Petition to stop extradition of UK hacker - <AUTHOR> http://www.change.org/petitions/ukhomeoffice-stop-the-extradition-of-richard-o-dwyer-to-the-usa-saverichard <comment><USER2> If I host content in the United States that is illegal in Iran does that mean I can be extradited to Iran to face charges?

I hope this kid fights this tooth and nail with good lawyers. He needs good representation as this case has potential to set very important precedents surrounding basic issues of sovereignty and jurisdictional precedence.

Is the US government going to argue that physical location is irrelevant on the internet? Does a crime committed on the internet happen simultaneously in every country? I'm really curious how the US government will present their arguments in this case. And equally curious how much the UK is willing to lose its right of sovereignty.

<comment><USER3> That depends if the USA was foolish enough to sign such and agreement with Iran. Extraditions are basically quid pro quo contracts between nations. We signed a doozy.

The UK signed an extradition agreement a few years back, basically saying we (UK) will allow the US to extradite for crimes that are only crimes in the USA. And we get no reciprocity. Oh, and we need to prove your murders committed crimes to a much higher standard of proof than the other way round.

It is a controversial measure - to be honest more controverisal for the 'just what photos of the prime minster and cabinet did the CIA really have?' as opposed to any shock that the UK government failed once again to stand up for itself.

No, not bitter.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_Act_2003>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is literally unbelievable. I was shocked when the US attacked Kim Dotcom, but you know... he is a big fish and anyway i hope he will be able to fight back. But this is gone too much further. They are trying to rule the world in this way. This people gained too much power. I am really frightened for our future.

<comment><USER5> > This people gained too much power. I am really frightened for our future.

Agreed entirely. Unfortunately, as history likes to remind us, the only way to resolve these issues is legitimate bloody and violent rebellion. Unfortunately there are too many morons staggering in the dark and too many weapons in the hands of the powerful for this to work any more.

However as the balance of power changes, people have nothing to loose at which point TSHTF.

I'm not promoting this btw - I'd rather it was resolve civilly.

<comment><USER6> Yes! / to crush the tyranny / let's find ourself a new Robespierre / a Lenin / a Mao / I mean / what could possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER5> I'm not suggesting that. The balance of power should remain in the hands of the citizens, not the government.

Have people forgotten that government is centralized servitude, not centralised control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm signing the petition because I don't believe he should be extradited, however it's quite clear that he broke the law and was profiting from his crimes. I hope this petition is only against extradition and he will still be charged here in the UK.

<comment><USER8> Which law exactly was he breaking? And how did you determine that it is quite clear?

<comment><USER7> From a news story:

> The case was brought by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, > which claims that the TVShack.net website earned more than $230,000 > (£147,000) in advertising revenue before US authorities obtained a warrant > and seized the domain name in June 2010.

I have been unable to find any evidence that he has denied this claim, so I am assuming that what the ICE claimed is accurate. TVShack.net (and TVShack.cc) were very high traffic websites (top 1000 at their highest according to Alexa) and based on my own knowledge of advertising revenues at such volumes of traffic the suggestion that he earned >$200,000 is one that I don't have a hard time believing.

Specific to whether or not he committed a crime, a UK Judge has said he did:

> during O'Dwyer's extradition hearing, it was held by the Judge that the > offences alleged were also illegal under UK law.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_ODwyer#US_and_UK_copyri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_ODwyer#US_and_UK_copyright_offences)

<comment><USER9> Earning money via advertising is not a crime. Google does this.

Annoyingly, O'Dwyer's wikipedia article is scant for information on UK charges & the reasons for extradition - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_ODwyer>. If anything, it is quite unclear which UK laws he has broken.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, that's true, but Google also complies with DMCA.

<comment><USER11> DMCA is a piece of US law. Why is DMCA relevant to a kid setting up a website in the UK?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just one fact/opinion to add that is always missed out on the petitions etc:

"The case was brought by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which claims that the TVShack.net website earned more than $230,000 (£147,000) in advertising revenue before US authorities obtained a warrant and seized the domain name in June 2010."

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south- yorkshire-1826680...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south- yorkshire-18266805)

The guy was earning heaps of money.

<comment><USER9> So does Google. Your point?

<comment><USER13> Google has a registered DMCA agent, includes a DMCA dashboard ( <https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-dashboard?hl=en> ) and replies to take-down requests.

I imagine good faith applies in Google's case and they are protected by <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_harbor_%28law%29> .

<comment> cf0ed2aa-bdf5 And all that is (or should be) completely irrelevant since we are talking about a British guy hosting a website that not primarily targeted US audience.

I am not a lawyer but I am fairly sure O'Dwyer does not have to abide the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Google, as an American Website, however has to.

<comment><USER13> According to the Extradition Act 2003 of the UK Parliament [ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_Act_2003> , [http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/jul/UK_USA_extradition.p...](http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/jul/UK_USA_extradition.pdf) ], article 2.1, "An offense shall be an extraditable offense if the conduct on which the offense is based is punishable under the laws in both States by deprivation of liberty for a period of one year or more or by a more severe penalty.".

I suspect the UK law that was broken was <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Economy_Act_2010> and that is being used by US to request the extradition.

Once on US territory, US law would apply.

At that level of income, a significant part of his audience could be proven to be from US. It would also matter if he used US servers, US registrars (.net is controlled by Verisign which is an American corporation) and so on, but I doubt prosecutors would have much issues in proving US jurisdiction once he's in USA.

<comment><USER14> What you say makes sense, _assuming that_ jurisdiction is clearly with the country that is requesting extradition.

What I fail to understand is why the US has jurisdiction here. What brings this crime to the US? If it is just that the US is on the Internet too, then the logical extension would be to pass this guy around every country in the world, which is clearly ridiculous.

He should be answerable to the law. But the UK seems like the appropriate jurisdiction here, not the US. If the problem is that UK law doesn't cover this case, then that is what should be questioned, rather than pretending that the US has jurisdiction in order to work around the rule of law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interview with Richard O'Dwyer here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4155627>

Jimmy Wales supports the case: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4155689>

</comment><comment><USER16> So why does this petition need my street address, postal code and country?

<comment><USER17> Perhaps so that if there's a dispute about whether the signatures are genuine, a random sample can be verified to prove it.

Have you ever wondered whether you would have had the courage to join the protesters for freedom, had you lived in 1940s India, 1980s Russia or 1990s South Africa? I like to think I would, but who can say for sure; it must've taken courage far beyond anything being asked of us here and now. But we can at least do what is asked of us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why is a USA person (Mr Wales) petitioning a UK goverment about a action that is instigated and being carried out by a USA goverment.

THIS makes no sence. It is like complaining to my local GP about starving children in africa!

If you think it is wrong about him being extradited then take it up with those extraditing him and those who have brought these actions into being. Shout all you like to the UK goverment but all they can do is point at the USA and go talk to the hand, sadly.

So personaly I see this is a futil petition that is because it is targeted at the wrong people.

<comment><USER19> Perhaps it is because the UK is ultimately responsible for deciding whether or not to extradite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Off topic but how is it more beneficial to add your name to the change.org petition vs the e-petition service offered by the White House (<https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions>) / Her Majesty's Government (<http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/>)? From what I understand the "official" ones at least guarantee your petition to be discussed by those in power once a certain threshold is crossed.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is sad. He may be guilty or may not be because of his act. But him being extradited to US is definitely not making sense.

</comment><comment><USER18> This approach has been tried in the past and been ignored sadly.

How about the approach of:

Whoever runs the DNS aided and abeted the alledged crime. Google is just as guilty by this precedence being set.

