Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures - <AUTHOR> https://ohmyperson.com/ <comment><USER2> Close to two years ago, there was a show HN for a dating app posted here. I signed up, found a couple bugs, reported them, then deleted the app. Couple month later, I got an email saying that I got a match. Downloaded it again, had a very nice conversation, but I was not attracted.

I went to the settings, selected 25 miles radius and Black only. The next match I got was not Black, and over a thousand miles. Now we are married with children.

I think dating apps all look for a trick, a gimmick, or a twist. We will find you the perfect match. The real issue is as we get more disconnected from one another, we don't know how to deal with another person.

Here is what the dating app I won't build will do. It will tell you how to start a conversation. Help you get dressed on a first date. Help you hold a conversation. Teach you étiquettes. Tell you what to do when you don't get an answer. These are all real relationship building tips that dating apps don't bother with.

<comment><USER3> I propose a paid service with a human operator who suggests matches and sends people on appropriate dates. You get one match, go on the date and report back how it went, and get a new match based on both of your feedback. "That person was a little crazy" -> get someone more boring next time.

The date you get sent on is engaging and topical: a dance class or a tennis class or a guided tour in a museum, something that's engaging in the right way and avoids restaurant first date awkwardness.

<comment><USER4> We've gone full circle and reinvented the dating agency. If technology fulfils its original promises we would ideally be in a world where people didn't have "too little free time to meet people" and relationships would happen organically again.

<comment><USER5> Is the problem that we have too little time to meet people?

It strikes me that the problems are more related to increased isolation/individualism, increased distraction, degradation of real-world communities, and increased fear of making unwanted/unexpected advances. People who have free time just aren't choosing to use it in ways that encourage the creation of organic relationships.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I applaud the attempt to innovate in the dating world which tends to be solely focused on looks.

But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective). With old school blind dates, your date is friend/family selected so some level of filtering is already done for you.

I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there are even those that get catfished, so it's always worth trying something else out.

<comment><USER7> Potential solution: make photos and text bios disjoint.

That is, imagine a tinder-like app where 50% of the things shown to you are photos and 50% are bios. But they are all mixed up so you don't know whose photo matches to whose bio.

You only "match" with someone if you swipe right on their photo _and_ their bio.

<comment><USER8> In that case people would swipe on just the attractive users and on every bio without reading them.

A simple fix would be to only allow users to swipe on 20% of the photos and 20% of the bios.

<comment><USER9> I am going to defeat your system by swiping on the top 20% looks and bottom 20% bios.

And everybody else will follow suit once they realize it's an effective strategy. And you'll have a race to bottom.

<comment><USER8> What's the bottom 20% of bios? "If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best"? Are you suggesting that attractive people have terrible bios? If so, you're probably right and it would be a decent strategy.

That being said, it seems silly to try and force people that only care about looks into caring about bios. Who are we to tell them how to select a partner? Maybe they would be most happy with an attractive partner that doesn't share any of their interests. If that's who they want to find, then instead of telling them they're wrong, we should help them do it.

<comment><USER10> He is saying that he only cares for looks, so he'll go for the less in-demand bios to improve chance of a match.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Props for building this! The online dating market is a complete mess. It's basically an oligopoly, and has a pretty obvious misalignment of incentives. Novel ideas and competition are sorely needed.

As regards all the brilliant psychologists here who are commenting "looks matter to most people!": it's not as though you will find every person you meet on ohmyperson unattractive. The issue is that meeting people you find attractive might happen less frequently than it would on eg Tinder. How much less frequently is an empirical question. It's worth noting that edited, filtered, selection-biased Tinder profile pics are not always useful. Sometimes they're worse than nothing. I've been on a bunch of internet dates in the past year, and half the time my date looks nothing like their photos. At least with ohmyperson I won't feel duped.

The problem I see with this model is that it might naturally lead to the situation where people develop a strong connection over messages and then feel disappointed when they meet IRL, only to find that they are incompatible for reasons of physical attraction. This happens sometimes and it's a real bummer. (It's for this reason that I think you should meet - or pass - after sending a couple messages, rather than having a protracted convo).

Just as the Tinder model provides a coarse grained filter for looks, I can see ohmyperson providing a coarse grained filter for interests, values, and relationship goals. Some apps (bumble, okc) have various filters for these sorts of attributes, but in my opinion none have really figured it out all that well.

<comment><USER12> This is basically what happened when Ok Cupid tried this as an experiment for one day. Long conversations were instantly abandoned.

<comment><USER13> Can you expand? I'd like to learn more about this. Ok Cupid used to publish lots of interesting blog posts, so I'm assuming you got that from one, but I can't find it. Do you have a link?

<comment><USER14> I wonder if the old blog posts are even still up.

After they were bought by Match Group, all those experiments stopped, and the site became one with the borg. It's depressing that one shitty corporation, controls every fucking dating site, and has the money to buy pretty much any competitor at this point.

<comment><USER15> Somebody archived them here [0]

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/gwern/comments/aapn1l/okcupid_blog_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/gwern/comments/aapn1l/okcupid_blog_archives/)

<comment><USER13> Thank you. The one top of chain was referring to was [https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/weexperimenton...](https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/weexperimentonhumanbeings.html)

<comment><USER16> That doesn't seem to show that "Long conversations were instantly abandoned." The graph of "conversation life expectancy vs. normal" vs "where in the thread the photos came back on" does show a dip in life expectancy of 20%-30% if photos appeared after just a few messages, but the gap grows smaller the more messages had been exchanged.

In other words, the longer a conversation had been going on, the smaller the influence of learning what the other person looked like was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In 1 month: Dating Site Without Pictures, But With Voice Recording

In 3 months: Dating Site With Pictures, But Only Of Eyes

In 6 months: Dating Site With Pictures, Eyes and Nose

In 12 months: name change to ohmymember.com (adult site)

<comment><USER18> 13 months: profit

<comment><USER19> 1 month: sells personal data of people with poor judgement: profit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hahaha this will never work for an obvious reason that isn't socially acceptable to state. As soon as looks get involved, it's over.

<comment><USER21> Why isn't it socially acceptable to state that looks are important? I feel like people are conflating "external appearance matters" and "external appearance is all that matters" and demonizing the former in their attempt to ward away the latter.

<comment> crooked-v Also, putting the "X out of 10" scale aside, some people are just drawn to certain looks more than others. Tall, short, certain facial structures, different body types, beards/no beards on men, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > "References: He was really nice to me, and one of the nicest guys I've ever > dated. We had some issues with his parents not liking me, that eventually > caused us to break up. but otherwise I'm envious of the next person who gets > to be with him!"

The juxtaposition between dating and references.. doesn't work, at least to me. I can't imagine actually writing this about an ex. Especially, curious as to the circumstance in which this type of interaction would even occur. "Hey, sorry we didn't work out, now can you write a reference for my dating profile?"

<comment><USER23> That sounds pretty good to me.

Funny story. Good references from one of my ex wives got me in bed with two of her friends. However, they didn't want me, just my sperm. But it was still fun.

<comment><USER24> That's more of an overt brag than a funny story.

<comment><USER23> Maybe. But I did say that they didn't actually want a relationship, which isn't such a brag.

<comment><USER24> I read it mostly as "sex with me comes highly recommended and I have desirable sperm."

But if you were looking for a relationship, I can see how that wouldn't have felt as...victorious? I didn't get that context from your original comment though.

Anyway, good night.

<comment><USER23> I was lonely. But also way too angry for a relationship.

So yeah, it was bittersweet.

Also, said ex wife was professionally quite awesome, so I think that sort of rubbed off on me.

<comment><USER25> You're still bragging.

<comment><USER23> OK, maybe so.

But it's by no means purely a brag.

I mean, what. Divorce. And feeling used. Not fun.

As I recall, one of them was about to leave her husband, but a grandmother had offered her $1K if she had a kid. Which I learned just after sex.

<comment><USER26> offered 1k to have a kid. lol. It took a while to find a funny part but this will do.

<comment><USER23> I have a better one. Former lover stops by to say that she's pregnant, and needs a green card. But says that she's going to tell some other guy that it's his. Because he can support her, and [unsaid but implied] I'm just another itinerant hippie.

But hey, dodged one there, didn't I?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Current dating apps/services are little more than ad platforms; you advertise yourself to the pool of members they claim to reach, and you pay to have your ad shown to more people more often (Tinder's Boost, OKCupid's A-List.)

Apparently they actually _hinder_ matches unless _both_ people are paying. Some of those prices are laughably ridiculous, like Tinder's $40 for a 3 hour "boost", with no indication of effectiveness, and sadly prey on desperation.

I'd love to see a modern service that aims to meaningfully connect people instead of perpetually preying upon them for cash.

On the other hand, the dating industry may be like the lightbulb cartel; if you're _too_ effective, your customers will no longer need you. :)

<comment><USER28> They do need to make money. How would you have them do it?

My preference is a markup on the cost of validating alleged attributes. If you claim to be 6'2" tall, that might be validated with a notarized statement from a doctor. If you claim to have a degree, that can be checked via the usual electronic clearinghouse non-profit that universities use. If you claim to own property, county records can be checked. All this costs money. Apply a markup, and that gives a profit that will seem reasonably fair to most people.

