is truly no other choice.

It happens when computer scientists invent technologies like tor, freenet, and bitcoin, allowing unpopular groups to get their message out and collect donations, even if the majority would prefer that they be banished.

And yes, it even happens when a small ISP steps up to host The Daily Stormer, secure in their knowledge that the best way to contend with such filth is to let the sunlight disinfect it, rather than trying to bottle it up and hoping that bottle never breaks.

America is exceptional in its embrace of the cultural value of free speech. However bad we are about it sometimes, the rest of the world (including Western Europe) is much worse. This makes me proud to be an American citizen.

<comment><USER11> Getting a little tired of these 'exposure will cure-all' type of comments. The only thing accomplished by not quashing sites like Daily Stormer is desensitizing us to them which only leads to legitimizing.

<comment><USER12> Getting a little tired of "not all speech should be free" comments. You're trading one brand of facism for another. Don't try to wrap your brand in the appearance of progress.

To discuss does not legitimize. If you are fearful of an idea being debated, that says more about you than the idea.

<comment><USER13> A private corporation deciding not to host /actually fascist/ content because they're getting bad press for it has nothing to do with free speech. And criticizing another corporation for hosting, again, /actually fascist/ content is perfectly within the scope of the 1st amendment.

Relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1357](https://xkcd.com/1357)

<comment><USER14> Yes, yes it does have a lot to do with free speech. It strikes to the heart of the issue.

Free speech isn't just a paragraph in the American Constitution that appeared there out of nowhere. It's a larger cultural norm that allows you to share your ideas and, much more importantly, allows you to hear other people's ideas without censorship. Whether censorship comes from the government, university, or some megacorp is completely irrelevant to whether it is an infringement on free speech.

<comment><USER15> > Free speech isn't just a paragraph in the American Constitution that > appeared there out of nowhere. It's a larger cultural norm that allows you > to share your ideas and, much more importantly, allows you to hear other > people's ideas without censorship.

Right.

> Whether censorship comes from the government, university, or some megacorp > is completely irrelevant to whether it is an infringement on free speech.

Wrong, unless you mean a university or corporation literally physically censoring you from communicating something. See sib response by dragonwriter. If a university disinvites a speaker or a corporation stops hosting someone customer's website, nobody's right to free speech was infringed upon. Sure, you may accuse them of acting against the spirit of the value of free speech, but that's their prerogative and they are in fact simultaneously exercising their own right to free speech by choosing not to host/amplify another's speech they find repugnant.

<comment><USER16> Most censorship in China is done by the private sector. It doesn't come direct from the government. Instead, the government makes it clear that various types of speech are deemed unacceptable, but remains vague about exactly what. For example the PRC likes to crack down on "rumours".

The consequence is that the private sector is a huge and critical part of how China censors information. Actual direct government censorship is relatively limited: it's all based on distributing vague principles to the private sector combined, with punishments for failure to comply. The result is people interpreting the principles in the most aggressive way possible.

In the west, governments have egged on progressive agendas and passed laws that punish various kinds of speech (e.g. "hate speech"). But most of the censorship is done by the private sector, who are trying to interpret vague principles in ways that'll avoid them being targeted for punishment. The fact that in the west the media and various ideological groupings have as much to do with it as a government agenda doesn't change the fact that most of the ensuring censorship is still run and managed by the private sector.

<comment><USER15> Ok, but were an American to find themselves legally censored by another American individual or corporation, they could take their business elsewhere/start their own newspaper or webhost/become a soapbox preacher, whatever. None of those are options in the Chinese case.

<comment><USER16> That's true as long as there are plenty of providers in the market and the barriers to entry are low, so you can get specialist "free speech" firms.

Sometimes that's true, sometimes it's not. If Google and Bing both decide to delist your website because they think it's "hateful" or some other reason you're out of luck. There are only two major English-language search engines.

If your Wordpress hosting provider doesn't want you, well, that's inconvenient but not the end of the world.

One problem with encouraging a culture of "free speech doesn't matter if you're a company" is that the type of speech that requires the most defence is the most unpopular kind, which means you can end up with all the offensive or challenging material lumped under one or two providers ... who are then vulnerable to other forms of attack by people who wish to crush speech they disagree with. It's really a lot more robust if everyone agrees that "I disagree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it".

<comment><USER15> > One problem with encouraging a culture of "free speech doesn't matter if > you're a company" is that the type of speech that requires the most defence > is the most unpopular kind, which means you can end up with all the > offensive or challenging material lumped under one or two providers ... who > are then vulnerable to other forms of attack by people who wish to crush > speech they disagree with. It's really a lot more robust if everyone agrees > that "I disagree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to the death for > your right to say it".

I totally agree. I wasn't encouraging that attitude per se, but rather pointing out that free speech protections as they are implemented in the US protect the rights of private individuals/corporations to take either attitude towards the speech of others. And FWIW I can't really envision an alternate implementation that insures people abide by the robust interpretation of the value of free speech - at a certain point it falls to the public to continue to embrace free speech as a positive value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> TL;DR: DreamHost was issued a warrant to produce any and all content+logs+metadata about a customer-hosted website that presumably may have been related to violent protests/riots in Washington DC circa Jan 20th (Trump inauguration day). They pushed back on the overly broad nature of the warrant, the DOJ pushed the courts to then "compel" DH to comply.

</comment><comment><USER2> This seems like a convenient time to remind folks that it is incredibly important to stand up against this kind of government action not only when it is conducted against your political allies, but especially when it is conducted against your political enemies. Even if this were a pro-Trump website being subpoenaed, this should sicken you nonetheless. Short-sighted political gain might be had by allowing the government to stomp all over political dissidents you don't agree with, but in a few short years you might find yourself on the receiving end of the same treatment you endorsed. My hope is that those in the alt-right will realize that supporting this kind of action may hurt themselves just as much as it hurts the anti-Trump folks.

<comment><USER18> For my part, I value the right of black/gay/jewish/whoever people to exist and live their lives without threats of violence _more_ than I value freedom of speech.

Right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, in that order.

Groups calling for their extermination, I'm not going to stand up for any of them, because they're actively working against the first of those three values.

What good is freedom of speech or assembly when you're being run over by a white supremacist in a Charger?

If that's a slippery slope--that ordering of values that prizes life over website hosting--then it's one I'm still content to stand on, because the alternative isn't taking us anywhere good right now.