Sure there are many other overlooked angles, but given the facts i'd say the media industry needs a dressing down and told they are not the law.

<comment><USER22> > Google is just as guilty by this precedence being set.

I beg to differ. Google might be guilty of this, since google has business in the US. However, as far as I understand, this wasn't illegal in the UK, and as a UK citizen, running a server in the UK, you have to be able to feel safe from prosecution, as long as you follow the laws in your country.

So, I'd say, if anything, google might be guilty, this guy isn't... well, unless you claim that he is guilty according to US laws, but that's just plain silly.

What if I had to be extradited to a different country, where being an atheist is considered a crime?

<comment><USER18> beg all you like but I see no difference between Google offer a search engine that points to content, same as this chap did with torrent links. That is the comparision.

<comment><USER23> There is a difference, even if you are unable see it. Consider this:

Is linking to copyrighted material Google's sole purpose?

Was linking to copyrighted material the sole purpose of TVShack?

The intent of the person behind the site is clearly important here. Intent is definitely taken in to consideration in cases such as this.

Just for the record, I don't think he should be extradited to the US over this. But I do think his intention was to make money from adverts that were posted next to copyrighted material. Is that a crime in the UK? I don't know, but it is a question that should be answered by the UK courts.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"60 Minutes" admits it manipulated the sound in its Tesla segment - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2014/04/01/60_minutes_admits_it_manipulated_the_sound_in_its_tesla_segment/

<comment><USER2> The strangest outcome of all of this is that Bill O'Reilly's actually made some sense for the first time in history.

[http://youtu.be/Pt0ot1LgXZQ?t=1m3s](http://youtu.be/Pt0ot1LgXZQ?t=1m3s)

<comment><USER3> April Fool's day !

<comment><USER2> This is why I don't like April F. Everything has to be rechecked/researched x times. The 60 minutes article is definitely not AF and I doubt my link is also.</comment></comment></comment>


Targeted MitM attacks using information leakage in SSH clients [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.fzi.de/fileadmin/user_upload/2020-06-26-FSA-2020-2.pdf <comment><USER2> According to the report, this also applies to OpenSSH client

<comment><USER3> Yes. The versions are OpenSSH 5.7 - 8.3, PuTTY 0.68 - 0.73.

We've changed the URL from [https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-14002](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-14002) to what seems to be the original source, via [https://www.fzi.de/en/news/news/detail- en/artikel/fsa-2020-2...](https://www.fzi.de/en/news/news/detail- en/artikel/fsa-2020-2-ausnutzung-eines-informationslecks-fuer-gezielte-mitm- angriffe-auf-ssh-clients/), which the former article links to.

The comments in this thread are all about PuTTY, which no doubt is because that's all the other article mentioned.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/](https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/) 2020-06-27 PuTTY 0.74 released

</comment><comment><USER4> An alternative to putty on windows is to get the entire Git SCM package[1]. You get not just git, ssh and sftp but many other useful command line tools too.

[1]: [https://git-scm.com/](https://git-scm.com/)

<comment><USER5> Note also that ssh and scp (from OpenSSH) are included in Windows by default since 2018.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised people are still using PuTTY this much. It used to be one of the first programs I'd install on any new Windows machine and has served me well for many years. But since I started using WSL I haven't needed it once.

<comment><USER7> You don't need WSL. Windows10 supports OpenSSH

<comment><USER8> I also use the win10 openssh. Sometimes it is not so great at terminal emulation in a way that a Unix environment will expect. For example I get frequent weird behaviors running vi. Maybe could be fixed with TERM or termcap but putty "just works".

Also I haven't seemed to be able to get ssh-agent working there. Maybe just need to look into it more.

<comment><USER9> On the agent thing: I don't know about the OpenSSH agent, but I have KeeAgent set up and it works without a hitch in MSYS (and thus Git Bash) as well as with the SSH port of Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The EU has a $90k bounty for bugs in putty,did anyone collect on this?

</comment><comment><USER10> It's a good idea to explicitly set the "Ciphers", "HostKeyAlgorithms", "KexAlgorithms", and "MACs" options to your preferred values (in your ssh_config and sshd_config files) anyways... but, as a bonus, the issue doesn't affect you if you have (according to the document).

<comment><USER11> If you set these options yourself rather than depending on your upstream distro defaults, be prepared to experience surprising and unexpected incompatibilities with SSH; by making your own choices, you are accepting additional responsibilities for debugging compatibility issues that will arise. When you encounter issues with anything SSH-related, be sure you've checked your SSH client/server in verbose mode to verify that it is not a PEBCAK issue _before_ seeking technical support from others, and be sure to _include_ your custom values for those options when reporting SSH issues to others so that everyone doesn't waste time trying (uselessly) to repro your issue without them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you don't know the host key you are always vulnerable to a man in the middle attack. Is this really a vulnerability in Putty or a design weakness in SSH?

<comment><USER13> It's an intentional design decision. Unlike https, ssh doesn't typically use x509 certificates for authentication, so there's no real way to know whether you're MITM if you're making a connection for the first time.

<comment><USER14> Modern SSH of course does support certificates --- SSH certificates aren't X.509 --- which solve this problem, the key management problem, and the long- term SSH key hazmat problem. Probably, SSH certificates are what we should have been using all along.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article is so low on details. I wish there was a more in-depth explanation. Isn't the first connection (with unknown host key) always a target for MitM attacks and thus insecure, unless you preload the host key?

<comment><USER16> Yes,

That is exactly the reported issue here. PuTTY 0.68 through 0.73 allows the remote attacker to accurately determine whether or not the client has cached the host key. It looks like this works because PuTTY sends a different algorithm list depending on whether or not the key has been cached.

If the MiTM attacker sees the 'default algorithm list' it can be assumed that this is the first connection attempt and the attacker can substitute the server key with a compromised key.

<comment><USER17> Ah, that's cool. I pushed AWS to give better ways of getting the host key for new EC2 instances a few years back. The whole start an EC2 instance, SSH in and blinkly trust the host key on first use thing seemed terrible!

EC2 docs now include that detail, although its labeled as optional.

[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/connecti...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/connection- prereqs.html#connection-prereqs-fingerprint)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone else get sketched out about downloading putty from the official URL? I know its been around for awhile, but still seems like a suspect URL for such a popular program.

<comment><USER19> Everyone recognizes that URL. It would be more suspect to download PuTTY from anywhere else.

<comment><USER20> As an infrequent user of PuTTY, I don't recognize that URL. So I guess I'm not part of the "everyone" you're talking about.

On the other hand, I think it's absolutely ridiculous to base one's security around URL recognition, considering all the possible attacks against domain names and URLs.

Cryptographic signatures in a web of trust would be a big step forward here, but unfortunately relatively few people participate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's a lot said about the benefits of competing implementations: browsers, web frameworks, what-have-you.

There are certain categories of security-critical software where I feel like it's only increasing surface area for bugs. The idea that PuTTY has bugs that aren't originating from the openssh project is really bothersome to me. All that work to reimplement, for what?

<comment><USER22> > _The idea that PuTTY has bugs that aren 't originating from the openssh > project is really bothersome to me. All that work to reimplement, for what?_

Agreed. OpenSSH wasted a lot of needless effort reimplementing PuTTY. Except now that you know the timeline is reversed I expect your opinion on reimplementation to suddenly 180 as well.

