The Subways Seeded the Coronavirus Epidemic in New York City - <AUTHOR> https://www.nber.org/papers/w27021 <comment><USER2> There was a lot of cognitive dissonance going on at the beginning of March. The mayor actually took a special ride on the subway to reassure the public and said something to the effect that you were unlikely to contract it on the subway since the CDC said it generally spread when you were exposed to someone infected within 6 feet for 15 minutes. It was clear to everyone that is exactly how people ride the subway except for the mayor who never rides it. I'm lucky that I can WFH as needed and when the first positive case came to NYC decided to WFH and see how things went and obviously haven't been to the office since. I don't think shutting it down would have been possible but just encouraging people to work from home earlier would have helped reduce ridership.

</comment><comment><USER3> NY was in a terrible place, they should have shutdown the subways immediately when they started getting cases there, but it would have crippled the city.

<comment><USER4> For most people in NY that would have effectively been quarantine already - ignoring entirely that many essential workers in NY have to use the subway even now.

The general theme is everyone should have shut down earlier, and not let people say "the economy!".

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What does "reciprocal seeding of infection" mean?

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure but I interpreted it as indicating that the appearance of the outbreak centering at the transit hubs was the result of 'seed' infections traveling from outlying sources 'in' toward the transit hub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A friend pointed out that specific genetic variants in the immune system are prevalent in northeastern Italy and are likely to substantially increase susceptibility to the virus. New York's large Italian population is part of the problem. Same thing in South Florida.

<comment><USER8> I find most Italian-Americans around here (NY/NJ) claim to be Sicilian or Neapolitan etc. That's quite genetically distinct no?

<comment><USER9> Are native Americans and Canadians along the border genetically distinct? Same question, really.

<comment><USER8> Well after I wrote that I did some reading and it seems that Northern Italians have more Germanic (e.g. Lombard) ancestry while farther South you get Greek and even some Arab. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the reunification of Italy in the 19th century there was little movement or intermarriage between regions hence less gene flow.

I would expect American natives as tribal societies to be even more distinct though not likely along current borders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I tracked the situation in NY closely because we have family in the region (from NYC to Boston). While I was screaming at our local school district in Los Angeles to shut down the schools, in NY (city and state) they did the unthinkable.

Here are some of the notes I took. Look at the dates. Look at what they are saying. Look at who's saying it. then think about the consequences of what they told millions of people to do.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkBW9ewPz8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkBW9ewPz8)

        30JAN20
        Dr. Oxiris Barbot, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health
          • The local risk is LOW
          • Our preparedness is HIGH
          • Go about your lives
          • No indication to be using masks
          • We have measures
          • We have screening
          • No indication that going through the subway is a risk factor
          • No indications to be using masks
          • False sense of security
          • The risk is low

[https://youtu.be/xXh7jUxfdak?t=2226](https://youtu.be/xXh7jUxfdak?t=2226)

        09MAR20
        De Blazio
        Dr. Oxiris Barbot, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health

I'll repeat that. The woman speaking in the video above is the DOCTOR Oxiris Barbot, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health. She is the "Head Doctor" for the entire city of NY.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhLOp7UGNM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhLOp7UGNM)

        02MAR20
        Andrew Cuomo, NY Governor
        Bill De Blasio, NYC Mayor
        Ken Raske, President of Greater New York Hospital Association

        First case in NY
          • Just like the normal flu
          • We should relax
          • We don't think it's going to be as bad as it is in other places
          • We have been ahead of this from day one
          • Go about your lives
          • Go about your business
          • There has to be prolonged exposure
          • Just wash your hands
          • There is no need to do anything special anything in the community,
            we want New Yorkers to go about their daily lives, ride the subway,
            ride the bus, go see your neighbors
          • We have the equipment
          • It's not like we are dealing with something we haven't dealt with before
          • We have the ability to address this
          • We have the capacity to keep this contained
          • Like the normal flu

Not sure why she still has a job, not to mention the others featured in these and other idiotic press conferences and media declarations. In NY in particular, government officials effectively told everyone to go out there and get infected. Keep in mind that if you overlay the infection and death timeline from Italy onto the NY timeline it is truly incomprehensible that these officials would tell people to go out, gather and move about a city as New York.

If you look at the graphs for the entire US the rate of change of infection and death in NY is massively larger than anywhere else and it is, in my opinion, very directly linked to these and other statements made by officials.

I have lots more links, covering the entire January-March timeline. Both media and politicians jumped on the "nothing to see here" bandwagon in a big way after Trump shutdown travel from China (January 31). New York City, in particular, has a very high density and high usage of mass transportation. They should have reacted very quickly to mitigate transmission. Instead they encouraged everyone to get out there as normal and effectively killed thousands of people as a result. Again, not sure why this woman still has a job.

<comment><USER11> What's interesting is that the information the NY officials conveyed may not have been accurate for NY, but fairly accurately described SF Bay Area.

Though it looks like SF Bay Area started to get corona in December from connections in China, and it spread quietly through the population.

Calif. had too many ventilators, so donated 500 to other cities.

SF also has a busy subway system, no mention of NY-style issues here though.

<comment><USER12> NY subway averages almost 2 billion riders annually.

SF averages 50 million.

If SF had a subway system that handled 40x the amount of people you could start to draw some comparisons.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Works on Internet Standards with TCP Proposals, SPDY Standardization - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/01/google-works-on-internet-standards-with-tcp-proposals-spdy-standardization/

<comment><USER2> Webmonkey is still around? I don't think I've seen a link to that place in 10 years...

[http://web.archive.org/web/20010530061801/http://hotwired.ly...](http://web.archive.org/web/20010530061801/http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/)

<comment><USER3> We are still around. Or at least I am. I do my best to keep Webmonkey up to date and sometimes that means running Ars Technica stories, like this one (Wired and Ars are owned by the same parent company and frequently cross-post in both directions). So, while I appreciate that Webmonkey made it to HN, probably the link should point to the original article on Ars: [http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/01/google-takes- on...](http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/01/google-takes-on-internet- standards-with-tcp-proposals-spdy-standardization.ars)</comment></comment>


The Adventures of a Pythonista in Schemeland - <AUTHOR> http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=238789 <comment><USER2> This looks like it will be an interesting series. The grammar's not great, but hey, my Italian's much worse.

I'm not sure Ikarus is the best choice for diving in, though. PLT's DrScheme is probably the nicest micro-IDE I've used, better than IDLE or any other Python equivalent, and the accompanying textbook makes it easy to get started.

I've been checking Launchpad occasionally to see when Aziz will release Ikarus 0.4 and close the remaining 6% gap between Ikarus and R6RS -- the first 3 releases were quick and well-organized, but since the beginning of this year there's been no hint of what's coming next. The frequent check-ins on his dev branch indicate he's deep in the mines of 64-bit compatibility, but still... I'd be hesitant to use a semi-stealthy project as my reference for learning R6RS.</comment>


David Miranda detention legally sound, says Scotland Yard - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23763625

<comment><USER2> Seems to me that the litmus test for the authorities to hold anyone under this law should involve either:

(1) A known terror plot. or (2) Affiliation with an organization that has committed or is planning a known terror plot.

where "terror plot" represents a some act that causes direct _physical_ harm to the citizens of a country.

If they cannot point to a specific, known terror plot or affiliation with an organization involved in one, then they should not have detained Miranda under this law.

If they consider bona fide journalism an act of terror, then they should be forced to come out and say so, so that the people can judge how the authorities are using or abusing their power and adjust the laws to correct them.

The citizens of the UK deserve to know what act of terror the UK government was protecting them from when they detained Miranda.

<comment><USER3> If the government considers journalism an act of terror, it's time for a new government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "legally and procedurally sound"

These claims were also made by the Church and the State during the Inquisition, except with the "in defense of the Faith" bit added for flair.

</comment><comment><USER5> Criminals say, "After careful examination, nothing we did was criminal. Thanks for asking though."

<comment><USER6> Sadly, this is the exact effect this is having on my view of government. I've lost so much trust in the government that I no longer believe anything they have to say. And not just on the always misguided war on terror; I've lost faith in anything that comes from most high-level government officials.

James Clapper showed me the consequences of lying to congress, and I have no reason to believe other officials aren't also taking advantage of the leniency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "We're not saying you broke the law, we're just saying it's a bit weird you didn't have to." \-- John Oliver

</comment><comment><USER8> I guess that's why there's a difference between the spirit and the letter of the law.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice of Scotland Yard to state exactly what the problem is with this situation.

</comment><comment><USER10> The fact that SY thinks "legally sound" is the important issue shows how much of a disconnect there is between government and public.

It's pretty obvious that half if not most of the crap the NSA is pulling the in States is explicitly illegal and that does nothing to raise the ire of most politicians, the president, the lamestream media, and the NSA itself.

That's what happens with a police state, people are only targeted when they're on the wrong side.

</comment><comment><USER11> Just like with the NSA, CIA & FBI, the fact that it's legal _is a problem_.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why would anyone confide in a lawyer offered by their interrogators? How disingenuous to claim legal council was offered or available.

<comment><USER13> If he was working for the Guardian why didn't he ask for a lawyer from the Guardian?