<comment><USER19> Let me remind you that who brought up the concept of "acceptable punching targets" to modern politics was antifa, and that staging a counter-protest in the exact same venue and time as a rally / protest is OBVIOUSLY going to cause trouble.

White supremacists are disgusting.

Other race supremacists are disgusting.

Anarchists are disgusting.

Communists are disgusting.

People calling for dead cops are disgusting.

People looting and committing arson during protests are disgusting.

There's a lot of disgusting people out there, and I'm beyond tired of people trying to escalate things even further. If all this political tension in the US escalates to full-blown civil war, it will be to no credit of a single group, but the many who keep getting excused by mainstream politicians, political commentators and journalists.

The fun fact is that most of this could probably have been widely defused by _allowing_ people to speak up in public, and then providing better counter- speech, but I guess that was hurting way too many feelings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would they have done the same for a right-wing website? Just as importantly, would HN be just as pro free speech if they had?

Free speech as a value and ideal must be content-neutral.

<comment><USER21> Freedom comes at a cost: we value more the freedom to not be harmed than the freedom to harm.

Those trying to harm other people _must_ be less free to do so.

Freedom is not neutral

<comment><USER20> This is a false argument. Speech is not "harming someone".

This is a tactic that seems to be more common recently: trying to equate expression of ideas with violence, and then claiming that violence is acceptable to suppress this supposed "speech violence".

<comment><USER22> As somebody who has been battling a whole part of his life against PTSD I find it very troubling that people in 2017 still believe that bs that you can only harm people when you use fysical violence.

<comment><USER20> My sympathies for your condition, but I regret to inform you that the rest of the world does not revolve around you and your symptoms. Speech is not violence harming you, however much you might want to claim it as such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've never (to my knowledge) had any issues re: legal requests about my site, but I can say that I've been a happy customer of Dreamhost for many years now. Support is quick, friendly, and knowledgeable, and the pricepoint for the product (shared server, web-hosting and domain renewal, unlimited bandwidth and storage) is a no-brainer for me. I'm not surprised to see that the host advocates for its users when it can.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just a reminder that a good system design doesn't store user data. If you don't have it it can't be used against your users.

<comment><USER25> Indeed. It will also save your company time and money (in more ways than one).

I work for an ISP and I intentionally do not log user <-> IP address mappings. The time I've had to spend producing similar information in response to such requests is very minimal (basically, "sorry, we don't have that!").

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It would be interesting to hear from Google whether the government has issued a search warrant for the Google Analytics data generated by the site's visitors, which would include IP address.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm glad that Dreamhost is opposing the order. I'm glad to give them my business. To me, it would be no more different if it was an alt-right site.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's great to see DreamHost stand up for their users in this instance but they're not always like that.

I had a bogus DMCA takedown filed against a WP blog I have on a DH shared hosting account. DH went into my DB and took the post offline before they even notified me.

Had they bothered to notify me first or spend 5 min reading the blog they would have found it to be clearly fair use.

</comment><comment><USER29> We already know about neo-nazi racists and gov already investigates them. However, Antifa and these Marxist Resistance groups are radicalized and dangerous groups that regularly entertain violence against Trump and his supporters. They deserve to be investigated as it effects the stability of our country.

<comment><USER30> You're operating under a pretty severe cognitive bias there.

Anti-fa violence is investigated, but the levels of actual recorded violence, and threats of violence, from anti-fa groups is minuscule when compared to that from white supremacists.

They're simply not comparable.

White supremacists have already murdered people in the US, sometimes in mass killings.

<comment><USER31> And is there an example of the government asking for information on right-wing website users? I don't remember one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Scary and outrageous.

<comment><USER33> No not really, this is about the DC riots on Inauguration Day which violated DC peace keeping laws, probably because it's the capitol of America, I'm thinking but read for yourself:

[https://beta.code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/sections/22-1...](https://beta.code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/sections/22-1322.html)

The rioters broke DC law. Nothing scary, nothing shocking, it's a click bait title and nothing more.

<comment><USER34> 200 people were indicted on rioting charges. What use does the 1.3 million IP addresses have in those cases? How can the DoJ justify that disparity? So yes, it is a little scary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Makes me happy to have been using Dreamhost for over 10 years now. I got in on the my domain crazy insane package, and have mostly gotten along with them. I am still super-angry they took away my squirellmail and forced the webmail into a non-FOSS webmail though.

<comment><USER36> Same here - same plan since feb 2007

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> When you give up your rights to authorities, you are done. Nono this regime is better! They just want to keep us safe! Go read a book and preferably of history. If you consider total control keeping you safe, then go on and do it. People seem to forget the government is supposed to work for you in a democracy. Not the other way around

</comment><comment><USER38> I am sure that every single person who always stands on absolutist free-speech principles against the chilling effect of, say, calling for someone to be fired when it turns out they believe women are biologically inferior, will of course turn up to immediately oppose this on principle, and not adopt some sort of "let's wait and see, there may be nuances to this" approach.

</comment><comment><USER39> Asking states voters data, and now that.. It could be more data collection for voter suppression..

</comment><comment><USER40> Especially in light of various american fascist groups interpreting the sitting president's half hearted comments regarding the Charlottesville murder as intentional endorsement of their philosophies.

<comment><USER41> I think your dislike of the current president is clouding your ability to see facts for what they are. Since the incident he condemned the guilty on the TV, tweeted about it multiple times, his daughter spoke extensively on the subject, various people in the administration condemned it. Prime minister of Canada pretty much repeated Trump's condemnation verbatim and got praised for it. I am not sure what else you need at this point.

<comment><USER32> It took him 2 days! He first raised a false equivalency between neo-nazis and the counter protestors. And he still hasn't labeled it domestic terorrism.

<comment><USER42> He also didn't label the liberal protester who attacked people with a bike lock as terrorists.

<comment><USER32> Are you making a an equivalence between a bike lock and a 2 ton missile used by a neo-nazi. That's disgusting

<comment><USER43> I'm still waiting on Obama's similar statement regarding this: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_poli...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_police_officers)

Perhaps Trump had issues "untangling motives" hence the delay: [http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/9/obama-says- moti...](http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/9/obama-says-motives- dallas-cop-killer-micah-xavier-/)

<comment><USER32> Regarding Obama, that's whataboutism.

