With SESTA/FOSTA, lawmakers failed to separate good intentions from bad law - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org//deeplinks/2018/03/how-congress-censored-internet <comment><USER2> This is the real story:

"While we can't speculate on the agendas of the groups behind SESTA, we can study those same groups' past advocacy work. Given that history, one could be forgiven for thinking that some of these groups see SESTA as a mere stepping stone to banning pornography from the Internet or blurring the legal distinctions between sex work and trafficking."

Too many laws in America are stalking horses for restricting, not just commercial sexual activity, but all unapproved sexual activity. And the people who'd be doing the approving don't look like people I want in charge of my or my kid's sex life.

Child pornography and sex trafficking are both real, serious, problems. We should deal with them, not work to make it harder for sex workers and horny teenagers. But for a lot of the pressure groups in this area, the second thing is _their actual goal_.

<comment><USER3> I think if you want to have a classical non-dying civilization as is known from history, you have to restrict sexuality and force desirable men to keep a single wife and vice versa. It might sound silly and not modern, but the history and its established norms can point out an "algorithm" that preserved continuation of humanity, despite how horrible it might seem and how taxing it always was. A question is if our technological advancements are sufficient to sustain artificial rules that would be otherwise eliminated by evolution in natural environment, or if it falls apart like all previous attempts to deviate from a known "stable" model passed by traditions of what worked before. Not sure I want to be a guinea pig for social engineers either.

See what Tinder did to dating; nobody can have any illusion they are getting a "premium" faithful partner and it pushes the attractiveness/transaction narrative and quick disposability to most intimate relationships. Not a way to build a stable civilization, rather a hyper-competitive cruel society where nothing is ever enough.

Unless these warts are addressed by a proper patch, our civilization has no future (IMO). I can wonder about motivations of those groups, whether it is really continuation of civilization, or just taking advantage of usual biological idealistic attitude of males to work hard for carrot-and-stick motivations in a form of a woman they desire, and harvesting that energy for their own selfish reasons, painting it white as necessary for everybody.

<comment><USER4> > I think if you want to have a classical non-dying civilization as is known > from history, you have to restrict sexuality and force desirable men to keep > a single wife and vice versa.

If we're talking about what's known from history, this is total nonsense. Polygamy was permitted in China into the 20th century. China was the best place in the world by a whole host of metrics up to about the 17th century. It is still known now for the cultural stability it's displayed for the past couple millennia.

What did you mean by "classical non-dying civilization"?

<comment><USER5> Polygamy and proximity to the end of a civilization would be a interesting scatter plot.

<comment><USER4> How do you think that would work? Whatever you mean by "end of a civilization", it's going to have nearly zero effect on polygamy. Polygamy is a marriage practice that people will do, or not do, according to their culture; changes of government / technology / etc. don't change it.

Going back up to my original example, you see polygamy practiced in China in the warring states period (ca. 500 - 200 BC), in the early Han (ca. 200 BC - 0), and the later Han (ca. 0 - 200 AD), and the three kingdoms period (ca. 200 - 300), and the Tang dynasty (ca. 600 - 900), and the Song dynasty (960 - 1279), and the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368; wasn't even a Chinese government), and the Ming dynasty (ca. 1368-1644), and the Qing dynasty (1644-1912; also not a Chinese government. The Qing actually outlawed foot binding, though this was not effective.), as well as through all the other intermediate periods not mentioned in that list.

However you want to count the end of a civilization, there won't be any relationship at all to polygamy practice; one changes and the other doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What exactly is the intention behind this bill? Do they hope the demand for prostitution will drop, and thus trafficker revenues and incentives? That seems ridiculous, as demand for prostitution existed throughout human history and across civilizations, mainly as a cultural artifact.

So we expect the services to simply shift to use other facilitators. Do they hope the new facilitators will be better for the victims? That, again, seems misguided: we know for a fact that traditional, pre-internet facilitators, like pimps and underground brothels, are exceptionally damaging for victims, physically, emotionally and economically. Any underground, high friction market, will have large margins for the traders (traffickers) and make the producers worse off.

Is the intention to drag prostitutes into legality, in supervised establishments where they can be protected by the state? Shouldn't that start with a nation-wide ban of anti-brothel laws that effectively force prostitutes to work underground?

So what exactly is the point of this bill? Denying independent prostitutes autonomy and forcing them in the hands of traffickers? Did they even ask themselves these questions? Do they even understand the purpose is harm- reduction across a whole at-risk social class, not some crusade against a Hollywood vision of innocence abused?

<comment><USER7> This is a way to shut down any unmoderated online community using a troll army. The admins on the chans have been warning about this. Notice how this got passed the same week that youtube started banning legal gun and conspiracy videos, etc. It's part of a big online purge against free speech.

There are many unfortunate casualties in the current U.S political cold civil war that's been going on since the last election. They are seeking to eliminate anything that could lead to further unexpected political outcomes by going scorched earth on all kinds of online speech.

<comment><USER8> > This is a way to shut down any unmoderated online community using a troll > army.

Which is nearly every online community. The economics of accurate moderation to legal standards are completely unrealistic.

People see hundred billion dollar companies and assume they're swimming in cash, but most of them have something like ten billion in annual revenue against a billion users. The total is large but the amount per user is not.

There is zero possibility of paying someone with the legal knowledge to make accurate balancing decisions to read and evaluate the legality of every user's posts. And short of that you're going to have huge numbers of false positives or false negatives.

Pass a law that prohibits false negatives and the result is false positives through the roof. Past the point that it will shutter legitimate forums.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Pretty hilarious/depressing WaPo coverage from when the Communications Decency Act was struck down in the lower court (before it got to the Supreme Court): [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/06/13/c...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/06/13/court- upholds-free-speech-on-internet-blocks-decency- law/02e2ecfd-50c0-4d36-8d11-b78cdc3ad8e3/?utm_term=.4e57b38cf732).

Love this quote:

> But a leading proponent of the legislation, Bruce Taylor of the National Law > Center for Children and Families, said yesterday that the court "jumped off > the bridge" with its "absolute" decision. Saying "the technology overwhelmed > the court," Taylor predicted the Supreme Court would reject the ruling. > "They haven't got a prayer of having this upheld on appeal," he said.

These twits are going to win eventually, just slowly.

<comment><USER10> These twits presumably spent two decades drumming up support for their cause while the tech community failed to give an answer to how the Internet won't affect society negatively. The results are well deserved.

<comment><USER11> We shouldn't have to give an answer as to how freedom of speech and freedom of association will affect things negatively.

<comment><USER12> If aren't prepared to argue your point don't expect people to take you seriously. There are no lack of opinions on the Internet nor in the world. If you can't justify your own despite the ever larger resources available to do so chances are you are wrong. The reason why people on HN don't isn't because they don't have to, it's because they can't. That is why they are drawn to places where people agree with them so they can sit and "not understand what is happening" without facing their own ignorance.

<comment><USER13> So what you're saying is a vastly less rich and organized populace was never able to communicate their arguments in a concentrated enough manner so that Congress would care? Who would've thought.

This argument is stupid. The fundamental freedoms that the internet provide to the global community are too important to be taken away by old lawmakers with no understanding of the way Cyberspace works.

<comment><USER14> "Tech" is one of the richest industries in history. It has literally enabled people like Elon Musk to create their own private space programs, something most nation states are unable to do. It is also the industry that, again literally, is based on building systems to gather, present and organize people and information.

People in "tech" overall does not want to study other subjects than computer science, they do not want publish publications with other people, change the way the Internet works (in their own direction) nor organize with other people.

There is very little indicating that the support for free speech in "tech" is any more substantial than any industry's support for what serves them at the moment.

<comment><USER13> You're conflating the tech industry (what's with the constant air quotes) with the kind of people who are concerned about these laws and the effects of the dangerous precendent they set.

>People in "tech" overall does not want to study other subjects than computer science

People in a field are fans of that field and want to study it deeply? Surprises me for sure.

<comment><USER14> > what's with the constant air quotes

Because I am using the word vaguely to largely mean tech culture.

> People in a field are fans of that field and want to study it deeply? > Surprises me for sure.

It is not a surprise to me. I am the one arguing that people don't actually think it is that important. Because usually when you think something is important you show an interest in it.

There are people interested in technology that also study ethics, law, psychology or even just things like information systems which are subjects that raises these questions. But those people are few and far between and tends to have a more complex view of the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congress is a bunch of idiots. Online ads are probably the #1 spot for sex slaves to be found and returned home. Instead they drive everything to dark nets and offline methods of acquiring clientele, and thus making it harder to police and save lives. Not to mention all the freedoms this can potentially take away.

I'm against sex traffickers as much as the next guy, but this is not the way to stop them.

<comment><USER16> > Online ads are probably the #1 spot for sex slaves to be found and returned > home.

I'd never heard of this. I'm not trying to call you out or anything, but do you have any sources or further reading? I'd be interested in seeing how this works.