> PuTTY Initial Release: January 8, 1999

> OpenSSH Initial Release: 1 December 1999

Via Wikipedia

<comment><USER23> Note, OpenSSH wasn't brand new code on its first release. It was forked from the original SSH software from a version before it went commercial. I can't remember the whole history of that earlier open source project, but I can remember that I installed it on a university workstation in mid 1996.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Tux.io – a (now working) Linux desktop in your browser - <AUTHOR> https://tux.io <comment><USER2> For a different (and incomplete) take on a Linux Desktop in the browser permit me to plug my own project that I work on in my spare time.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7namj7iy16Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7namj7iy16Y)

[https://github.com/Lerc/notanos](https://github.com/Lerc/notanos)

This takes the approach of Still having Linux, but instead of transferring an X display to the browser, the browser supplants X. Consequently X apps don't run, but HTML/JS apps are really easy to make.

Connections are still made in a manner similar to X. A socket is available on the Unix side which apps can connect to, which tunnels through an open websocket connection.

<comment><USER3> So basically, ChromeOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the terminal, Tux still ignores keystrokes that have meaning in Firefox such as \\#h (switch tab left) and \\#l (switch tab right). See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14077797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14077797)

<comment><USER5> Are you using Pentadactyl, or something? Those are not stock Firefox shortcuts. In any case, I'd investigate whatever addon provides them, to see how they're implemented and why they're conflicting with whatever Tux.io is doing to capture keystrokes.

<comment><USER4> Looks like it is Firemacs and I've been using it so long that I never realized those shortcuts were tied to it. Thanks.

<comment><USER5> That looks nifty, but I'm hesitant at this point to try any addon that's not e10s-compatible, since support will be going away soon and I'm not interested in losing e10s in any case.

Does someone here know of something similar that works with the new API?

<comment><USER4> The Firemacs repository looks fairly readable. I wonder what it would it takes to make a project like this work with e10s.

[https://github.com/kazu-yamamoto/Firemacs](https://github.com/kazu- yamamoto/Firemacs)

<comment><USER5> Based on the API documentation, I think it could be done by combining a content script to capture keystrokes and a background script to call browser APIs that a content script can't access.

There'd be a number of edge cases to deal with, of course, and I'm sure Firemacs already handles at least some of them. I'll take a closer look, as soon as I can get Firefox to tell me what's "invalid" about the PoC extension I'm hacking on, and load it so I can try it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice thing. Can I also stream the audio?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks and sorry, not yet. Email email@example.com if you want this to be considered for the road-map.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is very cool. Whats is the technology behind this ?

It feels like guacamole remote desktop [https://guacamole.incubator.apache.org/](https://guacamole.incubator.apache.org/)

What is the tux password (sudo) ?

<comment><USER8> It runs noVNC, an HTML5 vnc client [https://kanaka.github.io/noVNC/](https://kanaka.github.io/noVNC/)

It's really running VNC protocol over websockets, where guacamole has a custom protocol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How come? This is not running in Javascript, is it?

<comment><USER10> It seems to be a browser based VNC client connecting to a remote VM running linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is is possible to run this on my own hosts?

</comment><comment><USER12> you should compile linux to Wasm and make the HTML side of things just render the framebuffer.</comment>


One time only: Java-Javascript smackdown - <AUTHOR> http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/one_time_only_javascript_java.php

<comment><USER2> _Java is still far too complex, and Java developers far too expensive, for client-side web development._

Stark idiocy. Java (read: Applets) failed client-side because the JVM locks up the computer during its 30-second load times, and because Sun micro understands graphics and presentation like dogs understand high tea.

<comment><USER3> _"... Applets failed client-side because the JVM locks up the computer during its 30-second load times ..."_

Back when applets where the rage, this type of lockup was often worse than 30s, with multiple applets and multiple data (images, sound) requests over HTTP on dial-up lines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sorry, can someone explain the point of his argument? It seems misdirected.

</comment><comment><USER5> The unnamed second correspondent isn't really responsive to Broomfield's view.

Broomfield was talking about an idealized Java that never was -- but perhaps "coulda shoulda woulda" existed, if Sun had the right clues. Correspondent #2 criticizes Java as it was (and mostly still is)... which doesn't necessarily clash with Broomfield's estimation that Sun/Java didn't nail the client issues as it should have.</comment>


Live graphic view of all flights - <AUTHOR> https://opensky-network.org/ <comment><USER2> "This page can't load Google Maps correctly."</comment>


Former Apple engineer says US govt turned an iPod into secret geiger counter - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/18/former-apple-engineer-says-us-govt-turned-an-ipod-into-secret-geiger-counter/ <comment><USER2> The Apple engineer helped the US government allow data to be secretly recorded to an iPod hard drive from unrevealed additional hardware that the government added to the interior of the iPod. That the additional hardware was a Geiger counter appears to be pure speculation by the engineer.

</comment><comment><USER3> And this was how Bechtel managed to root out the notorious break room farter, with the Fart Detector 9000.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is here some kind of statute of limitations on revealing this?

<comment><USER5> Don't think the guy is under any obligation to keep quiet as he's not the one who has a security clearance? And it doesn't sound like there is any secret information here anyway, the guy is just guessing that it was a geiger counter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "says" => "speculates".

And of course the HTML title and the title that would appear on social media shares of that article is "Secret geiger counter hidden inside iPod by US government".

Long live journalism!

</comment><comment><USER7> Heh Heh Heh.

The modern equivalent would be "I used to work at Foxconn. My boss's boss came up to me and said 'I have a special assignment for you. Your boss doesn't know about it. You'll help two engineers from [somewhere gov related] build a special iDevice. Report only to me'".</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best "per language" Web sites? - <AUTHOR>

If you want to learn "language X", you'll quickly find plenty of "learn X" sites out there. I'd love to compile a list of the best Web sites, podcasts, blogs, etc. for learning various languages. What do you recommend? <comment><USER2> Ruby, Python

Realtime -> Node.JS

<comment><AUTHOR> And the best Web sites to go with them?</comment></comment>


How My Joke on Twitter Became a Federal Case - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-my-joke-on-twitter-became-a-federal-case-11588113551 <comment><USER2> WSJ is like the textbook example of a newspaper where I'd love to pay per article I read. There's no reason I want to subscribe, I probably read like one article from there every 2-3 months, which is certainly not worth an annual subscription.

From what I understand, I can see how the operations for this kind of business model aren't ideal and so difficult to imagine scaling. But even PG has been pretty vocal about how limiting media subcription based models are...

Sorry, end of rant.</comment>


Visual tour of classical electromagnetism - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/8.02t/www/802TEAL3D/visualizations/guidedtour/Tour.htm <comment><USER2> Am I the only one getting a "Certificate Error" from the link ? The link seems to be broken .

<comment><USER3> It works for me. The site also doesn't load with any certs or over SSL. Maybe you are being MITM'd by your ISP or employer?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool!

Nearly all my comments so far are about books but Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics provided a turning point in my understanding of E&M.... and took over a year (of pain) to get through.

On the other end of the 'spectrum', Griffiths Intro to Electrodynamics is extremely readable and just as good.

</comment><comment><USER5> One early misconception I had about EM was that there were discrete 'lines' of force. I guess this either arose from iron filings experiments or from the way the diagrams of fields are (perhaps unavoidably) drawn. But now I know the fields are continuous.

<comment><USER6> I'm still confused by the notion of line/field/flux density. That said, I found a few books to read about that.

<comment><USER7> This may be a good explanation: [https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/fys/FYS4160/v08/unde...](https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/fys/FYS4160/v08/undervisningsmateriale/Kursmateriell/forms_teaching_warnick.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These are great! I loved 8.02 (actually I took 8.022).