On not knowing all the facts. That's never stopped Trump before when a brown person was the perpetrator

<comment><USER43> Either not directly calling out racist attacks as racist is a problem for a president or it isn't. Unless you can tell me how one is different than the other?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Antifa and the nazis should all be thrown in prison.

We dont need political violence and any more escalation.

Dont believe me. How about the atlantic? [https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/534192/](https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/534192/) How about cnn ? [https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/08/14/us/what-is-antifa- trnd/in...](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/08/14/us/what-is-antifa- trnd/index.html)

<comment><USER45> I consider myself antifa in part because my great grandfather was murdered by the Nazis, and I consider it to be part of my social and civil responsibility to oppose fascism.

Edit: ¡No pasaran!

<comment><USER28> Antifa is not just anti-facism. If you go to any of their rallies or counter protests you'll find most are socio-anarchists or communists who don't see anything wrong with violence.

<comment><USER45> Ask yourself who is defending the counter protestors when the police are defending the white supremacists, kkk, and other assorted fascists.

Historically the police have a poor track record when it comes to choosing sides in the fight against fascism

If you think antifa has too many anarchists and communists, maybe it's time to mask up and help

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> you should delete 'for'

</comment><comment><USER47> Anyone care to compare Dreamhost to Webfaction?

</comment><comment><USER48> Upvote for the TRON reference: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kcgosLwPDE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kcgosLwPDE)

</comment><comment><USER49> It doesn't say which website exactly. If there's an FBI investigation (which seems possible, even likely, considering how extreme antifa and other "resistance" groups can be), it seems pretty par for the course to request information in order to help locate particular parties.

<comment><USER50> > considering how extreme antifa and other "resistance" groups can be

How many people have they killed recently? Are they marching through the streets ripping off Nazi salutes?

<comment><USER51> [https://thelongestway.com/2017/04/08/i-dont-like-the- antifa/](https://thelongestway.com/2017/04/08/i-dont-like-the-antifa/)

<comment><USER52> That's a very tactical criticism. It seems like something very important is being lost in these comparisons. The primary criticism of Nazis and white supremacists is not their tactics or their protests, it's that they are fucking Nazis and white supremacists.

<comment><USER53> It's not tactical criticism, it is a personal account of what anyone can see by searching youtube for "antifa": that they're thugs who use their supposed "anti-fascism" as a pretext for their thuggery.

If there aren't any nazis, a good old international summit will do.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Software Developer Resume Anti-Patterns - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mhriess/software-developer-resume-anti-patterns-4e906f2314cd#.w19qm8u6k <comment><USER2> This article could also be published under "Job description anti-patterns".

Technology bingo, check Soft skills boiler plate, check Culture fit/company values nonsense, check

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. There's room for a complementary article critiquing all the same issues with most job descriptions.</comment></comment>


Confessions of a Digital Dinosaur: Esports Is the Next Great Traditional Sport - <AUTHOR> https://kc-roi.com/blog/confessions-of-a-digital-dinosaur-esports-is-the-next-great-traditional-sport <comment><AUTHOR> See Ben Clarson's post introducing the topic - [http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2018/07/something-i- changed-...](http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2018/07/something-i-changed-my- mind-about-recently/)

Highlights from the article:

\- More people in the 18-25 years old age group regularly watch and play esports than any other traditional sport.

\- A small town in Poland hosted an event this year that was watched live by people from 180 different countries. The audience was 3x as large as it was for the most recent MLB World Series. More people attended this event in person than the last 3 Super Bowls combined.

\- The esports audience in Asia is 4x larger than it is in the U.S., so this is truly a global phenomenon.

\- One event in a tournament called the League of Legends was viewed by 80 million fans.

\- Twitch is one of the streaming services that allows people to view these events. The service already has a bigger audience than CNN or MSNBC. They get more than 15 million daily unique viewers. They're owned by Amazon (because of course, Bezos was on top of this trend before anyone else).

\- The video gaming audience is 5x the size of Netflix subscribers.

\- There's a league called Overwatch which has teams owned by people who already own a professional sports team. This list includes Robert Kraft (New England Patriots), Jeff Wilpon (New York Mets), Stan Kroenke (LA Rams and Denver Nuggets) and Dave Scott (Philadelphia Flyers). The teams cost them $20 million a piece.</comment>


NEA now making grants available for video game developers - <AUTHOR> http://gaming.icrontic.com/article/nea-video-games-are-an-art-form/

<comment><USER2> This is a huge mistake. I don't want to argue that videogames can never be art, but in general, no matter how good they look, they aren't (Radio is also highly suspect on this list). The problem is that "the arts" (in a more traditional sense) in the US are infinitesimally close to being criminally underfunded. Opening NEA funding to even more applicants will only further detract from more traditional applicants that should receive funding.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. How "good they look" is irrelevant; one can easily make the critique of famous painters, say, who have totally missed the bar on creating "good looking" painting, yet create harrowing or revelatory social commentaries nontheless. The same holds true for all these categories.

I'm not going to attempt to define what art IS here, or what its purpose is, but I can say it must go beyond high art and aesthetics.

There are games that challenge and expand our understanding of society across a number of different axes, the most recent and obvious of which being collaboration and socialization. Or look to classic games for incredible examples of storytelling (Kings Quest), making choices of morality (Ultima), and so on.

And certainly there are radio programs that are art; Radiolab and This American Life come to mind, although those are already publicly funded.

<comment><USER2> Ah, I didn't mean to imply video games must have an aesthetic to be considered art (I said this because, and you do have to admit, the prevailing attitude for those who believe they are art is that they are of a supreme aesthetic). I'm not quite sure what you mean by high art. The NEA is in a unique position to fund people who will probably fail, that is people who are challenging the current popular forms. Popular art directions can more easily get private funding and don't need as much public support. I agree that video games can do this, but when you're associated with a multi-billion dollar industry and building a product that can be replicated and sold by the millions of copies, it's hard to justify why you need public support to develop it. I LOVE This American Life, but I completely disagree that it is art. It is tremendous journalism, which reaches millions of people. I donate every year to keep This American Life running and every listener should too, because they are receiving a great gift of passion and effort in every episode. However, there are more than enough listeners to support the program if they each paid for the service they receive. I do not believe they need public funding and if they did, the NEA is not the organization that should be providing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can we have government funding for Free Software instead?