<comment><USER17> Linked FTA:

[https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2017/08/how- section-23...](https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2017/08/how- section-230-helps-sex-trafficking-victims-and-sesta-would-hurt-them-guest- blog-post.htm)

<comment><USER16> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Welp, this is the (big) straw that breaks the camels back. While I've been somewhat slowly easing out of having my hosting services in the US, I don't think I want to even have business with anyone HQ'd in the US anymore.

What if someone phone's them up and says I host sex trafficking? Or I do something else illegal in the US that is fine in the EU or elsewhere?

I simply don't want the risk of the US gov'd or law interfering with me or my business.

<comment><USER19> Where are you going?

Where can Internet refugees go?

<comment><USER18> I'm moving all my stuff into Europe. My main Server is hosted at OVH which has no HQ in the US (OVH in the US is a separate corporation specific to US customers of OVH).

I'm moving my mail to Protonmail, away from my current mail provider (which I was planning to do anyway once the contract ran out since they are against net-neutrality but I'll speed things up now)

My DNS is also currently hosted in the US, via Cloudflare and another provider. I will move those into OVH too but I'll have to wait for atleast two contracts to run out for that too.

Considering the GDPR, I guess the EU is the current bastion of privacy and a free-er internet.

<comment><USER20> With the passing of the CLOUD act, moving your server or email outside the US likely won't help. See [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/cloud-act- dangerous-ex...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/cloud-act-dangerous- expansion-police-snooping-cross-border-data)

<comment><USER18> I'm not in the US so if I'm pulling my stuff out of the US, I don't believe the CLOUD act will bother me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> :%s/sex trafficking/mass shooting/g

:%s/gun control laws/internet censorship/g

\--edit: before you reach for that downvote button - im not conflating the two crimes they are both depreaved and horrible in their own way. I am noting a high degree of symmetry in the reaction of a heavy-handed government 'take away the rights of everyone' to what is isolated incidents of horror.

In one case americans seems willing to relinquish their rights to the government in the name of safety.

In the other americans seems to consider this overreacting

yet to me they seem to have high degree of symmetry

<comment><USER22> Why is the right to skeet shoot with a military weapon in the same breath as forums for free speech? The splash damage of these two efforts isn't remotely comparable.

<comment><USER23> What is a non-military weapon? If you want to have a meaningful discussion, please identify the types of guns you have a problem with, and why, and how you differentiate them from guns you don't have [as much of] a problem with, and how you intend to avoid running afowl (sorry I couldn't resist) of the 2nd amendment.

You think the splash damage of free speech isn't significant? It's less immediate, but _more_ significant. How do you think we got into modern wars like Iraq and Syria if not for media-supported propaganda, i.e. speech?

<comment><USER22> I don't think knowledge of particular gun types is relevant to my argument- I am saying that the side effects of banning a particular gun are smaller and far less profound than making the operators of internet platforms responsible for the speech of all users on their platform.

I agree with you that speech is more important! That's why I am saying the side effects, the splash damage if you will, in limiting platforms where ordinary people can spread information because they might be used for sex trafficking, is not remotely comparable to banning a model of gun because it might be used to shoot a lot of people quickly.

The intended effects and effectiveness of the efforts aside, I think the potential for unintended side effects in FOSTA is of a completely different magnitude and nature.

<comment><USER23> You don't know what the side effects are because you don't know how an assault rifle is defined (it depends on which legislation you're talking about, there's no standard definition), and without proposing _specific_ things to be banned, your proposal is just virtue signalling "I don't like assault weapons [even though I don't know what they are or how they're distinguished from handguns]."

Depending on the proposal, a ban on assault rifles is likely either:

\- An ineffective nothingburger, targeting features that don't matter for lethality, that can easily be removed or changed, or features that can be built or re-added in a weekend in a garage (which only affects people who shoot recreationally, and not someone planning a shooting for weeks or months like mass shooters tend to do).

\- A ban on most semi-auto guns including the vast majority of handguns people rely on for every day carry and self defense.

If you want to try to have an effective ban without nuking handguns too, you have to be fairly knowledgeable about guns and machining and _very_ specific about what you're proposing, and there are likely still holes big enough to drive a falcon nine through.

And then, if you come up with such a proposal that actually might work, you have to run the gauntlet of:

1\. It's unconstitutional.

2\. Semi-auto long guns are actually _better_ for self defense than handguns, the main reasons people use handguns are that long guns are less mobile/concealable and louder.

3\. What exactly are you going to do about the tens of millions of banned guns and maybe hundreds of millions of banned magazines for those guns? Confiscation? Do you _want_ a civil war? No confiscation? Then nefarious people will have no trouble getting them on the black market.

(chimeracoder's reply is completely right, but I didn't want to take the detour of getting into the technical definition of assault rifle when it makes no difference in this discussion.)

<comment><USER24> > You don't know what the side effects are because you don't know how an > assault rifle is defined (it depends on which legislation you're talking > about, there's no standard definition)

To clarify:

"Assault rifle" is well-defined with a standard definition. Assault rifles have been illegal for non-military, non-LEO use for decades (with a grandfather clause for rifles purchased before a certain date - these are incredibly expensive due to their rarity and belong mainly to collectors).

"Assault weapon" is completely undefined with no common consensus around what it refers to, and plenty of inconsistent or self-contradictory definitions in use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> While on the topic of censorship, [https://blog.github.com/2018-03-14-eu- proposal-upload-filter...](https://blog.github.com/2018-03-14-eu-proposal- upload-filters-code/)

 _" The EU is considering a copyright proposal that would require code-sharing platforms to monitor all content that users upload for potential copyright infringement (see the EU Commission's proposed Article 13 of the Copyright Directive) … Upload filters ("censorship machines") are one of the most controversial elements of the copyright proposal … EU policymakers have told us it would be very useful to hear directly from more developers. In particular, developers at European companies can make a significant impact."_

<comment><USER26> Github is perfectly fine with censorship on their platform and they frequently use it to take down repositories that use language they don't like, it only becomes a problem when someone else does it to them. That blog post is very dishonest and manipulative too.

<comment><USER27> Can you give a specific example of what you're referring to? I suspect that you're thinking of situations like the GamerGateOP repository, which was disabled because it was being used for harassment. (There was no actual code in the repository; it was simply being used to host a newsletter.)

Besides, what are you trying to argue here? That web sites should be _forced_ to distribute anyone's content?

<comment><USER26> Webm for retards is one example of censorship on Github. There are plenty of repositories that have no code in them that are perfectly fine by Github rules even if they're just pieces of propaganda.

What I'm trying to argue is that they're hypocrites that are only against censorship when it's applied to them and endangers their profits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So if I post something about sex and prostitution research in HN then HN is liable for some criminal violation if they don't censor it? What kind of insanity is that? Would that not open the possibility of destroying an online site with comments (or even something like Medium) deliberately by posting now "illegal" things?

<comment><USER29> If you find clients for your pimping business via HN, with HN's knowing consent, then yes, it's a criminal violation.

<comment><USER30> Knowing consent that it's used for prostitution isn't required under FOSTA/SESTA. Merely knowing consent that there's facilitation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How many of the commenters read the actual bill, and not just about the bill? It's quite short, and it's on Congress' website.

I agree with everyone who says this will just drive prostitution underground, and isn't helpful. However, I am wondering about how hurtful it is to sites which are not _designed_ to host personals or prostitution advertising.

Dating sites are in a gray area, and they have been vetting people's descriptions for a long time.

Social networking sites have flagging features, that others can use to flag profiles for review, under various categories. One of them can be specifically tailored to make sure this bill doesn't describe them as "reckless disregard".

All other sites that host user-generated content, such as programming forums, I think, are in no danger.

Again, this is not about the good intentions of the bill vs what it actually achieves to reduce human trafficking or prostitution. But rather, my comment is mainly about its effect on the vast majority of sites hosting user- generated content under section 230.

<comment><USER32> One of the problems is this line in particular:

The term 'participation in a venture' means knowing conduct by an individual or entity, that assists, supports, or facilitates a violation.

"facilitating" means "make easier or less difficult". Hosting a website that allows people to talk about things, potentially including sex trafficking, certainly makes it easier, and under this law, any such website would be liable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It seems like a dirty tactic for a federal law to be passed making websites that promote prostitution illegal while the legality of actual prostitution is left up to the individual states to decide. I bet this isn't the first time this type of tactic has been employed.

<comment><USER34> I think it is more like cigarettes, you are free to smoke your lungs off but tobacco companies are forbidden to advertise.

Fair enough, I don't want my daughters watching ads about amazing returns for beautiful girls in the prostitution industry.

<comment><USER35> Would you rather your daughter hooking on the street making barely enough to stay alive because her pimp takes all the money or in a safe place with healthcare, police protection, and high earnings?

<comment><USER34> Excellent question!

No, I live in Brazil where prostitution is not illegal but profiting from prostitutes is.