Why did he fly through the UK when he was _probably_ carrying UK secrets or secrets of it's allies? (or at least the UK security services would have suspected that)

<comment><USER14> He was not technically entitled to a lawyer. The Guardian sent lawyers to the airport when they were told of his detention. The lawyers were not allowed to see him.

As for the second question, who can say? I'd say it's worked out pretty well for the Greenwald and the Guardian though.

<comment><USER13> I know he wasn't technically entitled to a lawyer but he was offered one (according to the Guardian's own report)

While the security services may have over reacted the Guardian doesn't appear to be telling the whole story.

Why didn't the Guardian say OK, take us to court when they were threatened for example.

<comment><USER14> >>> If he was working for the Guardian why didn't he ask for a lawyer from the Guardian?

>> He was not technically entitled to a lawyer. The Guardian sent lawyers to the airport when they were told of his detention. The lawyers were not allowed to see him.

> I know he wasn't technically entitled to a lawyer but he was offered one

Not from the Guardian, though.

I really can't work out what point you're trying to make. Is it that this story is a conspiracy by the Guardian to make the UK & US look bad?

> Why didn't the Guardian say OK, take us to court when they were threatened > for example.

This is a totally separate event, but (Guardian editor) Rusbridger says in the comments to his article:

"Play out the scenario for me in which fighting this case in court would have enabled us to do a better job of reporting the Snowden documents. I'm not sure I quite see it..."

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-m...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david- miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters#comment-26171252)

He further says in a comment to another article:

"A plausible alternative to what actually happened is that the UK would have gone to law (as threatened). From that moment the court would be in charge of the Snowden material. The penalty for destroying it or refusing to hand it over could be extremely punitive. I mean, unlimited fines - not jail ."

[https://id.guardian.co.uk/profile/alanrusbridger/public](https://id.guardian.co.uk/profile/alanrusbridger/public)

<comment><USER13> The Guardian and Greenwald are omitting things or at least giving misleading impressions...

Rushbridger's editorial of the other day leaves the impression that the British security services destroyed the computers but then a day later we find out that actually The Guardian destroyed them as part of a compromise with the security services rather then handing them over, and the chief reason the security services wanted them destroyed is in case they fell into the wrong hands.

We also find out the Guardian's lawyer did get access to him after 8 hours (which is admittedly too long)

So it appears we can't trust those who are supposed to be exposing wrong doing by the state to be truthful with us either.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lufthansa Is Suing a Passenger for Missing a Flight - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lufthansa-suing-passenger-missing-flight-163631737.html <comment><USER2> What is going on within the pricing scheme for flights that longer, ostensibly more costly-to-run flights are so much cheaper than alternatives that skip- lagging makes sense? Are airlines using multi-hop routes as loss leaders of some kind?

If so, no reason they shouldn't be the ones eating the cost when the customer calls their bluff.

<comment><USER3> Competition on high volume routes plus larger aircraft on those routes to amortize the costs.

This is exactly what happened with trains. High volume routes saw a lot of competition and were very cheap and local routes were very expensive. So I can often fly Denver to London cheaper than Denver to Durango, CO.

There's more parallels around regulating trains and how the train companies were eventually bankrupted and taken over, with the inverse happening around when Southwest was new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19144006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19144006)

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's a CNN source from yesterday that's a bit clearer: [https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/lufthansa-sues- passenger-...](https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/lufthansa-sues-passenger- scli-intl/index.html)

If airline pricing made sense this wouldn't be a problem.

</comment><comment><USER6> Lufthansa Is Suing a Passenger for exploiting hidden city ticketing (possibly multiple times) to recover the fare difference.

</comment><comment><USER7> That title is NOT the whole story.</comment>


'Expanse' Co-Creator on Writing, Star Citizen, and Why He Hated Mass Effect 3 - photon-torpedo http://www.glixel.com/interviews/expanse-writer-franck-on-star-citizen-mass-effect-3-w464385 <comment><USER2> The thing I most hated about ME3 was the fact that the "galactic readiness score" depended not just on achievements in the single player mode, but also on time spent in multiplayer.

It totally wasn't clear in (earlier release builds of) the game, and I didn't want to Google it because I was afraid of spoiling the ending. I felt like I had done a pretty good job getting the whole galaxy together under my banner, and my readiness score was quantified by the game in a way that made it seem decent, so I initiated the final sequence and found that I'd been denied the best outcome simply because I had never played multiplayer.

Whatever I thought about the actual ending, the fact that EA and Bioware decided to pull the rug out from under me at the last second after I'd spent something like a decade really invested in their story and universe was a real blow. To me, it demonstrated an astonishing lack of integrity as storytellers. I was so upset that I just couldn't get myself to go back in and replay the re-done ending or any of the DLC.

<comment><USER3> That was what irritated you most? Granted, that sucked, and I'm happy I played it when multiplayer was not necessary. But it is just exactly like said in the interview: The ending voided all the promises the games made before. Mass Effect 1 and 2 set up such a big universe, so many decisions you could do, and then came the third game and it all came crushing down. The spider-aliens you freed? Just a few points in a score. Killing the kronyan leader? Another will take its place. Siding with humanity over aliens? Get the same points in red instead of blue. And that for every decision, nothing had any meaning. That killed the whole series' purpose, and that irked me most.

And it was not only that the game promised it, the developers promised it. They literally said "There will be no ending where you choose between button 1, 2 and 3. All you decisions will influence the final outcome". And what had the game? Button 1, 2 and 3, and your decisions had no influence whatsoever. Liars.

I'm not at all interested in ME: Andromeda. I'll never play another Bioware game again, till they deliver a proper ending for ME3. And no, the extended video they delivered later on is not enough. Not even close.

<comment><USER4> With the new free ending DLC, I think the endings had enough difference and meaning with your past decisions that the issue with "ending 1, 2 or 3" is solved. I really disagree that the extended cut ending wasn't enough - <AUTHOR> thought it really delivered.

The issue with the "it's all points" thing is indeed an issue, and it's so silly, since to me it was so obvious what they needed to do in the end.

ME2 was a template. Once again, you go into a suicide mission, except this time instead of your team being people, it's fleets, troops, etc... You have to commit your resources to objectives during the battle until you run out. If you don't get enough, you run out too early and can't win (or lose more in the battle in other ways).

Suddenly all those 'collected points' would matter so much. They all had backstory of who/what they were, and if you had to commit them (with appropriate troops/fleets/whatever getting bonuses in the right roles/nerfs in the wrong roles) it would have made it feel worthwhile.

It's a realy shame, because if that had been the ending of the game, I think ME as a series would have been as close to perfect as it gets. As it is, people seem to forget the fact that the series was amazing otherwise, and that the third game was seriously great apart from those flaws.

It's clear to me that, like most studios bought by EA, Bioware has slowly gone downhill as they were subject to more and more pressure by EA to speed up development and to focus on things like the money-making multiplayer. EA have consistently been anti-consumer in a ton of ways, and they also have a real knack at ruining and eventually closing good studios.

If you want a story-heavy game with decisions that matter, I highly suggest you look at the Banner Saga, an indie series made by ex-bioware staff that is great. The first two are out and the third just hit it's KickStarter funding goal. Hopefully they close that one off well.

<comment><USER5> The problem with the ending wasn't only the outcome (which, IMO, the DCL ending still wasn't enough). It was mainly the the execution. The "press the button" ending was a travesty to what was advertised by the three games.

You can really notice that lack of thematic coherence and good writing when Drew Karpyshyn left the project.

I really liked ME2. The gameplay was the best, had really good quest lines and some ideas were really interesting (working for terrorists, the suicide mission). And it had Mordrin!

On the third game it goes all downhill.

Earth is, apparently, the most important planet on the galaxy. To the point that someone thought that it was a good idea to diverge troops that were defending the planet with the biggest and best fleet of the galaxy to defend the Earth.

ME2 and Mordrin spent a lot of time convincing me that, while the xenophage was something horrible, curing it would have unforeseen consequences and was a bad idea too. But now we're going to cure it, no choice in the matter.

Cerebrus turned from "amoral pragmatists" to "james bond villain".

My best bro Wrex still didn't return to the party.

And the dreadful awe of the reapers was simply squashed.

ME3 was a massive dissapointment. I don't see myself playing a multigame Bioware series ever again.

Two links: A massive Mass Effect Retrospective, which cemented some of my feelings on the series: [http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792](http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792) Anon is still mad about ME3: [https://i.imgur.com/5naFPuS.png](https://i.imgur.com/5naFPuS.png) (Strong language)

<comment><USER4> Sure, I see your points, but I just didn't agree with the end dislike. Sure, Mordin was mixed about the genophage, but in ME3 he makes up his mind and sees it as something that needs to be cured 100%. They don't force you to choose it, but he does. I think that's powerful - he strongly believes something and you literally have to kill him to stop him doing it. That's heartbreaking and an amazing moment. It's a 'bad end' \- but I dislike the idea you have to provide good ends no matter someone's choices.

Earth being the most important isn't quite how it's shown - rather, it's turned into a point of last stand because Shepard rallies his allies around it.

Cerberus, yeah, they went a bit too far and deeply of the deep end. In general, I think that you are treating it too harshly, and probably the original ending embittered you towards the whole game, which in my eyes, was still really good.

