Evidence points to another leaker at the NSA - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-intelligence-nsa-commentary-idUSKCN10X01P <comment><USER3> Even if it's not Russia, the release of the hacking tools gives weight to the argument that nsa/fbi should not be able to demand companies to create a back door in their products.

> Apple: If we're forced to build a tool to hack iPhones, someone will steal > it.

> FBI: Nonsense.

> Russia: We just published NSA's hacking tools

[https://twitter.com/csoghoian/status/765785340892372992](https://twitter.com/csoghoian/status/765785340892372992)

<comment><USER4> Except the FBI explicitly said Apple could work on and execute the backdoor internally and destroy it after use. It would never need to come out of their secure facilities.

So I don't think this was the strongest argument for Apple. A better one is that once the US can compel Apple to do this, what's to stop Russia, China from demanding the same thing?

<comment><USER3> When the back door is created, it cannot be destroyed. FBI had tons of other phones they wanted to access [1]. Hacking one phone would set a precedent that Apple would have to hack numerous other phones.

It is so simple to steal software, just like NSA's hacking tools were stolen.

If NSA cannot keep software safe, why can you think that Apple can? I think it's unreasonable to require Apple to have a higher level of security than NSA effectively has.

1: [http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Apple-FBI-face-off- in-C...](http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Apple-FBI-face-off-in-Congress- over-iPhone-data-6864178.php)

<comment><USER5> > When the back door is created, it cannot be destroyed.

If the "backdoor" in question is a malicious signed OS update, then it can absolutely be destroyed. There are plenty of reasons to avoid backdoors without imbuing them with mystical qualities like the inability to delete them.

<comment><USER6> Signed updates aren't secure either. Ask Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think calling a thief putting up hacking tools for the highest bidder "another Snowden" is particularly accurate. (I realize this was the article title and am not complaining about the post here. I fault whomever crafted the original title.)

<comment><USER8> I agree; Snowden, whether you agree or not, was doing something he thought was right. He wasn't just trying to extort data and sell it.

<comment><USER9> I assert that, whether someone agrees or not, Snowden was doing something that was _actually_ right.

<comment><USER8> I don't disagree, but I know that the issue is divisive; my point is that his _intentions_ were clearly pure regardless.

<comment><USER10> "my point is that his intentions were clearly pure regardless."

I would tend to concur, but we don't know that.

Also - intentions are not that important. Manning's motivations I surmise were probably innocent, but his incredible naivte of releasing gigabytes of information of information when he didn't even know what the contents were ... were seriously damaging. Tons of undredacted cables in there meaning a number of Afghan and Iraqi citizens helping the US were needlessly put at risk, for example.

<comment><USER9> Listen, I don't mean to dismiss the kind of sober thinking you are putting forward here. There is a reality to these sorts of actions that, for the perhaps most optimistic or utopian among us, bears repeating mention of.

However, this:

> Tons of undredacted cables in there meaning a number of Afghan and Iraqi > citizens helping the US were needlessly put at risk, for example.

...reads to me like a celebration of opposite day in the bizarro world.

Manning did _nothing_ to put these people at risk; _the state_ put them at risk with its murderous and greedy tendencies and foreign policy errors.

Announcing someone's name and affiliations, in the case of a decent, non- violent, dare I say "everyday" person does not in any way put them at risk.

It is only because these people are touched by the long finger of empire that the appearance of their name in a text file is compiled into danger.

Manning's heroism tends toward ending that empire and making these people (and those in a similar role in generations to come) safer and freer.

<comment><USER10> "It is only because these people are touched by the long finger of empire that the appearance of their name in a text file is compiled into danger. Manning's heroism tends toward ending that empire and making these people (and those in a similar role in generations to come) safer and freer."

This is ideolgically anarchist and ridiculous.

There is no 'Empire'. There is just 'stuff you, as a citizen vote for'.

Have you ever been outside the Western World + Japan? Do you know how crazy it is out there?

Do you know how instantly things would collapse without the international framework we have today?

Are you too young to remember the Cold War? Do you realize that it's still going on, that Russians are grabbing territory and they still have 3 000 nuclear weapons pointed at us and, just a few months ago Putin bragged, over dinner, that he could 'wipe out the USA' in 45 minutes?

This is not a video game.

US foreign services do _extremely_ important work in the world, and if you'd read the cables that Manning released, you'd see how true that is, and also how mundane most of it is relative to your anarchist hyperbole.

Manning swore an oath to serve the interests of his people selflessly, instead, he naively, and _selfishly_ released information which caused a lot of damage and could have caused a lot more damage.

It would be one thing if Manning were some intellectual, knew what he was doing with conscience, but he was a very low level private - with severe social and identity problems, thinking that somehow he had 'answers'. I think that he thought he was doing the right thing, but he's severely deluded.

And by the way - I am not American.

Also - I should add - that the person who released the photographs from Abu Gharib - and caused the big scandal/uproar was definitely in the category of 'whistle blower' and did the right thing.

<comment><USER9> It's hard to know how to respond to your comment as whatever logic it may contain is camouflaged by ad-hominem presumptions (if you'd read the cables that Manning released, you'd see...) and impossible-to-take-seriously fear mongering ("3 000 nuclear weapons pointed at us").

I remember the cold war. And I thought that the government did the best thing it was able to do. Did the governments of both the USA and USSR behave childishly? Yes. Were they operating in a short-term feedback loop? They sure were. Did they, perhaps against the odds, avert a nuclear holocaust, at least for 40 years? Yes in fact they did.

But that's really not the point.

As I've said elsewhere, my argument (and I think the argument you see coming from much of the HN community) is _not_ that government has always been unnecessary, but that it is being deprecated.

It doesn't matter that this one human leaked these troves of information; the internet will always tend toward making them available regardless of which individuals happen to be involved with the particulars.

Government secrets aren't merely immoral, they're increasingly impossible.

So all of your nostalgia about worldwide wars being "the international framework we have today" is just completely irrelevant. The internet will not abide government, and human evolution will continue to be the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Where by evidence for another NSA leaker, Bamford means _literally no evidence_. The fulcrum of his op-ed rebuts an argument nobody is making --- that Snowden himself disclosed this cache of exploit tools.

The prevailing narrative, one echoed by Snowden himself, was that this was likely taken from a staging server: a machine somewhere out on the Internet used as a pivot point for attacks. Snowden claims (I don't know with how much authority) that a compromise of one of those staging servers is not without precedent.

Nothing in this entire piece refutes or even engages with that narrative.

<comment><USER12> What doesn't make sense about the staging server idea, which seems to mean a command and control server, is why there would be a bunch of different tools for unrelated exploits on the same server.

<comment><USER13> Snowden himself talks about this. His comments should be required reading for anyone in this thread:

[https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/765514347196084224](https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/765514347196084224)

<comment><USER12> People get lazy and upload a bunch of highly prized top secret "keys to the kingdom" at once. Seems like the opposite of "Tailored Access".

<comment><USER11> What do you think "tailored access" is? Look at some of the better known former NSA hacking-division people in industry: they were all at NSA in their early 20s.

Then look at the unbelievably shoddy quality of these tools. Are you arguing also that they might themselves not be part of NSA's repertoire? Because I could make the same "opposite of tailored" argument about the tools themselves.

<comment><USER12> I meant tailored access literally. I assume that the name "Tailored Access" comes from the idea that access is tailored, i.e. custom fit for the specific task at hand.

<comment><USER11> It is, in the sense that it's not indiscriminately owning up every vulnerable host on the Internet the way a botnet operator would.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > In addition, if Russia had stolen the hacking tools, it would be senseless > to publicize the theft, let alone put them up for sale. It would be like a > safecracker stealing the combination to a bank vault and putting it on > Facebook. Once revealed, companies and governments would patch their > firewalls, just as the bank would change its combination.

Why would this be bad for Russians (if this was indeed the Russians)? We can/should assume that Russia has it's own methods of infiltrating systems. The value of this data to them would be knowledge of how it's done, not necessarily hoarding and replicating how the NSA does it. If anything, having vendor's patch exploits that they're not using, but their enemy is, would be a great chess move.

<comment><USER15> The longer the russian's know or have the exploits without the NSA knowing they've been compromised, the longer they can hold it against them. -- Imagine you've hacked a bank network vs robbing a single bank, and every week you take 1 penny from all users without anyone knowing, and do this for 3+ years... you'd get a lot more than a one-off bank robbery... That's the long game that Russia would play - milk it for every ounce of use, and keep it totally secret.

They get nothing from exposing it, hacktivists on the other hand get a lot more, and are more boastful about their exploits.

<comment><USER14> Hold what against them? The exploit? That makes no sense.

The Russians do not use the exact same set of tools that the NSA does. Sure, they may have discovered some of the same exploits, but the two do not have the same "toolbox" strictly speaking. Releasing a set of tools used by the NSA doesn't mean that Russia loses access to the systems that they have compromised...

Your bank heist analogy doesn't apply here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It seems likely ([https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/04/counting_the_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/04/counting_the_us.html)) that there are actually quite a few whistleblowers/leakers out there.

</comment><comment><USER17> Do people really think this "auction" is legit? That people can seriously bid on these tools? The whole thing plainly sounds like a big joke for maximum attention. There is no real intention to sell the tools, at least not this way. The terms of the auction are ridiculous; no one with enough money to make a serious bid would risk losing it all like that.