So brothels and pimping are illegal - although there are plenty brothels, you only see pimping on very high level escorts and I never saw a place with sex slaves (but I saw this kind of place in other countries).

So this is my point, prostitution should be legal and physically safe both for prostitutes and Johns (nobody being beaten, mugged or otherwise ripped off) the same way tobacco smoking is legal. It is my opinion about safe recreational drugs as well. And like tobacco, companies should be prevented from mass-advertising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The real irony is between SESTA/FOSTA and the CLOUD act we've basically regulated Internet companies into mandatory consumer violation instead of protection. There is no end to this. If this extends to telcos then decentralization will not help. Today, we made the Internet into broadcast television. Congratulations to AT&T.

<comment><USER37> What do you mean by "mandatory consumer violation"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> One only hopes the growing gap between the government and its citizens will reach a breaking point, but unfortunately it seems too many are willing to stay apathetic and complacent, "because it doesn't affect me" while the government continues stripping them of their ability to revolt.

Not to mention the clever(!?) technique of naming these bills such that those opposing them could be seen as supporting the various crimes they are intending to fight against.

"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

</comment><comment><USER39> I was spurred to make a sizable donation to the EFF by recent news (in addition to my regular per-paycheque) donation and I encourage anyone else reading this to consider donating as well.

</comment><comment><USER40> I agree 100% with everything in the article, but to play devils advocate:

A common thread that appears on HN is the nostalgia laden post about how the internet used to be "smaller" and more "personal", with forums and chat rooms ruling the landscape instead of social media. This article mentions that large internet companies will be able to afford litigation, but medium sized companies will not. Small communities, however, are able to be moderated by a small team of humans.

The reason why reddit/4chan/twitter/craigslist/youtube are forced into sweeping censorship due to FOSTA/SESTA is because they have user bases too massive to comb through without a clumsy algorithm. They will become the network broadcast TV; small sites will become the internet reaction to that, what they were always supposed to be.

Obviously, SESTA/FOSTA is the dumbest way to build a smaller internet, hurts more user than it helps on massive platforms, and spreads unlawful activity to even smaller, darker corners of the internet. But grasping for silver linings here.

<comment><USER8> > Small communities, however, are able to be moderated by a small team of > humans.

That doesn't change the cost per user. You're essentially talking about having the users do the moderation, but that isn't enough when it comes to legal requirements. What happens when they make mistakes because they aren't lawyers?

If smaller communities take over it won't be because they're more economical, it will be for the same reasons that piracy sites continue to exist -- they're in violation of the law but for every one that gets shut down two more pop up.

<comment><USER40> Good point. Especially the last remark about two or more popping up; that's really the worst side effect of SESTA/FOSTA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Well ... it's what I've come to expect from our federal government.

</comment><comment><USER42> That's why free speech basically can't be selective. If it was Reddit banning /r/the_donald, all of you complaining now would cheer the development.

<comment><USER43> For the longest time the argument for banning The_Donald wasn't to silence their voice. It was to tell their users to fuck off if they can't follow the site rules. They would constantly manipulate the vote counts or brigade smaller subs, more recently the spotlight has been about reddit's rules regarding advocating violence.

The problem was always that they hid behind the guise that they were the unofficial Donald Trump fanclub when there really never was an alternative one with a more moderate userbase. The_Donald is fine to exist but they seemingly refuse to stay in their playpen and ahve their fun, they need to sling mud throughout the rest of reddit while they're there.

And just to state it, I don't think TD is the _only_ sub guilty of this behavior. I don't think its even an issue exclusive to politics but I _really_ wish Reddit took a more hard look at their rule enforcement to make things clear and had clear transparency for their enforcement of the rules.

<comment><USER44> The main reason that "playpen" is the way it is, is because the default news and politics subs went full Clinton, with moderator and admin approval. It's also an open secret that SRS and its friends brigade the rest of the site, and again, admins allow their rule violations to continue.

Reddit is not interested in being a neutral platform, and the constant scapegoating of the people they drive into containment subs as being the cause rather than the result is both tiresome and idiotic. If you don't want people to isolate themselves and radicalize, don't drive them away from mainstream channels.

One if my main gripes with the current American left is their inability to see themselves as agents who cause the things they hate.

<comment><USER45> >It's also an open secret that SRS and its friends brigade the rest of the site

Haven't been there in a while, but an invariant of scrolling through SRS was that the linked posts had a _high upvote count_ , before and after being linked from SRS page.

Which is the entire point of SRS - to show what kinds of things that that group finds objectionable _gets upvoted_ on reddit.

I know that SRS is reddit's favorite bogeyman, but personally, I just haven't seen any evidence to the claim you made.

Note, I am not saying this to argue with you. I am writing this to provide a piece of anecdata to the person scrolling through this thread not much aware of the things being talked about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Prostitution devalues the defacto-trade currency of relationships- thus every creature dependent for well-beeing on a relationship, will put agents into motion to harass the consumers and providers of the "free-drug-trade".

So, yes, your wife is secretly donating money to harass prostitutes.

</comment><comment><USER47> If Facebook, Google, et al didn't want these authoritarian laws passed do you think they'd make it through?

They are likely purposefully doing this to create a humongous barrier of entry for new incumbents. And a fresh new way to politically destroy competition.

This is why we need to decentralize as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER48> Let's ask a harsh question: Could a service like Gmail or Hotmail be declared illegal with this?

<comment><USER49> What about airlines with online booking websites? People have travelled for sex tourism to countries with trafficked sex workers, and it's such a known phenomenon that there's no reasonable way the operators of an airline could be unaware of it. And yet, they still sell tickets. By the letter of the law, that can certainly "make easier or less difficult" the sex trade by facilitating the transportation of potential customers. Are they then criminally liable if someone is found to have flown on their airline for the purpose of sex tourism?

<comment><USER50> I don't like the pretense of the law, but the hysteria surrounding this is truly astounding.

No, Gmail, Facebook, and Travelocity are not complicit in the sex trade by virtue of the fact that someone can use their services to conduct such actions. Section 230 still exists. Without it, yes, you might actually be right, and the internet would implode due to the liability involved in running any service at all. We already covered this 20 years ago.

The operative word in the new law is "knowingly." If Gmail _knowingly_ provided services to a pimp, if Facebook _knowingly_ hosted a group to facilitate trafficking, and if Travelocity _knowingly_ sold sex tourism packages ("we see you're renting a hotel and a car-- would you like to add an underaged escort?"), then the law applies. Selling someone a ticket to Thailand isn't a crime. Giving them recommendations on the local brothels might be.

Backpage is in the shit because they _knew_ they were hosting _child prostitution ads_ and actively tried to hide it from _police._ Silk Road couldn't claim 230 because internal documents showed Ulbricht _knew_ he was facilitating the drug trade (and even _knew_ what the consequences would be!).

The message is clear-- if you're going to run an illegal site, don't participate in its content or market it for those purposes. Don't seed it or hire anybody to seed your content. Just stay out of it, run an agnostic platform and let the users generate their own content (4chan isn't technically a porn site, after all). If something is brought to your attention, delete it and document it-- you fulfilled your obligation.

You'd still have deniability as to what your users are up to; after all, you can't be expected to police all the user-generated content faster than they can create it.

<comment><USER51> > You'd still have deniability as to what your users are up to; after all, you > can't be expected to police all the user-generated content faster than they > can create it.

For now… This law is a stepping stone to government–curated mandatory content filtering.

Facebook & Google are already testing & developing the technology voluntarily[1].

The government will initially say you don't have use it, _of course_ , but maybe if you choose to then you won't have to worry about that nasty liability laws…

If it's voluntarily then there's no 1st amendment issue, they'll have their lawyers argue.

And the people will agree, nodding along in their safe spaces, as even now they mindlessly repeat that "censorship is legal," don't you know, "if the corporations do it."

And at first it will be fine. But all that's left for that censorship dream to become a sweet reality is just one final missing puzzle piece. To make the list secret. So close!

How will they do it? Maybe they'll say that a list of hashes /fingerprints of illegal content is "facilitating" child pornography, because after all that's how Torrents and DHTs work. Is a magnet link not facilitating piracy?

Not convinced? Just then Google will deliver with an AI technology to recreate images from the Fingerprints, not quite perfect, but the cherry picked examples resembling the original content just _enough_ to make you feel uncomfortable[2].

Could the Fingerprints be modified to prevent it? Is it possible they were in fact designed with this exact goal in mind from the very beginning?

You don't dare to ask. You are not a PEDOPHILE.

The list becomes secret.

Do you think this is far fetched?[3]

> internal documents showed Ulbricht knew he was facilitating the drug trade

They also showed him ordering hits on people[3] for as long as it was necessary to serve as a convenient distraction.

[1] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/11/facebook_fing...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/11/facebook_finger.html)

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

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom)

[4] [https://freeross.org/2014/08/31/mia-murder-for-hire- charges/](https://freeross.org/2014/08/31/mia-murder-for-hire-charges/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Big question is if this will actually survive judicial review. I am quite sure someone will make a test case out of something. There's enough of "offending material" to make hay off.