<comment><USER5> Afaik, this grant will still cover Free Software. The software would have to be an art piece, so you couldn't get funding for non-artistic work. The grant is pretty broad though, it covers web, mobile and general "interactive art" as well as video games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is tragic that we are borrowing money from China for such utter frivolity.</comment>


Ask YC:Guidelines for submitting interesting (for HC) articles - <AUTHOR>

Are there set of guidelines for submitting links to interesting articles to HN? I am asking this because some of my submitted links to articles are not at all interesting to HN community, where I thought they're interesting and align with the goals of HN. I would like to filter out uninteresting links myself without polluting HN. <comment><USER2> <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. My question is about filtering within the boundaries of ontopic area. Sometimes I feel HN community has mood swings, for example community sometimes likes entrepreneurial oriented articles, startup success stories and sometimes it doesn't.

<comment><USER2> The problem is bigger than just _mood swings._ I have seen the same exact story around the same time (but not on the same "new" page--say, a day later), and one gets voted up and the other doesn't.

I think a lot of the problem stems from the new page to front page algorithm. Only a small subset of readers on HN upvote stories. And only a small subset of those upvoters ever look at the new page. And both groups are self-selected and not necessarily representative of the whole group. And when looking at the new page, the top stories on that page get looked at more. And when people actually click on a link, the majority don't actually read the story. And on top of that, stories only show there for a fixed amount of time, and in some cases, it isn't that long.

The result of all that is stories are looked at by very few people before a decision is made (algorithmically) to promote it to the front page or not. Often it only takes one upvote. I've submitted a lot of stories, and some from my own blog, so I know the amount of traffic you get from the new page, i.e. the # of people actually reading your story while it is on that page is quite small.

One idea would be to randomly give x slots of the front page (under say, the top 10) to new stories. These stories would be randomly chosen from the past y hours to give them more exposure. A different selection would display on each page load. Presumably, once a story gets one upvote it would stop showing in this random process. Perhaps such an algorithm could also take into account how many people clicked on the article, and also do something with that information as well.

<comment><USER3> You're right, more people should check out the 'new' items -- there are a lot of gems in there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would also add that you please not try to post the exact same news here that we're already seeing on digg/reddit/slashdot/etc. Most of us read those sites as well and, if we don't, the reason is likely that we're *&^%ing sick of the stories posted on those sites lol.

Thank you for asking.

<comment><USER5> Although lately I think it is the opposite, I see an article here and then 24-48 hours later it shows up on Slashdot or Reddit. I used to read Digg, but it has gotten so bad the last 4 months I don't waste my time, so no comment there. I feel like some of the power users on those sites watch here first.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Science Videos for Young Kids Without Long Parental Preparations - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/4VwgarZef0w <comment><AUTHOR> Backstory of why I developed these videos & why I created them the way they are:

[https://medium.com/@marialarkworthy/science-activities- for-y...](https://medium.com/@marialarkworthy/science-activities-for-young- kids-73c48c179ea1)

<comment><USER2> I wrote this comment for a new ShowHN post with this link, which got flagged and thus uncommentable. So I'll drop it here, fwiw.

The foil-boat coin-loading episode[1] prompted me to again wonder, might there be some way to create connections, from activities like these, to broader context?

For instance, there are videos of foil boats floating on gas, like[2]. Boats that are self righting.[3] Adding foam to your recreational boat so it doesn't sink.[4]

I found it unexpectedly hard to find a basic video on how to load or board your small open boat or dinghy, to avoid tipping over. Canoes seem a bit too linear. Something like[5], but with humans, ideally kids.

From past experience, this is the major bottleneck in exercises like this. I've found current search technology painfully inadequate to find little video clips illustrating particular concepts. It has the old feel of having a question, groveling over a paper card catalog, finding books on shelves (or not), looking at their index and skimming... and failing, failing, failing to find the answer to your question. Maybe someday dialog and scene understanding tooling will hit youtube. Until then, it's a frustrating exercise.

There are no doubt many videos which include a swim raft non-scarily flipping over from people gathering off center. With easily-identified-with kids. Closely relating to the foil boat video. Not as close as a hands on "here's how to arrange hampers and people on your rowboat so it doesn't tip over", but nice. Now try find one of those many videos... I've given up for now.

Science and engineering and math and life, are such a densely interwoven tapestry. Accessible and motivational preK to college. But it seems prohibitively expensive to create content that reflects that at present.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teWAPX8WBpw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teWAPX8WBpw) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckaJs_u2U_A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckaJs_u2U_A) [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=foil+boat+float...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=foil+boat+floating+on+gas) [3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX4mvzve00c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX4mvzve00c) [4] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9fCykxxMvE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9fCykxxMvE) [5] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6O6bzQSQ3s&t=16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6O6bzQSQ3s&t=16)</comment></comment>


Petition Against Felony Charge for WiFi Prank - <AUTHOR> https://www.change.org/p/save-a-nerd-petition-against-felony-charge-for-harmless-retaliatory-wifi-prank-in-hacker-dojo-programming-club <comment><USER2> Not sure this warrants a felony charge, but not sure this petition is particularly inspiring either.

Both parties behaved amazingly immaturely. But this petition is a heavily reality-distorted mealy mouthed justification of hand-waving away of what he did. Every action by the other party is blown up "many DDoS activities keeping him out of important business meetings", while the things he did are just hand waved away like so: "Jason decided to play a friendly prank on him in return and performed three twenty minute stress tests on one of Brian's wifi hotspots" \- not sure how one person's actions are a DoS, but another are not).

Hyperbole abounds, too: "Conviction would guarantee the rest of his life to be spent in financial insolvency and as a third-class citizen with fewer rights and only the most unfulfilling employment prospects."

Really, convicted of a felony, you're guaranteed lifetime financial insolvency?

"a conviction would spell the end of his professional career and aspirations to serve the nation's Foreign Service corps as a diplomat."

A little snarky, but I'd wager the State Department is looking for diplomats who'd avoid getting into petty situations like this in the first place...

<comment><USER3> > Really, convicted of a felony, you're guaranteed lifetime financial > insolvency?

This is actually flat out true. All large companies perform background checks and none of them will hire you if have any sort of criminal charges whatsoever. You don't even have to have been found guilty. This is called the "digital plantation" by one ex-policeman who wrote a book about it: [http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Dale-C- Carson/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Dale-C- Carson/dp/1613748043)

<comment><USER4> I have two friends with felonies that work in SV Tech, they each make over $200k a year for the last 5 years at reputable venture backed companies.