Perpetuating the meme that this is a serious auction is dangerous and faulty journalism. It is a publicity stunt to embarrass the NSA. Let's not get hysterical and pretend that some third world terrorist country could obtain the NSA's cyber capability by bidding all of their petro-dollars in this farce.

<comment><USER13> Snowden has a theory that Russia had these tools for a long time, the auction has nothing to do with it, and it's political signaling related to the DNC hacks. Worth a read:

[https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/765515087062982656](https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/765515087062982656)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's inevitable that there are, or were, or will be, other Edward Snowdens working at NSA. Persons who find that the Agency's mission no longer sits well with them.

The question is: who are they working for?

Snowden was working for the American People, and upholding the US Constitution.

To draw from some relevant if non-US history, Kim Philby's interests did _not_ lie with his nation's subjects, despite his aristocratic pedigree.

<comment><USER19> I worked for the NSA for four years and left last year because being there bothered my conscience. Lots of smart and nice people, but I just didn't want my life's work contributing to their mission. I left a secure position with great benefits and went off to be a 1099 at one of the credit card companies. Less job security but I no longer have the burden of knowing my work is supporting something I'm strongly against.

<comment><USER20> Thank you for your principled approach to life. I wish we had more of you on our side!

(What is "our side?" I, similarly, have refused to work for defense industry, TLA agencies, etc, because I see them as net negatives to our society - <USER2> is the side I'm on)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Edit: Apparently somebody agreed and removed the clickbaity 'Snowden' from the title. Thanks.

<comment><USER22> Which is why I click through to the HN comments before the article about 9/10 times. Usually more interesting and informative than the article anyway.

<comment><USER23> I view your thought process as how 'group think' and 'reddit culture' starts to permeate HN

<comment><USER24> I think that would be 'instead' rather than 'before'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The article sort of makes fun of the hackers writing, then immediately writes "loosing" instead of "losing".

</comment><comment><USER26> Bamford's expertise in espionage is pretty similar.

There seem to be two plausible explanations for the Shadow Brokers release.

1\. The doctrine of the US govt in cyberwar is proportionate response. This is either preemption or escalation on behalf of Russia. This assumes the attribution of Russia for Democratic political hacks are accurate.

2\. This is further activity by whomever leaked the ANT catalog to Applebaum.

The Shadow Brokers are going to be difficult to attribute technically. Attribution is based more on your theory about what's happening the Russian covert escalation.

<comment><USER27> Or a third possibility: This is a deliberate release for propaganda purposes (more funding, dis-information, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Once a useful zero-day has been discovered by an adversary, it may make sense to give up using it so that one's own side's computers are not vulnerable.

My guess is that the NSA has excellent methods for detecting DNS exfiltration and the recent tools are at least a decade old technology.

What's interesting is the disinformation value of intentionally releasing the tools, but to understand that we'd have to know who the intended adversary was.

</comment><comment><USER29> "In addition, if Russia had stolen the hacking tools, it would be senseless to publicize the theft, let alone put them up for sale."

No not all Russia was recently accused of hacking the DNC in the US, so it would a perfectly logical for one state actor to say to another "you do it too and here is evidence." Is that not so obvious?

</comment><comment><USER30> As soon as the author began referencing Applebaum seriously, the article lost most of its credibility.

<comment><USER24> I dunno, Applebaum might've been an epic plagiarist, but the work he was trying to take credit for was often solid.

<comment><USER30> I'm sure the work was solid, yet not his. To weave him into this story with that stupid tagline "the most dangerous man on the Internet" with the insinuation he was some kind of hacker... is garbage journalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does anyone else recall Jacob Appelbaum referring to RC6 constants [0] in public talks (e.g. 30c3) back in 2013?

I'm surprised Appelbaum hasn't been directly suggested as a potential source[1,2].

[0] [https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/75812/the-equation- giv...](https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/75812/the-equation-giveaway/)

[1] [http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/12661/what- could-l...](http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/12661/what-could-look- for-the-constants-that-you-might-find-in-rc6-mean)

[2] [http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/jacob- appelbaum-30c3-...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/jacob- appelbaum-30c3-protect-infect-militarization-internet-transcript.html)

</comment><comment><USER32> > _A more logical explanation could also be insider theft. If that's the case, > it's one more reason to question the usefulness of an agency that secretly > collects private information on millions of Americans but can't keep its > most valuable data from being stolen, or as it appears in this case, being > used against us._

If there's anyone still questioning the results of Snowden's move, here you have it. The Reuters opinion is stating that this data is _potentially being using against us_. If the perception that the NSA doesn't collect for the _public good_ becomes broadly accepted, change can be achieved at a political level.

</comment><comment><USER33> i dont understand why the highest bid in the shadow brokers auction is less than a thousand dollars

<comment><USER34> To me it wasn't clear in the auction description if it's possible to increase a previous bid.

\- If it's not possible, then the only strategy is to bid as late as possible: Suppose Group A bids $1000, Group B bids $1001. To win the auction Group A would have to transfer another $1002, making a total investement of $2003. Group C on the other hand only has to commit a total investement of $1002 to win at this point. Since the duration of the auction isn't known you would wait for everyone else to make a bid first, since the person to bid last is in the advantage. If everyone does that, this becomes the ultimate waiting game.

\- If on the other hand it is possible to increase one's bid by just transfering the difference, then this is a tullock auction[1]: a classical example from game theory where the only rational strategy is not to bid at all (unless you are completely sure that nobody else will bid. As soon as you have two bidders, both behaving rationally would lead to both committing an infinite amount of money, one of them losing it all).

So just from a game theory standpoint nobody would actually bid in this auction. Add to this the very likely possibility that the public leak contains all data they have and that this auction is a scam, and this isn't attractive at all.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction) (Dollar auctions are a two-player example of Tullock auctions)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why don't we have widespread use of tools that spoof online activity ?

</comment><comment><USER36> Or probably it's information intoxication (leaking fake information)

</comment><comment><USER37> ...It's like they have no idea what "Evidence" actually means, or frankly what the hell Snowden actually did; it wasn't selling hacking tools on the black market!

</comment><comment><USER38> Isn't this the reason why governments react harshly to people like Snowden and Manning? To discourage even worse breaches?

<comment><USER39> Clearly the harsh reaction to Snowden has done nothing in this case. I wonder what the reaction would be if Snowden would have been treated like a whistleblower and not a traitor?

<comment><USER38> Compared to past infractions Snowden has gotten off relatively easy

<comment><USER40> Largely because Snowden is outside the political reach of the US for the moment, and the USG realizes it would be counterproductive to throw a public temper tantrum about it.

If he hadn't fled it's quite likely he would have faced the same kind of treatment as Thomas Drake and William Binney, if not harsher.

<comment><USER41> > Thomas Drake and William Binney

Someone should write a book or make a movie about those two men the modern equivalent of All the President's Men.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Anyone that expects anything related to "intelligence" to have logical explanations might very easily find themselves chasing tails.

<comment><USER43> Good point. It's hard to take anything at face value in a situation like this (other than the _working_ code itself that was released). In particular: everything in the corresponding manifesto could be complete nonsense or misdirection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> One hundred Royal Zorkmids for the title author!

</comment><comment><USER45> "It's one more reason why NSA may prove to be one of Washington's greatest liabilities rather than assets." WOW, never though I'd read that on something like Reuters, he put his foot down.. :s

<comment><USER11> It's an op-ed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is all smoke and mirrors.

The DNC is claiming a Russian Hack with wonderful support from the media. Reuters, for instance, gave over $1m to the Clinton Foundation.

When the FBI accused the N. Koreans of the Sony hack, at least there was some credible evidence conjoured up. Obama used an executive order to apply more sanctions on NK even though there were voices saying it was still inconclusive.

But now we are expected to believe the DNC has been hacked by the Russians in partnership with Trump.

Seth Rich, supposed DNC leaker gets shot in the back.

And now this.

The DNC stabs Russia in the back - Bill was happy to accept $500,000 for a speech in Moscow and the Clinton Foundation $millions just before Hillary authorized a major Uranium deal.

I sound crazed writing this, like I'm something from InfoWars. This election cycle is standing the world on its head. Be very careful who you believe.

<comment><USER47> It is "smoke and mirrors", but in completely different sense, which is clear now:

Russians have been known for a long time (whole Cold War) for being able to sacrifice one, less important spy to distract enemy's attention from more valuable one.

Now think about Snowden in this context: few years ago NSA must had been sniffing around, looking for a leak. Suddenly, one of their employes takes few laptops with secret data and runs, ending up in Russia. NSA is furious, but on the other hand their alertness goes down. Few years later it turns out that there's still someone leaking their secrets.

<comment><USER48> Doesn't that completely ignore the fact that Snowden got caught in Russia in the first place because his passport got revoked?</comment></comment></comment>


Dear Twitter: It's Over. And It's for The Best - <AUTHOR> http://chrisbaskind.com/2008/06/17/dear-twitter-its-over-and-its-for-the-best-2/

<comment><USER2> Dear Chris Baskind dot com:

Wake me when you have something new, unique, or interesting to say.

<comment><USER3> Please let's not start having this sort of comment here. It has the same flaws it attributes to the post, and is mean as well.</comment></comment>


Taarof - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taarof <comment><USER2> A friend of mine comes from Iran, and the first time he went to a school meeting (his son was in the first or second grade) they offered sandwiches. He was extremely hungry, but stressed out, so he forgot that he was in a different culture. When they offered him a sandwich he politely turned them down, expecting them to try two more times.