</comment><comment><USER53> Does it mean that websites now must prevent encrypted communication?

U2FsdGVkX18IeqlFqCOknXszPyMqiWSyn99anjBcKIl8bINzaUyWc0Le8lgEcj6t

zoGfSQvhXeaoNfMyrEd9WA==

</comment><comment><USER54> Here is the question all Americans should ask about legislation: "Is it constitutional?"

If no. Discard or modify.

<comment><USER55> I'm worried that it is. Most of the legal precedents in the internet space hinge on the fact that it is impossible for things like search engines to read every page they index, so mandating they do will ban search engines, and the courts doubt congress meant to do that. (Sometimes judges will say the law has to "scale" to new technologies, and then find in the common sense direction, instead of following the letter of the law)

Google has said that it is now feasible for machine learning algorithms to police user content, which undermines the legal precedent. Honestly, I'm surprised this change had to go through congress, since the legal precedents were on shaky ground to start with.

I think you'll fund the framers of the constitution did not anticipate the existence of publishers that cannot even enumerate the things they publish, and were completely silent on this issue.

A similar oversight occurred with online privacy: The government's surveillance apparatus is much smaller than corporate America's and nothing stops the government from buying legally available commercial surveillance data, so they just launder illegal searches through private industry.

(The CLOUD act extends this to launder the searches through foreign governments, and also expand US law enforcement's jurisdiction to the whole planet—that seems much more likely to fall afoul of the constitution. Issues of sovereignty and protection against foreign influence were clearly well understood when the constitution was written.)

<comment><USER56> Malicious users will always find ways around machine learning algorithms, though. So if the law makes it impossible for someone to run a legitimate personals website (as it seems to already be happening with Craigslist), then doesn't that amount to government-instituted prior restraint on what should be legitimate free speech?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> So does that mean Nevada can sue the federal government because it is legal there?

</comment><comment><USER58> did anybody else get the messages from EFF and ignore them?

</comment><comment><USER22> Now what?</comment>


What is static program analysis? - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/articles/intro-static-analysis/

<comment><USER3> "You can't solve the halting problem" was high on the list of responses that made selling static analysis a pain in the butt.

<comment><USER4> Yes, even people who are aware of the halting problem often misunderstand its implications. What Turing proved is that no _algorithm_ \-- in the sense of an effective procedure, that is guaranteed to return the correct answer in finite time on any input -- can solve the halting problem. But there is a critical difference between _algorithms_ and _heuristics_. A heuristic is not guaranteed to do anything, but nonetheless, collections of heuristics can be assembled that can analyze properties of programs _in many cases of actual interest_.

The distinction between algorithms and heuristics is, in my opinion, insufficiently appreciated. For example, the very phrase "genetic algorithms" is a contradiction in terms -- these are clearly heuristics, not algorithms.

Anyway, back to your point, we who are still selling static analysis -- I'm not sure why you used the past tense there; it's a growing business -- find that people who don't understand the halting problem at all are perhaps as much a source of difficulty as those who are aware of it but don't understand its implications. The latter group are skeptical that our products can work at all, but the former are often baffled and indignant that the products don't understand properties of their code that seem obvious. (The fact that analysis often takes a long time and needs large amounts of RAM also surprises some people.)

But I think the world is gradually coming to understand what static analysis can and can't do. It's an education process and will take time.

<comment><USER5> The kinds of static analysis you're talking about are different than what Matt is talking about in his article.

Matt is talking about situations where you _can_ make guarantees. That is, if his analyzer says that a register can never take on a negative value, that is a guarantee. It is not based on a heuristic, it is based on a proof. How this guarantee is possible, despite the halting problem, is because he designs an abstract representation of the program being analyzed. It loses a lot of information, but by using it, one can actually prove things about the program.

If I understand you correctly, you're talking about heuristics which allow one to say "It is very likely that this program will exhibit that behavior." It's not a guarantee, because it's not based on a proof, but rather on heuristics which try to match patterns in the code in question to patterns in code that was known to exhibit such behavior. Carmack talks about using such static analysis in his projects in a popular blog post (HN discussions: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4543553> and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3388290>).

In simpler terms, Matt's approach avoids the halting problem by only providing guarantees on a limited set of behaviors. The approach you're talking about avoids the halting problem by not providing guarantees, but by providing likelihoods.

<comment><USER6> I agree with your post, though I am curious to know if there is any use for "this function is likely to terminate" inside static analysis.

 _How this guarantee is possible, despite the halting problem, is because he designs an abstract representation of the program being analyzed. It loses a lot of information, but by using it, one can actually prove things about the program._

I would rather say: the halting problem shows that there exists _at least one_ program for which it is impossible to prove termination - not that _every_ termination problem is undecidable, as the trivial example "return 5;" shows.

<comment><USER5> The conclusion "this function is likely to terminate" may not be helpful, but "this function is likely to leak memory" may be extraordinarily helpful.

The reason that everyone brings up the halting problem in this context is not that we want to test programs if they halt. (Well, we may, but we're generally looking for other behaviors.) It's because for some behaviors, if you want to be able to handle _all_ cases, then that problem can be reduced to the halting problem. Matt provides an excellent demonstration of this with array indices.

I'm confused by your restatement, because it does not restate what I said. You're talking about the halting problem. I'm talking about proving general behaviors in programs, despite the theoretical result that solving the halting problem is impossible, and that many behaviors can be reduced to the halting problem. The solution, as Matt explains, is to find ways to describe behaviors so they _do not_ reduce to the halting problem. Using this technique, you still can have false negatives ("I don't know"), but you can guarantee no false positives.

<comment><USER6> _I'm confused by your restatement, because it does not restate what I said._

Indeed! I hadn't quite made out what you were trying to say in that post - <USER2> statement was not relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Something I've wondered but never got around to asking - why is it called Static Analysis? Why not Dynamic Analysis, or Runtime Analysis, or something else?

<comment><USER4> Precisely because it's done _without_ actually running the program. Dynamic analysis is where you do actually run the program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Analyzing sign example doesn't work in C where signed integer overflow is undefined behavior.

Example [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12729110/strange- integer-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12729110/strange-integer- behavior-with-gcc-o2)

<comment><USER9> Right.

It works for the register language with infinite precision integers.

If you want it to work for C, you'll have to redefine the abstractions of addition and multiplication (and every other operation) appropriately.

You'll also have to parameterize it by word size, endianness, signedness and type of arithmetic.

That is, sound static analysis for C is almost certainly going to be platform- specific.

But, you can still do it.

<comment><USER10> _But, you can still do it._

Indeed. Arguably, compilers do it all the time to be able to (safely) do optimizations. Hence static analyzers are usually an extension to an compiler. Frama-C kind of being the exception, using CIL instead of the intermediate representation of a production compiler.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wish I knew what I was reading right now

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting write up. LLVM defines it as "a collection of algorithms and techniques used to analyze source code in order to automatically find bugs." <http://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/></comment>


Palindromes (Clojure vs. Common Lisp) - <AUTHOR> http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2009-12-25-174540_palindromes_clojure.html <comment><USER2> He's using vectors with clojure and lists with lisp. Why? It looks like he's concatenating vectors, which is O(n), with clojure, but cons'ing lists, which is O(1), with lisp. As much as I like seeing clojure's performance get critiqued, this comparison doesn't seem fair at all. Why aren't the implementations identical?

<comment><USER3> You need to remember that clojure vectors are NOTHING like arrays. They're persistent ultra-wide tree structures. I was curious if you were right and vectors were the wrong choice, so I profiled the code.

I had the big-test function run several times to actually show the real numbers (you need to prime the JVM to get a real indication of its speed):

      ~/Projects/palindromes % 〕bin/run-tests

      1000 X ' amanaplanacanalpanama '
      naive : (skipped)
      fast  : "Elapsed time: 449.397 msecs"
        "Elapsed time: 182.432 msecs"
        "Elapsed time: 149.721 msecs"
        "Elapsed time: 162.804 msecs"
        "Elapsed time: 159.086 msecs"

<http://gist.github.com/264369>

         CPU SAMPLES BEGIN (total = 205) Sun Dec 27 10:52:27 2009
         rank   self  accum   count trace method
            1  1.46%  1.46%       3 301336 clojure.template__init.load
            2  1.46%  2.93%       3 300339 java.lang.Class.forName0
            3  0.98%  3.90%       2 301445 clojure.lang.PersistentHashMap.containsKey
            4  0.98%  4.88%       2 301456 clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke
            5  0.98%  5.85%       2 301486 clojure.lang.PersistentVector$TransientVector.editableTail
            6  0.98%  6.83%       2 301487 clojure.lang.PersistentVector$TransientVector.conj
            7  0.98%  7.80%       2 301465 clojure.lang.PersistentVector.chunkedSeq
            8  0.98%  8.78%       2 301489 palindromes$ext_centers__96$fn__101.invoke
            9  0.98%  9.76%       2 301498 clojure.lang.PersistentList.first
            10   0.98% 10.73%       2 301482 clojure.lang.PersistentVector$TransientVector.conj

I do see a lot of vector activity, but no smoking gun. As other people have pointed out in this thread, SBCL is notorious for being _very_ good at recursing down big data structures. It's also notorious for being totally terrible with lots of other common tasks. I suspect this is just a case where the algorithm runs in such a way that languages that compile down all the way have a big advantage.