<comment><USER5> I have a federal felony conviction, for nearly the same exact offense that Jason is being charged with. I've worked for several software companies since my conviction, before starting my own. It definitely doesn't end your career.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is terribly written and comes off as extremely misleading. No useful details are given. "Kept out of important meetings?" "A prank on WiFi?" What happened, what are you trying to get people to sign their names to? Sure, we're all biased against prosecutors and a "WiFi prank" doesn't sound like anything really bad, but shit, write clearly and state the facts, don't try to snow us.

<comment><USER7> Couldn't agree more. There is a significant amount that seems to be missing from this and leads me to a couple questions:

1\. If Brian Klug is a founder of the HackerDojo as a Google search on his name confirms, why would the HackerDojo sell a "premium email address" to Jason Miller for a $100? Wouldn't Brian, as a founder, have a say in who has a particular HackerDojo email account.

2\. Going out on a limb here, but a look at the MeetUp page for the Palo Alto Data Science Association, shows no entry that I could find for a Jason Miller as the founder.

I am not trying to make any accusations here, but something just doesn't add up. The HackerDojo is a recognizable name and this whole thing doesn't add up to me.

Lastly it is pretty standard for anyone on pretrial release to have some sort of monitoring aspect, so that part is not out of the ordinary. This could be especially true when, like Jason Miller, the individual is not a resident of the state (Jason is from Maryland and appears to be living there now according to his LinkedIn profile) where the charges were filed.

Anyway, I would love to hear the real story behind this one. I can't find my PACER account information so if anyone has an account on PACER and can find/share the charging documents it may shed some light on this case.

<comment><USER8> Membership in Hacker Dojo was $100/month at the time. He paid for a month. It's $125/month now for non-students.

It's evidence of the spin, because Hacker Dojo doesn't sell "premium e-mail addresses." More spin: "Klug performed a denial of service attack on Miller's email account" = David was banned, which is clever, because it's Miller that's charged with packeting Hacker Dojo.

Also, why the hell is Anonymous on the petition?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel like there's something missing from this story.

Brian stopped Jason from receiving emails, then Jason broke Brian's wifi for an hour, then Brian calls the FBI.

Do these two have previous history? Was there some sort of escalation between the second and the third event?

<comment><USER10> What I want to know is why the FBI even cared in the slightest that Jason broke Brian's wifi for an hour. I feel like there must be something missing to this story to explain that.

<comment><USER11> Indeed – in the past, even if you suffered actual damages the first thing the FBI would ask was whether they were over $50K because they didn't touch anything under that amount. I wonder if most of the appeal was a case where all of the participants are known & local – they're thinking a quick, easy prosecution and some press to pad someone's annual review.

<comment><USER5> Sometimes they prosecute these cases just to gain experience in prosecuting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I was 17, I pranked my high school's website by replacing homepage content with a rickroll video through some creative hacking. The school turned around and hit me with a felony charge due to it being computer related. So I can definitely understand where this is coming from.

<comment><USER13> I'm lucky, I think, because over the 5 years of highschool I cracked every users password, found multiple vulnerabilities in the Novell NetWare system that allowed me to run arbitrary binaries, found out that I could use the `NET SEND` command to pop a message on every computer that was connected to the network, among other things.

The IT Coordinator wanted me nailed to the wall, but the vice-principal found a lot of the things I did interesting, and instead made the IT coordinator give me access to a Suse VM with full permissions, and didn't even give me a detention.

My impetus for doing all of this was so that I could run compilers and IDEs while at school, as I was running a Pentium 2 with 76Mb of RAM in 2005. It could've gone a completely different way, I think, and if my vice-principal hadn't seen something in me I could've ruined my life with all that. Scary to think about.

</comment></comment><comment> sudo-i A textbook case of 2 people who take themselves way too seriously... and it all escalated over a email address! The level of maturity of both sides is mind numbing and the whole case makes Hack Dojo (which is an amazing place) look like an immature little boys club.

<comment><USER14> heh, if my hackerspace had emails like that, most of us would have stuff like post.master@ and web.master@ within minutes... and high five anyone that actually managed to use that to convince someone they were actually high level email addresses for the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was a member at hacker dojo while this happened. His actions had a real financial impact, not just on hacker dojo but on members like me who couldnt get work done. While I never met him, it's difficult to feel sorry for him as he knew exactly the damage he was causing and was "addicted to pushing the button that hurt our wifi" (paraphrasing, but i do remember reading his letters that said basically this.)

My personal opinion is that while i dont want a precedent for felony charges for "wifi pranks", if this kid (20s) wasn't charged witha felony my gut says he'll be back at it again harder and faster having gotten away with it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I remember when this was going on at Hacker Dojo. The Internet was completely unusable for weeks. It seems likely that goal of the attack was cause Hacker Dojo to lose members.

It seemed like an economic attack on a community space.

</comment><comment><USER17> Bad things happen when idiots collide. I signed it though, because even a fool doesn't deserve to be punished so severely.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've read this petition three times and I still have no idea what happened. Also, what in the holy fuck is the author thinking giving everyone enough information to find the "bad guy" in her story (I knew who she was talking about even without it) but keeping the identity of the person we're allegedly helping obscured?

The difference between me and whoever the person advocating for this guy is, is that I know how to use PACER and am willing to pay to investigate claims like this. Honestly, I wanted to read the indictment because the horribly- written petition left me confused, but indeed, the petition leaves out quite a bit of the story. That includes the guy signing back up for Hacker Dojo under a false name after being banned, his grand total of one day being a member of Hacker Dojo, and completely omitting the attorney that he retained privately (and who quit not long after due to a "breakdown of communication"; puts perspective on raising a legal defense).

By the indictment, which went before a grand jury, by the way, it sounds like he signed up as "Ad Min," got banned, signed up as "Dallas Smith," got banned again (probably), then threw a hissy a month or so later and packeted Hacker Dojo. Poor guy indeed. Who attacks Hacker Dojo?

5:14-cr-00114-EJD, _United States of America v. Jason David Miller._

Grand Jury Indictment: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/indic...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/indictment.pdf)

Order to Seal (since lifted): [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/seal....](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/seal.pdf)

Continuance so Miller can retain counsel: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/subin...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/subin.pdf)

Status hearing where Miller's attorney subs in: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/couns...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/counsel.pdf)

Withdrawal of Miller's attorney ten days later: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/withd...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/withdrawal.pdf)

Full history: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/histo...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6121606/hackerdojo/history.png)

This is all public information. I paid $2.60 to look it up, and you can too -- sign up for PACER. Federal court is really simple if you know how to look, it's the state courts that tend to be harder and require a physical presence.