I sat next to him and watched the whole thing and found it hilarious. Had to convince him he wouldn't seem extremely impolite if he appeared to change his mind a ask for a sandwich anyway.

Before he learnt to speak English very well, we went to a lindy hop course together. There he saw this beautiful woman (he was a widower), went up to her and said to her what must have been a literal translation of a very nice thing to say in farsi:

"You move and look like a very strong horse".

I showed wingman skills I never thought I had, and they are now happily married.

<comment><USER3> Any effort to formulate ta'arof is futile. The three times rule mentioned in the article is an oversimplification. Ta'arof is a very subtle art and understanding the difference between genuine and fake ta'arof and when to stop is difficult at best. I am an Iranian and I still have trouble playing this game. I hope I will figure it out sometime before my 50s.

By the way, that phrase doesn't ring a bell. Is it possible that your friend is Azeri (Turkish), Kurd, or Arab? Because Farsi is not the only language spoken in Iran and definitely not the only language in which you are expected to ta'arof.

<comment><USER2> I asked him about it, and apparently he was just a bit socially awkward. He told me he thought she looked like an arabic full blood horse and how he was so fascinated by it. He just failed badly at expressing it as a compliment.

He is very much Iranian, and left because of political repercussions after the "Green Revolution" made it impossible for him to work internationally.

<comment><USER3> I am not questioning his nationality, I just asked about his ethnicity. I am an Iranian national from Azari (Turkic) ethnicity. We are not exactly a minority either. By some estimates more than 20 million Iranians are Azeri. [1]

Fun Political Fact: The current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and the currently incarcerated leader of the opposition (he was arrested after 2009 elections), Mir-Hossein Mousavi, are both Azeri. I just wanted to point out that Azeris are by and large Iranian. We share most culture and costums, but we have a different language and cuisine.

Fun Historical Fact: Azerbaijan and Iran have historically been the same country. Safavid [2] and Qajar [3] dynasties which collectively ruled Iran for ~400 years were Azeri. It was less than 200 years ago that Iran lost half of Azerbaijan to Russia in a war [4].

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

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

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

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Everybody who dares to compare Taarof to any western behavior has not experienced the sheer intensity of it... It's unlike anything I know and takes a good time to get accustomed to (husband of real grown-up-in-Iran persian wife here...). In many cases, I find that at the end both parties do the opposite of what they wanted due to taarof, so I think this thing is rather difficult for Iranians, too, even if it is deeply ingrained to their minds. Anyhow, Taarof is what makes Iranians so lovely to Westeners in the first place (later you will find out that they, too, are just normal people).

<comment><USER5> >> Taarof is what makes Iranians so lovely to Westeners in the first place (later you will find out that they, too, are just normal people).

Interesting, could you elaborate on that pls? Just curiosity :)

<comment><USER4> Well, ask anyone how they think Iranians are (as long as they know some in person) and almost always they will tell you something along the lines of "Wow, they are so extremely nice, so polite and generous". But this is, to some extend, a facade . The more you get to really know Iranians, you understand that they too can be really mean to others, have their fights, say bad things. They just do it in other, more indirect and complicated to understand ways. And Iran is a country 100% operating on Taarof so you need a lot of context to read the meaning of words. For example, once in Shiraz I was offered some icecream by friends of the family and I was like "Yes, sure!". Until this day, they laugh about it, because such directly accepting things is uncommon there (and while otherwise aware of the customs, the possibility of getting some icecream broke my barriers...). They think it's funny when Westeners are direct like that because they, too, watch TV and know our way of life. But if I had been Iranian, my reaction would have been unacceptable unpolite. Along the lines of taarof, many misunderstandings occur that can lead to bad blood in the end without anybody really wanting it in the first place. There is no room for criticism, so things are not talked about and never sorted out.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, the word 'facade' is what came to mind reading your reply. Here in Europe I've met several Iranians, though all happenned to have lived in Western countries for many years. I am sure in those cases they are _genuinely_ nice people, so no facades involved.

>> There is no room for criticism, so things are not talked about and never sorted out

This resonates with traditional Catholic families too, where "elephants in the room" are not really addressed/dealt with many times. E.g. a daughter/granddaugter having a kid out of marriage etc.

<comment><USER5> Ok I think the Persian people need a Post-Taroof Reformist League. Those unspoken Taroof-ish concerns seem like obstacles that complicate their daily lives (sigh). I command you to plant the reformist seed in their society :D

<comment><USER4> But you know...not everything is bad. Taarof makes actual travel to Iran rather smooth and comfortable as people really try to help you the best they can (as long as you have at least a small sense of what is too much, which you get fast).

<comment><USER5> That doesn't help the Iranians' lives! Other than getting more money injection by increase of niceness-seeker tourism, hahah.

Joking, if it's like this and is not terribly linked to a religious dogma( which doesn't seem to be, more like a cultural thing), I'm sure there's a 'raison d'être'(I believe natural selection applies to not-directly-biology- linked entities such as societies). Maybe violent fights/discussions are more prevented thanks to Taroof? That's a wild guess ofc.

<comment><USER4> Yes, you are right: taarof is entirely non-religious and practiced by believers and atheists alike. I can't tell if it really prevents violent conflicts. Maybe... I also don't know if it makes life easier due to some standards of communication or if things get obfuscated and more difficult... In the end, the only sure thing is: it is like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> People sometimes mistake Iranian hospitality with taarof. I guess that happens when they learn about taarof but don't understand it well enough to tell it apart from genuine hospitality.

Fake taarof is usually given with words well known to mean as taarof. There aren't many of those. If an offer is not given with those words, it's safe to say that it's genuine.

A typical Iranian would be disappointed, even heartbroken, if his/her offering gets construed as fake taarof.

As an Iranian, when you have guest, whether you've been expecting them or you've just met them on the street, your job now is to make sure that they have a good time. That means tasty food, entertainment, a place to stay, safety, and good company. If you can't provide these, you simply don't offer. And many people don't. Most don't have the financial means nowadays. Some don't think that you would enjoy their company. Oddly, some people aren't confident about their cooking skills.

But, as a tourist in Iran, if you do get an offer to stay at someone's house or have dinner with them, it's generally safe to say that you can accept the offer. And know that you wouldn't be a burden to them.

I can't speak for everyone, but most people that I know absolutely enjoy taking care of a guest. And they'll have a good time if their guest is having a good time.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm Iranian. Taarof is the worst thing ever. Simple social interactions become these meaningless and tangled situations. It's really hard to get things done. Your average shopping in the market takes at least 50% more than it should. Just going through a door as a group might take a few minutes.

I see it as an inefficiency. I'm sure there are a lot of Iranians who disagree with me.

<comment><USER8> Has its pros and cons. I like that when I am a guest, the host has a sense of duty to ensure I have a good time, feel welcome, am well fed. I always feel awkward when I show up at a non-Iranian's gathering and everyone, including the host, just remains seated, don't get up to greet me, don't offer food other than "there's food in the kitchen, help yourself."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The odd thing is the article references "who pays the bill" as the only similar thing in western society, but most of the examples given (except working without wages) sound like the polite society I grew up in. Perhaps not to the same extent. I'll offer something to a friend, they'll refuse, I'll insist. They'll refuse again if the really don't want what I'm offering, or they'll accept if their refusal was just politeness.

<comment><USER10> Similarly, even in my little and very western country of the Netherlands, there are definitely places where this is part of the regular custom.

<comment><USER11> Same thing in France, and I think in most parts of Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For someone like me who is borderline Asperger, this is a rather hard game to take part in. I would sometime take it literally and accept their refusal, not realising that this has caused offense. Other similar taarof exchanges were not respected by me, causing further problems.

As you can imagine, this has causes unintended serious problems/misunderstandings in our social circles.

<comment><USER13> I hope the article is informative - just count out their refusals three times.

<comment><USER3> That's an oversimplification of a very complex custom. There are no mathematical rules. You need to understand the subtle undertone and leave a margin of error to be sure. By the way, when someone says "Bi Ta'arof migam ..." (meaning "I say this without ta'arof"), it's still ta'arof.

OP, I feel your pain. There is no easy way around this.

<comment><USER12> No, there is no easy way around this. My kids are diagnosed with Asperger. my heart aches when I see them missing social prompts and fail to form the social bonds that are so important at their formative years.

When Google glass was first announced, I had hope that it would help with the interpretation of underlying meaning of social interactions. I came to the conclusion that the idea is there, but the technology is not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "It is possible to ask someone not to t'aarof ("t'aarof nakonid"), but that raises new difficulties, since the request itself might be a devious type of t'aarof."

I love the concept of "devious t'aarof"!

<comment><USER15> It's like meta t'aarof?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can tell you Taarof is one of the worst traditions us Iranians have, it's like playing reverse poker.

Taarof is mostly based on context, with a stranger it's never genuine but with within friends and family you will want to pull your hair out. You will begin to pay for stuff just to skip the awkward Taarof, but will have no choice to engage in it when the other person has to give in to the Taarof.

</comment><comment><USER17> There is a (perhaps less intense?) version of this operating in the Slavic nations. I notice it in Poland. Especially the rule of 3. A host offers you food and drink 3 times, and you are suppose to refuse it a few times, and only if they keep offering should you think that they are serious.