I've asked some more experienced hands in #clojure on freenode to take a stab at it. There are a lot of recent optimization developments in the clojure-1.1.0 release that I don't know how to use well yet. Hopefully someone there can tackle it.

<comment><USER2> Vectors may be implemented very differently from mutable arrays, but it is my understanding that they allow for efficient appends and updates, not efficient prepends. I would still switch to using lists, if only because when doing performance comparisons between languages and implementations you want the code and data structures to be as identical as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> SBCL is very impressive. Until recently[1], it was far and away the quickest implementation for a dynamic language. Considering we have yet to see invokedynamic or tail calls on the JVM, I'm rather unsurprised by SBCL's comfortable lead in performance.

[1] LuaJIT 2

<comment><USER5> > invokedynamic or tail calls

Neither would improve Clojure's performance.

<comment><USER6> Tail calls would improve Clojure performance since you wouldn't have to trampoline.

Edit: Not that they would, necessarily, improve the speed of this benchmark that much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems easy to hit some implementation wart that makes performance abysmal - it's hard to believe that a JVM targeted language would be 20x times slower. Case in point - I tried the benchmark with a bigger input - the performance ratio between the 'fast' implementations remained the same. Incredibly, though, the CL implementation took nearly 2 minutes to construct the input string, something that is essentially instant in the Clojure version.

      time sbcl --noinform --load palindromes.lisp --eval "(progn (big-test) (quit))"

      30000 X ' amanaplanacanalpanama '

      fast :
      Evaluation took:
      0.197 seconds of real time
      0.191206 seconds of total run time (0.186952 user, 0.004254 system)
      [ Run times consist of 0.006 seconds GC time, and 0.186 seconds non-GC time. ]
      96.95% CPU
      471,342,768 processor cycles
      13,802,832 bytes consed

      real	1m55.551s
      user	1m51.954s
      sys	0m0.778s

<comment><USER8> Because the CL code to create the string is completely inefficient. It starts that he prints a string with format, using a format directive. Instead of (FORMAT s "~a" string) use (write-string string s). Also, if the result string length is known, one can just allocate a result string and copy the source string repeatedly into the result string...

<comment><USER7> It's clear that it's inefficient and I'm no expert in either CL or FORMAT but it's not just inefficient, it's staggeringly inefficient. 2 minutes to make a few hundred k string on a 2+ghz CPU is hard to fathom, even if one assumes the method is imperfect, generates piles of garbage, etc, etc. It'd be interesting if someone could explain how this actually happens.

<comment><USER8> I'd say it's a performance bug. Replacing (format stream "~a" string) with (format stream string) gets rid of the problem.

LispWorks has no performance problem with both forms, though.

The reason is the SBCL pretty printer. If

        *pretty-print*

     is NIL, then both forms run fast in SBCL...

<comment><USER7> Interesting. For the massive hit, that better be the prettiest printing pretty printer in the galaxy. OpenMCL didn't choke on it either.

Edit: Well, the last bit is a lie, it did the moment i set

      *PRINT-PRETTY*.

<comment><USER8> Even with

        *print-pretty*

set to T, LispWorks runs fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't know much about optimization, but...it looks like he's timing the Clojure version with Clojure already loaded, but timing the SBCL version with SBCL not loaded. Would that change the measurements much?

<comment><USER10> Nah, that's not what's happening. The (time ...) special form is what prints the timing results, and it's squarely in the (big-test) function. All is right under the sun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some context might help... which implementation of Common Lisp? SBCL?

<comment><USER7> From the article -

"triton:palindromes jgrant$ sbcl --noinform --load [...]"

<comment><USER11> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would the SBCL be able to spread across the many cores a common desktop has today? How is threading implemented in CL?

<comment><USER13> If I recall correctly, as in many other Lisps, it's a derivative of MP facility dating back to Lisp machines, and it runs over native threads.

<comment><USER12> I am looking into the cl-cookbook at sourceforge. It looks very interesting and worth investigating more. This specific benchmark seemingly would benefit from multiple threads on multiprocessors, if I could read its implementations correctly.

<comment><USER14> cl-cookbook is mostly outdated. use bordeaux-threads; it works across all lisps :-) and it's multicore for sbcl linux and clozure everything else (dunno about the commercial lisps)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stalker in the Attic: Cyberbully Who Spies on 12-Year-Old Girls in Their Home - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2014/07/13/cyberbullying-stalking-leander-texas/

<comment><USER2> I hope Danielle's parents take legal action against the moms for spreading horrible slander and with that discourage other witch hunters of similar things.</comment>


Elon Musk's Boring Company Gets Preliminary Permit for NYC-DC Hyperloop - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/19/elon-musks-boring-company-gets-preliminary-permit-for-nyc-d-c-hyperloop/ <comment><USER2> This headline is bordering on inaccurate. As described by the original Washington Post article:

> The Boring Company team has received an early, and vague, building permit > from the D.C. government that will allow some preparatory and excavation > work at the fenced-off parking lot at 53 New York Avenue NE beside a > McDonald's and amid the construction cranes of Washington's booming NoMa > neighborhood.

</comment><comment><USER3> Translation: Boring Company gets permit to dig hole in a private parking lot.

</comment><comment><USER4> > this first permit is comparable to an athlete stretching before a race. We > have not yet begun.

Sounds to me like this first permit is more like an athlete shopping for running shoes. This is really preliminary.

</comment><comment><USER5> A previous genius industrialist - Isambard Kingdom Brunel - built an "atmospheric railway" in 1844.

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h- word/2014/apr/04/b...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h- word/2014/apr/04/brunels-atmospheric-railway-history-technology-)

</comment><comment><USER6> Is the ground around DC dry enough for a tunneling machine like Musk has? I've always thought of that part of the country as being very wet.

<comment><USER7> It is both wet and generally fine for tunneling. The D.C. metro (subway) is almost entirely underground within D.C. city limits (though it runs mostly above ground outside of the city) and basements and extensive underground parking garages are the norm (some going _very_ deep).

The region being looked at is the Atlantic Coastal Plain and a little of the Atlantic Piedmont Plateau. Below the wet marshy bits it's mostly sedimentary prelithified and lithified rock in the coastal plain area and a complex geology in the Piedmont area. The Piedmont area used to be the base of an ancient mountain range that's since eroded away while the Coastal Plain used to be entirely underwater at some period.

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_(United_States)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_\(United_States\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The address in this article (53 New York Avenue NE) appears to be slightly incorrect.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/49+O+St+NE,+Washington,+DC...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/49+O+St+NE,+Washington,+DC+20024/)

</comment><comment><USER9> It looks like this permit is only for a small location, would this be the station?

<comment><USER2> >Asked about the permit, issued Nov. 29, a Boring Company spokesman said Friday that "a New York Avenue location, if constructed, could become a station" in a broad network of such stops across the new system.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/dc-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/dc- has-given-elon-musk-a-permit-to-do-a-little-digging-for-the- hyperloop/2018/02/16/ee8d2f08-1359-11e8-9570-29c9830535e5_story.html?utm_term=.2ae28b93aabf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Their work actually sounds pretty exciting to me.

<comment><USER11> > Their work actually sounds pretty exciting to me.

Why? They are nothing more than a off-the-shelf boring machine that was never used and a marketing department dedicated to fabricate hype.

<comment><USER12> The reason I'm excited is because at one point SpaceX was all hype too. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Swash 10-Minute Clothing Care System - <AUTHOR> http://www.swash.com/ <comment><USER2> Is this real?</comment>


Ask HN: How do I get software development clients from silicon valley? - <AUTHOR> I'm running a young software development company in Estonia. Hiring developers from eastern Europe, writing web and mobile apps, servers etc. I have clients from USA, they are introducing me to their partners already, but I can't find any traces of people from California so far.
I'm interested in this because of two reasons:
1. This is an extraordinary community with huge software development demand
2. We are incentivising best of our developers to start their own projects and therefore we are looking for potential business partners and connections in all sorts of domains.
Thank you for your attention. I hope this doesn't look like a self-promotion post, I'm really looking for confident advice. <comment><USER2> Hi, it's a good problem to have that you want to grow :)

How did you meet your original contacts in the USA? Most business, as you have correctly assessed, is done based on referral. This process can be slow and murky.