Has MIT changed that they now refer to courses by name AND number? Saying "Physics 8.02" is like saying "ATM Machine"

<comment><USER9> > "ATM Machine"

I maintain that this is fine, interpreted as "the machine with which we associate the name _ATM_".</comment></comment>


Polychart.js: An Interactive Charting Library - <AUTHOR> http://www.polychartjs.com <comment><USER2> I currently develop a powerful JavaScript diagramming library (very different capabilities than charting), and charge more than this, though its done per domain and not per developer, with exceptions for OEM customers who need to deploy it everywhere. I'd recommend you go that route instead, most of our customers seem very happy with the model.

The charting space by contrast seems significantly bloated to me. This library may well be awesome, but I'd recommend you explain within my first minute or two on the page why this is better than the host of free options out there.

<comment><USER3> The fact that you can pay for it is a competitive advantage for megacorps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> $300 for a single developer, and the EULA says I can't transfer this license to another person?

<comment><USER5> We'll be reviewing the licensing option per feedback from HN. Please send a note to firstname.lastname@example.com, would love to hear more about what you think would be reasonable :)

<comment><USER6> In a world of so many wonderful free open source graphing libraries, it's hard to see any reasonable licensing option for this. It might help if there was a page that listed features that a developer could not accomplish for $300 in flot, highcharts, or ndv3, or other popular options.

<comment><USER7> Highcharts isn't free either, at least for commercial use.

<comment><USER8> It's cheaper.

<comment><USER9> Highcharts is cheaper if you use it for a single webpage (90$) but if you want to use if for a real web app it's more expensive (590$ for a single developer). Having said that, in my enterprise my dev colleagues use it and they think it's a great product.

EDIT: if you host it for a personal/non-profit project it is free according to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License

another product we've used in the past is Amcharts, good buy maybe not good as Highcharts

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, these interactive charts are great. Can't wait to pay for something like this unless there's already wonderfully interactive charting libraries out there like nvd3 (<http://nvd3.org/>), dc (<http://nickqizhu.github.io/dc.js/>) crossfilter (<http://square.github.io/crossfilter/>) or even anything from d3's website (<https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/Gallery>)

<comment><USER11> And microsoft totally stopped selling and developing windows server when there were two other awesome free server operating systems ...

<comment><USER12> Yes, but Microsoft had more than 90% of the market already, not 0% like in this case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the interaction layer (at least the way it's described). The per- developer pricing for this is really strange though. If I implement this in an app, it may start out as my app, and then other developers may collaborate later on, sometimes temporarily. How much would this cost? I have no idea, so I'd probably skip it entirely for any project.

<comment><USER14> Between this and the cost per developer, I don't think there's any way I could ever justify using it.

It looks really nice, though, definitely good job.

<comment><USER5> Thanks fourm for the feedback! Let us know what you think would be reasonable and email firstname.lastname@example.com for a discount for HN users. (And of course, always free for non-commercial use)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not a single mention of flotr2 in this thread? I'm not sure if I should be mortified or impressed.

It's free, and I don't see many features added that flotr2 doesn't have.

<http://humblesoftware.com/flotr2/documentation>

<comment><USER16> Agree - Flotr2 is awesome. To be fair this library seems to offer a little more in terms of interactive charts, which I don't think FLotr2 does much (I know you can kind of get 'selection' in pie charts, but I don't know of anything else).

<comment><USER15> you can get 'selection' in bars with the mouse options. I've hacked in better functionality before; it really is not difficult. Pretty much comes down to modding the redraw on mouseclick.

I still cant see how this would justify a $300 price tag, but perhaps its the FOSS philosophy taking over.

I dunno. I prefer to release anything I deem worthy of ridicule by the FOSS community under wtfpl. Power to the people!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This looks quite awesome! As a quick suggestion, the wiki (<https://github.com/polychart/polychart2/wiki>) recommends using github as the CDN which I thought was highly discouraged. However I can't find any official stance on this anymore..did it change?

<comment><USER18> Take a peek at the headers:

        $ curl -I https://raw.github.com/Polychart/polychart2/develop/polychart2.standalone.js

You will see

        Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
        X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff

This is a deadly combination: browsers may reject script tags with incorrect MIME types if nosniff is set.

<comment><USER17> Ah, that solves that :) I've seen recommendations of using Github Pages instead, but again I can't find any official Github stance on it. I'm guessing they reserve the right to cut you off if you start using large amounts of bandwidth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is pretty cool, but $300 is a lot to pay, even for commercial use. There are a lot of free client-side charting projects out there. Charts.js was a recent one on HN: <http://www.chartjs.org/>

While this new one does offer interaction between charts, that wouldn't be too hard to add into other existing free projects that have event systems to hook into.

I'd say $50 - $99 would make it more worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER20> How is it different/better than highcharts?

<comment><USER21> They offer a convenient way to dispose of your extra income

<comment><USER22> Yes: how dare he attempt to monetize his efforts...

<comment><USER23> This is a case where singular they would have come in handy...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This uses Raphael. Which is awesome.

Alternatives to Raphael is d3.

Alternatives all together is NVD3. If you haven't seen this one, go check it out.

<comment><USER5> Agrees with you that Raphael is very awesome. A difference between Polychart.js and NVD3 is its flexibility: the way one can overlay charts, or even plot any change in polar coordinates. (We took a lot of ideas from R and ggplot2, something data scientists use).

We share your love with d3 also, which unfortunately will not ever work in IE. So until the rest of the world catches up... ;)

<comment><USER25> Why wouldn't it work in IE?

<comment><USER26> d3 produces SVG graphics, which aren't supposed by versions earlier than IE 9.

There are ways to turn d3's SVG output into a canvas element. Those earlier version of IE also support VML, but I don't recall any quick ways of doing from d3 output to VML off the top of my head.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please see [http://blog.polychart.com/2013/04/licensing-model-of- polycha...](http://blog.polychart.com/2013/04/licensing-model-of- polychartjs.html)

Polychart.js can now be licensed under a per-domain or per-company license. We continue to offer discounts to startups (as we're one ourself!)

</comment><comment><USER27> How do you enforce how many developers are using the library? Do they each have a unique key that you cross reference with their IP?

Otherwise, why wouldn't people simply buy 1 license and have as many developers as needed work on the codebase?

</comment><comment><USER28> This is awesome I particularly like the updating line graph, <http://www.polychartjs.com/demo?dow_jones_animated> great work!

</comment><comment><USER29> False. You do not support basic guides like highcharts, you are not the most intuitive and interactive for the browser... yet.

It seems like this feature is the most overlooked, and it is one of their strongest selling points. As you mouse along the chart regardless of your y axis it has guides that will show the datapoint tooltip information closest to your x axis if you have a line selected or have mouseover'd a line.

Your charting library is however well thought out, there are a few features that I would be interested in seeing from morris.js and rickshaw.

</comment><comment><USER30> Would like to see a demo with a larger data set size (say, zoomable scatter plot with thousands of points). And an option to edit the demo in jsfiddle.

</comment><comment><USER31> Quick note: you have a typo on the Licensing page, where it says "Commerical" instead of "Commercial". Given the large font, it really stood out!

</comment><comment><USER32> I bet big corp would pay the design firm designing their intranet big bucks to buy this.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment and the feedback on the pricing. Please email firstname.lastname@example.com for a discount or alternative model just for HN readers, or if you have other feedback!

</comment><comment><USER33> This looks interesting, but what are the advantages of this over Vega, which is free?

<https://github.com/trifacta/vega>

<comment><USER34> It's hard to evaluate when the projects are so new. It was a similar problem with Crossfilter/Datavore/Data.js/Miso Dataset when they all came out.