EDIT: I edited out my speculation once I had the indictment, and extend apologies to the commenters who wanted to engage it.

<comment><USER18> > Keep your pranks on the right side of legal, or get burned. Understand the > CFAA and when you are in violation.

Because the problem is clearly the "evil hacker jason" and not the ridiculousness of the laws in which severity of punishment is entirely inconsistent with any tangible damages?

I think people forget that it's _their_ tax-payer money being used to ruin's someone else's life.

<comment><USER8> Would you say the same thing after reading the indictment? Just curious.

<comment><USER18> Is there something in the indictment that you find to be in direct contradiction to the petition? I couldn't find it - of course the Brian half of the story is missing here.

<comment><USER19> There were no pranks but simply DDoS for being banned, Brian did not DDoS Jason's email but banned him for breaking the rules. Pretty much the only truth in that petition is that Jason is in deep sh*t.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Felony charges are obviously ridiculous, but I don't quite see the humor in the "funny prank" of shutting down someone's internet connection. It's at least as much a "denial of service attack" as flooding someone's email account.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm baffled as to why this didn't stop when he was asked not to use ad.min@ – this seems like a reasonable request which most people could just accept and move on from. High five, you did a nice trick, but the real admin asked you to stop, so just move on, right?

As others have mentioned, there seems to be a lot not said here, which isn't a surprise, and of course, felony charges are insane here.

<comment><USER6> Or why didn't the real admin just rename/ban the account? Edit: Reading the indictment posted in another comment, that's exactly what they did. The indictment also says the Hacker Dojo network was DDoSed several times over a few weeks. So this petition starts to feel more like outright lying.

<comment><USER7> I could be wrong here, but from reading the charging documents it sounds like the "denial of service" that was actually done to Jason's email account was really his account being banned when he was kicked out of the HackerDojo for using a fake name the first time. It was not until he signed up for HackerDojo a second time using another fake name, and getting banned again, that he is accused of committing his DoS on the HackerDojo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I guess the lesson here is that when someone pranks you with denial email spamming you call the FBI? Sad situation folks.

</comment><comment><USER23> GTFO of here, I don't know you and I'm not signing a petition based on hearsay. This is a legal problem. Contact a lawyer and prepare for court.

<comment><USER19> Looks like even his lawyer doesn't want to have anything to do with him based on the documents posted.

You are right the petition not only misleading it is straight lie.</comment></comment>


Hit 96 users on our waitlist quickly - <AUTHOR> Jemsplash.com hit a milestone over the weekend. Considering that I started putting this together 1 month ago, I am super proud of the fact that we have reached 96 users on our waitlist. Aiming to hit 100 users.
Jemsplash is a marketplace that allows content creators to sell their digital products such as the following:
Ebooks Courses (Audio & Video) Films Software Themes Guides/PDFs Comics & more We are an alternative to Gumroad and Payhip. We allow our sellers to not worry about high transaction fees in comparison to our competitors.
Craigslist I posted an ad on Craigslist discussing the website and encourage authors, creators, entrepreneurs to join the waitlist if they are looking for an additional revenue stream by selling on the marketplace and explaining that they can sell on their own website too. Cost: $7
Facebook Groups I posted in two Content Creators Facebook groups 4 times in total about Jemsplash and it's benefits. Cost: $0
Promoting on my Twitter. I always engage with #blacktechtwitter seeing that I am a black woman in tech, I have received a great amount of support :) I have received support from allies, and friends as well that are interested in selling their digital products. Cost: $0
Post on Reddit. I actually suck at this and am working on a better strategy but, I believe I received 1 user from Reddit so woohoo! Cost: $0
Instagram I have created an Instagram for Jemsplash and have also promoted the waitlist through my Instagram. I don't have a bunch of Content Creators following me however, I have received a lot of donations for Jemsplash so... that helped too! Cost: $0
IndieHackers Can't forget about one of my favorite platforms! I have received almost half of my waitlist from THIS great platform and want to thank you all who have joined our waitlist from this here platform. Cost: $0
So in total it has costed me $7 buckaroos to get 96 users to join. <comment><USER2> Please post this in either Ask HN or call this Tell HN.</comment>


10 Downing Street: Treatment of Alan Turing was "appalling" - <AUTHOR> http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page20571 <comment><USER2> I've been saying for a while that Turing's premature death set back mathematics by years, if not decades. :(

Discrimination still happens to a large enough degree (gender, race and class) that we're shooting ourselves collectively in the foot by not enabling people to contribute as much to society as they are able.

<comment><USER3> Complete speculation but it's possible that, being Freudian for a moment, the childhood loss and trauma that led Turing to pick-up teenage boys for casual sex was the driving force that pushed him to pursue mathematics to such a degree.

<comment><USER4> What "childhood loss and trauma" was it that led Turing to find nineteen-year- olds attractive, exactly? I'm pretty sure most people find people in their late teens and early 20s attractive.

Complete speculation here, but your use of "boys" makes it sound like you conflate Turing's actions with paedophilia. The ongoing and statistically inaccurate association of homosexuality with paedophilia is one of the reasons public actions like this one affirming that one can be both homosexual and legally and morally respectable are still necessary.

<comment><USER3> Most sexual relationships, feel free to prove me wrong, don't have a 20+ year age gap. Sorry but in my locality teenagers (yes 19 is teenaged) are referred to as "teenage boys" (as opposed to teenage girls, boys being a male descriptor) or "youths" as well as "young men".

The large age gap brought to mind the pederastic (not necessarily paedophilic) relationships of Greece BCE - Socrates apparently railed against older men consumating such relationships.

Morcom's death appears to have been a pivotal moment in Turings formative years - my Freudian speculation was that Turings attraction to younger men, teenagers, could have been an attempt to chase the relationship of his youth that ended so abruptly; much as middle-age men are want to chase younger women as an attempt to recapture their youth.

It also seems right that having left his parents and arrived in bording school only to have his only real friend taken from him by death could well have spurred Turing on into his studies whilst social success may have led him to fritter away his gifts, ignore his studies and follow more worldy pursuits.

<comment><USER5> "Most sexual relationships, feel free to prove me wrong, don't have a 20+ year age gap."