Another way is to sell the obvious products, ranging from condoms to wedding rings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Although the physical component of sexual attraction may not be sufficient (which is your premise), it is definitely necessary and cannot be ignored.

Tinder is suitable for hookups, but not for dating. Your site is suitable for friendships, but not for dating. Both of these sites could create relationships that evolve into dating, but I don't think either of them are the path of least action for this purpose. Tinder focuses too much on physical attributes, text-only sites focus too little on physical attributes. Both solutions are at the poles of a spectrum. "Dating" is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've thought about this a lot. I think it's important that dating people match based on relative attractiveness, health, energy level, tidiness, age/maturity, mental attitude, goals and standard of living.

Also, dating sites should facilitate meeting, not pen-pals or "virtual" phony "relationships."

Perhaps a more palatable way to approach this is to legitimately screen/curate each applicant and rate them honestly so that there's less disappointment on blind matching. Also, you don't what a Philip DeFranco moment of moving to NYC for a would-be significant other that is actually a 16-year-old con artist in Idaho.

<comment><USER31> > Also, dating sites should facilitate meeting, not pen-pals or "virtual" > phony "relationships."

This. So much this. Above all else.

Playing the whole game of an online back-and-forth "relationship" before the first meeting is annoying and exhausting. Honestly, it feels like a complete waste of time as well.

There will be a yay/nay decision made by at least one party, within the first FIVE MINUTES of that first in-person meeting, that will render EVERYTHING previously exchanged online to be completely irrelevant. Better to just get to that point as quickly as possible, and not kid ourselves about it.

<comment> crooked-v This kind of thing is why I feel like there's an untapped market in some kind of facilitated speed dating that does some kind of basic prescreening on mutual preferences (age range, want/don't want kids, general interests, etc) and sets up events when there's a sufficient 'pool' of people whose Venn diagrams all reasonably intersect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Although I'm personally done with dating sites, I'm glad to see someone else had this idea, and actually made it.

But please consider not making all data go through Google (analytics (which can be blocked) and firestore (which is required)) and allow logins without Google or Facebook accounts. Sharing browsing data of a dating site with a third-party should be considered a privacy issue.

<comment><USER33> I get a blank page w/ an empty header. When I allowed google-analytics in UBO, I get a blank page w/ a more populated header and 2 sign-in options.

I tried it in IE11 (where broken things go) and I get the You Need Javascipt message on an otherwise blank page.

Guessing this page just can't live in a decrapified world.

<comment><USER32> There was an error in the web console that they exceeded their Firestore quota. They probably didn't provision enough money for hours of being on HN's frontpage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What's the incentive for attractive people? Why would you voluntarily give up a competitive advantage in a highly competitive market? If you're ugly like me this is great.

<comment><USER35> Being attractive brings its own host of problems when it comes to finding a mate, especially if you are looking for someone you really relate to at a high level rather than someone who just scratches some primal itches.

<comment> globular-toast Rubbish. Being attractive only makes things easier. Why on earth would a less attractive person have a higher chance of finding a soulmate than a more attractive person?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Looks are always a factor and some people on this site will find it out the hard way. Imagine being matched with someone on this website and chatting with them for a few weeks before meeting. If they ghost you after that meeting for your looks, it's going to be a lot more painful than being swiped left .

</comment><comment><USER37> Is it normal to provide relationship history on dating sites nowadays? I would feel extremely uncomfortable just giving out that info.

</comment><comment><USER38> Nothing screams romance like a dating profile designed to look like a resume.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have a lot of professional experience in this field. If you want some help refining your system through my experience, provide some method for me to contact you directly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks, much appreciated, my email is firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This UI looks exactly like LinkedIn hahaha

<comment><AUTHOR> It is!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Looks cool.

Supper simple, attractive as is.

Found missing:

\- Qualities the person might be seeking in a potential mate; the existing user profiles signal that need.

\- The button to go to the next profile seems out of place. Could enjoy more focus.

\- Completing my own profile could be a little more nudging.

<comment><USER42> The site should be unattractive but functional. Gotta drink your own koolaid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Looks really aren't that important but context is. Dating sites don't create the environment where this building up context and friendships is possible, maybe chat sites are better? Although I haven't found an online community around something I enjoy that _also has lots of women involved._ which is kind of frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER44> It just seems like wasted time if you end up meeting and there's no physical attraction. Perhaps something like this would make sense if you only saw pictures after mutually matching based on something both people liked about each other's written profile.

</comment><comment><USER45> People do filter based on education. College graduates usually marry college graduates. I am married and don't have a direct interest in dating sites, but I suggest that people be allowed to state SAT/ACT scores and to filter based on those scores. My wife's relatives looked on her behalf and chose me partly because I graduated from a famous university. I chose her partly because of her profession (physician).

The Rick Singer scandal has dramatized how non-academic criteria affect college admissions. Graduates from HYPS/MIT are on average smarter than other college graduates, but a more granular filter based on test scores would be helpful.

</comment><comment><USER46> The "without pictures" concept is fine, but why did you choose to model the user profile after a CV? What do you think are the benefits over, say, OKC's approach?

<comment><USER47> Probably less subjectivity in how to answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is LinkedIn without photos.

</comment><comment><USER49> I've had this exact same idea. The difference was there was a bit more tech or "AI" behind the scenes. You would still upload a picture of yourself. You would also build a model of what features you were looking for ... Maybe like choosing who you like better between two different pictures.

Then your matches would be made if both sides had high "similarity scores" for each other's pictures.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really cool idea, it would be cool to compare profiles (maybe even using images generated from a GAN like thispersondoesnotexist.com) to figure out what kind of features are attractive, then choose from a pool of narrowed down candidates on both sides.

It just seemed like a bit of a hurdle to launch with

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> There is a super app like this called Lex, but it's for non-straight people only.

[https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/lex- app/id1436964232?l=en](https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/lex- app/id1436964232?l=en)

</comment><comment><USER51> The little two person icon in the top right apparently generates a random result. It's very much not obvious what that does at first glance, it appears to be a user account or login type icon. It needs a clear, random element indicator to it.

</comment><comment><USER52> Just thought I'd mention that I was once on a Dutch dating website, where you could read the profiles straight away, and each other's photos would gradually fade in (from blurry to clear) for each chat message you exchanged.

</comment><comment><USER53> Just signed up. The website needs a UI overhaul. I think this will work. All the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> What kind of UI do you suggest?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> From the guest view, it looks like people are only described through their name, job and relationship history. I might suggest a by-line or other information on their profile, but understood if it's only available to members.

</comment><comment><USER55> Dating sites are female-driven, and females select primarily on looks, as has been shown on plenty-of-fish and tinder data analysis.

So a dating sites without pictures would never work. I hope to be proven wrong, but I don't think so.

<comment><USER56> They select on looks because that's all they have on dating sites.

People (especially women in mainstream society) mostly ignore looks when they have already had a real-life pleasant interaction; however, it is very challenging to replicate that online, since it's very hard to give incentives to be genuine.

<comment><USER57> No women (and men) don't. Looks matter. It's eons of biology that's too much to completely suppress. Looks always matter... but the degree can change.

<comment><USER58> The funny thing I noticed when living in Switzerland and traveling other European countries is due to the _way lower_ obesity rate, most people are generally attractive.

The American obesity rate is something absurd like 40% among adults. A bunch of these people aren't actually half-bad looking if they were able to drop the weight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I could see this being popular with blind users. Perhaps prioritize accessibility.

</comment><comment><USER56> This is awesome, please make it succeed if possible.

Dating sites are simply horrible at actually creating awesome interaction, and one of the first reason is the fact that obviously looks are pretty much irrelevant for that, yet most seem centered on photos.

The site is empty for me other than the top bar though, so can't give any more advice for it.

IMHO the most important thing though is to match people that want the same thing out of dating.

I.e. if someone wants to have a one night stand and the other wants a long monogamous relationship they should not even see each other's profile, yet pretty much all dating sites don't even let you state your goals!

</comment><comment><USER60> As Others said, sexual attraction is important, as much as i want to believe in text adventure love, heh.

Simply allow the photo to be viewed after a mutual text-like occurs

</comment><comment><USER61> I only see a mostly empty web page. Nothing does anything. Just checked the dev console, and there was a FirebaseError: quota exceeded.

</comment><comment><USER62> Imagine one founder starts a company based on stated preferences, the other on revealed preferences. Place your bets.

</comment><comment><USER63> As okcupid becomes more like tinder I think there's a place now for more thoughtful dating site.

</comment><comment><USER64> I logged in with google but am unable to see any profiles on the main page

<comment><USER64> I've opened up the console and seen that it's just your Firebase quota being exceeded. Doesn't seem like a problem at all on client end

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Just so you know: the website is totally broken on Firefox for Android.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Just like how social networks without censorship attract people who say things nobody wants to hear, this will attract people with faces that nobody wants to see.

There might be value in a dating site for really ugly people, but it's niche at best.