Or maybe you just dislike where they went with it where I liked it, it's hard to say. I, at least, find it acceptable with the new ending.

If you are prepared to commit the time, I'd suggest [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hct5WeBmsUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hct5WeBmsUM) \- a look at the whole series that matches my viewpoint pretty well. It's an interesting watch in it's own right, although long and a bit lacking in production quality (towards the end, I'm pretty sure some of the commentary got repeating during cutting).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mass Effect 1 is one of my favorite game stories; it's like a pretty good light sci-fi novel, which puts it head and shoulders above the vast majority of videogames. The reveal towards the end is beautifully creepy.

Mass Effect 2 forces the player to join a racist terrorist group and does nothing interesting, and then Mass Effect 3 is pure anticlimax. As Franck says, it just seems like they had no idea where to go after the first one.

<comment><USER7> Mass Effect 1 was also more fun to play. The weird retcon to justify introducing boring regular ammo mechanics was dumb. Also, people love to hate on cruising around in the Mako, but I loved it. ME1 was so much more sandboxy than the sequel - I probably played it more to see what kind of crazy jumps I could make, or just how far away I could snipe someone from.

<comment><USER8> For me it was the exact opposite with ME1 to ME2. Sure, ME1 was more sandboxy, but it was an empty sandbox. 90% of ME1 simply was empty, so all you did was drive around, drive around, drive around and find nothing. ME2 was far more focused with the sandbox parts (planet scanning + finding anomalies) leading at least to something with a certain regularity.

Exploring a sandbox is only interesting when it's actually filled with something to find. Still, I think the game play of both ME1 and ME2 (and ME3) actually fit their respective points in the story line.

ME1: You don't really know what's going on, you have a vague feeling, but it's mostly "let's stumble around and see what we can find"

ME2: Okay, you know what will happen, but almost everyone else is in denial and doesn't want to help you, so you have to be laser-focused to fix the immediate problem with whatever you have at hand.

ME3: Denial is over, the problem is squarely in everyone's face and even if some people still want to ignore it your focus is more on showing people that your way to deal with the problem is in their best interest as much as in yours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So glad The Expanse is back on. Last night's episode was amazing; I'm surprised there hasn't been more coverage of the show in the press.

A fine return to form for SyFy.

<comment><USER10> Ars Technica is what got me into it.

[https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2017/02/the- expanse-i...](https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2017/02/the-expanse-is- the-badass-epic-space-opera-you-need-right-now/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting read. Looking forward to Star Citizen and Squadron 42 releases for Linux.

<comment><USER12> 2037 will be a great year for games for sure.

<comment><USER13> 2016 was a great year. There are more steam games in my library that run on linux than I have time for and that includes most of my favorites.

If the drivers would just catch up...

<comment><USER14> I was pleasantly surprised at this the other day. I was about to jump in to some Friday night games with some buddies when my tower died, dusted off a gen2 i5 laptop running ubuntu and I was playing Payday2 with them within an hour; that Linux filter on my steam library returned a shockingly large list.

<comment><USER15> Yup, apparently 42 of the 100 most played games run on Linux now. I didn't say they all run well, but they run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> in case you haven't seen it, The Expanse is the best space opera sci-fi TV since firefly and/or bsg and arguably the best ever.

the books are very good, too.

<comment><USER5> Is it more like Firefly or BSG?

I loved Firefly. But I dropped BSG after two seasons.

<comment><USER17> I'd say more like BSG, but also much better. Was never a huge BSG fan, but I'm loving the Expanse. There is much more focus one the world at large in The Expanse, compared to Firefly, and the intrigue and diplomacy between the players in that world. The rag-tag crew of do-gooders thrown together by fate in the small spaceship which half the show focuses on (and where the firefly comparison come in) are more shown as a tiny (but important) player, way out of their depth, in huge expansive conspiracy they can barely comprehend.

<comment><USER18> That sounds awesome. I loved the bit of 'world-building' that Firefly _did_ manage to do and wished there was more of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm so glad he agrees with me and my wife on Mass Effect 3 ending, I don't get anyone who can play the first two games and then not be totally heart broken by ME3 ending. What's more disgusting is also how the studio didn't ever apologize, they totally blew off everything ever said about the direction of the story and blamed the fans.

<comment><USER20> It seems to have been completely polarizing. I thought the ending was great, and could not understand at all comments like 'blew off everything ever said about the direction'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think ME3 did a couple of things very right, most prominently the pacing and characters. You never feel like you have a moment to relax, and the game almost forces you to have this huge emotional buy in for the crew of the Normandy. I mean who can honestly say they didn't have a bit of a cry after "Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."?

Galactic readiness being half tied to multiplayer was a stupid idea, and the ending, which I thought was good, did feel like it was rushed. I also get the feeling that they wrote themselves into a corner with the Reapers, I mean how the hell is one man supposed to kill something that imposing without having to resort to the old "Destroy the single point of failure"? If they had have given the Reapers some kind of actual weakness, they could have avoided the ending they wound up with.

</comment><comment><USER15> > The ending of Mass Effect for me was like the ending of Lost, where [you] > became aware that they really didn't know where they were going the whole > time and they'd kind of just been making things up.

Finally someone who says clearly how embarrassingly bad the Lost ending really was.

<comment><USER22> I think this is the general consensus about Lost isn't it? Apart from those few people here and there saying it was amazing and clicked and whatnot.

<comment><USER15> > general consensus about Lost isn't it?

Is it really ? I remember when the last Episode was out, everyone was like "wow it was awesome" and all, while I seemed to be the only one who did not like it one bit.

<comment><USER23> No, most things I read pointed towards it being a bit of a dud. After a few seasons, I got the feeling they didn't know where they were headed and bailed. Asked myself prior to that point, "Am I going to regret not seeing through the next 100 hours of this content when I'm 80?" Answer was a quick no. Quit it, read the spoilers, left it at that and never regretted it.

Did the same with Walking Dead early on. Too much fussing about in that show.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Right now, we're playing through a little indie game called Tales of the > Sword Coast that's kind of a re-envisioning of the Baldur's Gate games from > back in the day.

"Tales of the Sword Coast" is the Baldur's Gate I expansion[0] so that can't be it, anyone knows what they're talking about here? Sword Coast Legends maybe?[1]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur%27s_Gate:_Tales_of_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur%27s_Gate:_Tales_of_the_Sword_Coast)

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

</comment><comment><USER25> I had no problems with the readiness score in ME3 (I did not play multiplayer) or the final ending but the way you get there? Absolutely horrible. In my case I had every fleet (including the geth and the quarian) I had Leviathan, I basically maxed out the game...and the last mission on Earth still sucks. Nothing changed. The same struggle with the same outcome. I actually played through all 3 games last year and despite the fantastic missions and DLCs I just uninstalled when I reached the Earth mission. This is nowhere near as satisfying as the suicide mission in ME2.

</comment><comment><USER26> "Expanse" is nice, especially setting, but could be so much better with less talking (which isn't believable anyway) and a faster pace. Comparing it to Firefly is almost ridiculous.

<comment><USER17> I love the pace of Expanse. It really gave time for the plot and mystery to grow at what felt like a more natural pace. Any faster and it would just feel rushed and forced. For me they could have slowed it down even a bit more and added more scenes of diplomacy and intrigue.

<comment><USER18> Is it perhaps more comparable to (new) Battlestar Galactica? I liked how much of the show was just politics.

<comment><USER17> Yea, BSG is probably a more apt comparison than Firefly (that being said I prefer Expanse to BSG). As much as I love Firefly it was essentially a monster of the week show with only a little in the way of larger scale plot building going on.

<comment><USER18> Well, that's a hell of a recommendation! I'll check it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I really didn't hate ME3... it was not the best ending.... but I saw worst before.

<comment><USER28> That's not really saying much though.

Sadly game stories are often an afterthought at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Anybody knows what is the coop focused gaming site he is referring to ?

<comment><USER29> Cooptimus, most likely.

www.co-optimus.com

<comment><USER28> Thanks !</comment></comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo search excludes everything it was searching for - <AUTHOR> https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aiogram+mocking&atb=v167-2__&ia=web <comment><USER2> Google: same result:

No results found for "aiogram mocking".</comment>


Hopeful Plaintiff Sues Yahoo, Digg, Reddit, Fark, TechCrunch, And Others - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/12/gooseberry-natural-resources-are-huge-assholes/ <comment><USER2> I absolutely love the URL of the story.

</comment><comment><USER3> That isn't how you patent troll, you first go after smaller targets to build up case law and/or settlements. Then you go after bigger and bigger targets.

This seems like a really speedy way to invalidate your patent

<comment><USER4> Apparently, they already have gone after smaller targets:

[http://www.techdirt.com/blog.php?company=gooseberry&edit...](http://www.techdirt.com/blog.php?company=gooseberry&edition=techdirt)

[http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2010/07/goosebe...](http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2010/07/gooseberry- natural-resources-patents-press-releases.html)

"Gooseberry Natural Resources, LLC has taken extraordinary steps to hide the identity of its owner. Corporate records held by the Texas Secretary of State show that a second Delaware-based shell company, Vertigo Holding LLC, owns Gooseberry. Since Vertigo Holding is incorporated in Delaware, it is not required to list its officers or owners."