If I had to pick, I'd go with Vega because I think it has the most potential to develop a community around it. Especially as a bridge between Python/R and D3.js through JSON. Think iPython notebooks, R Shiny, etc.

<comment><USER35> Perhaps this is not the right place but can you expand on the Crossfilter/Datavore/Data.js/Miso Dataset comment?

<comment><USER34> They are all libraries for managing datasets with fast or convenient filtering. Useful for linking visualizations together through a common data model.

None have become as popular as d3.js though, so it's still hard to compare them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Am I the only one who assumed this was for constructing charts of who you're in a relationship with, who they're in a relationship with, etc.?

<comment><USER3> Apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> i would say not bad but the fact you are asking me to pay to use it when i can have something like d3 is a bit of a joke

<comment><USER37> why is everyone these days so afraid of investing time? d3 is well worth the time invested learning!

<comment><USER38> It's not about being afraid of investing time, but rather assigning more value to time than the licensing fees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Really good, but the per-developer pricing model doesn't make sense. Just stick to one price for commercial use.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the feedback. We'll be reviewing the pricing model per the comments from HN. Would love to hear more on what you think would make sense :) email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Great stuff from a great Waterloo team!

</comment><comment><USER41> How does this compare to HighCharts?

</comment><comment><USER6> Great, I'm definitely going to integrate it into a yet another PHP MVC framework I will start tomorrow. Oh wait, its commercial?

</comment><comment><USER42> love it, the demo is great1

</comment><comment><USER43> Sounds very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER44> Great work guys!</comment>


Slack Acquires Screenhero (YC W13) - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/28/slack-buys-screenhero-to-add-screen-sharing-and-voice-chat-to-its-work-messaging-platform/

<comment><USER2> This saddens and frustrates me as a user. I love screenhero and it does its job well. I've used it for all of my remote interactions over the past year or so and was a happy paying customer (through our company).

Unfortunately, due to other concerns about paying for Slack[1], we probably will not be able to continue to use it. We'll be a once-happy customer that falls victim to this acquisition. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth :(

[1] It is expensive especially at our scale, we already pay for a couple chatroom-type/irc-like services, and the big one: long-lasting offsite chat logs present a difficult hurdle in client negotiations, a headache we just do not need

<comment><USER3> I'm one of the co-founders of Screenhero. I'm really sorry that you won't be able to continue to use Screenhero. This isn't just PR/marketing-speak, as someone who has spent many years of his life working on this product (that I love), it really does pain me to know that someone who also loved what we'd built will no longer be able to use it.

However, in the grand scheme of things, I (and our team) feels that this is the best step forward for everyone involved (including Screenhero users). Slack is on its way towards becoming the de facto communication tool used by teams (both big and small), and an integrated Screenhero + Slack product just makes the most sense for the most people.

I would love to learn more about why your team can't use Slack, and what we can do to mitigate the issues you've outlined and others that you may not have outlined yet. Please feel free to add me to Screenhero (j at slack-corp.com) and let's have a deeper conversation about this, if you're open to it.

<comment><USER4> > I'm one of the co-founders of Screenhero. I'm really sorry that you won't be > able to continue to use Screenhero.

You know what you need to do, to keep these teams happy? You need to continue have a minimal tool that does the thing that people need -- screen sharing -- and does it well, instead of bludgeoning them with a massive general-purpose communications suite that they don't want, which is essentially what you were just cheering about in your recent email.

I'm sure you'll make more money this way, but you needn't expect the people you're abandoning to be happy.

<comment><USER5> Strongly disagree.

As a software developer, I've put off adding more features into my products for several years now. All because I feared introducing features will make my users think it's "bloated", "violating the Unix philosophy", etc.

But over the years, I've found that most users actually want more features. Most of them want more business value. And that there is value in having features integrated/builtin instead of external.

When I tell people "no, we don't do that, but you can use that other tool in combination with mine" most of them are like "what? I have to use TWO tools"? The "simple tool that does one thing" philosophy mostly appeals to a small number of hardcore nerds, but the rest of the world wants more features, more integration. They don't want theoretic purity.

The fact that I didn't add features and only focused on bug fixes actually hurted the reputation of my software in the grand scheme of things. So yeah, I'll be adding more features from now on.

<comment><USER6> Look to Adium for a counter-example

<comment><USER5> Counter example? I wish Adium would add more features. It's been stagnant for years and the only reason why I'm still using it is because there's nothing better.

For example, MSN file transfers have always been broken. They never managed to fix that before MSN's shutdown.

Google Talk file transfers are similarly broken.

No support for Skype.

No support for webcams.

All these issues have been open for years. They only introduce basic bug fixes but not much else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a Slacquisition ha ha.

Been using Slack a lot the past few months and really love it. Pairing it with Trello has given us a powerhouse of open communication and task management. I'm interested to see how it scales for our team as we grow, although the way Slack sets up channels I think it won't be a problem.

It will be interesting to see the screen sharing stuff too. Maybe it could replace Skype, which I cringe whenever I have to open (slow desktop app + tons of ads + incessantly begs me to update almost every time I open it).

</comment><comment><USER8> We're big users of both Slack + Screenhero at Thinkful for our students communicating with each other in real time (Slack) and pair programming with mentors (Screenhero). We were even spec'ing a feature to make Screenhero the only tool for mentor sessions. Congrats to the Screenhero team – you built a great product and deserve this, but it's sad we'll have to switch to another product. We can't wait months to have something available, and it's not clear the new features will do what we need :/

<comment><USER9> Yeah, congrats to both teams. I agree wholeheartedly with Dan's comment; I love each of your products separately and look forward to playing with the integration down the road, but I'm disappointed to lose the existing Screenhero now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My business partner and I have been using Slack as our primary messaging tool and been somewhat stuck with Skype as a secondary tool for voice and screen sharing. I am definitely interested in seeing where this goes, and it's definitely a feature we'd pay for.

<comment><USER11> You could have paid for Screenhero before. Maybe if more people did, they wouldn't have sold to Slack.

We used Screenhero when it was free. It is better than Skype. But, it's not really worth the price when Skype is free.

<comment><USER10> To be more clear, I'm actually hoping that it becomes a tightly integrated feature within Slack vs. using it as a separate service.

<comment><USER11> Me too. Seems like it is and that will be awesome =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I used Screenhero a lot when I worked remotely. It's a great tool. Shared screens from the East coastto West coast (US) with hardly ever experiencing problems. Great service.

<comment><USER3> (Screenhero co-founder here) I'm very glad to hear this! Your screen sharing (and voice and video communication) experience is going to get even better in the coming months. Stay tuned :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have to agree with the frustration of the apparent minority. We've been using HipChat corporate-wide, and the subset of users that have been using Screenhero aren't going to be able to change to Slack now (even if we wanted to).

And it seems that the wondering our remote development team has been doing about what happened to progress on Screenhero's video codec (pumping 800kb/s+ over my line when nothing is happening on screen is a bit excessive) is now answered with a resounding, "We've been trying to get acquired." Well, congrats on that.

Back to VNC and Skype with no cursor of my own, I guess. But at least it's free and has less chance of my ISP throttling my home connection due to saturating the pipes with Screenhero all day.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Cross platform: Screenhero supports both Windows and Mac.

It's like there isn't any other operating system...

We do both, country AND western!

</comment><comment><USER15> As a user of both Slack and Screenhero this makes me happy.

I've always felt they would make a cute couple. That said, integration seemed kind of sparse (limited to /username in Slack). We also struggled to have it work reliably in daily use.