</comment><comment><USER67> Props for trying something new. Also the savings on bandwidth.

<comment><USER68> And easier to seed with fake profiles to solve the chicken and egg problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Here is my adult matching site with generated avatars, would like feedback: [https://www.fwber.com](https://www.fwber.com) (nsfw)

</comment><comment><USER70> kind of sad that political orientation has become romantically relevant. Other than that , why not add a bidding layer on top? like, everyone starts with 1000 dollars and bid for their favorites.

<comment><USER45> I am a staunch member of one the two main parties, and if my wife donated lots of money and campaigned for candidates of the other party, that would be difficult for me to accept. Avoiding a lifetime of political conflicts within a marriage may be wise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Let's avert our eyes from the tire fires for a second: how would you actually fix this idea so that it actually works?

Let's define two win conditions, and you have to hit just one:

1\. How to make this actually profitable without being more dark-patterny than Tinder?

2\. How to help at least some of the people who are not finding what they need on Tinder, while expending only a reasonable amount of resources?</comment>


Darpa Unveils Upgraded Atlas Robot, Now Completely Unplugged - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots/atlas-drc-robot-is-75-percent-new-completely-unplugged#.VL6Nx4VBEGE.hackernews <comment><USER2> Here's DARPA's press release:

[http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2015/01/20.aspx](http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2015/01/20.aspx)

Most troubling is the new pump, which means "the teams can actually operate this robot without the need for hearing protection."

Before, I pictured the robocalypse accompanied by the combined buzz of a thousand BigDogs, but now apparently it's just going to be the sound of well- oiled actuators — mingling, of course, with screams.

<comment><USER3> In a few decades, the concept that someone ever needed hearing protection around a robot will be quite the anachronism, similar to how someone used to marvel that a computer could fit into a space smaller than a large room.

<comment><USER4> I was going to point out that _some_ robots will always incorporate industrial machinery that would require hearing protection but then I realized data centers are basically building-sized computers. Anachronisms have their place :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article doesn't mention the larger gameplan wrt google and military robots, which to me is the real story.

In earlier coverage we were told Google would not be a military contractor, but:

"Since Google has committed to honoring existing robotics contracts, including Boston Dynamics' $10.8M deal to build and maintain Atlas robots for the DRC (four of which are guaranteed a spot in the finals), its presence will still be felt at the competition" \-- [http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/zero- moment/google-rumore...](http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/zero- moment/google-rumored-be-pulling-its-team-darpa-robotics-challenge)

Really hoping this remains true. Deepmind + Boston Dynamics + ITA is not something I'd like to see providing military tech around the world.

<comment><USER6> Don't worry, it will happen. Just like how we developed ABC weapons and it took the world wars for us to realize that we are insane and have to try to take our meds and calm the hell down; so will we have to go through a phase of robotic warfare, which hopefully does not end up like the Terminator story line, before we realize that we're kind of stupid and need to knock it the hell off for a while.

<comment><USER7> It isn't clear how this ends, though. Robots are going to enable a _lot_ of anti-social behaviours that were previously limited by personal risk during the execution and the odds of getting caught.

People tend to worry about "robot armies" because we aren't very good at imagining the future, and I'm sure we'll see those. We already are in terms of drones.

But a much bigger issue as costs drop and availability increases is going to be freelancers. This is going to be particularly problematic because robots, like computers, are going to be too useful to limit very much in civilian applications. Any dangerous, unpleasant, ugly job is going to have a robot for that.

Including assassination and robbing banks. Although there will also be robot security guards to counter such activities.

Nor do robots on the battlefield have any of the issues that limited CBN (Chemical/Biological/Nuclear... which is the way I learned it) weapons. None of those are enormously useful in actual combat. Chemical and biological weapons are difficult to control and deploy, and the "Davy Crockett Nuclear Rifle" aside, nuclear weapons are difficult to use for anything other than killing cities, which is rarely a strategically or tactically good thing to do. I'm not saying they're useless, merely that they aren't the be-all-end- all.

Military robots, though, pretty much are. There is every reason to expect that they will be used very widely, just like drones. Once upon a time drones were surveillance only. Now it's routine to weaponize them. Soon enough it'll be routine to send them out on autonomous interdiction missions: the economic temptation is just too high. Why send troops to cut off an area when you can have a 24/7 patrol of small, cheap drones that'll kill anything larger than a rabbit that tries to cross a virtual Maginot Line?

I'm not saying we shouldn't do any of this--robots are too useful to not develop. I am saying that the robot apocalypse, when it comes, will look a lot weirder than our 20th century fantasies.

<comment><USER8> Once perfected I can see the going into firefighting and policing duties. For the most part,aside from employment issues, this will result in positives -fewer people hurt fighting fires, more people rescued from previously inaccessible places and robots can brute force people into arrest while being shot at -without having to shoot back or pre-emptively --again to people's benefit

<comment><USER8> Don't be so pessimistic. I'm sure we can use these kinds of robots for our benefit --not just sending them to war for us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The original Big Dog noise problem came from using an off-the-shelf fixed speed engine/hydraulic pump combo. There was a subcontract for the LS3 to replace that with a quieter custom-designed Diesel-powered unit. (The US Army is all-Diesel; they don't want gasoline tankers on the battlefield.) I'm not sure how that came out. The original Atlas was a Big Dog derivative, and used many of the same hydraulic components.

The Schaft robot (also now owned by Google) is all-electric. That's probably the future direction.

<comment><USER10> > _The US Army is all-Diesel; they don 't want gasoline tankers on the > battlefield._

The other advantage of diesel engines is that they'll run on a wide variety of fuels: kerosene, heating oil or even vegetable oil.

<comment><USER11> Or smashed up coconuts. Reportedly, 200 coconuts = 1 liter of fuel. Apparently this and micro-hydro helped to win their war for independence ... see films at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bougainville_Island#Popular_cu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bougainville_Island#Popular_culture)

<comment><USER12> At least we know robots will retire on the beach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I watched the first one live. Hopefully the Atlas robots perform better this time around. I'm most excited to see the next iteration of Schaft, which Google now owns.

<comment><USER14> Schaft has unfortunately removed themselves from the competition[1]. It's a shame because they dominated the trials and were definitely the most entertaining to watch.

1\. [http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/content/drc-finals- annou...](http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/content/drc-finals-announcement)

<comment><USER13> Wow, thank you for mentioning that. Your source says that they have declined to compete because they are focusing on a commercial product of some kind. That is very exciting news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wonderful, new weapons for the military. As if there weren't enough already.

Please don't tell me this is for 'humanitarian' purposes.

<comment><USER16> Thats exactly what their doing, using the words "natural disaster".

<comment><USER15> You also believe in Father Christmas, do you?

<comment><USER16> I don't think you understand; I'm agreeing with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Forget Atlas, it's all about Valkyrie.

</comment><comment><USER18> But… can it shrug? ;)

</comment><comment><USER19> Are we there yet? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley)

<comment><USER20> I could never find it again but I've seen a video 4-5 years ago of a battery- less humanoid robot using different kind of actuators (many smaller hydrolyc cables) looking like black muscle fibers. The resulting movements were also very analog/human-like. Very eerie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's even overweight like an american! 156kg - that thing will crush you if it falls on you while you're stuck after an earthquake.</comment>


Writing Maintainable Code Considered Harmful (2) - <AUTHOR> http://itscommonsensestupid.blogspot.com/2008/02/writing-maintainable-code-considered.html

<comment><USER2> So to spoil the ending...you know it. Is this a fiction story? If so, making up a story to make a point does not make sense.

<comment><USER3> When your point is not true (as in this case) making up a story is the only option.

When projects go that poorly they take out the people who are stuck and put in someone with a reputation for getting things done.

Doing a project well and fast only whets their appetite for more.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: PHP or RoR? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a brand new web programmer trying to create my own social networking site and I've been learning PHP and the Drupal CMS these past few days to build my website.
I ran into a developer the other day and he suggested I work with RoR instead.
As I have minimal starting experience with C++, the OOP side of PHP is what drew me (and the fact Facebook also uses it) in the first place.
Now I understand different project needs translates to different languages, but I was just curious what the HN community thinks about the two? <comment><USER2> RoR is clearly a better language than php from a prgramming standpoint. _BUT_ PHP is perhaps the best supported language on the web. By support I mean platform choices, documentation, discussion, number of programmers, libraries and plugins and stability.

Even though it's the ugly child, you won't go wrong with PHP. It scales, look at facebook. It's where the jobs are.

I hope one day ruby overtakes it, but until then I would vote for PHP.

<comment><USER3> _RoR is clearly a better language_

I'm not sure if you made a mistake here, but RoR is a framework. Ruby is a language. RoR shouldn't be compared to PHP. If anything, it should be compared to one of the many PHP frameworks out there.

I agree that there are a great deal of jobs for PHP, but I disagree that "It's where the jobs are." There are a great deal of jobs around for RoR.