<comment><USER5> Seriously, in the US you can run a business without informing the government who is responsible? This is so messed up IMO, I'm really surprised. Sure, we have lawyers who appear to own companies but then when the co. perpetrate evil they [should] get their asses kicked.

How do they manage taxes without knowing who is running companies? Surely you can claim unemployment and still run a registered business then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder why this case was filed in the Federal court for the central district of California. Isn't the eastern district of Texas usually the preferred place for patent trolls[1]? In this case, the plaintiffs wouldn't even have to go very far since the Plano, Texas address is already in that court district.

1 - [http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-p...](http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN- patent_31bus.ART.State.Edition1.3ccb54a.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> There's a phone number there... hmmm ;)

<comment><USER5> You should ring on behalf of Tim Berners Lee and see if you can license their tech for a new thing you're calling The Web?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I imagine you could curb a lot of these abuses by holding lawyers liable for frivolous lawsuits... the patent troll might not have anything to lose, but any not-hack lawyer would...

<comment><USER9> Or better, have the plaintiff cover all legal expenses on both sides. I believe this is already done at the judge's discretion but it doesn't get enforced often enough.

Surely, this would be one way to prevent patent trolls from suing and hoping for a quick "Cheaper to throw money at you than see you in court" settlement.</comment></comment>


The Insane Law That Lets Authorities Read Any Email Over 180 Days Old - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/when-can-the-government-read-your-email-2013-6 <comment><USER2> Actually it wouldn't let authorities simply read emails transmitted to a server under the suspect's control (assuming no intermediary copies are kept by a man-in-the-middle type of scenario).

Whether people _like_ it or not, rayiner is right on target with what the law says about privacy rights. It isn't that emails can be read because a law was passed to strip their privacy, emails can be read because a law _hasn 't_ been passed to strength privacy controls on email.

The same issue occurred with telephones, beepers, cell phones, and more. They were considered fair game in many scenarios until specific laws were passed to make tapping them illegal and require warrants/wiretaps.

<comment><USER3> I am reminded of the words of Lysander Spooner [1]:

"[T]he Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. ... But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain --- that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."

[1] [http://lysanderspooner.org/node/64](http://lysanderspooner.org/node/64)

<comment><USER4> There isn't a necessity for false interpretations or naked usurpation here. If the Constitution said: "Congress shall pass no law... abridging the right of privacy" we'd be in a different boat. But that's not what it says. It just doesn't contemplate the kind of broad privacy right that attaches to information even as it flows in clear text through numerous computers on the internet. That's not surprising--the 4th amendment was specifically a response to the British government's invasive searches of peoples' houses.

Indeed, the Supreme Court's position over the last 50 years has been "reading in" privacy rights in an ad hoc way. If there was a broad right of privacy in there, either explicitly in the text or implicitly in historical practice and understanding, don't you think the liberal Supreme Court's of the 1960's and 1970's that gave us Roe, etc, would have found it instead of having to resort to "penumbras"?

Remember, striking down the actions of the political branches on the basis of unconstitutionality is a subversion of democracy. Sometimes it's necessary, but it's always a subversion of democracy. Calling everything we disagree with "unconstitutional" as ideologues are wont to do, is basically just saying "I hate the political consensus so my ideals should override the voters' decisions."

<comment><USER3> I enjoy how your response to Spooner's criticism of the Constitution is to declare that the Constitution permits these invasive acts.

>If the Constitution said: "Congress shall pass no law... abridging the right of privacy" _we 'd be in a different boat_.

No we wouldn't.[1] We'd still have some people[2] coming along and making whatever arguments are needed in order to preserve and expand the state. One way might be to constantly frame government power only in terms of explicit limits, with the default being otherwise unchecked power. Such limits can then be read to mean whatever those in power wish them to mean.[3]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States)

[2] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQe9nUKzvQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQe9nUKzvQ)

[3] [http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm](http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm)

<comment><USER5> I enjoy how your response is not to engage with any of Rayiner's actual arguments and instead try to turn it into a character issue. If you look at the history of American law you'll find that historical scope of the 4th amendment and similar was always a lot narrower than most people today conceive it to be.

In a broader context, it's particularly instructive to look at the history of Shays' Rebellion, which took place a mere decade after the founding of the US; the people running the government at the time, including founders such as John and Samuel Adams had no hesitation on dropping the banhammer on the rebels, to the point of suspending _habeas corpus_.

The Constitution was most certainly _not_ written with the intention of producing weak government. Like it or not, it invests the federal government with far-reaching powers, and such limits as it does put in place are partly to limit the Federal government's authority over the states, as opposed to individuals.

<comment><USER6> So much the worst for the Constitution. What has it done for us lately?

<comment><USER4> The U.S. is awesome. I bet there is literally a handful of countries your average HN-er would rather live in than the U.S., and before the economic liberalization of Europe in the 1990's, it was probably less than that. Our prosperity has been supported by an incredibly stable government, one that is, 224 years after its founding, freer than it ever has been (read up on the Alien and Sedition Acts).

It's easy to take what we have for granted, but it's important to maintain perspective. The cause of the republic is not served by those who declare it hopelessly broken and disengage. In the light of historical perspective, you realize that there have been many times in the past when the government was more corrupt than it is now, when society was less free than it is now, and that's a liberating thought because it means that the trend of government does not point inevitably towards corruption and repression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hint: lots of people can read your e-mail because e-mails are transmitted in clear text over potentially numerous intermediate SMTP servers.

Protocol not designed to protect privacy does not protect privacy: news at 11.

<comment><USER7> The point is not encryption. The point is that the govt considers any stored communication not have expectation of privacy. Hint: you bank records, health records, credit card purchase data, etc. are also stored data at third-party provider, so by the same logic the govt can declare it not be protected by 4th amendment and thus be accessible without any warrant requirements. Since these data also are communicated electronically, they technically are electronic communications, and if they're stored beyond 180 days (as they universally are), they are accessible without warrants. Big Brother is watching you.

<comment><USER4> None of that information is protected by the 4th amendment, and never has been (some of it is protected by statute). See: [https://ssd.eff.org/your- computer/govt/privacy](https://ssd.eff.org/your-computer/govt/privacy).

The 4th amendment says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects..."

It does not say anything about your bank's, credit card company's, etc, records _about_ you.

<comment><USER7> This is very artificial distinction - almost all your personal data and all "papers" is the data "about you". Treating email or medical record as public knowledge without expectation of privacy just because it uses technical means belonging to a third party makes no sense - why then phone calls are protected, they use third party equipment too and can be very easily listened to.

<comment><USER4> Analogizing to phone calls is a bad way to understand the 4th amendment because it's basically the product of a 1960's liberal court. It's a high watermark. It's law, but shouldn't be the only source you use to understand the meaning of the 4th amendment.[1]

The distinction between _your papers_ and other peoples' papers _about you_ is not an "artificial distinction." Where I think you're going astray is the use of the word "public." The 4th amendment doesn't protect all information that you wouldn't want made public. It's narrower than that. Say you visit a prostitute. She keeps a log of the date and length of each visit. That's obviously not "public" information. But it's also not one of your "papers" or "effects" because you neither generated that information nor are you in custody of it. It pertains to you, but you don't get to invoke privacy privileges over all information that pertains to you.

The same is true of bank records, credit card records, etc. When you entrust other people with your information, you can't invoke the 4th amendment to keep them from disclosing it, either voluntarily or pursuant to a subpoena.

[1] Also note that in the 1960's phones were analog devices with no storage capability. When you talk about things like e-mail, which go through intermediate servers and can be stored or copied by anybody in the chain, your reasonable expectation of privacy in that information is very different than what it might be for a 1960's style phone.

<comment><USER7> I think with email expectation of privacy is exactly the same. And 4th amendment, saying "papers", obviously does not mean "only something that is never recorded can be private and protected from government". Obviously papers are very permanent things.

In the same vein, then, mail should not be protected, since you give it to the postman to send, so nothing prevents them from opening the envelope, reading everything inside, copy it and tell the police. I don't see how this is any different from taking emails from private email mailbox. In both cases I expect only machines and people that need to read it for purposes of the transmission to access it, and only in parts that are necessary for such transmission to happen, and do not expect them to disclose it to anybody else.

<comment><USER4> It's not the fact that e-mail is recorded. It's the fact that e-mail is recorded and retained by third parties.

The mail example is interesting. A letter sent via FedEx or UPS is _not_ protected by the 4th amendment. Letters sent via the Post Office are protected, because in that case the "third party" is actually an organ of the government.

<comment><USER7> By the same logic, if you rent a storage locker, it can be searched without a warrant since it belongs to a third party. Or your rental house can be searched, since you only rent it from the third party. And if you put your bag in a taxi trunk, you just gave it to a third party, so if the police stops the cab, they can search the bag without any probably cause. How does it make sense?

I don't see the logic. If you give it to the government, you can expect privacy from the government, but if you give it to somebody else, government can take it? Makes no sense. It's like saying if you confess to the police officer, he can not testify against you, but your own lawyer has to. Completely opposite of what reasonable person would expect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My biggest issue with this law is that it equates old emails to mail that is being thrown out. I consider my archive to be more of a filing cabinet though.