Likewise, if you have Poles over for dinner, you might ask "Would you like more wine?" My American friends will say "yes" if they want more wine, but the Poles will say "No". Then you have to insist, "Please have more wine!" and they say "No" again, and this goes for a few rounds before they accept the wine.

</comment><comment><USER18> The Irish equivalent, courtesy of the fabulous Mrs Doyle: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVH3IBr_Ipk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVH3IBr_Ipk)

</comment><comment><USER19> Hooman Majd's book, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, is pretty interesting, especially as it relates to ta'arof at the international level.

He argues that many of the seemingly bizarre comments and gestures made by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in diplomatic settings, can be understood when ta'arof is taken into account.

There was also a fascinating article about ta'arof and diplomatic negotiations in the New York Times:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/weekinreview/06slackman.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/weekinreview/06slackman.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

"'In the West, 80 percent of language is denotative. In Iran 80 percent is connotative.'

Translation: In the West, 'yes' generally means yes. In Iran, 'yes' can mean yes, but it often means maybe or no. In Iran, Dr. Tajbakhsh said, listeners are expected to understand that words don't necessarily mean exactly what they mean.

'This creates a rich, poetic linguistic culture,' he said. 'It creates a multidimensional culture where people are adept at picking up on nuances. On the other hand, it makes for bad political discourse. In political discourse people don't know what to trust.'"

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm an Iranian too. It's good that a Wikipedia entry is made to explain it (I have explained it to my western friends multiple times in the past, now I can refer them to this entry) I should also stress that Taarof in tiny doses is not bad, but when you have to face it every day in different scenarios, it becomes a recurring hassle. We're used to it!

</comment><comment><USER21> Coming from a part of India, that's really close to Persian culture, I can see now where some of our customs come from. This combined with Indian customs of etiquette and you have a society where the guest is considered God.

<comment><USER22> I'm from Pakistan and I agree with you on it: now I know where some of our customs come from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hmm, that's really interesting. Does anyone know of any computer interfaces where the computer demonstrates taarof (for example, "Have a $15 account credit on us!" "No thanks" "No, I insist" "No thanks", etc.)? I don't mean in the naggy fashion (a program suggesting something multiple times as an attempt to hook the user) but out of an expectation that the user will follow taarof and decline the first three times.

<comment><USER24> There is in fact.

Port knocking to open a port (and a service behind it) which is presumably closed at start.

oversimplification: CLIENT> POKE POKE SERVER> TCP RST, nothing to SEE HERE CLIENT> POKE POKE POKE <SPACE> POKE POKE POKE (i insist in proper way) SERVER> TCP ACK (I oblige)

More: [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- conf...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure- port-knocking-using-only-iptables-on-an-ubuntu-vps)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Might come across as quite unbelievable for modern day western folks but that's basically exactly what also happens in China and in general East Asian countries. Totally archaic in the modern world and can become extreme hinderances for frank discussions, collaboration and productivity. Fortunately young people are gradually getting rid of those s __ __especially among themselves but it 's sometimes quite bad that many people of previous generations are still emphasizing those as civilized etiquettes, while in fact it only breeds hypocrisy and miscommunication. This is also an example of misunderstandings and conflicts between generations: some mundane members of older generations simply don't really understand the more modern ideals of young people, and from incomprehension stemmed suspicions and fear, which is unfortunate and laughable. Some of them are also realizing the issue for sure but the number is still small. The sooner it's gone in our culture the better. I guess it takes time though just as it probably did in other places in the world. Culture changes are always a kind of behind the socio-economic changes.

</comment><comment><USER26> In my farsi class we also once had a brief introduction into the concept of Taarof. Never heard of it before and thought it is really interesting but I understand that it sometimes can get a bit too much :-)

Here is a video that also explains it and shows some examples of Taroof: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5oX2n1-diA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5oX2n1-diA)

</comment><comment><USER27> This American Life segment on Taarof:

[http://youtu.be/IGG95Za7Pzo](http://youtu.be/IGG95Za7Pzo)

</comment><comment><USER28> I can see how some of our North Americans customs may see alien to Iranians. However the engineer in me cringes at the inefficiency of such exchanges ... Oh well, when in Rome do as the Romans I guess.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm from Iran and was travelling there with a Spanish friend of mine. We took a taxi to the airport for nearly 30km. The guy was really warm specially by seeing a tourist and when we arrived there he was Taarofing and not accepting the money and even saying it in a broken english that he doesn't want it. My friend was convinced he won't get the money. Eventually he accepted it and hugged us. I'm pretty sure if we hadn't payed him he would have kicked our asses!

</comment><comment><USER30> This is very similar to Indian culture as well. People get upset if you don't follow Taarof and suddenly won't talk to you without giving any apparent reason. I have seen my Mom analyze social interactions post-mortem to derive additional meanings on what was superficially discussed. If you ask me, this is too much drama, I am (may be all of us) better off without it..:).

</comment><comment><USER31> In Norway my grandma tells the same thing about life 50 years ago far into the countryside -- she tells this funny story about somebody who was extremely hungry after a long hike, but didn't eat as they were only implored to eat twice, not three times. Granted she thought they were silly, I guess the custom may have become more relaxed around then.

</comment><comment><USER32> This reminds me so much of George Alec Effinger's Budayeen cycle of cyberpunk novels, though it's supposed to involve Arabic culture not Persian.

No doubt crass since it's a real thing, Taraaf sounds like an excellent and fun mechanism for social interactions in fiction... now I'm going to look for a book which demonstrates it...

</comment><comment><USER33> Just curious , what's that suppose to mean in HN?

<comment><USER34> I found it interesting, and I think it has something to do with yesterday's The Atlantic article about Indians not saying "thank you" as much as the Americans or the English.

Now, about the article, and especially about this:

> T'aarof also governs the rules of hospitality: a host is obliged to offer > anything a guest might want, and a guest is equally obliged to refuse it. > This ritual may repeat itself several times (3 times)

the same "3-times" rule was also valid (and in some places it still is) in rural Romania until not that long ago. More exactly, if you had been invited to their table "only" once or twice by somebody else you had to say "no", only the third time were you allowed to say "yes" (if you really wanted to). It also created lots of awkward social situations after Communism fell and foreigners (mostly Westerners) first came to Romania. Lots of them would accept table invitations which were not really meant to be accepted on the first go.

<comment><USER35> > Indians not saying "thank you" as much as the Americans or the English

Yes, cultural differences are sometimes strange.

Here in Germany most people are rather short-spoken. So if a German is nice to me, he probably likes me, otherwise he would not make the effort.

When I talk to English people, it feels like they are talking like Germans who like me, even if they just are like this to everyone. This feels very strange if I just met them or if they tell me unpleasant things. I often feel a bit deceived.

<comment><USER36> I think that there is some trade-off between "amigo" and "close friend" barriers.

For some countries (Germany, Poland, ...) the initial contact is icy, but after breaking the ice, it's easy to get straightforward to confessions, biggest dreams etc.

For other (e.g. Spain, USA, ...) the initial contact is warm, but it is somehow harder to became close friends (or at least - it's hard to tell).

At least for a Pole, it may work different way for different people. I am curious if it is possible to get some objective data on it (any ideas?).

And, as a rare counterexamples, for me it was usually warm/easy for Italians and cold/hard for the French.

Politeness is yet another layer, but not the same as warmth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Did anyone else read: "[...] is a Persian form of civility emphasizing both deference and social rank, similar to the Chinese art of etiquette, lmao"

</comment><comment><USER38> I didn't believe my eyes as I saw the wikipedia link to Taarof listed here :D Even though as I am half persian it made me smile ;)

<comment><USER39> Same feeling here</comment></comment>


Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free - <AUTHOR> https://bail-app.netlify.com/ <comment><USER2> Is this even a thing or just a landing page with an email harvester?

<comment><USER3> Ugh, I missed that.

All: Show HN requires that a thing exists and that people can try it out. A sign up page doesn't count. Please read the rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Back of envelope total addressable market calculation:

I'm guessing this will appeal greatly to people 3 or 4 standard deviations to the "introverted" side of the introvert/extrovert bell curve. So maybe 0.15% if it's as high as only 3 sigma.

It'll be useful to people who's friendship circles overlap in that 3 standard deviations of introversion.

Let's assume Dunbars much discredited but widely quoted ideas are right, and that people typically have ~150 social connections.

So there's about a 1.5:1000 chance that someone would find this useful.

There's about a 1:50 chance that any of their friends would also find it useful. (That May be higher if introverts tend to have more introverted friends, but is more likely way lower if introverts have fewer friends than extroverts).

In a city of 5 million, there are probably 150 people who'd have one friend for which this is useful, and maybe 3 people who would use it with two of their friends...

My assumptions might be way off. But to a first approximation nobody is ever going to find this actually useful in their real world relationships...

<comment><USER5> I think more than 0.15% of people feel guilt/anxiety about wanting to cancel plans last minute. I don't have any data to back that up, but it is a fairly common emotion.

999/1000 people feel nothing when they have to renege on a social engagement?

<comment><USER6> No those people just know how to communicate like a normal human and say hey I'm really not up for it tonight let's reschedule. If anyone replies negatively or aggressively to that they then should find new friends. This is ridiculous

<comment><USER4> "communicate like a normal human" is a bit unnecessarily negative/aggressive there. Some people genuinely do have trouble with that. belittling them isn't gonna help any...