<comment><USER2> Hey, I just replied to what the poster submitted. Sure rails is a platform and ruby is the languge. My arguement still holds, PHP has far more support and ruby is a better language. Same goes for platforms, PHP has far more options and ruby has few. IMO PHP wins because it has more resources. But as a languge i like ruby better. As for jobs, I didn't say there were none for rails/ruby, just that there are far more for php.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't disagreeing with your argument. I mainly just wanted to clarify a few things for the OP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did PHP and liked CakePHP when I started out. After I did that I looked into both Ruby/RoR and Python/Django. I ended up liking Django much more than RoR. I do a lot of Javascript at one point and the intriguing thing is, somehow Python felt more natural to me. I DID try Ruby and looked at Rails though. I would recommend just testing things out yourself and see what comes more naturally to you.

One can do a lot of goods with PHP, Ruby and Python and any other languages/frameworks. It's not really the language but what you choose to do with it as well as your experience using it that will make your project. The only way to gain more experience is to start using it.

My feeling is, you want to pick something that will solve all your present problems and future proof. That's going to be difficult. Big solutions are usually a combination of different efforts because there are many different parts of the web development process. I've seen a company that use PHP for ALL their flow including the cron jobs' scripts. Some might say, that's crazy, why not use python or faster languages for backend jobs? But it worked for them up until they hit their bottleneck then they reiterate and revised.

The path toward the "holy grail" for the perfect "solution" is long. Crowd sourcing for this answer will also be difficult because many people have already took that journey and fought their holy war with themselves so they will generally give you their preferences up front.

Sorry for the round about way of saying: I think if you are at a point of asking question of what's out there other than PHP? Then you're at a good transitional stage. Congrats. Now your two (popular) choices are: Ruby/RoR and Python/Django. Go test out two sample projects and make it work from setting up to making it run. See which process you like the most and pick one. I don't think you will go wrong with either choices.

Oh, is there a site that you really like or look up to? Perhaps you can learn about their technology stack and give that a try :P

Again, sorry for the convoluted answer and good luck with your journey toward Web Dev nirvana :)

</comment><comment><USER5> "Now I understand different project needs translates to different languages"

This is much less true than you'd think when you're talking about languages of the same class, like Ruby and PHP. (Sorry, Ruby; I didn't mean it that way.) And when your goals are vague ("social networking site.")

The ease of setting up PHP will retard your progress towards understanding the web stack in greater depth, Which is something you'll need to do if you want to become a good web developer. Setting up Python or Ruby with Apache isn't as difficult as you would think it is, given how often the ease of setting up PHP is cited as a reason to use it.

You'll learn better habits and practices from the Ruby or Python communities than the PHP community.

</comment><comment><USER6> Build a prototype with a few features in both and see which feels natural to you. I like to bang out small, silly projects in PHP with CodeIgniter or FUEL because I can move fast with those. But I find Ruby and RoR more methodological and RoR will handle more intricate stuff for me that the PHP frameworks won't and will use that combo for bigger apps.

</comment><comment><USER7> Proposing to you a third option: django+pinax. Pinax is a ready to use social networking application using django. Take a look: <http://pinaxproject.com/>.

</comment><comment><USER8> Try both out and see what you think. Some big sites use PHP like Facebook and Flickr. Here are some sites that use Ruby on Rails: <http://rubyonrails.org/applications>. That list lists Twitter but I thought they changed so I am not sure how up to date it is.

I personally like Ruby and I like Rails. To me Ruby looks cleaner than PHP and as a result, it gets less messy with lots of code.

Rails is the framework. I love the MVC concept even just for separating my files logically.

</comment><comment><USER9> I recommend PHP for what it's worth. Ruby is great but PHP is fast, easy to deploy and common enough that you never need to look far for an answer to your problem or a module to help you out. Rails has gems which are amazing but there are far more PHP programmers.

If you're looking for a framework for PHP I'd recommend CakePHP assuming you're not rolling your own for this.

<comment><USER8> It is ruby that has the gems - and they are great. You're right on the speed but language speed is rarely a bottleneck for a website.

CakePHP was modeled and inspired by Rails.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the clarification. I phrased it that way because OP really is comparing Rails to PHP (ie: he won't pick Ruby w/out Rails over PHP).

CakePHP is an MVC framework similar to Rails but they're pretty different now (details wise, structurally still similar). I prefer Rails to CakePHP in most respects but I still code with cake because I like PHP.</comment></comment></comment>


Employee retention rate at top tech companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/employee-retention-rate-top-tech-companies-2017-8 <comment><USER2> These seem very low, but how do they compare with other industries?</comment>


Dieter Ram's Ten Principles Of Good Design - <AUTHOR> http://tenprinciplesofgooddesign.com/

<comment><USER2> This is doubtless a little unfair, but espousing "good design" in a way that covers aesthetics with that layout seems a little rich.

I'm specifically bothered by the numbers in the right-hand column not being vertically aligned with those in the left. The fact that they're generally higher makes the page feel imbalanced.

If it were me, I'd replace each title with a one-word summary to avoid the problem. But then, what do I know?</comment>


Solve Math Problem — Get $1M - <AUTHOR> http://ns3.ams.org/bealprize.html

<comment><USER2> I really wish someone would just consolidate all of these... [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems)</comment>


Why pledge(2) or, how I learned to love web application sandboxing - <AUTHOR> https://learnbchs.org/pledge.html <comment><USER2> pledge(2) is great. However, BCHS sucks.

No. Do not write your webapp in C. I'm serious here. Write it in Python, write it in TCL, write it in Lisp. But write it an environment that is at least semi-manged.

FFIs are pretty good. You can call pledge from your app. But don't write your app in C. If you're doing anything serious, it's a bad idea.

<comment><USER3> If you're considering writing it in C, you probably have some reason why you don't want to use a scripting language. To that end, I'd suggest using something like Rust instead of C.

<comment><USER4> Maybe I'm writing it in C because I like the language, enjoy using it and am good with it? And I know it works everywhere I want it, even years later? I hate to be told what I should or shouldn't use.

<comment><USER5> And your users will certainly enjoy all the security issues your code will have.

<comment><USER6> Someone with say 10-20 years of experience in a language will write a more secure program then someone just started in _any_ language ... And even if you program in a "safe" language, you still make bugs, and all those bugs passed the compiler/parser, so your language obviously didn't help you there. There are _a lot_ of code written in C in the wild, witch means there are also a lot of bad code.

<comment><USER5> There are business logic bugs, and there are memory corruption bugs. One of those leads to RCEs a lot more often than the other. One of those is a lot easier for the compiler to prevent than the other.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but there are ways to prevent most memory corruption bugs, even, if you're using an OS with a non-terrible malloc implementation. The gnu malloc that most people know is a terrible antiquity that should have been replaced decades ago -- mallocs like OpenBSD's make a lot of memory corruption bugs a lot harder to exploit.

<comment><USER2> But not harder to have exist in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author dismisses capsicum without much thought. Really, any application you've already restructured to be sandboxed under pledge(2) is trivial to capsicumize.

<comment><USER9> That is probably the reason for the quick uptake of pledge in OpenBSD's tree. A lot of their software had already been restructured or rewritten for privilege separation. But looking at a few capsicum diffs in the FreeBSD codebase I'm not sure I'd call those trivial. You can do more with capscium so there is more code to deal with those abilities. But even simple cases hit 20+ lines of code with multiple failure states to deal with. Compared to the usual two line pledge diffs that's quite a bit more work to do.

<comment><USER8> > Compared to the usual two line pledge diffs that's quite a bit more work to > do.

I don't think you're comparing apples and oranges. OpenBSD has just already done the restructuring as a separate commit; in FreeBSD you see it all at the same time, so it looks bigger. Capsicum for simple stuff is only a few lines, especially with the "helper" subroutines.

In some cases we can get more functionality with the same restriction, or more restriction than OpenBSD due to more specific constraints. So there's more code, but it also does more. It can be a trade-off.

<comment><USER9> That statement was comparing capsicum being applied to programs that were also pledged in around 2 lines of code. A few of the programs on the wiki as examples of capsicum applications originated from OpenBSD so they were primed and ready to go. Even those best cases are much more involved than pledge.

To use the example of the unix tr utility, the change to use pledge required the standard two line diff.

      if (pledge("stdio", NULL) == -1)
    		  err(1, "pledge");

tr.c was the one of the earliest programs pledged (back when it was called tame). The original diff was a one liner before they start doing the "pledge or error out".

[http://marc.info/?l=openbsd- tech&m=144070638327053](http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=144070638327053)

      +	tame(TAME_STDIO, NULL);

The capsicum diff required the following

[https://reviews.freebsd.org/D7928](https://reviews.freebsd.org/D7928) [https://reviews.freebsd.org/file/data/4exxbzvuc3dayrvdj6qe/P...](https://reviews.freebsd.org/file/data/4exxbzvuc3dayrvdj6qe/PHID- FILE-2kbbfbdvu7dpl2u3ztnx/D7928.diff)

      +	cap_rights_t rights;
      +	unsigned long cmd;

(...)