To get some traction in Cali, I would suggest you make some Youtube videos that demonstrate some of the awesome prototypes you've made. Anyone who is interested and has money will hopefully ask for a meeting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reply!

I was a freelance developer for about 1.5 years, got jobs from few clients and established very good relations with them. They gave me fuel to hire devs and establish scalable infrastructure with talented people on the main roles. Though, usually solo-freelancers are being hired by small companies, so, it's not enough unfortunately. Right now we are growing, but I can do so much more.</comment></comment>


The sarcasm detector - <AUTHOR> http://www.thesarcasmdetector.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Source code is available:

[https://github.com/MathieuCliche/Sarcasm_detector](https://github.com/MathieuCliche/Sarcasm_detector)</comment>


Advice to Less Experienced Developers - <AUTHOR> https://afreshcup.com/home/2019/06/01/advice-to-less-experienced-developers <comment><USER2> I'm currently working with a lot of younger developers and I think most would benefit from reading this type of article. The first bullet point is one I find myself referencing very often.

The tip about revising the on-boarding document regularly is an another very good one. The best team environments I've been a part of had a very detailed and up to date on-boarding/env setup docs.</comment>


Surrogate Keys V/s Natural Keys in RDBMS - <AUTHOR> I've been frustrated by Laravel Eloquent's choice of not supporting Composite Keys. I believe Surrogate Keys in most cases should be ignored because it is unnecessary data allocation. For instance, in many-to-many relational tables, it becomes unnecessary to have a surrogate key and then the pair. Rather, just use non-clustered indices like MySQL's UNIQUE key or PRIMARY if need be.<p>What does HN think about this? <comment><USER2> [http://www.dbdebunk.com/2016/08/understanding-keys-entity- de...](http://www.dbdebunk.com/2016/08/understanding-keys-entity- defining.html)

[http://www.dbdebunk.com/2016/06/on-kinds-of-keys-natural- pri...](http://www.dbdebunk.com/2016/06/on-kinds-of-keys-natural-primary- and.html)

THE KEY TO KEYS: A MATTER OF IDENTITY [http://www.dbdebunk.com/2014/01/new- paper-4-published.html](http://www.dbdebunk.com/2014/01/new- paper-4-published.html)

[http://www.dbdebunk.com/2015/08/surrogate-key- illusions.html](http://www.dbdebunk.com/2015/08/surrogate-key-illusions.html)

[http://www.dbdebunk.com/2012/07/are-primary-keys- necessary.h...](http://www.dbdebunk.com/2012/07/are-primary-keys- necessary.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> [http://tinyurl.com/hl84fes](http://tinyurl.com/hl84fes) [http://tinyurl.com/gktal74](http://tinyurl.com/gktal74) [http://tinyurl.com/h26fpwa](http://tinyurl.com/h26fpwa) [http://tinyurl.com/zjyd4aa](http://tinyurl.com/zjyd4aa) [http://tinyurl.com/jmajceb](http://tinyurl.com/jmajceb)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, you could have simply given a gist or your opinion on the matter rather than posting a plethora of links.</comment></comment>


It's like riding on air, except in an invisible car - <AUTHOR> http://www.geektime.com/2014/11/05/its-like-riding-on-air-except-in-an-invisible-car/

<comment><USER2> Cool. It can give you a headache but I guess it will improve over time.</comment>


German court bans Uber's ride-hailing services in Germany - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-court/german-court-bans-ubers-ride-hailing-services-in-germany-idUSKBN1YN171 <comment><USER2> I know a few people that are heavily invested into Uber here in Germany, with over 20 cars and drivers each. They will not be happy about this ruling.

Here is some context on how things worked thus far: Since Uber is not allowed to dispatch directly to independent drivers (see the ruling from 2015), they instead partnered with rental-car companies that employ the drivers. So in theory, Uber would dispatch a ride to one of their partners, who then dispatches it to one of their drivers. In practice, however, everything worked just as you know it from other countries, with the only difference being that Uber would send an email to the business owner containing two links: one to accept the ride and one to decline. Whenever the business owner clicks accept, the driver would get a text message with the approval. But at this time, he already would have accepted the ride in the app and be on his way. So effectively, the business owners had zero control.

It is no surprise that the Taxi companies are mad, because they are unable to compete under the current set of rules. In addition, Uber has heavily subsidized rides with discounts of up to 50% for multiple weeks and generous hourly guarantees for their partners.

<comment><USER3> > It is no surprise that the Taxi companies are mad, because they are unable > to compete under the current set of rules.

(Caveat that I'm going entirely off your comment, with no background info): the middlemen businesses sound like small taxi companies, where the bookings come from Uber rather than directly from customers. Why can't the taxi companies compete by building an app that provides the booking part?

<comment><USER4> They can. Uber added nothing to market other than an app, which everyone was doing for every potential business at the time anyways.

Their differentiators though were primarily the crazy amount of VC money they were willing to lose and the fact that they had absolutely no qualms about trampling about each and every law they could. To the point that they would break laws that they didn't even need to.

But asking for forgiveness when you have a ton of VC money is obviously better than not messing up in the first place.

Only good thing is thst, I hope, the market is seeing through these criminals (at best).

<comment><USER5> > Their differentiators though were primarily the crazy amount of VC money > they were willing to lose and the fact that they had absolutely no qualms > about trampling about each and every law they could.

It's nice to see European bureaucracy at work and actually enforcing rules. Seems like it's much more resistant to regulatory capture than the US where, looks like, you can just flaunt any laws if you have enough money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is terrible news. Taxi drivers, at least in Munich, are just horrible. They're always unfriendly, and their driving is very aggressive, more often than not accompanied by swearing, and just overall uncomfortable. Cars also aren't as clean as the uber ones.

I avoid it at any cost, even when they're free, for example when public transportation has issues they offer free taxis to the affected passengers. I always opt out for walking, renting a bike, if it's close, or paying for an uber if it's a longer distance, rather than driving for free with the taxi.

The only advantage taxis had over uber is that there's more of them, and during some larger events such as Oktoberfest uber was always fully booked.

The regulation needs to be relaxed so that uber, and others, can compete based on their service - not some other rules and weird laws like the one mentioned in the article "that hired cars have to return to a rental firm's main office after carrying out a ride,"

<comment><USER7> _The regulation needs to be relaxed so that uber, and others, can compete based on their service_

Or, you know, Uber respecting regulation and adhere to it?

But that, of course, would completely kill their business model, which essentially is not really a cab service, but regulation arbitrage. At least until the law cracks down on them.

<comment><USER8> Really, what needs to happen is both. Sure, regulations may need review and adjustment for the smartphone era. But Uber should be burned to the ground by their blatant violation of the law.

Sometimes breaking the law in the cause of good is justified. But Uber isn't doing civil disobedience, it's a greedy multinational that unilaterally decided to ignore the laws that stand between them and their profits. Such behavior has no place in a civilized society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was mostly pro-Uber until their fraudulent way of doing business affected me directly, in the form of providing a poor service (on Uber Eats) and refusing to provide a refund up to the point where I had to file a chargeback just to get my money back. They took my money to deliver one thing, gave me something totally different and told me that they are "not in a position to offer a price adjustment or compensation for this order."

Now they can fuck off and I am very happy to hear this. Also hoping they lose their appeal in London and disappear for good. Their self-driving car efforts failing miserably and the VC money running out is just the icing on the cake.

They've been good at forcing the existing taxi/transport industry to modernise but now that they've done that it's time to say goodbye to their fraud & lack of ethics and open the doors to competitors who do much better on those fronts.

<comment><USER10> "Now they can fuck off and I am very happy to hear this. Also hoping they lose their appeal in London and disappear for good. "

i think uber is by far the best thing to happen to transport and part-time work in decades. i've known so many drives all around the world working for uber 1-2 hours per day. even knew a guy that worked for them just 2 trips per day: his daily commute.

just the feeling of not being denied service because you're brown, or that you want to travel to a certain neighbourhood, is a vast, vast improvement over the incumbents.

of course the taxi drivers don't want to change their horrible service. they paid good money for a job that will hopefully be completely automated in the near future.

"They've been good at forcing the existing taxi/transport industry to modernise"

if by modernise you mean "hire more expensive lawyers to sue everyone", then you're right.

<comment><USER9> > best thing to happen to transport and part-time work in decades

Being "employed" by a company that ignores laws and has zero support for their drivers ("partner" drivers as they call them) is the best thing?

> by modernise you mean "hire more expensive lawyers to sue everyone", then > you're right.

A lot of local transport companies now have their own app that offers the same experience as Uber.

<comment><USER10> many people signed up for driving for uber for the flexible hours. this is a feature not a bug.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't mean Uber isn't evil or exploitative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Taxi drivers have an incentive to scam you, uber drivers have an incentive to deliver you asap. Taxi companies around the world refuse to give a price before starting the ride. Everything about the current model is flawed.

<comment><USER13> > Taxi companies around the world refuse to give a price before starting the > ride.