<comment><USER6> Normal is a perfectly fine adjective. If you struggle with something like social anxiety by definition that's not normal. Not normal doesn't imply bad, it means not normal

<comment><USER7> "Not normal doesn't imply bad"

From a purely pedantic standpoint: sure. But, uh, I wouldn't suggest going around dropping that one in conversation with people you'd like to have conversations with in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't imagine being friends with someone who is this incapable of communicating.

The solution to this problem is sending a text that says, "Hey, I'm not feeling like coming out today after all. Rain check?" This app is a worse solution than the obvious solution.

Trying to be empathetic: if you feel the need to use something like this, I'm not qualified to diagnose you as having social anxiety, but I would suggest you talk to someone who _is_ qualified to diagnose you with social anxiety.

<comment><USER9> I disagree, hear me out. The reason this app makes sense is because if you are an empathetic person, and know other empathetic people, there's actually no good way to solve this problem through direct communication.

Lets say you have plans with someone. But then, you decide fundamentally: if the other person would still like to do this, I am happy to. But if not, I'd prefer not to. This is the game theoretic situation this app attempts to solve.

Now lets figure out a way to solve this problem through direct communication. The problem with trying to do so, is often when someone expresses a _change_ to preferences, if you assume that person is empathetic, they will likely be diluting the degree to their change insofar as that change could negatively affect the recipient of the news. Why?

It's because there's a catch-22 in this situation between empathy and honesty. Empathy dictates we try to maximize utility between the parties. When expressing this new preference, if one is empathetic, one expresses it in a way to try to maximize the likelihood that the other party interprets it in a way they can still act selfishly to the maximally acceptable degree. However, the recipient of the information, if empathetic, can anticipate this, and hence may interpret the person's statement as pre-diluted, so in order to maximize utility from _their_ perspective (out of empathy) they in turn may yield due to the imperfect information and assume the preference expressed is stronger than implied by the statement directly. In other words, if I hear this from someone, I put even odds that the person is being completely honest (out of valuing honesty), or, that they actually would really want to skip this plan if it would not cause me emotional pain, and have chosen to continue to express it in a way that leaves the option open (out of valuing empathy.) I know people who would do one or the other, and I don't consider either approach a sign of a moral failure.

In reality, both sides of the communication wrangle with the conflict between empathy + utility maximization in framing their expression, and honesty, which (despite its virtue) runs the risk of being misinterpreted given the other party may assume it is being diluted to maximize utility out of their empathy. Diluting the statement _or_ being direct about it are both rational, depending on how important maximizing utility is due to empathy vs expressing honest preferences.

This app neatly solves this problem. It's not about reducing social awkwardness, it's about preventing the need for mutually-empathetic individuals to have to make trade-offs between the competing desires for objective communication (out of the value of honesty) and trying to maximize utility (out of the value of empathy and selflessness.) If one could be _certain_ another party is being honest, this kind of technique would not be necessary, but since dishonesty in this situation falls out of empathy, its potentially virtuous and comes down to a preference of one's values in how to deal with the situation.

<comment><USER10> I'm sorry but this has nothing to do with empathy. As an adult, you should have the grace to understand that sometimes people, for whatever reason, don't feel up to hanging out.

You are seriously overthinking this. Empathetic people can still communicate.

<comment><USER9> My claim is that empathetic people can be dishonest and still be virtuous, not that no empathetic people can be honest. Concretely, I know people who do not express preferences directly on such things where it may harm me, out of empathy for me. I don't consider these people morally corrupt despite not being completely truthful. An app like this (or any tool like this) which removes the conflict between these values seems productive since unhappiness stems from not being able to live according to our value preferences.

I'm not sure who the "you" are addressing here, I'm talking about this problem from a game theoretic perspective which abstracts over all people.

It some situations there will be no lack of clarity - for example, if two people prefer honesty over empathy (shorthand for "will people be more honest even if they are concerned it will not maximize utility between the parties, or they are aware such utility is not at risk"), there will be no source of moral confusion. It's when there's unrevealed information about value judgements this problem manifests.

<comment><USER11> The dishonesty doesn't help anybody, and it makes navigating the relationship more difficult for all parties. Empathic dishonesty is a consequence of poor social skills, where people don't know how to be truthful and set boundaries without being hurtful.

<comment><USER9> So says you. Like I said, I know people like this, and I am not willing to label them as people who have poor social skills or other disparaging things. I don't consider this category of dishonesty to be one that a person necessarily needs to correct, if there are approaches to the scenario where the conflict between honesty and empathy that conflict for them could allow the person to live more according to their values by preventing the need to make the trade-off altogether.

<comment><USER8> > Like I said, I know people like this, and I am not willing to label them as > people who have poor social skills or other disparaging things.

Labeling things like "ignorance" and "poor social skills" as "disparaging" isn't particularly useful. When I say someone is ignorant or has poor social skills, that's not a statement that they're a bad person, it's an identification of a problem they have (which is correctable).

> I don't consider this category of dishonesty to be one that a person > necessarily needs to correct

It sounds like this may be the core of our disagreement.

I won't say that a person "needs" to correct it--instead I would say that the person, and my friendship with that person, will be significantly limited by not correcting this problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some folks I knew who rented an apartment in East Village to do their own startup had this exact same idea with this exact same name back in '14\. I don't think they lasted very long with it and all ended up getting jobs, but this did at least make me check if this was the same folks.

Edit: That said, I would pay to use this if it were done well and if I could get all my friends to use it.

<comment><USER13> I wonder who bailed first?

<comment><USER2> Did they use the app? Talk about dogfooding...

<comment><USER14> Yea, they had an entry "work on startup" in it and realized all the founders had chosen to bail so the project got canceled

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a little bit sad and a little bit scary. Have we reached the point where we now prefer to avoid actual communications with our "friends" that this exists? It's up there with people who won't answer phone calls and only want to text.

<comment><USER16> That's not the reason.

Telling a friend you want to cancel is hard, and depressing, and so you oftentimes go just to not bail on them. And hate it.

But what if your friend is feeling the same way? What if you both want to cancel, but neither of you wants to hurt the other person.

Well, with something like this, you can bail without letting them down; they only know you wanted to bail -if they also want to bail-. That's the key bit.

<comment><USER17> Maybe its a cultural thing. Around here we grow up and learn to state our preferences honestly and understanding its not hurtful to be truthful but rather the opposite. Weaseling about is something you correct small children on.

<comment><USER18> Does that extend to backing out of a social engagement at very short notice, simply because you no longer feel like it, without fear of causing offense? I think a lot of people make plans with friends in all sincerity, but sometimes end up feeling tired or socially burned out whatever, and wish they had left the time free but would feel unfriendly canceling at the last minute without a stronger reason.

edit: also, I think sometimes preferences are kind of fuzzy. Like, maybe I have no social energy and feel like staying in, so I'll only follow through out of a sense of obligation -- but there's a decent chance the social contact will actually energise me and be enjoyable once I snap out of my funk. So maybe the social pressure is good for me up to a point -- but if my friend is feeling the same as me, maybe we'd both be better off taking the night off and seeing each other next time.

<comment><USER11> Social commitments are called that because they are exactly that: commitments. You promised to your friends you'll show so you just show. If you never flake you don't have to waste precious brain cycles agonizing on whether to cancel.

Do you want to be a flake and do you want others to think of you as a flake? If not, just keep your social commitments. Pretty basic stuff.

<comment><USER18> Which is the point of this app, right? You don't want to let down your friend, so you're not going to cancel in the normal way; but in the case where the commitment no longer really suits either of you, it would be nice to take a night off, rather than both show up because you think it matters to the other person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Based on this tweet obviously [https://twitter.com/mattiekahn/status/1224100727578120193](https://twitter.com/mattiekahn/status/1224100727578120193)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, making no attempt to claim this idea as my own. But just saw it had huge traction

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I thought this was going to be a service to schedule robocalls to your phone:

Robocaller: "Hello is this $FIRST_NAME $LAST_NAME?"

Happy customer acting surprised: "Why yes it is. May I ask who is calling at such an hour? I'm hanging out with my friends."

Robocaller: "Yes this is $AUTHORITY. We need you to do $MANDATORY_TASK immediately.

Happy customer acting surprised: "Oh my! Okay, I'll be there soon."

Happy customer to friends: "Guys, this is so crazy, but I've got to run!"

Then you leave the party or whatever. Side-effects: you can't sleep at night because you're thinking about how weird you are.

<comment><USER14> I'd pay for that just for the lulz

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Haha, this is a hilarious idea. I love it.

Clearly this is to combat [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance) on the two-person level[0] which is utterly reasonable considering the phenomenon is widespread no matter how much people like to talk about their ability to be socially able to handle interactions.

My objection is that it may make it too easy to get what I want momentarily, i.e. I want to place high activation energy constraints on exiting because in the period leading up to the event, there will be many moments where I dip below my threshold of excitement for the event. However, since activation energy to set up the event is high because of natural constraints (I have to make sure everyone is available, that the event is available, that the venue is available), this means that if I lower the threshold to exit, I will bias strongly towards exiting.

Given that, I consciously hard commit myself to events. Post making this choice I have a far more active social life. This is why I won't use your app. It's because it actually does make a thing easy, but I don't want it to be easy.

Love that you used Netlify to knock it out, though. How did you enjoy the experience of developing it?

0: Really, this is exactly the Abilene Paradox [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox)

</comment><comment><USER22> Looks interesting, but would really require some velocity. There's the social problem of requesting others to install the app by an individual. I'm not gonna ask my friends to install bail just in case they'd like to cancel, because _I_ might want to cancel.