There's no need to prove wrong a statement based on speculation.

Gay men, go ahead and prove me wrong, are no more likely to have relationships with wide age disparities than homosexual men.

Besides: what of it? Most people don't have an IQ over 130 either. Most people don't drive Jaguars. Most people don't have a second home overseas. What's that a measure of? NORMALCY?

I agree that sometimes people who are hurt in life-at-large turn to inward pursuits in order to avoid further pain. It's certainly true that a lot of professional scientists have little or no use for 'social success', and see most of us as quite foolish, unreasoning creatures. But I don't think of their success as an excuse to run around torturing young men ... or driving older, very successful men to suicide after decades of loyal and very valuable service.

<comment><USER3> Statements based on speculation are not automatically wrong and so if you wish to _show_ they are wrong then you need to prove it. Your first sentence is specious at best and not really that as even a priori it strikes me as poor logic.

Did you mean _no more likely [...] than heterosexual men_?

The best stats I can get are from "The Demographics of Same-Sex 'Marriages' in Norway and Sweden" however they don't relate particularly to the Midlands of England in the 1950s. They show that indeed about 34% of homosexual male registered relationships in their study have a 10+year age gap (vs. 9% for heterosexual marriage) but account for this by the greater age of those entering registered homosexual relationships.

So yes "older men with younger" is apparently a more common homosexual pattern [in modern Sweden amongst officially recognised partnerships] but that's not really relevant as we're not considering a population but a specific case - stats don't show anything certain about individual members of a population. So this apparent Ephebophilia may have been a more specific fixation (which was my speculation) - Turing's crush died tragically at 18, the lad he was arrested for having a tryst with was 19.

Like I said, it's speculation. There doesn't appear to be anything ruling it out.

Two side points:

"Normalcy", yes statistics indicate "normalcy", the age gap is unusual. Deviations from normalcy often have interesting phenomena behind them - I had a BBQ this evening, that's unusual, the reason why we chose to sit outside and eat, cooking over charcoal, indicates something about my character.

I don't understand your reference to "torturing young men" what are you getting at there?

<comment><USER6> Have you considered that one of the reasons why gay men do not particulary care about 'age gap' or anything like that is because they are not going to have kids so do not have to take turns in nurturing one or more infants from birth until they're 18 or so ?

And as for whether or not it is normal between heterosexual people to have an age gap that large, I know personally of a couple that differed 30 years in age, the irony is that she was the younger one but died in her early 50's of a heart attack (and her widower is still alive today at 90+).

Normalcy is whatever people do, you can not compare heterosexuals and homosexuals as a group and expect to come up with the same answers with respect to things like this because they are two fundamentally different lifestyles.

This has effect on all those things you seem to want to compare them to in order to prove them to be abnormal, which seems to be your main point of interest here.

<comment><USER3> My main points of enquiry were: 1) was Turing openly homosexual back in the days of Bletchley Park - those homosexuals around now that new him say he was but this seems quite bizarre when you consider that his fiancee who he also worked closely with did not know, she may (as I suspect) have realised that he had those tendencies before he said, but that's not being openly homosexual. I think he was probably bisexual but more probably fixated on a specific person. Which brings us to 2) was his relationship as a 40 yo with a 19 yo typical of his relationships and is that an indicator of my hypothesis that he was fixated.

To a lesser extent I'd also be curious to know if (3) had he been having an affair with a girl 20 years his junior in that time period (1950s) then how would society have treated him?

Age difference can and has been compared across all types of sexual relationship - your comment is like saying fitness can't be compared between vegetarians and omnivores as their fitness is bound to be different, I disagree. Youths are more impressionable and easier to "corrupt" than older people with more self-knowledge and experience.

A large proportion of heterosexual relationships don't result in children and homosexuals are now able to adopt so nurturing ability is not a clear difference that would allow age-gaps in one sector of society and not in another.

One of the points of social pressure to long term relationships, particularly in the 1950s and before, would be reducing the spread of disease. Syphilis killed something like 1 in 6 children in the early 1900s. Thus, sexual relationships outside of marriage were strongly discouraged in the middle classes, it was not primarily a question of children - my point is that I don't think Turing would have faired much better if he were a heterosexual ephebophile.

Normalcy here is only relevant as an indicator, most of us are abnormal in some way, if I wished to prove Turing abnormal then I'd answer the question "how many were awarded an OBE in the war for doing maths?".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congratulations to jgrahamc on making this happen. This apology was long overdue and would not have happened without your effort.

<comment><USER8> Thanks. It's quite a surprise to actually have this happen.

And it was more of a surprise when my mobile phone rang and a Scottish man said "Hello John. It's Gordon Brown."

<comment><USER9> That's awesome. In the USA, you get "Please hold for the President of the United States".

<comment><USER8> Actually it went like this: the phone rang and a woman called Kirsty who I'd had previously spoken to said "Gordon would like to talk to you" and then Gordon was on the line...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "In 1952, he was convicted of 'gross indecency' - in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence - and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later."

Yes, and he killed himself by eating a cyanide-laced apple. This poetic method of suicide allowed him, as one final gesture, to give his mother the comfort of thinking her son's death was accidental. His mother maintained that her little Alan was always tinkering in the lab, and it was most likely an accident that his apple became contaminated with the cyanide that killed him.

<comment><USER11> It's also possible that he was assassinated. We'll probably never know for sure.

<comment><USER6> "Alan Turing, the man who knew too much", by David Leavitt.

The speculation goes that if Turing was a homosexual he was a security risk. I'm not sure what to make of that though, after all he was no longer allowed to work with the machines which were advancing very rapidly indeed.

Similar rumours keep cropping up about David Kelly.

The problem is that with such a lack of transparency even if these are nonsense there is no way to debunk them, that alone gives them a semblance of credence. As you said, we'll never know.

<comment><USER3> If Turing had been heterosexual and had gone out to the cinema to pick someone up and then invited them back to his house for sex .. that too would have been seen as risky behaviour likely to lead to being snared in a honey trap, no?

Presumably the situation of his arrest wasn't the first time he had acted in this way.

<comment><USER6> The circumstances are quite different.

From what I know about the case, and I've only read a book or two on it and quite long ago, the friend that Turing took home later broke in to his house or something to that effect. Turing reported to the police and in the process of the investigation the whole thing spilled out.