In my region (in Germany), up to 4 passengers: €2.50 base fee + €2.20/km. 36€/hr if you want them to wait for you. Larger car (6 passengers + lots of room for luggage) is 15€ extra.

Fixed price to the near-by airport, other destinations can be pre-calculated on request.

Those prices are valid all day and night, no matter if there's a concert/soccer game/whatever competing for the company's attention.

Seems pretty transparent to me: I know today what I'd pay for any given route in 2 months. Uber? Can be anything from ultra cheap to ultra expensive depending on the mood of their algorithm in the given moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good riddance. I'm very happy that the US VC model of blatantly ignoring rules, growing (and thus creating popular demand / support) and then lobbying for law amendments in their favor has failed here.

A key part of why Uber failed in Germany is also that our taxi market is massively and properly regulated which means the selling points of Uber being a better taxi service simply were irrelevant here - our taxis come when you order them, the drivers are competent and will take you on the most efficient way possible to your destination and the pricing is consistent no matter if it's day or night, if it's high demand time thanks to e.g. a trade fair or not, or if you're drunk or sober. The only thing that sucks is that many do not take cards, but that's a cultural thing - Germans _love_ their cash.

<comment><USER10> "A key part of why Uber failed in Germany is also that our taxi market is massively and properly regulated"

expensive, poor service where incumbents reign supreme. immigrants and the night economy workers are constantly being discriminated against.

the "german model" is an antiquated POS that already died out.

<comment><USER15> The German system might have problems but also comes with upsides, e.g. mandatory 24 hour ride coverage in the more rural areas as a condition of cab licenses, training, ... I mean, is there anything stopping Uber from going for cab licenses and giving their employees the protection our laws dictate?

That might not fit their business model and the regular cab model might be bad but I'm not convinced that the Uber/pseudo ride share alternative is all roses either. It certainly can't be the solution to just replace badly behaving incumbents with some cheap startup that doesn't even employ their drivers.

<comment><USER10> > giving their employees the protection our laws dictate?

> some cheap startup that doesn't even employ their drivers.

the world has changed decades ago. i think it's time for your laws to change as well.

overall your comment reminds me of this:

"When behavior runs into poor design, behavior always, and I mean always, wins." —@asymco

<comment><USER15> > the world has changed decades ago. i think it's time for your laws to change > as well.

The European approaches to worker protection aren't a thing the world has just moved on from because they want a more convenient and slightly cheaper cab service. My comment was meant to point out that these regulations don't just mean to stifle some radical new business model. I for one can live without yet another industry based on worker exploitation, we've got enough of those already. Or maybe, to encourage discussion rather than dismissing that view: what upside would the German society have from relaxing that legislation? That sector could use some deregulation, sure, but I don't see the point of replacing it with a player that wants none.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Quite often people just see it from a consumer's point of view but if I were a taxi driver, why would I want to work for Uber? Sure it's good for early adopters but ultimately you get no job security and no wage security.

<comment><USER17> Having spoken to enough Uber drivers in West Yorkshire (you don't have a choice, they will talk to you) you start to get a feeling for the reasons.

Flexibility of working hours is a big thing. People like to be able to drop shifts and pick them up as and when they need. If they need more money in the run up to Christmas they can put more time in.

The other is that the firms aren't exactly bastions of fairness either. I hear time and again that the operators give the jobs to their favourite staff, or as described; whoever is fucking the operator. The concept of working for a boss and having to deal with some fundamental injustice seems to ring true. For better or worse Uber is seen as 'fair' to the drivers, at least on the whole. The rules are at least laid out, keep your rating clean and we'll give you jobs just like anyone else.

<comment><USER18> > For better or worse Uber is seen as 'fair' to the drivers, at least on the > whole. The rules are at least laid out,

If true, people wouldn't be complaining about surge pricing. People just want cheap, quality, fast service. They don't care about fair.

The transparency provided by electronic records and payment of taxi rides does lead to better service though.

<comment><USER19> Not sure if you're missing the point made.

 _Consumers_ are the ones likely to complain about surge pricing.

 _Drivers_ are the ones who (in the example given) do want fairness from the dispatcher, which they sometimes don't get with traditional taxi companies and human dispatchers, but presumably do from Uber's algorithm.

<comment><USER17> This is what I was trying to convey. From the taxi drivers perspective, the 'algorithm' is seen as being more equal than the dispatcher. The 'algorithm' in this instance doesn't discriminate on skin colour, handsomeness, or the side of the bed it woke up on.

They still find plenty of unfairness in Uber from the individual to Uber relationship, such as the fees for one, but there seems to be less injustice between fellow drivers compared to traditional firms.

<comment><USER8> > _The 'algorithm' in this instance doesn't discriminate on skin colour, > handsomeness, or the side of the bed it woke up on._

But the _drivers_ do, which is a source of complaints in places where taxi service is considered to be an extension of public transport. Uber-like companies (it's not just Uber, MyTaxi/FreeNow suffers from this as well) are notoriously unreliable if you live in or want to go to places further away from the city center or otherwise inconvenient for the drivers, or if your start or destination suggests you might be inconvenient to handle. For instance, I've had trouble getting a ride to a maternity hospital in the city center, and only got one after I switched the destination to a nearby beauty salon. I confirmed this when talking later with the drivers over other rides - they see the requests to/from hospitals, they just skip them.

In this way, an algorithm is fairer than dispatcher for the drivers, but the dispatcher is fairer for the passenger.

<comment><USER18> > In this way, an algorithm is fairer than dispatcher for the drivers, but the > dispatcher is fairer for the passenger

The algorithm is the dispatcher, and theoretically, would weed out drivers that discriminate after a certain number of incidents. I don't see why a human dispatcher has less reason to discriminate than a driver. Presumably, discrimination is to maximum use revenue, which is in both the driver and dispatcher's interest.

<comment><USER8> In the places I've ordered taxis via a call, human dispatchers don't usually know who the passenger is and where they want to go, so they don't get to discriminate on those.

<comment><USER18> I imagine if a taxi driver refused to give someone a ride, who was already told they would get a ride from a dispatcher, because it would lower their revenue, the dispatcher would not penalize them in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I hope that airbnb is next.

</comment><comment><USER21> Uber automated away basically all white collar and managerial jobs from the taxi industry, no wonder paper pushers have an axe to grind with them. I hope we see more companies like Uber in the future, automating away paper pushers is long overdue since it is politically hard or often times even illegal.

</comment><comment><USER22> Uber was banned in Germany back in 2014.[1] They're still running.

[1] [https://www.cnet.com/news/court-strikes-down-uber-car- servic...](https://www.cnet.com/news/court-strikes-down-uber-car-service-in- germany/)

<comment><USER11> In 2014 Uber was banned from operating like in the US; having a lot of fake- selfemployed people being paid below minimum wage to drive other people around.

The new operation was to only dish the rides out to rental companies and using a bit of trickery to work around the previous ruling and some regulation, that has been killed off too now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As Austin example demonstrated, once cat is out of the box it's virtually impossible to ban ride-sharing, people will create a black market using makeshift apps, Google docs, Facebook groups, etc.

<comment><USER8> Ride sharing isn't a problem, and Uber isn't ride sharing (despite the tech media insistence on this doublespeak), it's just a pirate taxi.

<comment><USER24> _a pirate taxi_

That sounds pretty awesome, to be fair.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I spent a minute or two looking for a different phrasing, but I couldn't find one. What's the word for pirates that actually form a global organized crime ring with enough wealth to defy governments?

<comment><USER25> Either a corporation or a cartel typically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> IANAL, but it is likely that Uber has a good shot to appeal this at the EU level:

This ruling is rather incongruent with the recent Airbnb ruling (1) where Airbnb was ruled to be nothing more than an "information society service". (Rant: you could apply this label to anything from a public library to a sadistic secret service.)

Comparable to Uber, Airbnb makes money per transaction, yet claims it is no more than an information medium.

I used to operate several large classifieds sites in the Netherlands, and am rather certain that as soon as the platform starts collecting per-transaction fees, it becomes part of the transaction, as it is in fact a broker between two parties.

In my (consumer) view: Uber adds value and convenience to a city and threatens an inefficient and monopolistic status quo (at least here in the Netherlands), whereas Airbnb turns housing into business cases, for better of for worse (and in Amsterdam: for worse).

1: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/dec/19/eu- court-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/dec/19/eu-court-rules- airbnb-does-not-require-estate-agents-licence)</comment>


How Google Buzz Is Disruptive - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/02/09/09readwriteweb-how-google-buzz-is-disruptive-open-data-sta-81676.html?sq=google%20buzz%20disruptive&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print <comment><USER3> This is the best argument I've heard yet that Buzz is more than just another of Google's me-too apps. The article makes a good case that syndication of Buzz content through open standards could make it a powerful competitor to Facebook. I'd be curious to hear other people's opinions on whether this is just hype or seems realistic.