This law was written when 15GB of email storage was unthinkable,and it needs to be updated to stay with the times.

<comment><USER9> It predates IMAP, which should say everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> OT: the computer on Obama's desk is running Windows XP.

Full-size image: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4753683646/in/set-72...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4753683646/in/set-72157624332927216/lightbox&#x2F);

Maybe it's time for the White House to upgrade...

<comment><USER11> It is almost 3 years old as far as an image goes. Where I work we only late last year moved from XP to Windows 7.

Large organizations move slowly.

<comment><USER12> For many reasons organizations move slowly. One being security. No large organization, especially one handling sensitive information, is going to jump into the first release of any software.

<comment><USER11> No argument there, just providing a counterpoint on the XP->whatever else at another large organization.

It isn't a quick thing because there is so much to be checked/validated/tested/touched. I don't envy the admins that have to deal with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The side-benefit of this shitstorm happening with the NSA and PRISM is that people outside of the tech community are actually starting to hear about this kind of stuff. This law should be common knowledge to a lot of people here, but it's good to see that a few more mainstream sources are starting to raise the issue as well.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well the statute can't trump the Constitution. It isn't clear whether the 4th Amendment requires a warrant even if statute does not. This is something that the courts will have to work out. There are however many authorities on 4th Amendment law including many I would not describe as civil libertarians who do think that current precedent suggests that a warrant in fact would be required.

</comment><comment><USER15> Please stop upvoting Business Insider until they improve they journalistic standards. We harm ourselves by encouraging and funding these people.

</comment><comment><USER16> Even I deleted it? :/

</comment><comment><USER17> All this stuff has been known for awhile. Glad its finally getting some attention - hope it lasts.

<comment><USER18> There's a difference between seeing these stories in dribs and drabs all over the place and seeing them all on here today. It's sort of the forest vs. the trees, and I for one think that we're all starting to see the forest where we once only saw individual trees. It makes me hopeful that there will be enough outcry that there will at least be some slow down of political power-grab.

<comment><USER19> slow down? these people are talking out of their ass and all this shits up for grabs...</comment></comment></comment>


A cool JSON editor (with table mode) - <AUTHOR> https://jsonviewer.io/ <comment><USER2> I like it. Plenty of features I'd like to have, but none of them are so obtrusive as to get in the way when I don't need them. The theme kinda reminds me of Atom, but I'm guessing the colors are just popular now. Not that I mind at all.

I have noticed a couple of issues. Namely: the filter portion doesn't seem to work as expected. I typed "object" (without the quotes) into the search bar and it filtered out the entire file. It seems as though it doesn't look through keys.

It would also be really nice if the tree/table side interacted a bit more with the editor side. For example:

1\. Highlighting one side the the other side was highlighted.

2\. Highlighting filtered sections

3\. Maintaining what branched were folded/unfolded between updates

I also just discovered that the slider to the left of the filter field actually unfolds and folds the tree to certain levels. I really like the feature, but that could be a bit more explicit.

This isn't to put down what you've done at all. I really like what you have here (and definitely getting bookmarked) but the question of whether the product wants to be a JSON viewer/explorer or a JSON editor doesn't seem to be answered. It can totally be both, but I'd focus on one or the other first and add to it as opposed to 3/4 of each.

All in all, very intuitive and usable, with plenty of potential to go even further.</comment>


Apple Sign In - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/03/apple-sign-in-privacy/ <comment><USER2> Disposable, anonymous email forwarding is a massive step forward for privacy. I know we've all been doing it for a while, but this on a consumer level is fantastic.

<comment><USER3> If you don't use apple, I just built this as a stand-alone product: [https://idbloc.co](https://idbloc.co)

<comment><USER4> From the web page, I cannot tell what pricing is going to be - looks like you go out of your way to not scare off potential users. I can't find pricing information at all via Google searches, either.

That's something I really dislike. Perhaps it's a necessary evil.

<comment><USER3> It's at the bottom of the landing page: [https://idbloc.co/#pricing](https://idbloc.co/#pricing)

The goal is to explain the concept ahead of the pricing as I think it's quite novel to most users.

<comment><USER5> I pay $30/year for a cpanel host that includes unlimited mail forwarding for any address on any domain. This is a byproduct of what I really do which is host a bunch of sites. $48/year for email scrubbing seems like a high price.

I think it's great, and use it a lot. Just wonder how you got to that price vs like $10/year.

<comment><USER3> Pro users subsidise the free ones, unfortunately. Assuming a 1% conversion rate to pay server costs and 1-2 devs full time at 4 usd/pro user/month you need 2500 pro users, which is 250,000 users.

That and people pay 4 bucks for a coke these days so it's not really much. Also cPanel is most definitely an expert tool.

I might make it paid only soon and reduce the price but at present there's not much option to get real feedback and user traction.

<comment><USER6> Once it's up and running, does it really take 2 full-time people to keep it running?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> According to the App Store review guidelines update posted today, Sign In with Apple will be _required_ for any iOS app that implements a single-sign in button.

"Sign In with Apple will be available for beta testing this summer. It will be required as an option for users in apps that support third-party sign-in when it is commercially available later this year."

[https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=06032019j](https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=06032019j)

<comment><USER8> This is Apple sensing weakness and dropping a bomb right on facebook's doorstep. And they sidestep the anticompetitive angle by arguing that instant anonymous sign on is simply a better UX, which it is.

Someone at Apple deserves a raise.

<comment><USER9> Lol, I doubt it. Apple is years late and sucks at doing the leg work of getting third parties to adopt its suck. Look at Apple Pay which was launched at the perfect time.

<comment><USER10> Apple Pay, the market leader?

[https://www.similartech.com/compare/apple-pay-vs-google- pay](https://www.similartech.com/compare/apple-pay-vs-google-pay)

<comment><USER9> Great 1% of online stores supports it. I am sure only a fraction of that traffic actually uses apple pay. You are comparing it to google pay that had a terrible UX and like four conflicting versions. They had to catch up to apple pay once it launched. Apple had the perfect product at the perfect time. They complete wasted the US chip switchover. They could have dominated retail purchases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can't services just disallow/block this address?

Fun thing is, Apple themselves block email@example.com addresses when using their dev console. You can bet that some companies will disallow Apple's signature private passwords similarly if they can, in the name of 'security' or what have you.

Or am I being too cynical? Feel free to CMV.

EDIT: best response addressing this seems to be 'The addresses are only generated from the "Sign In With Apple" workflow that a developer has to enable in the first place'

<comment><USER12> Presumably such services won't implement Sign In With Apple in the first place. People will accept it because they want the sheer quantity of users Apple provides.

The useful thing about Apple is that they can force people to do things they don't particularly want to do, like accept anonymous e-mail addresses or stop using Flash. (unfortunately this is also the bad thing about Apple)

<comment><USER13> "[Sign In with Apple] will be required as an option for users in apps that support third-party sign-in when it is commercially available later this year." [https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=06032019j](https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=06032019j)

<comment><USER14> Sign in, but not sign up? I guess some apps will not allow accounts to be created through the iOS app. Much like netflix stopped allowing sign up on iOS [[https://gadgets.ndtv.com/entertainment/news/netflix-ios- app-...](https://gadgets.ndtv.com/entertainment/news/netflix-ios-app-itunes- billing-missing-sign-up-1902205)]

There by, when apple passes a firstname.lastname@example.com address back, it won't match the existing account's email address = Sorry, matching account not found ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a huge move. Apple striking at the core of Facebook's play to own your identity, which they had with Facebook Connect but have completely fudged out with countless breaches of user privacy and trust. I used to be the biggest fanboy of facebook connect, but now I have to say: Go Apple.

<comment><USER15> Apple ID as SSO, iMessage Profile, Memoji, and Apple Pay. Apple is near FB Messenger parity, now that it functions as an account for external services. It's an extremely strong move on Apple's part, especially considering how close to it they have been for a while. They sure like taking their time sometimes.

<comment><USER16> They're close to parity with a giant exception that it's not available to the overwhelming majority of Facebook users.

<comment><USER17> Fb and G screwed themselves by: forcing users to submit real cell phone numbers (no forwarding numbers allowed) and real names. I'm laughing all the way to the apple oauth signup. So tired of G and Fb abusing users

<comment><USER18> Apple now requires 2FA for new accounts created on an iPhone and for 2FA they require a phone number.

<comment><USER15> but you can just go to icloud.com, sign up, and then type that into your phone. a pretty easy workaround.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This single feature shown off today at WWDC has solidified my forever lock-in on all things Apple and especially iOS: no longer will my email be sold needlessly or be spammed and my logging into to different web properties sold to marketers and ad networks and data aggregators. I trust Apple a whole lot more becaUe they charge and arm-and-a-leg for high end hardware and soon services because the products and services are the products not their users.

<comment><USER15> As soon as Keychain can abstract away passwords completely (rando generation, never need to show the user the password), so an end user cant tell if a site supports Apple SSO or if Apple is just emulating SSO, Apple deserves to be crowned the Identity Winner.