So, even if it wasn't the first time he acted that way it doesn't really matter because there is 0 proof that Turing was 'blackmailable' because of his sexuality.

<comment><USER3> The whole situation appears to have been an attempted blackmail, Turing meets a teenager at the cinema in the week and invites him back to his for sex, they meet that weekend (with another person IIRC) and have sexual relations and the youth takes some of Turings possessions (money can be a possession, Secret government docs can be too(!), something was taken) presumably under the belief that Turing wouldn't report it due to their relationship - approximating blackmail at least. Turing reports the larceny (theft of sorts) to the Police, they ask him what the youth was doing there and Turing told them. Resulting in Turing and the youth both being arrested.

I'd warrant there is no record anywhere to show this wasn't an attempt at blackmail as part of espionage activities - but you're right he turned out not to be blackmail-able in this instance as he went to the police. But one does not know whether he was in a trap and realised it or not in a trap at all.

The MI6 file on this would make an interesting read I'm sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's the most heartfelt thing I've read from Gordon Brown (or his aides) .. fantastic. I'm very pleased that the apology was made.

<comment><USER13> Actually, it could have been a little less "I'm proud to say" and "I'm pleased to have the chance"...

When you(r country) messed up and it's your duty to apologize, don't be proud and pleased. Simply be sorry.

<comment><USER14> Given that neither Gordon Brown nor any members of the current government are culpable in the brutal treatment of Alan Turing a lifetime ago, they are not capable of making a sincere apology for that treatment. The only thing they are capable of is in making a self-congratulatory statement that amounts to "Look how much better we are today than our forefathers!". That is what this is, and that is all they can give us. Anything else would be dishonest.

<comment><USER6> They could formally pardon him as well.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure there is any history of the UK government issuing posthumous pardons.

<comment><USER6> There are actually plenty, such as a lot of people that were executed during World War I for 'cowardice', there are others dealing with people wrongly accused of crimes.

<comment><USER15> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#United_Kingdom>

      Today the monarch may only grant a pardon on the advice
      of the Justice Secretary (previously the Home Secretary)
      or the First Minister of Scotland (or the Defence
      Secretary in military justice cases), and the policy of
      the Ministry of Justice and Scottish Executive is only to
      grant pardons to those who are "morally" innocent of the
      offence (as opposed to those who may have been wrongly
      convicted by misapplication of the law)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 Reading the PM's statement, is anyone else from the US struck by the feeling that this kind of statement could never be made by the US govt in 2009?

<comment><USER16> "I will never apologize for the United States of America ? I don't care what the facts are."

\- <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush>

\- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655>

Draw your own conclusions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I didn't necessarily agree with the petition (that is, don't necessarily see the point of posthumous apologies) but you did a fantastic job, jgrahamc. Congratulations on making this happen.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for that. Recognition from people who don't actually agree with me is always very welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So much for a posthumous knighthood I guess...

That's a real pity, it would have been nice to see this go one step further up the ladder. But it is quite nice to see something this positive come from jgrahamc's efforts.

<comment><USER18> I agree. This statement is very good-- a sincere apology-- and I like that it includes the details of Turing's conviction and sentence.

I want to see a knighthood though. By any standard, Turing deserves one.

<comment><USER6> And a full pardon as well, note that the statement by Brown is just an apology, _not_ a pardon, so Turing remains a convicted criminal as far as the law is concerned.

<comment><USER19> Agreed, he will likely have to be pardoned before he would ever be Knighted. (I'm unsure, does the Queen only pardon soldiers' crimes?)

<comment><USER6> interesting reading on that subject here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#United_Kingdom>

<comment><USER19> Thanks, I tried searching for something on it, but I believe I was idiot- googling as I was in a rush.

Really the government needs to establish a procedure for posthumous pardons, essentially a 'posthumously pardoned under present laws'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A good 10 min. documentary excerpt on 'The Death of Alan Turing' <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7_WzNzHwJY>

"I am rather afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future

Turing believes that machines think Turing lies with men Therefore machines do not think"

</comment><comment><USER21> I didn't know much about his life until I read "A madman dreams of Turing machines," which is a great book about Turing and Godel. Tortured souls, both of them.

</comment><comment><USER22> Congratulations to all those who were behind this petition. As an Irish man (educated in the UK) I now have slightly more respect for Gordon Brown.

</comment><comment><USER23> A spine-tingling read.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's about time.

</comment><comment><USER25> [http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/MISC/ORACLE/Oracle....](http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/MISC/ORACLE/Oracle.html)

<comment><USER6> Thank you very much. Too long for me to read it now but I've read the first chapter and it is quite a find.

</comment></comment><comment> s-phi-nl How is this any more appropriate for Hacker News than President Obama's speech to schoolchildren (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=810399>)? It seems to me that both are a national leader saying basically common things.

<comment><USER26> The Obama/school thing lacks either of the two major themes of this site (in my eyes anyway): computing and entrepreneurship.

The Turing story has Alan Turing, one of the forefathers of modern computing, and probably an idol, of sorts, to many of the readers here.

So on those grounds, yeah, I could see how the latter is much more appropriate for this site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Whenever a politician apologizes to his voters for the actions of individuals long dead towards other individuals long dead, I somehow fail to be impressed.

I suppose it is sort of interesting in a National Geographic, watch the natives with their bizarre religious customs, type of way.

<comment><USER26> Agreed. I always have the same reaction.

Now if the perpetrators apologized I would be more impressed. But even if those folks did, it still wouldn't bring him back. If the laws in Britain today are already such that they couldn't do that sort of thing again legally, then, this is even more of an irrelevant event. Just one particular unfortunate situation that happened to one particular person a long time ago.

Of course, I hear there was this one guy who got literally nailed to a cross for just talking to people, 2000 years ago, and people are _still_ talking about that today. That really blows me away.</comment></comment>


In 2136, Asteroid to Pass Closer to Earth Than the Moon - <AUTHOR> http://www.theworldin.com/article/14583/edition2018crash-course <comment><USER2> "the OSIRIS-REX spacecraft, launched two years earlier, will home in on the asteroid 160,000km (100,000 miles) out in space. Flying alongside it at over 63,000 miles per hour, the spacecraft will precisely map Bennu's shape and trajectory and, later, swoop down and snatch a sample from its surface which it will carry back to Earth"

I hope they properly account for gravity-tractor effects and don't deflect the orbit _closer_ to an Earth-colliding trajectory.</comment>