<comment><USER4> FWIW, I haven't come on HN at all today because my account had Buzz when I woke up.

<comment><USER5> same here. it's like hacker news discussion only with people i actually know and care about.

<comment><USER6> Really? Why do you think this doesn't happen on Facebook for you and your friends?

Being open is an advantage in the long run, but I simply cannot see a compelling reason to use Buzz over Facebook or Twitter _now_.

Maybe because I don't have buzz in my account yet, the experience might be somehow better, but this is what counts initially, not openness.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure it's got anything to do with being open, but buzz is awesome because it's like a first-class email. I get notified of responses, my comments get saved in sent mail, I can even download buzz over POP!

Putting the pieces together, when I write this comment I'll get a copy in my email in a few minutes. Win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I keep finding that these new features by various internet companies are pushing me towards becoming a more social person. I'm not sure whether or not I'm comfortable with that, but suddenly things like my email are pushing me much more into the lives of tangential acquaintances - and the temptation is great to participate and reciprocate by bringing them more into my life by giving them more personal information, so I often do.

<comment><USER5> same here. actually, though, this is _awesome_. i only recently started using facebook (< 1 month). i was surprised by how cool it was to see friends i'd known but fallen out of contact with. i wanted to connect with them....but facebook is confusing and strange for me. plus, some of my closer friends, the ones i do keep up with, don't have facebook accounts, or if they do, they still responded over email instead.

email is where i connect with people, organize events, share. i mostly use it for work, but it's still what i go to for the few connections i have.

putting social connections in my email app has been _awesome_ because it's allowing me to talk to folks in an app i'm already comfortable with. sure, everyone else has had myspace, aim, facebook, cellphones, even twitter, for ages. maybe it's just coincidence that i wanted to jump on the bandwagon now. or maybe a nerd company has finally scratched the social itch in the right way :-)

<comment><USER8> Google chat was there right in your gmail for ages, did you find it inconvenient for contacting old friends?

<comment><USER9> How is that even remotely similar. Because they both have contact lists? You can chat in both?

<comment><USER8> Ops, I overlooked that he has fallen out of contact ... yea then it's different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> nick-dap I remember when Google came out with Gmail and people were up in arms over ads appearing next to your email. Several years on and apparently it is OK to scan my address book and "auto-follow" a bunch of people I have in it.

The only thing I feel about Google Buzz is the violation of trust between me and the company. That is the real disruption.

<comment><USER10> It takes 10 seconds to unfollow, or 1 second to turn off buzz. I'd say it's just a convenient default for the rest of us..

<comment> nick-dap I went searching through the Settings page to no avail before I gave up and Googled (irony) how to turn it off.

Besides the point though. They opt you into a service you didn't sign up for, and require you to take measured steps to preserve your privacy.

It's good for Google, whether its a good default or not is debatable.

<comment><USER11> I had to click a button to enable Buzz. Did they change their sign-up policy at some point?

<comment><USER12> Same here - logged into Gmail and I was forced to choose whether to go into Buzz or old fashioned Gmail. Maybe they're tinkering with the process or something...

I'd have to agree, though, that the default of following everyone that you e-mail is a bit extreme, especially if everyone else can see it, too. Probably better to at least offer people a choice, either follow all, follow none, or manually select.

As far as privacy violations go, though, I don't see this one as very major. I'd expect that with all the complaining going on, this behavior will be changed very soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's disruptive all right; it fucking keeps bothering me about trying it right after i sign in to gmail. And it doesn't seem to take 'no' for an answer.

<comment><USER14> Turn it on, click the 'Buzz' label, scroll down to the bottom, and click "Turn Buzz off".

<comment><USER15> But what does it say about how disruptive it is when I'm seeing as much discussion, if not more, of 'how to turn Buzz off' as about trying the product.

<comment><USER14> Honestly, all that really tells me is that the 'off' button isn't as intuitive as it should have been.

I mean, they opted-in how many millions of people? It isn't surprising that some percentage want it off, or that they consider gmail a tool for JUST email, or they don't want all that in the way.

I personally was wary of it, but I really do like how easy the implementation is, and already see comparable traffic in Buzz to what I do on my Facebook -- only I have less clicks to get to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Under the covers, though, this major product was built by a team of people > taking a radical new approach to online publishing: Buzz is all about open, > standardized user data.

If transparency and openness is what furthers Google's monopolistic goals, I say then let be it! I've been hearing more and more of the "Google will start to control everything" spiel. While that may be, it is also a happy conclusion that Google's wants happen to coincide with what the well-minded developer community desires for the future ahead.

<comment><USER17> I think this is more a "commoditize the complement" thing.

Chris Dixon had a good post on this recently: <http://cdixon.org/2009/12/30/whats-strategic-for-google/>

Friendfeeds are complements to doing things online - it's better for Google to have a whole lot of competitors in that space then just Facebook and Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> At this point Buzz isn't a consumer product, even I (a geek) find it difficult. This can change as more applications pop up using the Buzz api, until then Twitter and Facebook are perfectly safe

ADD: the biggest issue with Buzz for me is the borders of privacy are not clear enough. On Twitter I'm in the public mode, on Facebook and email - <USER2> private (was).

Now I need to adjust my self-control system to not leak something unintentionally.

<comment><USER18> what part do you struggle with? seems like you just type in a box and submit to me, maybe I'm missing something?

<comment><USER8> The problem for me is that I don't spend that much time socializing online, so the simpler the product the better it for me, same for many people I know. Buzz in that respect is just another layer of complexity over email, that is what I find difficult.

EDIT: I know how to switch it off, but now I have to decide about that too :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I mostly find it disruptive of my attention. Gmail is work. Facebook is play. I'll keep 'm separate, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER20> >Google has taken open data standards to battle against a marketplace of competitors that are closed and proprietary to varying degrees. This is a very big deal.

In the same way that identi.ca beat twitter in the market?

</comment><comment><USER18> that's really good to hear. a misleading title, thought the article would be negative. this is more like how it's disruptive to other social networks that aren't open. that's a good thing, openness always wins.

<comment><USER21> >openness always wins

What do you mean? If we take OS'es the most open one is the least used.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure that's true if you look at growth instead of market share.

Also, how many open source components are used in other OS'es besides windows (which I'm assuming you're referring to here)? If you think of it that way, then most of OSX is open source too. And that goes for a lot of other platforms like mobile etc.

Also, in the server world open source wins by a far wack I think. All the different flavors of open source unix out there I'm sure dominate the web server market.

<comment><USER21> Well, I don't know that growth is a fair metric. Once you hit saturation point you _can't_ grow much anymore. I was actually thinking desktops (windows, OSX, Linux. In that order).

OSX may have some BSD code but they have heavily modified it.

I agree that in servers open source might be ahead (but then, a lot of places are using Sun, Oracle and the like).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like that Twitter has no advertising to distract me. Gmail does.

</comment><comment><USER23> First a social site (facebook) turned into email. Then an email site (gmail) turned into a social site.

Would you all leave my email in peace.

<comment><USER24> All programs attempt to expand until they can read email. Those that do not are replaced by those that can -- Zawinski's Law</comment></comment>


Tempe Police posts video from March 18 Uber AV fatal accident - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/TempePolice/status/976585098542833664 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16643056](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16643056).

</comment><comment><USER3> Previously posted here[1]. Some discussion there

[1]([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16643056](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16643056))

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops, thanks!

(mods, downmod this thread)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> edit: Mods, please kill this thread. It's a dupe of this one: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16643056](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16643056)

(I'd delete it myself but I had thought that was discouraged)

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Some info about the video:

The video has no sound and it runs for a total of 22 seconds. The first 5 seconds is from the external camera. It stops right before the AV makes impact with the victim. The remainder of the video shows the driver.

There's no gore, but the sudden visual of the victim will be a little dramatic. The video seems to support what police said in initial investigation, that the victim appears out of the shadows. You can see her feet at 0:02, but her full shape is not obvious until 0:04.

The Uber AV was in the right lane. The victim was more than halfway across that right lane (i.e. she'd walked 1.75 lanes ). She is walking her bike, and, when she is fully lighted, there is no ambiguity that she is someone who is walking the bike.

The street is far darker than the accident photos/Google Maps made it appear.

\-----

The main question I have is: what is LIDAR expected to detect at night? There's no other traffic, weather is clear, and the victim was on the road for at least several seconds. I definitely agree with the police chief assessment that, based on the video, most humans would fail to brake in time.

<comment><USER4> For some reason, the thread you linked never hit the front page, however your thread did. How odd.

The highest rank that thread got was #39, which is page 2 [http://hnrankings.info/16643056/](http://hnrankings.info/16643056/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's surprising. Mine was at 6+ upvotes but not on frontpage and then made it with ~10. The other post has 27 upvotes (within an hour) but also 19 comments. (I'm under the impression that comments/upvotes ratio is a factor).

I also assume any Twitter link is downmodded at the start.</comment></comment></comment>