Thus we mostly reverted back to the Skype/Slack combo. However this has proved to be suboptimal, partly because links and chatlogs shared in Skype are not archived in Slack for easy retrieval.

Hopefully this marriage will bring about a bunch of deeper and more polished integrations for users.

<comment><USER3> (Co-founder of Screenhero here) Thanks! We do think we look good together ;)

A great integration is _exactly_ what we want to make happen. Stay tuned for awesomeness in the coming months! We are super excited to make something that you will love.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Been a long time user of Slack and absolutely love it... I've seriously got a bromance with this company. It's adored throughout the company I work at, and one of our pains is that we do all our communication through Slack, even if we're next to each other, we still have headphones on and we talk in Slack. But we still have to go to Skype to do stand up meetings with our remote users... Would be so much better if we could do video over Slack.

<comment><USER3> Give us a few months...

<comment><USER16> I'm patiently waiting. Keep up the awesome work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Screenhero has been amazing for pairing remotely; something I do often. A co- worker was amazed when his custom keyboard layout worked seamlessly with my terminal session. Once people experience it I find it's not hard to convert them. It will be interesting to see how the Slack integration will improve the experience.

One thing I've always wanted though was integration between Screenhero and Sqwiggle. Any chance we'll see something like that, Slack?

</comment><comment><USER18> Our entire company uses Slack for most communication since everyone works 100% remotely. It has been fantastic. Finding a good tool for screen sharing has been difficult, though. I pair almost every day, so I need a tool that is stable and has a good quality-to-speed ratio.

For people with good connections, Screenhero works well; only downsides are that we get a lot of crashes in the beta app and sometimes the mouse sharing changes window focus or mouse position for the other user, but in general it is the best tool we've found. For those without good connections, we have to use GoTo since it sacrifices refresh rates for quality.

Overall, I'm excited to see how this works out. Right now it's a small subset of people in our company that use Screenhero, but I expect to see that number jump with this announcement.

</comment><comment><USER19> As a slack user, I think this is awesome. This is one thing that we do miss currently, a video calling facility.

I mean we can log into skype or google hangouts something else, but having it in slack would be totally cool!

I've never used Screenhero before, but going by the comments here, I wish I had!

</comment><comment><USER20> What does this mean for Sqwiggle? Are you guys the next Slack acquisition?

</comment><comment><USER21> I used screenhero for some remote work. It's great for pair programming and helping debug a problem remotely. Since our team used Slack, I really wished Slack would add similar functionality to their product. Glad to see that it's going to happen now, and will be built by the people who built the awesome screehero product. Congrats guys! hope to see more awesome work from you!

<comment><USER3> Thanks! We are looking forward to doing more awesome for you :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Blog post from Screenhero: [http://blog.screenhero.com/post/109337923751/screenhero- join...](http://blog.screenhero.com/post/109337923751/screenhero-joins-slack)

Thread on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8961845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8961845)

</comment><comment><USER23> We tested Slack some months ago, but rejected it due to lack of solution for VoIP and video conference.

I am not seeing this acquisition is changing this. In order to have a meeting with multiple participants, we will still need Skype/Hangouts/Lync/WebEx.

<comment><USER24> Our team has been using the Google Hangouts integration for months and it's worked flawlessly.

<comment><USER25> Hangouts has a maximum number of participants. For large phone conferences it's not usable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So if I am an unpaid slack user how do I screenshare with a user that is not a slack user?

If I am an unpaid member of several unpaid slack teams how do I continue to use screenhero?

Can I opt in to a paid single user and use screenhero across my multiple slack teams?

</comment><comment><USER27> is there anything else out there that I can pay for now that's like screenhero? This actually looks like something I need, but now I can't sign up.

</comment><comment><USER28> As a screenhero and Slack user I'm excited to be able to experience one experience across both products. They're both best in class in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER29> Screenhero reps, do you have a gameplan for being able to "invite" users for one time sessions? This is what I often need Screenhero for.

<comment><USER30> This would be amazing. I use Screenhero all the time for work, but every so often I need to help my mother with something on her computer and there is no free solution available that is better than Screenhero.

I'm just not going to pay for another subscription just to help my mother out with tech support once a quarter...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am extremely excited about this.

Pair Programming++</comment>


Dropbox for Business - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropboxatwork.com/2014/04/new-dropbox-business/ <comment><USER3> DropBox really shines when it comes to the capabilities of their client. I installed Box from few months ago at work, and used it to share a few screencasts that I was working on > 200MBs per file about 10 files. I got home and fired up the home machine...For the next five minutes the internet connection was jammed. Turns out you cannot do a selective sync of only certain folders. This would be a very basic use case in my opinion but is not supported by Box.

So, for all those whinging about the price...it is not really that bad.

<comment><USER4> I agree that the killer feature with Dropbox is that it "just works". I jumped on the 50GB Mac mobile app special from Box.net a few months ago and upon trying to use their Box Sync desktop client I found that it just doesn't work. Bogged the machine down, was never able to properly sync files. I've got 50GB at Box.net that I don't know what to do with and I definitely wasn't moved to the category of a prospective consumer client.

<comment><USER5> It really frustrates me that there are separate clients that do the same thing, but talk to a different domain. If these companies cared about their customers they would be putting together an open source spec for cloud syncing so that we could just pick our favorite clients and tie them to the individual accounts.

<comment><USER6> Not going to happen. Part of the reason is just what you mentioned: they care about their customers. With various clients they would have to support the problems coming from all of the clients and that would cause their service to look bad even though the problem lies within client app.

<comment><USER5> You are really fluent in newspeak aren't you.

That's a crazy weak argument. I'm sure glad JPEG's aren't limited to only work with apps created by JPEG Inc. Dropbox's new image app would be pretty worthless if every company was as insistent about keeping things proprietary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Unless they drop the price soon we're going to move away from them. It sounds silly to argue over $15/user/month, but in comparison to Google Drive it's just started feeling too expensive.

I really like the product, but I don't know if any product in a commoditized space can sustain such a price premium.

<comment><USER8> For Dropbox, it is their core business. For Google, it's a drop in their massive bucket of cash that comes from advertising. If business reliability matters to you, Dropbox seems comparatively better.

<comment><USER9> > If business reliability matters to you, Dropbox seems comparatively better.

If you're comparing Drive to the Reader fiasco, keep in mind that Drive for business is a paid offering.

<comment><USER10> But so is google apps no?

<comment><USER9> Yes, and google apps for business continues to exist...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Dropbox has a scaling problem.

Not from a technical point of view but from a usage point of view especially when we talk enterprise.

Dropbox is great for small teams or personal accounts. As long as there are very few owners of the files stored there.

The problems starts to arise when larger groups of people use it as a place to store files. At that point it basically looses it's value namely because its no longer possible to find what you need simply by going to dropbox.

Instead what you now have to do is to find a given person working on a given project and then ask them where they put their files.

Dropbox will have to solve this problem either by adding some sort of history trail or by providing a better contextual search algorithm (files that James Jameson worked on in 2013 on project X)

From what I have seen in that area they are currently solving the wrong problems (again from a usage point of view)

<comment><USER12> This is just a new version of the network share that many companies have had in place for years. The standard computer setup at a company might include for example a T: drive where all employees are told to store their files. Usually this was intended as a way to allow collaboration on documents, as well as IT not having to backup individual computers. The network share will usually have various levels of organization depending on who is working in any particular folders. Not saying it isn't a problem that could use solving, but it's not new to Dropbox.

<comment><USER11> Oh I agree completely. My point was exactly that they didn't solve this problem and that I think it's worth solving. Otherwise it doesn't "deserve" to be in the enterprise world IMHO.