<comment><USER23> This concept is begging for integrations into existing calendar apps, not being an app itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Might be absolutely right about this - thanks for the feedback. Will probably start with a google integration in the first instance. As you can probably tell, this concept is still in its infancy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> To the developer: kudos. Ignore the naysayers. Why build this — why the f __* not? It 's not like there are apps out there that do the same. And adding another way to interact with people is _fun_.

That's not to mention it might help people with anxiety. Sure, it's not a silver bullet. I don't know if I'd really use it. But it's novel, and why not.

Now, there's a _real_ problem with this app, and it's that it's a _feature_ turned into a _product_.

It's a problem because:

1) Bail is not a Google Calendar / Facebook Events replacement, which is what people use to schedule things, AND

2) It would be a great _feature_ in both of these products. If it ever gets implemented, Bail is instantly obsolete.

Again, kudos to you! But as a user, I hope the calendar software I use gets this functionality, and I won't have to introduce anyone to yet another app.

It's not at all a problem unless you're betting everything on this app. Who knows where this will bring you though. Best of luck!

<comment><USER25> > To the developer: kudos. Ignore the naysayers. Why build this — why the f* > not? It's not like there are apps out there that do the same. And adding > another way to interact with people is fun.

Because some people have the moral compass to think about the consequences of the applications they build.

The world doesn't need more crutches for people who can't communicate in such a basic way.

Think about it; if you don't want to do something with someone or are unable, you owe it to both yourself and the other person to speak your opinion. Waiting for the other person to bail first is a lack of communication. This isn't going to help people who have communication problems. It can only make their disability worse, or cause them to resort to being friends with others with the same disability, which can prevent them from overcoming it.

Personally, I'd lose respect for someone who tried to use this "feature".

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's basically solving a version of the prisoners dilemma by giving both parties a filtered communication channel to signal cooperation.

</comment><comment><USER27> If anyone winds up using this consistently with friends (which they won't), it's likely they'll just see a continually increasing number of aborted events, due to the removal of a barrier.

It's good that a cancelling party feels some shame. It keeps humans from letting their short-term avoidance always overcome the communal and long-term benefits of some kind of sacrifice.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I created a quick landing page to validate an idea for an app.

I'll be honest, the idea isn't mine. I saw it suggested in a Twitter post which had huge traction, and decided to run with it.

At the moment I'm just trying to refine the concept and get an idea of whether there really is space for something like this out there

<comment><USER28> Do people send calendar invites when hanging out with friends?

Personally, if a meetup did actually make it into my calendar, I would not ship it to a friend.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did wonder that. Personally, I put social events in my calendar but don't specifically invite the other people to it. I'm still validating the concept, but am initially leaning towards this being more of an integration with calendar services, particularly facebook where people probably do have common invites

<comment><USER28> I've only used FB events among friends for big events (Lets all go to Vegas!) and even then most of the coordination happens in a chat group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is like Bang With Friends. Whatever happened to that thing? [https://www.businessinsider.com/bang-with-friends-co- founder...](https://www.businessinsider.com/bang-with-friends-co-founder- interview-2013-4)

Maybe it should be called Bail With Friends.

<comment><USER30> I like Bail On Friends better, in part because it partially increases the guilt factor back to where it should be.

"I'm gonna have to bail" vs "I'm gonna have to bail _on you_" feels different to me

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It would be pretty depressing if you got "You're off the hook" messages every time you hit bail. That means, most of your "friends" were looking to get out of the plans they made with you.

</comment><comment><USER32> Where I come from, it's common practice to follow-up before an event in an effort to give the other person an out. I.e., "are we still up for lunch tomorrow?"

Do other people not do this?

<comment><USER33> It's situation dependent for me. If I've made plans with a friend to grab lunch/dinner/drinks on a particular day, we often won't decide on a location until less than 24 hours beforehand. So in that case, I'll usually open with "Hey, are we still on for lunch? Where should we go?" Even if a location is already set up, if the plans were made more than a few days in advance, I'll likely confirm.

But if I've made plans with someone for only a few days in the future, and we've already picked a location/activity, I'll assume they'll be there unless they reach out to cancel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wouldn't like a friend which is incapable of communicating.

I can't look at this and consider it interesting, it's not only enabling a toxic behavior, it's encouraging it. I'm actually disgusted by this.

I'm glad I see other people with the same perspective in the comment section as the fact that someone thought about this, thought it's a good idea and implemented it is terrifying.

What happened to "Hey, I don't feel like doing this tonight, let's postpone it?"

</comment><comment><USER35> i applaud the lean methodology. minimal detail, free-tier hosted contact form. throw it out on HN and a few other sites (i've not looked, just assume) and check the your conversions per channel in a day or two. HN is a great place to see what tech-leaning people think of stuff (even if it can get a bit sideways at times) and get some free unsolicited advice on everything from implementation patterns to prior art to the occasionally valuable feature idea.

<comment><USER36> Are we getting yelped?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I don't think the developer even thinks this will ever work.

To begin with - this means that both parties must register their event on the service when making the original plan. (How else would you later manage what to bail on and who that affects)

Can you imagine anyone actually doing that? If you are someone who makes such flaky plans constantly, you aren't also someone who will think ahead like this.

To be honest reading the comments that treat this as something other than an obvious dead end is scary.

</comment><comment><USER38> Off topic, but OP if you need a guide to help you get off netlify and host your service through a remote server (e.g. a DO Droplet) check out this guide I recently wrote

[https://email@example.com/deploying-and- configuring-a...](https://email@example.com/deploying-and-configuring- a-digitalocean-droplet-to-host-server-side-rendered-web- applications-382fdce32ff)

</comment><comment><USER39> I feel like whatever social awkwardness situation this "solves" ... it just doesn't solve it.

Folks are bound to just hit that button all the time just to find out what happens ... and still be bothered that the other person did too.

Nobody cares just that someone else doesn't want to do something... they care / wonder about why they don't want to do it. You figure that out by talking.

</comment><comment><USER40> If I feel like I can't ask my friend "are you really up for doing this?", then they aren't actually a friend...

</comment><comment><USER41> One problem I can see is this: If I was the one who made the plan in the first place, I could hit the "Bail" button just to see whether my friend secretly wanted to bail and then I could call them up on it... This would result in things being more awkward than just having a frank conversation in the first place!

</comment><comment><USER42> A version for intimacy: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/31/20939932/lovesync-sex- bu...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/31/20939932/lovesync-sex-button- gadget-tech-kickstarter-campaign-viral)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've also seen a similar one about wanting to get out of your marriage. Some people have questioned the antisocial aspect of the concept, but at least its more light hearted than that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> " Bail is still being built, and will be available very soon, on iOS, Android and online."

I have a feeling that OP hasn't started working on anything, and is using this to prove that there's a market for it. Sneaky, but good for you!

</comment><comment><USER44> Next up, an AI to send you friendly texts, because you have no real friends.

<comment><USER45> Pretty sure this already exists

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> How exciting! I can't wait for next brilliant idea. Maybe... "notify your friends when you're thirsty via click of a button! Subscribe now, only $4.99 a month!"

</comment><comment><USER47> Is my action of "bailing" transparent to the other party? Via (re)prompting my friend with a notification or something where they might be able to guess I was trying to get out?

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea is that if you bail and they don't, they'll never find out and your plans will remain uncancelled.

But if you both decide you no longer want to meet up, you no longer have to, and nobody gets offended

<comment><USER48> This could leak information to the other party if bailing is still available during the event. By trying to bail myself after you show up I could "prove" you really didn't want to be here after all.

<comment><USER18> Similar to the problem with the 'secret crush' version of the same idea -- people can insincerely tick every box, simply to see which of their friends has a crush on them. I guess the same caveat applies: only use this app with people you trust. (Of course, some would say that if you really trust each other you don't need this app; but I don't know, I can see a use case for those situations where your plans have become inconvenient, but not sufficiently inconvenient to back out at short notice without seeming rude. I wouldn't use it myself but I don't even use a calendar app.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'm a little confused. Do you have to make the plans in the first place using an app called "Bail"?

If so I imagine the non-bail rate will be extremely extremely low.

</comment><comment><USER50> How on earth am I supposed to get my friends to use this without implicitly saying "hey I kinda want to bail on this thing" by telling them to use this?

</comment><comment><USER51> I think the name would be better applied to an app for crowdfunding conditional releases from gaol pending trial.

</comment><comment><USER52> There was an app on Shark Tank that was this, but for timing your hook up with your preferred sexual partner

</comment><comment><USER53> it's weird to see social anxiety as a "popular" thing in culture now. Is it a humble brag as an easy way to have social-proof of having plans and people who want to hang out with the them, while not having to "document" that they actually do?

</comment><comment><USER54> younger generations are losing the ability/will to communicate decisively in uncomfortable social situations, can't see any positive long-term effects here

</comment><comment><USER55> This is the most San Francisco thing ever.

<comment><USER39> Someone once noted that there were a whole series of various startup ideas and products that could be covered by "things 20 something engineers wish their mom would still do for them".

I feel like this one is "Mom I don't want to meet up with Sarah today, can you tell her mom that I have a doctor's appointment?"

<comment><USER56> It's remarkable how much of the criticism aimed at SV can be summed up as:

# they're 20-something.

# they're white.

# they're male.

# and this is low status.

<comment><USER39> The criticism was about the products / services.