<comment><USER20> There is a session on WebAuthN on Thursday.

<comment><USER21> if you are attending, could you share your learnings and how can we, outside the conference, can have access to the information displayed?

<comment><USER22> [https://developer.apple.com/wwdc19/live/#!/room/](https://developer.apple.com/wwdc19/live/#!/room/)

This may host it live, but all presentations are recorded and will be here soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Maybe I'm cynical, but this looks more like a data hording scheme than a protect my privacy enhancement. If I use Google to sign in, Google and the app has that data and can monetize it.

Now if I sign in using Apple, they are going to have the data to monetize. They may keep the app from getting my information, but that means that their data is better than someone else's data, so it is more valuable. Also, they are getting app usage statistics that I may have opted out of at the OS level, but they now have due to having the sign in history.

<comment><USER24> Who do you trust more _not_ to do sketchy stuff with your data, Apple or Google? For me it's unequivocally Apple.

<comment><USER25> For me, Apple.

Google isn't outwardly evil.

Apple being anti consumer and anti developer really show you who Apple works for.

<comment><USER26> Google, the company who makes Chrome? The Chrome that will soon prevent me from using an ad blocker?

<comment><USER27> Can we stop being hyperbolic please? If not blocking ads in a very specific way is what it takes to be counted as "evil", that word has officially lost all meaning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It seems you must first have an *OS app in order to use Apple Sign In on the web, a $100/year barrier to entry for web developers verses Google/Facebook auth.

"To configure web authentication, you must create a Services ID and associate your website to an existing primary iOS, macOS, tvOS, or watchOS App ID enabled for Sign In with Apple."

Source: [https://help.apple.com/developer- account/#/dev1c0e25352](https://help.apple.com/developer- account/#/dev1c0e25352)

<comment><USER29> Sounds like a great SAAS opportunity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sounds like a good time to remind people about Telegram having a similar function for quite some time now. And just yesterday they announced a feature to simplify logging into web sites using TG bots: [https://telegram.org/blog/privacy-discussions-web- bots](https://telegram.org/blog/privacy-discussions-web-bots)

It might be a personal choice, but for stuff when privacy is really important I'd definitely pick Telegram over Apple, no matter how much the latter claims to keep me safe from three-letter agencies as well as marketers.

<comment><USER31> Telegram is unencrypted by default. All standard messages are stored on the server. Telegrams secret chat mode (end-to-end encryption) uses home made cryptography, and has been panned by experts in past. All group chat is in the clear and stored on the server. This is not the case with imessage. Comparing Telegram to iMessage, telegram is not in the same league as Apple. I don't trust either from TLA's or well funded adversaries.

<comment><USER32> It's not homemade crypto. It's just not the latest and greatest modern crypto but it has no glaring weakness.

<comment><USER33> [citation needed]..

But it's absolutely homemade by math PhDs (not crypto specialists). And if you search for 'telegram security' you'll find any number of articles pointing out a bunch of weaknesses. It's also only half open source.

<comment><USER34> > _half open source_

Not just that. The official clients repos (specifically Android) lag several weeks, if not months, _behind the apps,_ or at least they did at one point.

Though that doesn't matter much with not-quite-verifiable releases...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Whoa. Apple is picking up where Mozilla's ball dropped, but with a massively better chance of success.

Cheers to whoever is running this show.

<comment> move-on-by Mozilla dropped the ball on this? They never had an opportunity to do this. Apple will only succeed by bulling developers that want to stay in the AppStore. Mozilla doesn't have the market share or financial leverage to do anything like this.

<comment><USER35> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Persona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Persona)

> Mozilla doesn't have the market share or financial leverage to do anything > like this

Precisely. There was very little incentive for websites to adopt it at the time; Apple has a lot more power.

<comment> move-on-by They tried, they didn't have a way to force it on companies. Not sure how that's considered dropping the ball?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is a great idea but it kind of falls short.

Elaboration with example: LinkedIn is notarious for swiping up any data points that it can find. Your carrier, your GPS location, etc.

As long as there are two or more data points to successfully tie you to that id, it's already game over. It'll just be added to your "targeted advertising profile" and, given the wrong company getting ahold of it (looking at you, Equifax), sold/traded on the advertising market to third-party advertisers to build better profiles because... ...advertising dollars?

Anyways, the premise is cool but I think - without addressing the dragnet that is targeted advertising - it'll just be a minor inconvenience, which will be conquered over time with the collection of enough data points to tie it back to the "you" that they already know.

...unless you start-off with a brand new phone (new IMEI) and don't associate _any_ old accounts with it, that is.

<comment><USER37> Apple doesn't allow you access the IMEI or even Mac address. And they announced at WWDC today that they're locking down people scanning for wifi access points + bluetooth beacons to determine location also.

The purpose of this isn't to make you anonymous. It's just to make sign on a little simpler and for apps that you think might not be super trustworthy or apps that don't actually need your email address you can choose to give them this proxied one. Obviously social accounts and other applications that will ask for your real name will know who you are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I develop apps myself and I am 100% onboard with using this instead of offering the signup with google or facebook buttons (can offer those as secondary options). I might even push users slightly to use this instead of others as it gives my apps a bit of extra trust worthiness imo.

Only question I have is if it's possible to integrate this on websites and for non-apple products too? Because I would like my app which is available on Android too to be able to use this.

EDIT: Apple's site says it will be available on websites too. Let's hope it's available on non-apple devices too:

> Apple is introducing a new, more private way to simply and quickly sign into > apps and websites.

[https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2019/06/apple-previews- ios...](https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2019/06/apple-previews-ios-13/)

<comment><USER39> On the presentation they said it would be available on web and android.

<comment><USER38> Thanks, I was reading the docs and apparently it will be available for websites too and comes with a JS library which will let me use it on Android too. I am quite excited for this as a developer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is a natural step that I've been waiting for for years. This can almost remove the need for password typing, as you don't even need one to unlock the device anymore. Let's hope Microsoft does the same, and integrates with apple's solution. A lot of people are on iOS+Win10 for laptops.

</comment><comment><USER41> Does this require that every device you'd wish to use to sign into the service be an Apple device?

That is, if you're signing up for Netflix with this, would you be able to access your account from a Roku box?

<comment><USER42> I imagine you'd have to get the private email from your iPhone, similar to how 1Password works.

<comment><USER41> And it appears from the image that the private email would be a bear to type into another device.

<comment><USER43> Hopefully, more devices will move away from requiring you to type anything into the device to sign in.

Quite a few devices or apps on devices have already done so. Instead of having you enter the account ID and password directly, they give you a URL to visit that is something like [https://<device-maker>.com/add- device](https://<device-maker>.com/add-device), and show you a random code.

You go to the given URL in your normal browser on whatever device you normally use for web browsing, where you can login to your account at <device-maker> and enter the code the device gave you.

A few seconds later the device notices you've completed this, and you are then automatically signed in on that device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Doesn't this also lock in users to Apple? Will I still be able to use these apps on other devices?

<comment><USER45> If Apple discloses the generated email id. But the given examples seem very tedious to type.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I can already see devs implementing things such as `if email domain ends in privaterelay.appleid.com reject the email address and ask for a "real" one`, like what already exists for yopmail and others.

<comment><USER47> Such a dev would likely just not implement "Sign in with Apple".

This is for the devs that specifically want the minimal-friction sign-in.

<comment><USER48> Some screenshots display that it also works on the web, I'd love to find out how exactly but I ain't buying an Apple device and a developer license for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I love that TC chose a picture of "firstname.lastname@example.com" to illustrate the article. When was the last time you saw a service that could be described by a single "word"?

<comment><USER50> If I showed it to my mom, she still wouldn't know what was up. The genius would be in to make the UX frictionless and disposable addresses the default. Let's see how Apple executes this. They do absolutely pull UX stuff off from time to time. So, that's there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> "without turning over any of their personal data to a third-party company"

Uhm.. If a user sign up on my site with apple sign in then they definetly will share personal data with a third-party: Apple.

If user A wants to use product B and signs in using solution from C then C is the third-party.

<comment><USER52> Yeah, but lots of people including me trust Apple with their data. I sure as hell don't trust your site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> If anyone needs this right now, we've been offering this for a while with [https://www.faircustodian.com](https://www.faircustodian.com)

Lots more planned for the future of personal privacy protection too.

</comment><comment><USER54> I updated my AppleID since I haven't used it in years (have other devices) in anticipation of implementing this as soon as it's available on a site I'm working on. It appeared they offered two-factor authentication to get away from those 1990's type of security questions. Ah, not so fast - 2FA is only enabled with Apple devices. Poor play there, Apple. This service looks like something sorely needed - bring the rest of the flock into the fold and let everyone plug in their Yubi key.

<comment><USER32> FIDO U2F or TOTP. On the other hand it's perfectly understandable that they use his to sell their hardware.

<comment><USER54> Google doesn't limit who can login by their device manufacturer, but the supposed privacy focused company does?

<comment><USER55> Yep, the privacy focused company makes money selling hardware rather than ads.

<comment><USER54> So, the privacy draw is just another gimmick to them, and not a supposed part of their DNA?