      +	cap_rights_init(&rights, CAP_FSTAT, CAP_IOCTL, CAP_READ);
      +	if (cap_rights_limit(STDIN_FILENO, &rights) < 0 && errno != ENOSYS)
      +		err(1, "unable to limit rights for stdin");
      +	cap_rights_init(&rights, CAP_FSTAT, CAP_IOCTL, CAP_WRITE);
      +	if (cap_rights_limit(STDOUT_FILENO, &rights) < 0 && errno != ENOSYS)
      +		err(1, "unable to limit rights for stdout");
      +	if (cap_rights_limit(STDERR_FILENO, &rights) < 0 && errno != ENOSYS)
      +		err(1, "unable to limit rights for stderr");
      +
      +	/* Required for isatty(3). */
      +	cmd = TIOCGETA;
      +	if (cap_ioctls_limit(STDIN_FILENO, &cmd, 1) < 0 && errno != ENOSYS)
      +		err(1, "unable to limit ioctls for stdin");
      +	if (cap_ioctls_limit(STDOUT_FILENO, &cmd, 1) < 0 && errno != ENOSYS)
      +		err(1, "unable to limit ioctls for stdout");
      +	if (cap_ioctls_limit(STDERR_FILENO, &cmd, 1) < 0 && errno != ENOSYS)
      +		err(1, "unable to limit ioctls for stderr");
      +
      +	if (cap_enter() < 0 && errno != ENOSYS)
      +		err(1, "unable to enter capability mode");

No one would dispute that capsicum is more capable but is significantly more complex. Pledge trades finer control over capabilities for the ability to have a "work or die" usage model. Capsicum requires that you be aware of all the potential failure cases and account for them.

<comment><USER8> > The capsicum diff [to tr] required the following ...

This is a slightly out of date example. We've since added simplifying wrappers for stdio.

The current equivalent of if pledge("stdio", ...) / err is:

        if (caph_limit_stdio() < 0 || (cap_enter() < 0 && errno != ENOSYS))
          err();

Some examples: [https://reviews.freebsd.org/D8307](https://reviews.freebsd.org/D8307)

> a "work or die" usage model

This is an option (or will shortly become an option) in capsicum.

<comment><USER9> That's really cool, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Firejail is one of the most underrated: [https://firejail.wordpress.com/](https://firejail.wordpress.com/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm confused about what exactly 'sandboxing' entails here. Seems to be limiting syscalls and file system interactions. But what about process heap and cpu usage? Are these handled by either seccomp or capsicum?

<comment><USER8> No, capsicum is a security sandbox. Resource usage is not governed by capsicum. For that you can use traditional ulimits or RCTL for finer-grained control (similar to Linux cgroups).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Since the author is using cgi:

>However, this is definitely something in the crosshairs of ksql(3): forking a process, like kcgi(3) does, that handles the database I/O and communicates with the master over pipes.

If they do this, then they can just use seccomp SECCOMP_SET_MODE_STRICT, which is the first thing described in the seccomp man page and in the Wikipedia page. And is also the original/first mode of seccomp to be available.

I believe capsicum would likewise be trivial to use: You can just immediately lock things down completely. (Perhaps just cap_enter() is sufficient?)

<comment><USER13> SECCOMP_SET_MODE_STRICT is pretty hard to use - you cannot allocate memory for example.

<comment><USER12> I did not realize that. Given that, I was incorrect when I said that the author (or anyone) could easily use seccomp MODE_STRICT.

Capsicum may still be easy to use. And seccomp-bpf is not that complex either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14>
      > allows resource requests or denies them and (hopefully) kills the application

Why is killing the application desirable behaviour over just denying the request?

<comment><USER15> There's a school of thought in security that believes you should hard fail at any attempt to violate an invariant. I believe the linux grsec patches do this. They will just crash the kernel if they see something at runtime that they don't like.

<comment><USER16> Indeed; if you have the Active Kernel Exploit Response feature enabled in grsec, and a root process triggers a kernel OOPS, it will panic() the kernel.

You can combine this with the panic= kernel command-line argument to set a reboot delay, but for headed (rather than headless) boxes it may be more desirable to keep the panic message up to see what process triggered it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Shameless plug, inspired by pledge(2), if you're a Linux rather than BSD person: how to use elementary virus writing techniques to sandbox programs under Linux using seccomp-bpf: [https://tia.mat.br/posts/2016/11/08/infect_to_protect.html](https://tia.mat.br/posts/2016/11/08/infect_to_protect.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> The difference between pledge and seccomp is not just a matter of fine- grainedness. There's some of that, but I'd say there's also a difference in philosophy: sandboxing resources versus sandboxing kernel attack surfaces.

At one end of the spectrum is the macOS sandbox, which pretty much only restricts how the process is allowed to interact with the outside world. It's not actually simplistic like the article claims; that's just the public API. If you look at the raw sandbox profiles, which Apple writes for daemons and such, it's quite fine-grained: sandbox profiles can specify which paths can be read and which can be written (with an arbitrary number of allow/deny rules, each of which can match on an arbitrary regular expression), which network ports can be opened or listened to, which preferences can be read or written, which IPC services can be accessed, and so on... there are a ton of categories. If you're on macOS, look in /usr/share/sandbox and /System/Library/Sandbox/Profiles to see what they look like. _However_ , sandboxing only occurs when a given syscall's kernel implementation explicitly calls for it, and even the most locked-down process can access hundreds of syscalls and Mach kernel IPC calls, which based on their intended purpose should be harmless. And most of them really are harmless, but all it takes is a small oversight in one of them for an attacker to potentially corrupt memory in the kernel and gain control over the system. *

At the other end is Linux seccomp, which is designed to allow minimizing kernel attack surface. Chrome's renderer processes only get access to a tiny set of syscalls, and even the arguments to the syscalls are locked down, corresponding as closely as possible to what the process actually uses. (This is possible in part because Chrome has an unsandboxed master process that handles things like reading files for it. The renderer sandbox doesn't even allow open(2).) Thus Chrome is protected from most vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel, because there's just no way to get to the buggy code in question from within the sandbox. This isn't perfect: I've found multiple Linux kernel bugs (only one exploitable so far) that _are_ accessible from the sandbox. And of course it doesn't make Chrome immune to privilege escalation, since attacking the kernel directly isn't the only option; IPC communication with the master process is a much larger attack surface. But that's basically unavoidable, and the situation for Chrome is still a big improvement over other operating systems. Unfortunately, as the article says, it takes quite a lot of work to adapt to new applications.

OpenBSD pledge seems somewhere in between. Unlike the other two, I don't have personal experience using it, but based on the manpage - an empty "promises" set restricts the process to _exit(2), which like seccomp should protect against kernel flaws. However, if you supply "stdio", suddenly the process gets access to 69 system calls, which is not terrible (many of the calls in the set are very basic and unlikely to contain bugs) but not as minimal as one might want. There are a bunch of random functionality lockdowns, which is good - for example, ioctl operations are locked down, "setsockopt(2) has been reduced in functionality substantially"... on the other hand, the promise categories generally seem more aligned to 'resources the program might want to access' than 'kernel API surface the program might need to use'.

Overall, definitely not bad, and I'd like to see something comparable on Linux, but I'd be more comfortable if OpenBSD also supported a more fine- grained sandbox.

* (Okay, that's a little unfair to macOS, since there are some sandbox filters that lock down kernel attack surface, such as the ioctl filter and the IOKit filters - the latter of which has been tightened over time. But that still leaves a _ton_ of surface exposed.)

<comment><USER19> Would you say Chrome is more sandboxed on Linux due to seccomp than on Windows 10?

<comment><USER18> Yes; I'm not too familiar with Windows but I know there's no syscall-by- syscall lockdown. However, they were able to disable all Win32k syscalls starting in Windows 8, which is a significant attack surface reduction compared to the past:

[https://www.chromium.org/developers/design- documents/sandbox...](https://www.chromium.org/developers/design- documents/sandbox#TOC-Win32k.sys-lockdown):

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Go (golang) is a great language for web applications and has comparatively small syscall coverage making it easy to sandbox with seccomp(2). It also has most of the protections of a fully managed language, makes making raw syscalls easy, and can be used without libc. If you don't use cgo or SWIG (pure Go and Go assembly are fine), building statically linked pure Go binaries without libc is just a couple of commandline flags. If you don't import the net package or a few other problematic packages, no commandline flags are required.

<comment><USER21> Apart from the 'easy to sandbox' (also debatable, as that depends way more on the functionality of the application than on what it is written in, but let's ignore that) does that matter much? pledge isn't only, or even primarily, a defense against _you_ accidentally making syscalls you don't want to make, but a defense against malware that, having invaded your application's process, attempts to make such syscalls pretending to be you. That's code you didn't write, making the programming language choice moot.

<comment><USER20> Not really. An effective sandbox is restrictive. Managed languages tend to use a more limited set of system calls than non-managed languages because most libraries don't make any system calls of their own. The Go runtime and standard library use a more limited set of system calls than most alternatives, so a more limited set of sandbox filters are required.

Injected instructions are more likely to invoke their own system calls, so you are more likely to catch it if you have a more restrictive set of filters.