Dropbox even have most of the necessary meta data and have the potential to solve it via their large app install base.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We used dropbox at my prior company, we are now using box. Not sure if it's just because I'm not used to box, or if I'm biased since I use dropbox for personal storage too, but I really wish we used dropbox instead of box. I find the UI + integration way better on dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER14> I understand that nobody likes a race towards the bottom with regard to pricing, but IMO Dropbox is playing their pricing a little over confidently right now given what competitors are offering.

In both the comments on HN and the original thread pricing keeps coming up.

And the response is that this is a great product and pricing is acceptable.

I don't think so.

Businesses switching costs are MUCH higher than consumer.

EG to switch a business service lots of co's have to incorporate multiple stakeholders, decision makers, etc.

Which is why VC's pour buckets of money into proven SAAS models around business services - because businesses stick almost no matter what!

So is DropBox's pricing scheme out of line with their potential to grown more quickly?

In my experience from the consumer perspective I am actively seeking alternatives to DropBox due to their current pricing.

I was an average 100GB user very happy with the product for years.

Then I had kids.

And BOOM I have a million pictures, videos, etc that are PRICELESS to me.

And now I'm on a $600/year plan for 500 GB / mo.

And Google drive is now offering 2x as much storage as that for $10/month.

So 20% of the cost for twice as much.

I gotta say it is very compelling and I can't believe that the GOOG product a few iterations out isn't a direct comparable.

Dropbox's pricing is making this very loyal consumer unhappy, and seems like especially WRT to handling business users they should be aggressively pricing to own the market.

<comment><USER15> > I was an average 100GB user very happy with the product for years. Then I > had kids. And BOOM I have a million pictures, videos, etc that are PRICELESS > to me.

That sounds more like you need a backup service than a sync-things- conveniently-to-all-your-computers service.

You wouldn't expect a convenience store chain to be competitive in the market Costco operates in; they're two different kinds of business, serving two different kinds of needs. Convenience stores can get away with charging a lot more for e.g. soda than Costco, because Costco won't sell you exactly one bottle of soda.

Just as well, you shouldn't expect Dropbox to be competitive in the consumer digital archival storage market. (Though they could certainly branch out there, it's currently just not the market they serve.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is pretty interesting. I was just looking for executive summaries and I just found this Box[1] example which beings with a pretty hard hitting opener.

      > Would you use your personal email account to message important customers?
      > Would you make lengthy personal phone calls from your work phone? If not, then
      > why would you use your personal Dropbox account to store critical business
      > information?

That being said, I've been using Dropbox since Drew dropped that hilariously amazing deadpan intro to the product and I been loving it every since. For a small team, I feel like the $795 price point might be a bit steep considering how many other alternatives offer you free collaborative space, but the integration of Dropbox is one of the best I've seen yet.

[1] - [http://www.rochester.edu/it/box/assets/pdf/migratedropbox](http://www.rochester.edu/it/box/assets/pdf/migratedropbox)

</comment><comment><USER17> The Box/Dropbox comparisons here ignore the collaboration layer and its value. Dropbox is hands down the best when you want a folder that syncs; it just doesn't save you much time in a business context when used that way. Cloud storage is just the first layer of value.

If you're thinking in terms of cost per gigabyte, you're missing the point for the audience this is aimed at. If you're thinking "how can this replace email threads" and solve business issues (like employees getting fired and files not being migrated), that's way better as a comparison.

Seems like that depth is 1-2 years out for Dropbox and ...well, not sure for Google Drive and their roadmap for business.

</comment><comment><USER18> _give users one Dropbox for personal stuff and another for work stuff. Users can easily access both Dropboxes from any of their devices._

Sounds awesome!

 _Minimum 5 users_

Well, phooey. This seems...arbitrary. Do they enforce this limit just to reduce support queries from low-profit customers?

<comment><USER15> > Do they enforce this limit just to reduce support queries from low-profit > customers?

Almost certainly. To quote patio11: "Pathological customers: they get things for free and then ask for their money back." The more money a business has, the more professional it can _afford_ to be (literally) in dealing with you. If you want 80% of the money with 20% of the effort, draw a line between the head of your profit distribution, and the long tail of pathological customers who think they're owed support because they pay $coffee per month, and then keep raising your rates until everyone in that long tail leaves.

Though there's also the fact that for ≤ 5 people, using your personal Dropboxes and having a Shared Folder for your business works just fine.

<comment><USER18> I totally understand the reasoning.

Re: personal + shared folder, that starts to get a little messy when you're sharing folders/joining shared folders with outside people. Doable, but messy. Another option is one account for the business, with e.g. 2 people logged into it. I do this, plus a hacky workaround to also have a personal account logged in on my laptop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The unlimited storage is a pretty smart play. It makes it much harder to compare this head-to-head with Google Drive.

<comment><USER20> While they talk about "unlimited" storage, it's actually set to 1,000 GB: all the quotas throughout the UI are set at 1,000 GB, and you have to contact them if and when you want to go over that amount (they do mention this stipulation on the features page[1]).

I've gotten close (~850 GB), but never over so I'm not sure if it's a "no- questions-asked, 1,000-GB-is-just-a-sanity-check" type of conversation, or if they start to get more hands-on and want a really good reason for going over.

[1]: [https://www.dropbox.com/business/features](https://www.dropbox.com/business/features)

<comment><USER21> I'm fairly certain they'll double it or more the minute you ask them, maybe a couple of times before scrutinising it. Posterous had the same thing btw, with a limit of 3 blogs, and they increased my limit in a few hours.

I've implemented the same kind of workaround, and for two reasons.

It's actually a lot easier technically. I mean DB already has a limit for free users, so all they have to do is rev up the limit and all their clients "just work". They don't have to add magic if-then logic to change how clients show and enforce the limit.

Secondly, it prevents a disaster scenario where some script - either malicious or accidental - smashes your monthly quota with 1s an 0s. Yeah you could try to rate-limit it or something, but it's just easier to prevent the whole scenario by changing a database column.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Was anyone else hoping for reduced pricing? Neat features for businesses, but with recent price drops by Amazon and Google I was expecting Dropbox to follow.

<comment><USER23> Hoping? Yes. Expected? No. Dropbox never seems to compete on price. They've had the same pricing/storage options basically since they were founded many years ago.

<comment><USER24> In fact, this business offering is a 44% price increase compared to the previous Dropbox Team offer (which used to be $125/user/year), for a slightly smaller feature set.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am a big fan of Dropbox. I have tried other cloud storage/sync providers at various points of time and had a sour experience - Box: couldn't figure out how to sync, SkyDrive/OneDrive: refused to sync, Google Drive: was so slow that I tried to speed it up by copying over existing data from another machine and it created two copies of everything! In over 3 years I haven't faced a single problem with Dropbox.

Selling to the enterprise is a very different thing though. Quality comes way down in their priority list. The bureaucratic strongholds in enterprises require compromised quality at every level in order to maintain their fiefdom. I know Dropbox needs to make more money, but maybe this is not the right direction in which to probe?

</comment><comment><USER26> Does $180/user/year seem excessively high to anyone else?

<comment><USER27> As a business expense it seems like a no-brainer, especially with features oriented around security like remote wiping, account transferring and more detailed logs.

<comment><USER26> As a business expense for a 50+ person company, that's over $9000 a year. That doesn't seem like a no-brainer, especially when Google will give me Apps (including Drive) for $50/year/person.

<comment><USER28> A 50+ person company is burning >$5,000,000 on salary + benefits + office space.