<comment><USER56> If you're not paying them, they need to pay for you to use their services. And to do that, they will want to make their money back on that.

It is a good thing that they're not giving their services away for free; they're putting their money where their mouth is. If you look at all the companies that give their stuff away for free, they do it to collect data for advertising, and they make money from advertising, in most cases (unless they're using investor money to fund you).

Apple is not an advertising company, and I do not see any problem in them using this to draw in customers. It is a major selling point for Apple that they respect your privacy. They do a lot of their ML stuff on-device to preserve your privacy, they encrypt your data on their servers or anonymise it whenever possible, they do a lot to prevent apps from tracking you like limiting location access and other data, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Per a screenshot in the Keynote, Sign in with Apple will also work on the Web, which will be interesting.

<comment><USER58> They already offer Apple Pay on the web. I imagine the experience will be similar here.

<comment><USER57> True, although that would imply Sign in with Apple would be Safari-only, which might be a hard sell.

<comment><USER59> Might be a JavaScript API like MusicKitJS, since I don't see this requiring hardware support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Free disposable forwarding email addresses that you can turn off. Built on the startup bus years ago: [http://boun.cr](http://boun.cr)

MailGun ( a YC company ) was providing their API for free, until another company came along and offered to take over the project. All of the code and design was built on a bus from CA to ATX.

(and one of the team members met their co-founder on that (StartupBus) trip and went through YC. I believe they are a unicorn now)

</comment><comment><USER61> Finally an excuse to delete my Facebook account completely. SSO was the only reason I was still using it.

I do wonder how many sites will actually implement it.

<comment><USER62> Why do you need SSO? Password managers make it easy to manage accounts.

<comment><USER63> PMs don't make it easy, they make it reliable and central. The default password generation usually doesn't work, and a web form doesn't capture everything, but I'm never clicking and guessing even when I haven't used an account in years.

But SSO wins on mobile, because the PM is clunky even with a custom keyboard. Even then, I keep a dummy entry in my PM just so I'm tracking it.

<comment><USER15> Mobile Dashlane and Lastpass work much better on Android, where the OS allows you to set default apps. If Apple deserves any antitrust spankings its for not allowing user control of protocol handlers and default programs.

<comment><USER48> Bitwarden seems to work quite nicely as well but in addition to that Bitwarden is open-source.

<comment><USER15> I was going to mention it but I hadn't used it yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> So what if in the future apple decides they dont want to allow your website to use it anymore (because e.g. it violates their UX guidelines)?

</comment><comment><USER65> What is forcing the sites that I'd want to use a fake email address with to use this? It wouldn't be in their interest to. They will just stick with their current SSO setup of Google/Facebook/whatever and never touch this, if they have SSO at all. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea, I just don't know if it will be useful and successful.

<comment><USER66> Nothing is forcing them to, and lots probably won't. The carrot is the much lower friction for sign up for users. It's similar to Apple Pay, where you don't get credit card info, but you do get a much easier user flow that will get you more signups.

<comment><USER67> But will it be lower friction than login with Google or Facebook? It feels like it's more common for someone to have an account from one of those two than from Apple, and so "sign on with Apple" will never be able to be the _only_ SSO option, while Google or Facebook could be.

If the better (for the site) SSO options also have near-universal market penetration, what's the incentive to add Apple?

<comment><USER68> I would venture a guess that apple/icloud accounts are the highest % account type amongst iPhone holders. All sorts of people have reasons for not having gmail / facebook / etc., but apple account setup is pretty prominent in device setup.

<comment><USER67> Sure, it might be the highest % among iPhone holders - but for a website, what portion of your users are going to be iPhone holders, and what portion of the Windows/Android crowd have Apple accounts?

<comment><USER66> You don't have to implement it to the exclusion of other methods. There are plenty of merchants on the web with Apple Pay and also Paypal, straight up credit card numbers, etc.

<comment><USER67> Of course you don't have to implement it to the exclusion of all others! But let's suppose that, say, 65% of users have a Google account, 75% have a Facebook account, and 40% have an Apple account - and the circles overlap such that adding Apple adds 10% to the total coverage. Now, if everyone who has an Apple account prefers it, and users with an Apple login yield 30% less revenue... _gaining that extra 10% of users costs you revenue, because for every user you gained at 70%, three existing users cut their revenue by 30%_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> For a while now I've been using "email@example.com" when signing up for accounts.

I use FastMail for my email hosting, and they allow you to turn on wildcards for any custom domain. I don't get any spam because it's at a subdomain — never enable *@mydomain.me because you will get a mountain of spam to admin@, webmaster@, etc.

</comment><comment><USER70> We've been thinking about this for Mailsac.com. It is already possibly but clunky. Considered making browser plugins to make it easier to create and route disposable addresses, and "black hole" disposable email addresses once it's clear they've been resold to advertisers.

</comment><comment><USER71> If they implement it in OIDC they basically randomize the mail address for every application? What about the other scopes?

[https://auth0.com/docs/scopes/current/oidc- scopes](https://auth0.com/docs/scopes/current/oidc-scopes)

</comment><comment><USER72> 2019 big tech innovation is basically finding ways to ensure only _they_ have access to your data

</comment><comment><USER73> This is very cool in terms of security principles (no email that can be used to track you by default, mandatory 2FA, mandatory SPF for emails).

The mandatory inclusion if you use third party SSO already (smart I think as otherwise FB and Google would probably start paying developers _not_ to include it) aside, this will probably get a lot of uptake for apps that dont use SSO.

Apps that people mainly use on mobile devices and TV's would benefit a lot from this (as these devices arent good for typing in complex passwords). Additionally larger companies would be concerned about letting Google or FB sell their user list to competitors for targeting. Apple already has all this information, so nothing is lost by enabling SSO.

</comment><comment><USER74> What's the incentive for apps to offer it? Now they don't get user data.

<comment><USER75> There are plenty of applications that don't actually care about the additional data they could arguably get from a Google/Facebook login, and only offer it because one click sign-up/login drives more signups.

<comment><USER74> In cases of a trustworthy third party, what is the concern of linking to Google/Facebook account compared to an Apple account that doesn't offer any data? I don't think I've seen any instances of Facebook integration credentials being hacked/stolen.

<comment><USER75> In reality, pretty much nothing (particularly since now, third parties basically only get name + email). The value is that some (small or large) number of potential users might not know or believe that and trust Apple more.

<comment><USER26> Ha, I can't imagine why I might trust Apple more than Facebook or Google. /s

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> I'm not an Apple user, and don't own any of their products, but this is a great step forward for privacy. I'm happy to see companies prioritizing privacy for users.

That being said, any company that actually cares about collecting users' identities (you know, the ones you'd actually want to use this for) will definitely block @privaterelay.appleid.com from being used. Apple would've been better off using a well-known domain and having both private and non- private addresses on it, like @me.com .

</comment><comment><USER77> Will this service be available on the web? I get the feeling that this will only be available on iOS, meaning that you lose access to all your accounts if you decide to switch to Android.

<comment><USER78> ios, macos, web, all announced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> "Apple says it can authenticate a user using Face ID on their iPhone without turning over any of their personal data to a 3-p company."

So is this feature exclusive to Face ID and iPhone? Would users, Face ID enabled or not, be able to use it with only their iCloud email/ID? And would older iPhone models incapable of FaceID still be eligible?

These may be just questions of a skeptical mind, but I really hope Apple isn't using a pro-user, pro-privacy feature to phase users out of older models.

</comment><comment><USER80> I used to do something similar when I ran my own mail server. Whenever I created an account for a new service, I would add an entry to /etc/aliases e.g.

        news.ycombinator.com: stirner

and sign up for the service as firstname.lastname@example.com. If I ever left a service, I would just remove the corresponding alias and restart Postfix.

I eventually got tired of the work required to avoid spam filters and switched to iCloud Mail, so I'm glad to see this feature built in.

</comment><comment><USER81> This is the ultimate way to manage your incoming email - I'll be filtering everything based on the `to:` address when this rolls out and my life will be wonderful again

</comment><comment><USER82> Emails from companies already have a unsubscribe button. So if I unsubscribe they shouldn't send me emails. That is not changing with the new Apple Sign In feature. Emails will still have the unsubscribe feature. The only reason for devs to push for a real email is to sell it to advertisers. They are not deleting the email once I unsubscribe. So giving them an ankoymized email is good. I hope this succeeds.

<comment><USER83> Many spam emails I get these days from companies say things like "Unsubscribe from this list" so for example I have to unsubscribe from their "Daily Digest", "Weekly Digest", "Recommendations", etc. all one at a time.

<comment><USER84> And there's no guarantee how many of those "lists" you are on with some softwares. You might have a one-click unsubscribe, but you just one-click unsubscribed from the first of 100 lists you were placed on for that company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Some sites now seem to check whether an address is valid from some database or heuristic, because a random email with a valid domain is still rejected.

<comment><USER86> There is definitely a phenomenon of checking for prohibited email domains. However, absent extra-functional motivations like user data collection, smart developers don't bother with heuristics for email addresses much beyond the presence of an '@' character.