<comment><USER21> _" Managed languages tend to use a more limited set of system calls than non- managed languages because most libraries don't make any system calls of their own"_

I have a hard time understanding how that could be true. A library either needs to use OS functionality, or it doesn't. If it needs to, managed languages cannot avoid doing so, and if it doesn't, why would non-managed languages make them, more so since a major argument for the most popular of them, C, is performance?

The only argument I can see is that managed language libraries could use (fewer) other libraries or the runtime to make such calls. Neither decreases the number of system calls made by any program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does pledge(2) still enable its simple programming interface by allowing certain default actions based on a filesystem hierarchy layout, statically defined in the kernel/libc/somewhere? The first presented versions of tame(2) had this iirc.

<comment><USER23> If I followed the tech@ list properly, I believe OpenBSD has added a specialized socket type for the "dns" pledge. That allows removing the code that permit certain socket calls iif /etc/resolv.conf has been opened.

There are other things in the works related to pledge. For example, they're going to ship a native local stub resolver that will be a functional extension of libc, permitting them to remove and simplify code from libc. That would allow sandboxing networked services without necessarily requiring any filesystem access after invoking pledge, while still permitting DNS to seamlessly work even after configuration changes. (The trick is that most client resolvers, third-party and in libc, default to 127.0.0.1:53 if /etc/resolv.conf is unavailable.)</comment></comment>


NASA scientists scramble to find an object in the Kuiper belt in time for visit - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/pluto-bound-probe-faces-crisis-1.15261

<comment> T-hawk The headline is rather link-baity. There's nothing wrong with the spacecraft or its planned Pluto visit. The "crisis" is that we haven't found any Kuiper belt object feasible for the spacecraft to visit after Pluto, which was the plan for the mission, but a distant secondary objective after Pluto itself.

<comment><USER2> Also, one of the article's key quotes makes the sunk cost fallacy:

 _"They're running out of time," says Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, who is not involved in the mission. "We're not just talking about science being lost — we're talking about getting return on our investment."_

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Technically Pluto is also in the Kuiper Belt. So scientists are scrambling to find "another" KBO for New Horizons probe to visit.

Pluto has a fascinating history - from being unknown to being deemed a planet to being demoted to a "dwarf planet". What else is waiting for us out there...

</comment><comment><USER4> My favorite factoid about this mission is that Pluto was declassified as a planet _while the mission was enroute_. (It seems very unlikely to me that the mission would have secured funding if declassification happened earlier.) Not surprisingly, the PI strongly opposed the decision of the astronomical union.

<comment><USER5> PI?

<comment><USER6> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_investigator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_investigator)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since Pluto _is_ a Kuiper Belt Object (rather than a "planet" or the even sillier appellation "dwarf planet"), I take issue with the wording. However, it is an unusually large one, and it would be a shame not to be able to pick up another smaller (and presumably more representative) object while it's in the area; it's a rather rare opportunity after all.

NH would like to and has planned to encounter multiple additional KBOs in the "25 to 55 miles (40 to 90 kilometers) in diameter" range. This has always been in its extended mission. But Pluto is the main goal.

I suspect they'll find something; the Kuiper belt is quite large and NH will be in it for some years. Still, the sooner the better; hopefully the time- sensitive nature will get them some time on the Hubble.

</comment><comment><USER8> Alternate headline: "New Horizons project management launches campaign to get observing time on Hubble"

</comment><comment><USER9> Url changed from [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pluto-bound- spacec...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pluto-bound-spacecraft- faces-crisis/), which points to this.</comment>


Passwords for social media accounts could be required for some to enter country - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/08/passwords-for-social-media-accounts-could-be-required-for-some-to-enter-country/ <comment><USER2> If they get a person's password, the largest privacy violation is not to that person. It's to all that person's friends and family who shared private material.

We can discuss all we want whether it was wise for anyone to share, say, everyday normal photos of their children or themselves on Facebook.

If you think they shouldn't have shared normal, everyday, family photos on an online service, sure, fine, I don't know what to say. But let's say they did do so, which is pretty normal.

Are they entitled to some privacy from whatever pervs the DHS hires?

Remember "they" is the friends and family of the person visiting the US, not the person themselves.

Many of these friends and family will be US citizens, so arguments about differing rights for non-citizens, whether valid or invalid with respect to privacy rights, don't necessarily apply in those cases.

<comment><USER3> US citizens must thank the founding fathers for all the amendments else the feds would have treated all of us just like this.These wannabe immigrants have 0 rights or voting power so they are being treated like complete shit.

The way US government treats legal immigrants, they might as well ask them to bring a lube and drop pants and bend over at the immigration check. This comment might seem crass but it is nowhere close to the crassness with which US government has come to treat people who are going through all the ridiculous legal hoops and in process making criminals out of perfectly ordinary people.

This is like having a super complex CAPTCHA on your signup page for humans while letting bots pass through by some minor cookie manipulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if this includes google accounts (since you know, google plus).

I mean, the whole notion is horrific and abysmal, but in today's OAUTH world you're not just giving up the facebook goods, you're giving up co-logins to lots of other sites too. There's other technical issues too - I use 2FA everywhere. So, do I disable the 2FA or have to give that up too? In perpetuity? I mean, I don't trust law enforcement to not go around murdering people, why should they have access to passwords?

The very _thought_ or suggestion that this could someday happen would make me cancel any and all trips to the US for the foreseeable future (if I weren't already a US citizen who lived here, that is, and as it is I'm seriously considering emigrating in response to this administration).

The brain drain effects will have to be enormous. There's already a company focused on helping startups use Vancouver to base their remote employees. [0]

On so many levels this is bad. I'd heard the notion floated under the Obama administration, but I trusted them to be adult and see all the possible ramifications. I do not trust the Trump administration to even be in the neighborhood of rational, let alone adult. I mean, they dumped the immigration executive order with no actual warning whatsoever (besides repeatedly saying he'd do just that, I suppose). So now we have no real choice but to take them at their word.

0: [https://techvibes.com/2017/02/01/true-north-establish- vancou...](https://techvibes.com/2017/02/01/true-north-establish-vancouver- hub-foreign-workers-trump)

</comment><comment><USER5> I am failing to see how providing your Facebook password provides any legitimate confirmation about you and your associations. You can easily create a fake Facebook profile with your picture, fake posts, fake friends, fake everything.

The internet is a cesspool of people who troll, create fake profiles, invoke reactions, behave completely different than they would on the streets, and intentionally hide their identity. Using it as a primary source of identity verification is a terrible idea.

Why not require proof of a financial statement? Bank account in your name, or a process to verify somebody via their bank account without requiring their bank account password.

<comment><USER6> It's just as ridiculous as those forms you are asked to fill when entering the US as a foreigner.

For example:

> Do you seek to engage in terrorist activities while in the United States?

<comment><USER7> The reason for those is to then quickly provide a way to invalidate their visa and have an administratively easy path to kick them out without having to go to court and such. Terrorist activities doesn't mean blowing things up, it could be open to all kinds of interpretation (donated money to some organization, protested and was arrested for rioting, went to a black-hat conference which had talks about subverting security systems of power plants etc, etc).

<comment><USER8> Any statue establishing those could also establish that those are proper cause for immediate deportation, no need for fancy forms and logic-gymnastics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What if I don't have any social media accounts? Do the officials just assume I'm lying and deny me entry?

This is insanity.

<comment><USER10> You know what's better? Other countries will follow our lead and demand the same. Particularly of American visitors. And why should they not?

<comment><USER11> You act like that's some kind of revelation. Countries such as France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Australia, India, Russia and China are already on par with or beyond the US when it comes to abusive domestic espionage.

<comment><USER12> You can't make a statement like that without backing it up.

The evidence to the contrary is in greater favor until you provide support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Considering how the NSA probably has access to this already, what does this mean? A few options off the top of my head. Not putting any probabilities on these, but it's interesting to think about. The options are neither exhaustive nor exclusive.

(a) NSA info is drying up due to resistance from companies

(b) NSA info can't be shared due to low-priority targets

(c) NSA info can be shared but there's something going on between NSA and DHS that makes this difficult

(d) NSA info can be shared, but only to people of a certain clearance, which makes this non-scalable for ports of entry

(e) NSA info can be shared but the goal of the policy isn't info, it's signaling

<comment><USER14> I would say everything except option (a). additionally, it's possible that data streams are drying up into the NSA (i dont think they are), but the NSA already has enough to incriminate literally every human on earth for any petty thoughtcrime

most likely, I say, is that the data in NSA Utah is basically like a walled off test dev that only a few special people can query for currently important things. their main job is to determine how best to query it in the future

and then each agency maintains a prod database of its own data its collected to oppress everyone. very rarely would they ever get NSA data

<comment><USER15> > but the NSA already has enough to incriminate literally every human on earth > for any petty thoughtcrime

I think that you are _slightly_ overestimating how much the NSA can achieve with current technologies.

<comment><USER14> Interesting. How many people, would you say, have a textual conversation over email or FB or a forum, etc, that had ended up in an NSA dragnet?

Then, of those conversations (presumably several billion), how many are stored with some identifiable metadata, like IP address, GPS tag, real name, photo?