<comment><USER26> Yes, but for $9000/year, I could very easily stand up a server, backups, and a VPN to access more than 1TB of data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sync and share is commodity. The trick is to add value and create APIs that unlock the value of having all your data in the cloud. Right now, the whole space is just a big land grab with many entrants and many different strategies. My money is on Box. They have realized that the dollars are in enterprise and that enterprise customers have a few needs around security and control that frankly noone else can offer.

</comment><comment><USER30> The chatting while editing feature is great. This is something that has been missing versus Google Drive. The added benefit of using existing apps is very nice since you can be working on files that Drive does not support. Will have to take a look at this. Price wise though, it is a little high.

</comment><comment><USER31> Hmmm, I already had two dropboxes running on my computer (one personal and one business) using Dropbox Encore and I have my work Dropbox (much bigger than personal Dropbox) to sync to another folder on my regular hard drive -- personal syncs to my smaller SSD. Linking my accounts (which obviates the need for Dropbox Encore) seems to want to create a new Dropbox folder to download all my work things and not give me a choice of where to put it AND automatically change the name of my personal dropbox folder, which is a shame as I have some local scripts using that run it. Any chance of an "advanced setup" where we can pick which accounts sync where with no need to automatically rename folders that already exist on my hard drive?

<comment><USER32> Seems like symlinks could solve your problem in the mean time.

<comment><USER31> yeah, that's how I eventually worked around it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why use this when there are options like bitcasa - 1TB at $10/month?

Another plus is they offer a real external drive that doesnt duplicate data.

[https://www.bitcasa.com/pricing](https://www.bitcasa.com/pricing)

Disclosure: I am a happy bitcasa customer.

<comment><USER9> > Why use this when there are options like bitcasa - 1TB at $10/month?

Name brand recognition. Same reason why Tide detergent still exists when others are around half as expensive.

<comment><USER34> > Same reason why Tide detergent still exists when others are around half as > expensive.

Tide does not "subsist on brand recognition".

"Tide is a perennial powerhouse in Consumer Reports' laundry detergent Ratings." [1] (although as of 2013, other brands are catching up in quality)

[1][http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/06/wisk- kirklan...](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/06/wisk-kirkland- give-tide-laundry-detergent-a-run-for-the-money/index.htm)

<comment><USER9> Consumer Reports ratings are not double-blinded studies; I wouldn't be surprised if there was a correlation between product price and satisfaction ratings without blinding.

<comment><USER35> Exactly. They are not unbiased.

They are awful with cars. If it's a Honda or Toyota, it's awesome, period. They'll list negatives like "road noise" or poor OEM tire choices.

I own two Hondas, one a 2006 Odyssey minivan -- it's a decent car. If you know anyone who owns a 2005-2010 model of this car, ask them about trouble with the sliding power door. I betcha 5/10 times, they'll start spewing about a ridiculous $500-800 repair to replace a broken door hinge, because of a defective $0.50 plastic wheel that breaks.

When I read my CR review back in 2009/2010, not a single mention of this issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> One of the most important features to the company I work for is being able to share sub-folders within a shared folder. Without it, you have to completely give up hierarchical organization of your data.

This feature is still missing as far as I can tell.

</comment><comment><USER37> Does dropbox allow others to upload to specific folders within your account? Can I create a folder for each client then send a link that will allow them to upload documents to their folder?

<comment><USER20> > Can I create a folder for each client then send a link that will allow them > to upload documents to their folder?

Yes, as long as they have their own Dropbox account (free version's fine for this purpose). You can otherwise share read-only access to folders with anyone.

<comment><USER38> Yeah, but for write access you have to add everyone to the folder, which is unfortunate.

With Google Drive, you can give write access with just a link.

Recently, my organization did an open feedback forum. We wanted everyone to be able to add comments via DropBox, but their was no easy way to add a random list of 50+ people. Ended up switching to Google Driver as a result.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I lost trust in Dropbox when it comes to the quality of their client and I would therefore not use it for business purposes.

* I've had two instances of near data loss where I could only recover data from the local hidden cache folder that gets deleted after a week. It had to do with a user error with moving out files from the Dropbox directory when the client was off - previous versions in the webapp can easily become corrupted this way.

* the Mac client is a total CPU hog since Mountain Lion.

<comment><USER24> The business account comes with unlimited history of deleted/modified files, so you can recover anything that once was on Dropbox.

On my Macbook Pro, the "average battery impact" (last 8 hours) as reported by Activity Monitor is 1.2 (not sure what's the unit, but it's a low value compared to other apps), and we use it daily for work so it's kind of active the whole day. I wouldn't call it a CPU hog by far.

<comment><USER39> 1) That's good to hear about unlimited history - however that wasn't the issue in my case - the files either didn't show up in in the history anymore, even though it clearly wasn't past the grace period, or the showed up and reported an error when trying to open them. So the last I checked, there were non recoverable states in Dropbox and I therefore would never trust it as the only backup (and neither should you).

2) The CPU hog thing is very inconsistent - it probably doesn't affect all OS version/hardware combinations or they would have solved it since long ago. All I know is that I regularly see the client go to 80-100% usage of one core for a rather long time, meanwhile taking forever to sync just a few files - <USER2> clearly shouldn't happen in an application that mostly does IO. There are probably certain file types it has some problems with, but I didn't have the patience to analyze it yet, I simply switched to SpiderOak.

So no, I just can't trust their code quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's all very nice, but there's a very large elephant conspicuously absent from the room: encryption.

Not present in any of the 114 comments here so far, either.

Might be a problem.

</comment><comment><USER41> Did anyone read the comments by the owner of DMS? It's such a funny thing to see a legal/offer exchange in comments. I'd love to know the background of that discussion.

</comment><comment><USER42> >$795 / year for a 5-user team. Additional users are $125 / user / year.

I love dropbox for personal use. But hey! ever heard of Google Drive and know their pricing?

</comment><comment><USER43> Finally they have a free trial available

Previously if you had to develop against Dropbox business features like SSO you had to shell out $$$

</comment><comment><USER44> I wonder how the collaboration inside of applications works. Is there going to be a new API for integration?

<comment><USER45> Since dropbox knows which files are being worked on, I don't actually think it needs to be _inside_ of the application, it could just as well be a standalone overlay. The "sneek peak" screenshot does indeed look like an overlay that pops up when you open a file and which tracks the collaborative status. It also seems like it adds messenging functionality, which I must admit looks neat - pointed messenging functionality tends to be a lot more productive than general purpose messenging.

<comment><USER46> Still right now if you edit the same file from different locations at the same time you will end up with conflicting copies. I wonder how/if they solved this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Did I miss the cost and signup page?

<comment><USER48> [https://www.dropbox.com/business/pricing](https://www.dropbox.com/business/pricing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Dropbox at work: The proxy server is refusing connections

They're just blocking the whole domain.

(Edit for those of you who think I'm just trolling for effect. I work at a LARGE fortune 500 (think 250,000 people) and [http://www.dropbox.com/](http://www.dropbox.com/) is blocked at the proxy. If your company is going to offer business services, to, hum, businesses, one should insure that one should be accessible from businesses, no?)

<comment><USER50> You do understand that it's the IT department at the Fortune 500 company thats doing the blocking, right?

Dropbox has no control over your IT department, any more than you'd have control over my wireless internet.

<comment><USER49> And the question becomes: why is this IT department blocking the dropbox service?

<comment><USER51> Exactly.. some businesses are just not friendly to the idea of automatic synchronization of their very private data to a 3rd party.</comment></comment></comment></comment>