If you want to know if a purported email address is deliverable, try to deliver email to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Companies already massive dislike fake/temporary emails. Go find a throwaway email service and you'll find many many websites blacklist them. I'll actually be angry if Apple succeeds, because it'll just mean I can only have private email address as an apple customer and not anywhere else. Many companies might make an exception for Apple, but not anyone else.

<comment><USER54> This is neither a fake nor a temporary email. It is unique, made specific by the combination of the user's appleid and the target app/website, and permanent in that it will remain the same. The ability of the user to automatically discard/block content sent to the email address doesn't change this, as it's no different other than (probably) more convenient than setting up a bunch of spam filter rules for those "services" that refuse to remove your address.

<comment><USER88> It says in the article that it's a 'unique, random address', so I don't know where you're getting the 'combination of the user's appleid and the target app/website' from. The purpose of the service is the same as other temporary email services, to anonymize signing up for services by providing a fake email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Using 'Sign in with X' with service Y means you're giving X, or anyone forcing X to abuse their position, full access to your account on Y.

Additionally, anything sent to firstname.lastname@example.com flows through an Apple server.

You can trust Apple with this now, but it's not so easy to revoke that trust later. Still, it's useful for throwaway signups and garbage I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER90> How is this going to work with all the websites that make you login with your email address? Gonna be super hard remembering them?

</comment><comment><USER91> Interestingly Mozilla tried something like this a while back:

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

Sadly they cancelled it.

(I was actually hired as an intern to work on it, but they stopped paid development between me accepting my offer and my arrival in SF)

</comment><comment><USER92> How long until sites start blocking the cloaked addresses? (although of course Apple can just churn those address patterns)

<comment><USER93> How long until those sites cease to exist?

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> I like that you can use the feature on the web too, but it appears you need a paid developer account to generate the client id/secret

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/signinwithappleres...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/signinwithapplerestapi)

</comment><comment><USER95> This is neat. But I'd have thought the lower-hanging fruit anti-spam wise for Apple would've been to add a "mark as spam" button next to push notifications so users can start reporting all the apps that abuse push notifications to send them advertisements.

</comment><comment><USER96> This is similar to Abine's Blur service, which provides a throwaway phone number, and (seemingly) infinite throwaway emails addresses that can forward to your own personal email address.

[https://www.abine.com](https://www.abine.com)

</comment><comment><USER48> Unfortunately there's no way to implement this as a OAuth2 flow and without having an Apple device. Seems unreasonable to require an Apple dev account just for providing sign up - it can be tested without installing apps or just borrowing an iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER97> How will this be different that anon.penet.fi? (Besides the data being held in the US, where it is very much in reach of the authorities; Apple isn't going to shut down the service to uphold some privacy principle vs a government authority.)

</comment><comment><USER98> Google's + and . trick on a dummy-proof, invisible, consumer level. Nice!

</comment><comment><USER99> I'm no big fan of Apple, but I must say I get a perverse pleasure out of moves like this because you'd probably find that 90% of Facebook employees swear by and love Apple products.

</comment><comment><USER100> This is really good for consumers, but I'm afraid that many websites simply won't bother to implement this. Apple just doesn't have the unique marketshare that Google and FB have. The set of users that would use such a thing is the union of privacy focused users and users with an Apple ID and not a Facebook or Google account. This set is heavily overrepresented on HN but is relatively small overall.

If I run foo dot com, is that set of users attractive enough to me that I'll spend the engineering time to implement this? I can't think of many instances where it would be.

<comment><USER101> Might be true. Certainly it's true that Apple represents a smaller user base then, say, Google or Facebook.

But Apple users represent a disproportionately large subset of the users that spend money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> Great. I guess also you need to use apple machines to remember the email address and any password for you. Sometimes they ask for it.

</comment><comment><USER103> On the downside if I use Apple Sign In on apps I probably won't be able to sign in to that application on my Android devices.

<comment><USER104> Or a non-Mac computer? I doubt it. This is likely just an Apple id sign-in that is progressively enhanced on ios / osx.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> Sounds promising, because this is where Apple is really got at: taking something "at the fringes" and taking it to the mainstream.

</comment><comment><USER106> I'd like to have something similar for actual physical mailing addresses, perhaps UPS or Fedex could offer this.

<comment><USER107> My local UPS office in NY can accept packages on my behalf for a very small sum of money. Do you mean something more extensive than that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> Great feature, shame it's tied to apple hardware - making it inaccessible to those who cannot afford it.

</comment><comment><USER109> Will this effect apps that i use on an ipad and an android phone that share a login?

</comment><comment><USER110> Isn't there a flaw? What does stop service provider/application vendor from banning this relay domain and force users to provide _real_ email address for data-mining purposes aka "ensuring that service/app will work"? Unless of course that Apple would deal with those who would go for this

</comment><comment><USER111> Does this effectively kill the ability for services to have sign-up promo codes?

</comment><comment><USER112> I've been predicting this since iOS 11! So good to see it come to fruition.

Apple SSO :)

</comment><comment><USER113> I loved the concepts! Cannot wait to see the site with the SDKs and all.

</comment><comment><USER114> Wish all the cc companies would do this with their numbers. Some do.

</comment><comment><USER64> So this is only for mac/iphone users? That's not a large enough segment to warrant adding a sign in option for most sites. Would be nice if Mozilla had done something similar with Persona.

<comment><USER115> Something like 58% of site visits are from mobile browsers, and mobile Safari makes up over half of all mobile browsers. Of course, your mileage may vary, but that's a pretty large segment.

<comment><USER64> So its like 25% of Americans and much less everyone else. Plus you will be at the mercy of apple if they decide to remove your app, plus if you need an actual usable email, you have to ask for a second email. Sounds a bit confusing, they shouldnt have tied this to email address.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER116> In order to read this article you must redeem your privacy to more than a dozen companies or go through five screens with a confusing UX to change parameters. Oh Irony

</comment><comment><USER117> Google and FB will likely copy this asap.

</comment><comment><USER118> Is this Safari only or for all browsers?

</comment><comment><USER119> When Apple users use this to commit fraud/trolling/stalking/etc. and get tracked down it's going to make Apple look bad.

<comment><USER38> Not really. It's still linked transparently behind the scenes to your Apple ID. The connection won't be visible to the developers but the fraud etc will already be taken care of when signing up for your Apple ID.

<comment><USER119> The reality is that it won't do much to protect users privacy or prevent tracking, although it will make it easier for users to avoid spam filling up their inboxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> Seems like a direct copy of MaskMail.net

Nice to have the product validated, but never fun when a giant just duplicates your business

</comment><comment><USER121> This is awesome news for developers ! They should have done this years ago.

</comment><comment><USER122> I'll use it.

</comment><comment><USER123> Am I correct that TechCrunch page violates GDPR? I don't see any option to opt-out from being tracked. There is OK button and manage option link, but I can't manage anything, I can only agree for tracking...

</comment><comment><USER124> "This domain is not allowed."

<comment><USER125> While websites do blacklist temporary email providers like Mailinator, I think Apple has more power here; blocking the domain can be pegged as more of an anti-privacy move than blocking Mailinator, which is more anti-spam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> Apple is ahead of the game officially.

<comment><USER18> Outlook.com has allowed email aliases for a really long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> right, another one to ban

</comment><comment><USER127> Someone who is not apple should do this and charge for it. I'd pay $10 for something like that

<comment><USER128> Don't Fastmail aliases already work the same way?

That's $5 a month for 600 private email addresses, which (for me at least) is more than enough to cover all of the services I use.

Unless they're easier to re-associate with your main account for some technical reason I'm not aware of?

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> Orr you could buy a domain, and use a catch all email rule and then use an unique rmail address per site. Like mybank@mydomain, yourepamsite@mydomain ect.. I've never had any security problems.

<comment><USER128> How would that help with tracking? The domain you buy will be a unique identifier that's owned only by you.

What tracking will this defeat that couldn't also be thwarted by putting dots and plus modifiers in a Gmail address?

</comment></comment><comment><USER129> While I like this for privacy purpose this is pretty nafarious.

There is no mechanism by which you can use this sign-on without Apple. That means you are stuck with these specialized accounts you would need to re-setup once you leave apple. Just another lock-in.

This is definitely not the first time apple does anything like this. If apple really cared they would make a tool for any device or operating system to enable this. But they will not.

<comment><USER130> ... if you looked at the screenshot of the app they showed it also had sign up without using Apple Sign in and just using a email address.

<comment><USER128> You might be misunderstanding what the poster was talking about -- it's not that you'll need an Apple ID to sign up for a site, it's that once you sign up with an Apple ID, you might not have a way to link your account to a different email address. That effectively means that you'd need to recreate your account when you move away from Apple.

Of course, the other side of that is that sites are probably going to have ways to link accounts, and it likely won't be a huge deal. They certainly have no motivation to help Apple with lock in. It's not going to be any different from the process that exists today for moving associating an email with an account you created through Google/Github signin.

Still, it would be nice to have a way to use this without an iPhone, or it will be a (small) extra piece of friction you just have to deal before moving ecosystems, rather than piecemeal after getting a new phone.

Also note that the same exact concerns exist with Google/Facebook sign in, it's just that they aren't tied to a physical device so you only need to worry about losing them if you're making a conscious decision to delete your account.</comment></comment></comment>