<comment><USER56> The criticism is that it is made by and caters to low status people.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Tools of the trade, 2012 edition - <AUTHOR>

What SaaS tools do you use to build your software/company? <comment><USER2> Altassian bitbucket - free private git hosting. Github is great but no free private plan.

</comment><comment><USER3> None

</comment><comment><USER4> gmail</comment>


Ontology is Overrated (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html <comment><USER2> In the Semantic Web that is called "anybody can say anything about any subject".</comment>


Ask HN: FCC/NSA etc. are keylogging my private electronics, what should I do? - <AUTHOR> Hello, I'm "Iwan Danilo Krüger" I made the Whisteblow which got around 5 billion views after around 5 hours a few months ago. Secret agency services tried killing me since then, but I'm still alive. How do I get a new smartphone/PC without CIA people installing a hardware keylogger on it?<p>This is a serious question <comment><USER2> Please, seek psychological treatment.

This is not to say that the intelligence services don't target people for surveillance or physical attack. They do. But what you're saying doesn't add up. It's possible you may be suffering from paranoid delusions.

If you go and speak to a psychiatric professional, in the case that you are not delusional, it will not harm you. In the case that you are, they will help you detect that and assist you appropriately.

Good luck, and I hope things get better for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> You think this is schizophrenic paranoia? No, I'm serious about it. sctb/pg even talked to me in person and can confirm it.

<comment><USER2> I don't know if it is or not. By its very nature, it's possible that neither do you. That's the issue with delusions, they are indistinguishable from reality.

You should suffer no harm by seeking a professional opinion on the matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I'm not delusional or schizophrenic, but I'll agree asking serious advice on this topic on Hacker News is a stupid idea. Anyways, I'm serious about the OP and have even been bothered by Secret agencies before IRL.

<comment><USER2> Every single person in the world has some delusions. No one is exempt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How do you know your electronics have keyloggers in them (beyond the hardware that's in everyone's electronics)?

What are you a whistle-blower regarding?

"Iwan Danilo Krüger" returns no hits in Google, so telling us that this is who you are like we're supposed to know this name seems nonsensical...

<comment><AUTHOR> They even wrote shit into my E-Mails I was writing, so I wasn't only keylogged on a hidden level but on an obvious one.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any evidence of this? How do you know someone closer to home wasn't playing a prank on you? It's a bit of a stretch to assume it's a member of a three-letter agency messing with an email you were drafting.

Can you answer my question about what incident you're a whistle-blower for?

I'm really trying to take you seriously, but I feel like sneak is right, and you may be suffering some sort of paranoid delusion. Hard evidence of your claims would go a long way...</comment></comment></comment>


Why and how to learn to program - <AUTHOR> http://tynan.com/learnphp

<comment><USER2> Thanks for submitting!

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome! Thanks for writing it.</comment></comment>


What are the best programming articles? - <AUTHOR>

Sorry, the original URL is http://stackoverflow.com/questions/316461/what-are-the-best-programming-articles <comment><USER2> Pretty much anything on norvig.com and I'm also particularly fond of "The Hundred Year Language" (<http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html>)

<comment><USER3> You realize that at this point, the best candidate programming language for 100 year language is probably COBOL, followed after a good ways behind it by C.

What about Lisp? I don't believe it's gaining new programmers at a fast enough rate to be a sustainable community in the long term.

<comment><USER4> FORTRAN too.

All the kids who might've gone into Lisp are going into Python instead and asking the legitimate question, what can Lisp do that this can't? There's a lot of hand-waving from the Lisp community about this and that, but a lack of concrete example. On the academic high ground, there's Haskell and OCaml - both communities are actively working on "batteries included" distributions to bring their languages to the masses. The Lisp community took too much for granted for too long, they have become overtaken by events on both sides. It's not that Lisp will ever "die"... It'll just become irrelevant by the next generation.

<comment><USER2> I really don't see the flying cars of the future powered by either FORTRAN or COBOL or even a descendent thereof - these are most likely not the hundred- year language, although they'll probably still be processing pay packets for Acme Corp another 100 years beyond that ;)

I see Py3k as proof positive that Guido et. al. intend to create something enduring, and I'm also reasonably excited about F# and the ML family in general. Clojure seems to have reinvigorated interest in Lisps also, but with the benefit of one of the larger available libraries. Should be an interesting decade in language development.

<comment><USER4> I can guarantee that the CFD and FEA used to design said flying cars will be done with FORTRAN.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Teachity - find a tutor or be a tutor online - <AUTHOR> https://www.teachity.com/

<comment><USER2> Some immediate thoughts:

The featured projects and tutors on the home page could be linked so you can find out more about them without signing up.

As a prospective teacher: How do I get paid? How often? What cut does Teachity take?

As a prospective student: How do I pay (credit card, I assume)? What happens if I don't like my tutor (refund policy, etc.)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'll add some copy to the front page to clear up some of your questions.

Payments are all done through Stripe Connect. Right now Teachity isn't taking a cut, but if the site ends up getting enough users then I'll start experimenting with pricing... as a comp, I think airbnb is 6-12%, elance is ~9% of each transaction.

Refunds are tricky. Everything is run through Stripe so I can't directly issue refunds above Teachity's cut. If people have a really horrible experience/no- show tutor I can ban the tutor and give refunds out of my own pocket although that wouldn't be sustainable. I'm working on a feedback system, so hopefully that will head off most problems... although you need enough reviews for that to be effective in the first place.

<comment><USER3> Hey there, I work on Connect at Stripe. Sorry if there was any confusion regarding refunds and Connect: you can both make refunds back to the customer, and refund your application fee back to your tutor.

Would love to help clarify things, feel free to email me at email@example.com as well. (:

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pagination buttons aren't working (current page isn't highlighted).

Logging in as a tutor, and then returning to the home page throws up the Stripe flash behind the Featured Projects and Featured Tutors titles.

How do I see the virtual classroom without bidding on a "project".

 _We have hundreds of expert tutors, teachers and advisers from around the globe standing by._

Really? I'm user 38.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for catching those bugs, I'll fix them up.

Classrooms are created when a bid is accepted so there's no way to navigate to one of the actual classrooms beforehand. I should probably incorporate a screenshot or preview of the classroom on the home page.

I guess I wrote that copy in a fit of optimism! Corrected it so as not to be misleading.

Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER4> > I guess I wrote that copy in a fit of optimism! Corrected it so as not to be > misleading.

 _We have expert tutors, teachers and advisers from around the globe standing by._

Glad the optimism hasn't worn off :-) Stripe only works for the US and Canada, so...

And _Welcome to the world's premier online learning marketplace!_ is a bit spammy, and yet twee at the same time. Quite an achievement! ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right about Stripe, however it's just the suggested payment method. If they don't use it, I don't get paid but I'm not going to try to keep people walled in, especially in light of Stripe's limited availability ex. North America.

I'm going to stand by that one, even if just to save a little pride. ;) Technicalities FTW!

<comment><USER4> > I'm not going to try to keep people walled in

Then why can't I hide the ugly red banner?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> what if I can tutor in some topics and student in others? Should be able to see the list of topics w/out signing up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, you should be able to navigate to the project board without signing in. You would be able to see all the jobs that have been posted by students + the broad category buckets. Or did you mean I should highlight the categories on the home page?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The default bootstrap-template could have been modified, at least.

<comment><USER7> Also the "hero banner" or whatever it's called has some serious artifact issues. It looks almost like a magic eye

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh, my photoshop skills are sub-par. I've been putting off replacing the banner with a more robust site intro/overview, sounds like I need to make that happen.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Python based cloud solution - <AUTHOR>

Hello there,<p>I'm about to build social site,
I want to use Python as main language
 and I want it on cloud (so I don't need to worry about scalability/huge trafic/etc),
I know Google Apps Engine, but is it ok to use on huge site like social ?
Is there any alternatives? better alternatives?
What you can suggest/comment on this, anything will help me to decide. <comment><USER2> <http://www.picloud.com/product/>

You should use PiCloud. It is a tailor made solution for Python.

</comment><comment><USER3> Im actually learning python for the first time myself and am currently working with the various cloud engines. If you want im willing to compare notes and maybe we can even work together to learn it better. Drop me a note at firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2044595/what-is-the- large...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2044595/what-is-the-largest- website-deployed-on-google-app-engine)

</comment><comment><USER5> For Django, there's <https://gondor.io/>

</comment><comment><USER6> You could always build direct on AWS</comment>


Amazon's Silk disrupts the microprocessor race - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dinogane.com/2011/10/amazons-silk-disrupts-microprocessor.html <comment><USER2> Holy crap are the people talking about Silk moronic.

Do you people realise this is nothing new? BlackBerry has been doing this for more than a decade, with poor results. Opera has been doing this for at least 6+ years, with slightly better results.

It's not new, and it's not a good thing. Centralizing all browsing through Amazon? Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of crazy world is this that people are excited by this development?

That, and proxying all browsing for a _WiFi-only_ device with a _dual core CPU_ is beyond disingenuous and absolutely unnecessary.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm anxious to hear more details about Silk but from what I understand so far, the protocol between the device and the backend EC2 servers is SPDY (<http://www.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-protocol>) or something pretty similar.

SPDY is a transport protocol, basically an improvement over HTTP to avoid the latencies associated with opening and closing many TCP sessions in order to render a single web page.