Even if it is only a few million people, it's still way too much of an overreach, and still ridiculously cheap to store on tape and analyze on disk/ssd.

then you just pay someone who cant find any better work to type queries into a system.

How many times have you talked about potential crimes with your friends? how many times have they talked about using drugs, fake IDs, speeding, petty theft, etc

how many times has "child porn" inadvertantly made it into your browsers temporary files.

Almost everything is a crime, and the government's ability to cheaply prosecute is only growing

<comment><USER15> I am aware of all that, and I can see how it would be feasible given enough compute power and cooperation from FB et. al.

My issue is with your claim that the NSA could incriminate "literally" anyone on the planet.

<comment><USER14> I agree that literally is an exaggeration, and that for now, masai warriors and newborn infants are safe :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> i hope everyone can look at this and see the conclusive proof:

many people in government from all sides abuse technology to control the lives of people in new, shocking, and totalitarian ways

to say "i'm not muslim, or Iranian, or Mexican, or a dissident", or etc, will soon no longer suffice.

Every conceivable activity and word you speak or think will eventually be evaluated if the technology is cheap enough and politicians are daring enough

The constitution doesn't even stop people from doing things like this anymore, so I don't know how to fix this

<comment><USER16> The Constitution is on it's way to becoming a dead letter. There's nothing wrong with rebooting the Republic, many countries go through such disruptions. I'm not saying just do it, but if the existing political consensus collapses we won't benefit from trying to back to how things used to be.

<comment><USER17> I was just thinking today about Thomas Jefferson's idea that the constitution be rewritten every 19 years (every generation).

I arrived at that thought while thinking about how Dropbox Paper is more modern than Google Docs (which turns 12 this year).

Sometimes it's better to start over from scratch.

It lets you do things you actually couldn't do with lots of small changes.

<comment><USER18> One of the very first changes of any new version of the Constitution arising from any major quarter would be the deletion of the First Amendment, with the Fourth following closely. I have no faith that a document reflecting contemporary American generational consensus, as Jefferson aspired to, would be better or more free.

<comment><USER16> Could =/= would. If you're arguing for the status quo because every alternative you can imagine is worse then you're essentially treating it as religious dogma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Those travelers would be violating their FaceBook ToS:

"You will not share your password (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account." [1]

Perhaps this would give FaceBook the power to intervene and, well block their account or something.

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/terms](https://www.facebook.com/terms)

<comment><USER20> Any term in contract that is contradictory to law is null and void. That's been in contract law since forever.

The law always trumps contracts.

<comment><USER21> IANAL, but even though this is true, Facebook could still ban accounts for complying.

They are a US company, and their TOS says they can ban an account for any reason or no reason at all. If they chose to ban anyone who shares passwords, even with the US government, even if they are Americans or not, they are within their rights as a US company to do so.

<comment><USER20> It's quite likely that any law promulgated to compel the production of passwords or any other authentication information would include language prohibiting a provider from terminating an account for complying with the law.

<comment><USER21> Then they terminate the account for no reason at all.

<comment><USER20> They probably wouldn't, as it would create a huge hassle for them when the government starts investigating.

Also, proximity in time to an event is admissible as evidence of intent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In addition to other points against this measure, there are massive privacy implications. Loads of people could be reusing passwords or may reuse keywords for multiple passwords. A collection of such data by an organization can and will be misused.

</comment><comment><USER23> I hope that we can keep this issue "apartisan", because the importance absolutely transcends past or future political affiliation. What has become "reasonable" is slowly but surely come to mean "what we can get away with".

</comment><comment><USER24> This has been discussed several times in the past few days:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13600704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13600704)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13598505](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13598505)

</comment><comment><USER25> I heard you can have password hundreds of characters long for Facebook... it'd be nice to have some long random gibberish impossible to type or maybe the full text of the 4th amendment to remind these people that what they do is against the constitution.

PS. password managers mean you won't suffer the same inconvenience.

</comment><comment><USER26> I hope other countries introduce that requirement for US-based travelers too, that'd probably be the quickest way to get the US to knock it off.

<comment><USER11> Most other countries have been thrilled to abuse their own people when it comes to espionage. So no, they'll jump right on board, gladly. Not primarily to punish the US, but because it's a perfect excuse to expand their existing spying programs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Easy fix: Delete your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

</comment><comment><USER28> Look, as much as we all get up in arms about this... total access to my email, calendar, and contacts were required to play Pokemon Go. I hate it, but until people starting taking privacy seriously, what is an appropriate response? The encroachments are everywhere and so prevalent (and people are so dulled) that nobody bats an eye when "the authority" (or just someone who seems mildly trustworthy) asks for things they shouldn't ask for.

If you offer to help a stranger fix something on their laptop, what percentage do you think would just tell you that their password is their kids' middle name -- and how many do you think would use the same password on their Gmail and bank accounts? The fact that so few people take privacy and security seriously is enraging; it's hard to go from enraged to outraged when most people don't even bother protecting themselves.

It's all so infuriating.

<comment><USER29> Maybe if they change this to an app that was required for entry, instead of turning over passwords.

<comment><USER28> How far off do you think we are from that? It'll be here within 5 years. To get a visa, you have to have the visa pre-scan app that requires every account you own to share data with it. They'll run that through some magic black box and it'll show the TSA's glorified mall cops a green or red light when you walk up to the scanner.

Fucking terrifying, and 99.9% of the people won't bat an eye before logging in. Thought policing is "for national security." That same percentage of people would be ok with the government raping their own mother if it was for national security.

This is all so damn frustrating.

<comment><USER29> I'm not sure, but to be honest I'm somewhat surprised something like this isn't already in place. Is there a TSA PreCheck app already? I also wonder if it will be tied to getting a visa/entering the country/flying, or initially pitched as a way to gain access to the TSA PreCheck line or some similar promotion. Maybe that will be the pilot program

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I saw a video interview with the CEO of Hotspot shield vpn the other day, he had a quote ready that went something like 'The first 3 companies to hit 1 billion users did it by selling private information, the next 3 are going to make it by protecting private information.'

I wrote it off as a nice sound bite, but maybe he's right...

Hey I'm sure I'm not the only one to think of this, but to everyone trying to build the next social network, how about putting in a feature where a second password will open your scrubbed profile? You'd choose what goes in from your main account, and not have to build entirely fake accounts. There's a way to get some quick traction, should the Trump administration succeed at making a policy of asking for passwords!

<comment><USER31> Perhaps I'm not understanding something. Why wouldn't an information-hungry regime simply ask for both passwords given that this would be a known feature?

<comment><USER30> Plausible deniability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wouldn't two factor make this irrelevant?

<comment><USER33> A state actor wouldn't even break a sweat getting around 2FA, individually or at scale, if the 2nd factor involves SMS (or the phone system in general) (which, for 99% percent of the 1% of people using it, it currently does):

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

It's not even out of the question for malicious private actors who _don 't_ have total control over the whole system:

[https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/the-limits-of-sms- for-2-...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/the-limits-of-sms-for-2-factor- authentication/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> What happens if I have 2FA enables?

<comment><USER35> First, you and your devices will be held for hours while they go through your accounts and devices. Then they'll require you to disable 2FA.

<comment><USER36> Yeah the best approach, the one I use when crossing, is to encrypt everything, then send part of the password to someone else who won't give it to me until later. They can steal your hardware, I guess.

<comment><USER37> And then you'll just be denied entry for "not cooperating". There is no technical solution to this political problem. (It also happens to be an ineffective measure, as false identities are easily crafted on the internet.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I don't have a Facebook account so will I be let in the country?

<comment><USER35> Depends how much the border officer likes you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Here's the question I want answered. How does this type of thinking affect the future of Snapchat. The future of Signal is easy to predict. Back door. Snapchat? This type of thinking seems like an existential threat to Snapchat.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is as good a time as any to stop using social media.

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't fall for your both-sides-do-it framing. Fact is that the other side had power and didn't do it. Now we have insane cheetoh in office and we're getting insane cheetoh policy ideas. This is not a matter of equivalence.

<comment><USER14> While I am not a defender of insane cheetoh, the article itself says the Obama administration (but more importantly, the officials that work for the admin in every agency) crafted these initial ideas around social media affecting immigration

Regardless of party, I would invite you to google the following governmental overreaches and then see which parties were in office:

The Pirate Bay raid, NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, NSA surveillance revelations, Superpredators, War on Drugs, War on Crime...

<comment><USER42> >NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

One of these things is not like the others

<comment><USER14> Watch Boris Malagurski's film "The Weight of Chains" and see if you change your opinion

The West (mostly USA) bombed everyone regardless of ethnicity in Yugoslavia and then took their largest assets. If they really cared about democracy and freedom, and if the Serbs really were genocidal maniacs as many believe, then the evidence in this film that shows the contrary wouldn't exist

<comment><USER43> >Watch Boris Malagurski's film "The Weight of Chains" and see if you change your opinion

Off topic, but I cringe every time someone responds like that. It's essentially shows you can't (bother) to write a coherent response and instead want the other guy to waste 2 hours watching your video.