This approach also allows Amazon to maintain a huge local web cache including predictive pre-fetching. As many people have pointed out this stuff isn't 'new' other than perhaps the scale at which Amazon operates compared to existing systems.

I don't think any of this is going to change the computational requirements at the device for handling client-side processing (i.e. Javascript), which is what the author seems to suggest.

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't this exactly what BlackBerry did in the early 2000s? Mobile phones sucked, so they processed as much as they could on the server and sent it down compressed and easily parseable to the client?

</comment><comment><USER5> With their infrastucture, Amazon could as well run browsers in the cloud and then update remote screens, VNC style. Other guys do that for games, latency is not an issue for them apparently.</comment>


Google Job Posting Appears to Confirm Mobile Payments Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_job_post_appears_to_confirm_nfc_mobile_payments_service.php <comment><USER2> I know we like absolutes, but wasn't NFC a pretty darn bit tip off that mobile payments would be coming?</comment>


The World Has Gone Mad and the System Is Broken - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/world-has-gone-mad-system-broken-ray-dalio/ <comment><USER2> Perspective is a funny thing. This article by a billionaire lists as examples of the world going mad low interest rates and the possibility of inability to meet future pension obligations.

No mention at all of the prospect of global civilizational collapse due to climate change with no one doing anything substantial about it, millions living in squalor as refugees, genocidal war or government officials openly admitting to criminal behavior with no repercussions.

I could go on, but why disturb Mr. Dalio's meditations on the possibility of teachers rising up and demanding their benefits?

<comment><USER3> Even given your perspective, it might still be interesting that Mr. Dalio, from _his_ perspective, sees things as being unsustainable. Addressing climate change is not going to be easier if there is an economic collapse.

<comment><USER4> * Addressing climate change is not going to be easier if there is an economic collapse.*

Growth is tied to emissions of GHG. Economic collapse will decrease growth. A correllary will be large numbers of early deaths (as seen in the ex-USSR) which will further reduce consumption and GHG emissions.

And, soon we will all be on Elon Musk and Richard Branson's space arks on our way to terraforming Mars.

It's all good bro! Don't listen to the pessimists, clap your hands and learn some Lisp.

<comment><USER3> Economic collapse is going to be tied to massive environmental devastation. Those "large number of early deaths"? They're not going to go quietly. They're going to over-exploit any remotely exploitable resource first.

(I also have a hard time reconciling "large number of early deaths" and "It's all good bro!". One of these is not like the other...)

<comment><USER4> But blockchain?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


US ventures aimed at helping the unbanked are taking cues from developing world - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/oct/23/unbanked-m-pesa-kenya-vodafone-vouch-oportun <comment><USER2> They should look at the UK instead.

"Basic bank accounts" were a game changer. They're what the US calls "checking accounts" (minus the checks) with them you get a debit card, the ability to pay in, take out, and transfer money; however absolutely zero ability to go overdrawn (no loan, no line of credit, etc).

But everyone could get one, even those who declared bankruptcy, since it was decided that it was not-viable in the 2000s for someone, anyone, to not own or have the ability to own a bank account. Which is right.

Banks make money via the spread between the general interest rate and the lower interest rate offered by the account, in addition to sales opportunities (e.g. offering to upgrade to a full account, savings accounts, small loans, etc).

However in general in the US banks are under-regulated and antiquated. Banking in the US Vs. UK feels like going back in time twenty years, everything is slow, complex, expensive, they charge for a basic checking/current account(!), you still have to physically go to a branch [ever!], transferring money between two banks is annoying, checks still exist, their anti-fraud is pathetic, and they're only getting C&P right now.

PS - Although I am at Wells Fargo so maybe my opinion about US banks is really more Wells Fargo biased than general banking. Maybe there are better US banks, but I don't know who they are.

<comment><USER3> I did not know about the basic bank account in the UK. What do you need to apply for a bank account? Do you need to provide some form of govt. ID to get it or can you get it any piece of item in a retail store?

In the US a good portion of the unbanked also happens to be undocumented immigrants. There is also the problem of AML/KYC process in the US which has been stricter in the US than in the UK (as you could tell from the UK headquartered banks getting fined by US Regulators -- not saying it is better though) and as a consequence the cost of compliance goes up for the bank. They pass on these costs to the consumer but with an upsell mentality that you had mentioned (increased min balance requirement removes fees, for e.g.) -- this leads to the upper middle class paying nothing and the poor and middle class paying bulk of the fees.

The economist had a very nice article about the cost of being poor: [http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21663262-why- low...](http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21663262-why-low-income- americans-often-have-pay-more-its-expensive-be-poor). This is a very difficult problem and will be hard to address properly without adequate support from the govt. For example, the govt. could provide easier access to banking license for those who want to serve low-income customers and allow for innovative solutions in this space.

<comment><USER2> > What do you need to apply for a bank account? Do you need to provide some > form of govt. ID to get it or can you get it any piece of item in a retail > store?

In order to stop money laundering and fraud they do require some things:

\- Proof of address (2x of the following): Bills (e.g. utilities), council tax bill, benefits agencies, a UK driving license, tenancy agreement, or a letter from your employer.

\- Proof of identification (1x of the following): Passport, driving license (even foreign), national identity card, letter from benefits agency or local authority, or a verification letter from an individual in an trusted position (these are verified, and only individuals in certain notable roles are trusted, like commanding officers in the military, parole officers, and your priest, etc).

<comment><USER3> Interesting. If they accept foreign passports, it will be amazing if we can relax the regulation in the US along the same lines with a specific carve out that information cannot be used to enforce immigration policy violations. Then most undocumented works can probably get a bank account without a SSN and not worry they will get deported -- convincing undocumented immigrants that this is safe is going to a tough battle though.

<comment><USER4> You can open a U.S. bank account with a foreign passport and no SSN already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have some experience in this area. From what I've seen any company involved with lending to the underbanked is going to operate pretty similarly to a payday loan company... A lot of these new companies want to appear different and go out of their way to never mention payday lending. But the terms are pretty similar at the end of the day.

Lending to this segment of the population is fraught with write-offs, its just not possible to give a great deal on loans with that kind of risk unless you are a non-profit. If it were possible, one of the payday lenders would do it and corner the market.

<comment><USER6> For many unbanked, getting loans might not always be the highest priority. Just a safe place to park one's money is valuable. Imagine you are sleeping rough on the streets, where do you store your few monetary possessions? If you keep them on your body, they are likely to get stolen. A basic bank account as Someone1234 describes it, would help.

<comment><USER5> Totally, I agree, I think someone1234 is describing a UK law that provides these basic bank accounts to everyone. I think the underbanked will be helped more through laws and regulations like that than by a new company or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Compte-Nickel, a French operation, has a basic package available that includes a debit card, IBAN number (to receive or wire funds) for 20 euros/year. No other fees since there is no possibility of being overdraft. Payments are free, although ATM withdrawals are paid (something like 2 euros/withdrawal). It can be bought from tobacconist's stores and refilled there. An ID is required but nothing else (so it is available to homeless people). Overall seems like an interesting, non-preying offer.

</comment><comment><USER8> The article doesn't address one of the primary issues of the "unbanked" in the US: black people don't trust white people with their money.

<comment><USER9> Don't know if you'll be checking this after probably being downvoted out of existence but:

Would you have something apart from 'personal experience' to back your claims? It's an interesting issue: a cultural mistrust of financial institutions to take care of money, and is bound to have generated much research if there is any truth to it. If this is the case (as it may well be, I don't understand the downvotes, perhaps your generalization of 'black people'/'white people' instead of pointing out cultural issues at play?), social (non-economic) solutions are likely to be more effective than strictly financial/technological ones. As in, how east Africa has gotten people to put complete faith in mobile banking, but South Asia has failed completely. Perhaps lessons from here could be useful for South Asia?</comment></comment>


Hack your schedule: Trading Coffee for a Jog - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/c466537266f3

<comment><USER2> Totally agree. While getting our company off the ground, my co-founder and I regularly played basketball together a few nights a week. After a long day of the grind, it was a welcome change and I definitely think helped us in the midst of several difficult decisions/questions.

As icing on the cake, we also met what would become one of our first Angel investors while playing!</comment>


As Stadiums Vanish, Their Debt Lives On - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/sports/08stadium.html

<comment><USER2> I say any money borrowed should be approved of by the voters and paid down within half the useful life of the thing built. And each taxpayer should get a separate bill each year for their share.

There's no justification for dragging out the payment periods forever. Its not like this borrowing is a one time thing as it is when you buy your house.

And there's also no reason the taxpayer should have to subsidize sports fans or help raise the salaries of athletes, which this practice most certainly does. Its a subsidy for sports teams, which gives them more money to outbid each other for the top players.</comment>


Show HN: Vue-file-agent – Major refactor to TypeScript, minified to 55% (17kb) - <AUTHOR> https://safrazik.github.io/vue-file-agent/?ref=hn&v=1.5 <comment><AUTHOR> Vue File Agent - the most beautiful and full featured file upload component for Vue JS - went through a major refactor for the latest version (1.5.0) and has been finally released . Please feel free to give me any feedback here. I value each comment and I am willing to respond. Thank you for your time!</comment>


Google Play Store's license check library broken after update - <AUTHOR> https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/110978499 <comment><AUTHOR> Some reporting on the issue is here.

[https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/07/02/google-play- store-a...](https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/07/02/google-play-store-app- licensing-bug-putting-developers-horrible-spot/)</comment>