<comment><USER14> Ok, I can prepare a more detailed textual response for anyone who is interested, but for a very deep and thorough exposition of the topic, I really do think the _video evidence_ within the film will do more justice than I ever could

Upon Tito's death in 1980, Western European and US political and business interests _systemically destroyed_ Yugoslavia, undeniably.

They did so to "fight communism", "promote democracy", and more importantly, bomb Yugoslav mines, factories, etc that were competing with Western ones both in Yugoslavia and abroad.

Everyone from the IMF, UN, World Bank, Reagan Admin, Bush Admin, Clinton Admin (and all of their supporters like Biden and Albright), Germany, etc etc, all of these participants were DEEPLY and PUBLICLY involved.

The end result was the bombing of all ethnicities of people, including the ones that were supposed to be being "liberated", such as the Bosnians and Albanians.

So, lastly, to tie it back into my original point. In my opinion, if you view all of this video evidence, and still say "ONLY THE (democrats, republicans) DID THIS), then you are denying the vast evidence that it was a cross party, multi decade plan.

I hope you can take the time to reply on the quality of my analysis!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If you put it on the internet, it isn't private. There really isn't a debate to be had about this.

I think requiring passwords for social media is fucking stupid. Really, really stupid.

People who expects to have "privacy on the internet" are also fucking stupid. Yes, this includes facebook, twitter, instagram, email, et. al.

If you wan't to keep a secret, don't tell anyone. If you put something "private" on the internet, you've ostensibly told 3-4 billion people.

<comment><USER45> > If you put it on the internet, it isn't private.

Access to social media accounts includes access to private communications, e.g. messages that were sent with the understanding that only the recipient would receive it.

But those nudes your girlfriend sent you are now in the hands of an immigration agent working in the name of "border security".

<comment><USER44> Yeah, and those nudes are also visible on whatever server they're stored on, with whatever rootkit is installed on it, or to whatever bored employee decides to look at them. Or to the jackass who saw you looking at your phone and took a picture, or the asshole who rooted your girlfriends phone, or the neighbor who hopped on your wireless router and guessed your "test12" password. God forbid anyone uses their phone to sign onto a public wifi somewhere, don't even get me started on that.

It is very foolish to consider anything, sent across any digital medium "private" in any sense.

<comment><USER31> Many of the examples you present are considered unlawful or, at the very least, unauthorized use.

I'll risk an analogy (I know, I know) and compare your examples of digital trespass to examples of physical trespass.

If someone can physically enter your (perhaps unlocked) home/place of business/doctor's office, etc. and expropriate copies and originals of documents associated with you--documents that are very likely protected by law as they are in the case of digital documents--would you also assert there is no such thing as something being "private"?

Your argument, to my mind, seems to blame people for having reasonable expectations of privacy and absolving criminals who violate that privacy.

EDIT: Recast caveat/second paragraph. Readability.

<comment><USER46> This is another iteration of the usual debate over what is right (or legal) and what is realistic. For example: you should be able to walk through any area anywhere at any time and feel safe; as a practical matter, some areas at some times may lead to violence.

irishcoffee is taking the "don't walk there at that time, everybody knows that" position, and you're taking the "everyone should be able to walk there at any time" position. You're both right, and yet these two positions never ever get reconciled in a productive manner.

<comment><USER47> > irishcoffee is taking the "don't walk there at that time, everybody knows > that" position, and you're taking the "everyone should be able to walk there > at any time" position. You're both right, and yet these two positions never > ever get reconciled in a productive manner.

irishcoffee is engaging in the victim blaming fallacy, which makes him wrong.

<comment><USER44> I'm being realistic. If you want something to be private, don't put it on the internet. It's like putting up a bulletin at your local gym, and getting mad when someone from out of state reads the bulletin. It just doesn't make any sense.

"They violated my privacy! I didn't intend for them to see that!"

They didn't. You put private information in a public place. I'm floored how on hn I'm having to describe how the internet works.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


DNA Testing Firm Goes Bankrupt; Who Gets the Data? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/dna/ <comment><USER2>
      Academic researchers have shown that anonymized data can
      be correlated with other data to identify people.

Very true. Just in the last year or so, the credit reporting agencies figured out how to match anonymized subprime mortgage borrower information with their own database of individual credit scores.

[http://www.equifax.com/cs7/Satellite?c=EFX_News_C&childp...](http://www.equifax.com/cs7/Satellite?c=EFX_News_C&childpagename=US/EFX_News_C/PressReleasePage&cid=1187889849347&p=1182374863790&packedargs=locale%3Den_us&pagename=EFX/Wrapper)

Then they sell the joined database to hedge funds and banks (still anonymized). They that before a borrower defaults on his mortgage, he'll first max out all his credit cards. Also, late credit card payments appear within 30 days. Late mortgage payments tend to take 60 days of delinquency before blipping on any radars.

Fortunately it's hard to argue today that this practice is hurting anyone. In fact, some day this could help good borrowers stand out better and receive a lower interest rate.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Wired article references the below quote from timesonline.co.uk:

"Industry experts said that Saga would want to maximise returns on its investment, and could still make wider use of data that some subscribers may find uncomfortable. Pooled and anonymised information, for example, could be sold to academic researchers or pharmaceutical companies."

Personally, I find the concern to be a little premature based on the terms of deCODE's privacy policy.

"deCODE will under no circumstances provide any 3'rd party, including insurance companies, health management organizations, hospitals, and government agencies, access to any of your personal data or data derived from your samples"

Pooled and/or anonymised information would fall under "data derived from your samples" and therefore would be a breach of the policy.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but if someone (say a health insurance co) were to buy deCODE, that purchasing entity would no longer be a 3rd party.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another candidate for an 'up-front' end of life policy or a we we-destroy- your-data guarantee.

Imagine this companies assets get bought up by a health insurance company.

What is the status of a privacy policy anyway if companies as a whole can be bought and sold.

<comment><USER6> A privacy policy probably doesn't have much standing but if the privacy clauses were terms of the contract which both parties agreed to then any purchasing company would still have to abide by them.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but the privacy policy is already broken at that point. The data is already in the hands of a third party, the one that bought the assets.

Bankruptcy is weird that way, stuff that normally would not be transferable can suddenly end up in the weirdest places.

Foreign companies could buy up the assets, and not be bound.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Avoid Delusional Thinking in Start-up Growth Strategy - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.co/2014/10/13/iacs-howaboutwe-co-founder-how-to-avoid-delusional-thinking-in-start-up-growth-strategy-guest-post/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing the PainMath exercise. It throws all our beliefs (I wouldn't call them plans anymore)out of the window but I guess that is what was needed.

</comment><comment><USER3> @schildkrout great post thanks for reminding us that we all have that 'Magic' and enabling people to be more creative is worth fighting for.</comment>


Show HN: TryClub (iOS) – try clothes at your home for free (available in NYC) - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tryclub-order-to-try/id1167262019?ls=1&mt=8 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, TryClub is an Instacart for trying on clothes. And we are happy to let you know that now you can try on clothes from almost any store in NYC for free. We don't even need your credit card info unless you order more than 10 items. Also, you can order 2 sizes of the same item. At the moment, we are available in New York City and planning to expand it further. Have a wonderful day.</comment>


ElasticSearch is now "Elastic" - <AUTHOR> https://www.elastic.co/ <comment><USER2> This just got announced a few minutes ago at their conference!</comment>


We need help: New Zealand Government About To Legalize Spying On NZ Citizens - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
There are events unfolding in New Zealand that are pushing forward with questionable surveillance laws despite the NSA scandals. The NZ government wants to legalize collection of meta-data about citizens of the nation with no rules or courts that would be able to interfere, similar to the behaviors of the NSA in the USA. We need to stop this but the government isn't listening despite 85% of NZers being against the change.
The government claims that the "opposition is for the sake of opposition" and that we have "nothing to hide" but the actions of the NSA have illustrated already how this is a problem and now it's about to happen here.
We don't have the EFF fighting for us. We don't have many people who even understand this. If we could get this on the world stage, we might be able to get the government here to listen. If anyone can help with getting the word out, please do. We're losing the privacy battle and nobody cares. Please help spread the world.
Here is some background:
A TL;DR on the proposed changes: http://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1iuu43/can_i_get_a_tldr_on_the_gcsb_and_tics_bills/
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/news/326441001-gcsb-bill--pm-reckons-people-are-on-his-side
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/13/07/22/239250/new-zealand-government-about-to-legalize-spying-on-nz-citizens
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/8953442/Spy-law-opposition-for-the-sake-of-politics-Key
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2013/07/23/gordon-campbell-on-peter-dunnes-illusory-gains-on-the-gcsb-bill/
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8951548/High-profile-GCSB-bill-opposition?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> I've passed your post on to KEA ([http://www.keanewzealand.com/](http://www.keanewzealand.com/)) via email info(at)keanewzealand.com.

Lets hope they can post it to the "more than 100,000 talented Kiwis and 'Friends of New Zealand' around the world."

</comment><comment><USER3> I didn't know that NZ had such a pressing security threat that would necessitate these actions. A shame really. Such a beautiful place with wonderful people.</comment>