Ten Finger Touch Screen Keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://solidsmack.com/3d-cad-technology/this-digital-10-finger-keyboard-of-the-future-is-simply-brilliant/ <comment><USER2> I love chord keyboards as a concept, but I've never committed to one because I've been wary of acquiring a skill on such a specific device, and then not having access to one unless I bring it with me. Making a chorded keyboard a software solution is very appealing for that reason, especially if ASETNIOP were to become a standard approach.

For what it's worth, the first mouse was intended to be used in conjunction with a chorded keyboard when Doug Engelbart invented it in 1963: <http://dougengelbart.org/images/pix/img0030.jpg>

<comment><USER3> I've tried the online tutorial, and it's surprising how quick I've noticed some muscle memory for the most frequent chords (for letters r, h, d, l).

I think they've found something with the "always use the same finger as in QWERTY, plus another one". I was skeptical that users could ever adapt to a new layout, but this isn't exactly that, so it has potential.

The best thing is that it doesn't interfere with the existing skill on the QWERTY keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> People in this topic might be interested in a project of mine: one-handed typing using your existing two-handed muscle memory.

Basically the muscle memory you use to type "F" is the same as typing "J"; index finger, home row. Your left hand already has the muscle memory to type right-hand characters, and vice versa. Press the "mirrored" key with the other hand... your brain should be able to make this substitution almost automatically.

Add some software predictive text and you can suddenly type _fast_ with one hand with hardly any learning. Especially good for temporary hand injuries.

Mac or PC: <http://www.onehandkeyboard.org/download/>

<comment><USER5> Sounds like really cool software! Is it agnostic of my keyboard layout? Dvorak user here.

That would mean I can not only freak out people that my keys don't type what they say, but that I only need one hand and somehow it works out what I want. People will surely take me for a con artist.

<comment><USER4> I'm actually a Dvorak typist myself, so it definitely works! English dictionary and Qwerty/Dvorak layout only for now.

<comment><USER6> I just downloaded the sample app. Neat stuff.

Is caps-lock toggling the only way to use it in the paid app, or does the menu item turn it on and off? Do numbers and other coding-symbols get chorded in the main app? Also, is there any research into how long it takes to go from Dvorak to this sort of style?

<comment><USER4> Thanks for trying the app. How does the technique work for you? I don't have any official numbers, but it seems like many people can type 30+ words per minute with very little learning. Faster with practice.

Currently no chording for numbers or programmer symbols. Basic punctuation marks (,.:;?! etc.) are predicted at the end of words. Caps Lock is the current toggle switch, but I'll be adding a custom option in the next version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My favorite part of the video is where they explain all the cool things you can do ... WITH A KEYBOARD.

Seriously, though. I've experimented with chording keyboards in the past. Conceptually they're quite cool, but their advantages are outweighed by the finickiness of having to master a new set of split-second timing issues. I can only imagine having zero tactile feedback on top of all that. (And then opting for zero visual feedback as well?)

<comment><USER8> Try the demo for 10 minutes. Convinced me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It frustrates me that there's no mention of Android. This could have been a working demo with an APK provided. I'm not sure about the overlay mode but it may be possible.

edit: As an update to this, it looks like it's possible the keyboard could be set to a 0 height View, and the Candidates view could be used, as that does not cause an application to be resized.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't think any method of input that relies on auto-complete, suggestions or predictions can ever reach the utility of a physical keyboard. Also, most people have invested years learning the normal qwerty keyboard, I don't see how people would be willing to adopt anything new unless it's better in all cases (including corner cases like <>!/\\{}[]), or they have absolutely no choice (T9).

The only way I could see any improvement for touch screens is if you could track finger tips while they're hoovering, so that you get more information to disambiguate what the user is intending.

<comment><USER11> Autocomplete is a bugbear of mine, since it's the fastest way to type on a touch keyboard and people have a bad habit of not proof reading stuff that they are sending.

It seems that at least every few days I get an Email like this.

Subject: Very Important!

< Incomprehensible >

Sent from my iPhone

<comment><USER10> Well, that is certainly one of the main problems with it. For me it comes down to the edge cases. My Apple password contains letters, numbers and special characters. It takes me about a minute to type it on the iPhone. If you have to rely on auto complete for edge cases, then you can never accomplish more than the most shallow content creation, such as sexting or 5 word emails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised that they emphasize the fact that the keyboard can be invisible or small. Personally I think that's the most confusing feature because it leaves you tapping on the screen, or website as in the video. That aspect to me is not very intuitive as to whether or not I'm typing currently or trying to navigate the website by tapping a link, etc. Also, if it's invisible, how do you know when the keyboard is brought up on screen? Does it appear and then quickly fade away, or does it appear at all? Both cases seem unnatural at least to me, since I'm just not used to it.

Other than that, I think it looks pretty awesome. The multi-finger gesture typing looks pretty quick and intuitive.

<comment><USER13> I think that if it can be done right, that'd be the coolest feature of it.

I imagine it'd be possible to detect that you've got all of your fingers resting on the screen in the 'keyboard' configuration, and only 'activate' the keyboard when that's the case.

Like how with an iPhone it can distinguish when you press and slide your finger to scroll from when you press your finger to tap a link.

I think it'd be a cool feature because it'd give you so much more screen space for visible content (like when you're editing a document), and less of the context-switch that happens when an on-screen keyboard pops up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is "p" a non-chorded letter? Clearly the other letters were chosen because they're the seven most common letters in the English language. But letter number 8 is "h", followed by "r". "p" is way down at #19. Is it just to maintain some semblance of compatibility with QWERTY? This seems short- sighted.

<comment><USER15> "semblance of compatibility with QWERTY"

Probably. I've went through the tutorial and particularly liked how it felt like qwerty even if it was very different at the same time.

You can say it's "short-sighted" but lots of amazing new keyboard layout were not adopted because it never went mainstream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am unable to open this page since 4 hours now.

        404: PAGE NOT FOUND.
        'http://solidsmack.com/3d-cad-technology/this-digital-10-finger-keyboard-of-the-future-is-simply-    brilliant/%3Fcf_action=sync_comments&post_id=24747'

        Oops! Looks like we're missing something here...

<comment><USER17> I guess <http://asetniop.com/> has the original video.

<comment><USER16> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks awesome at the first sight.

But then when you think harder, a big design flaw is that you need to put ten fingers on this keyboard to locate the keys correctly. You will have hard time use only one hand, let alone two fingers.

<comment><USER19> It's no design flaw, it's constraining your problem to find the most efficient solution within those constraints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think the ideal phone/tablet keyboard would be a "transparent" system based on holding the back of the screen (edit: no real estate lost and great ergonomics).

Microsoft patented the idea a while back and among other sucky things about patents, they may simply not implementing it at all.

[http://www.patentbolt.com/2012/05/microsoft-invents- portable...](http://www.patentbolt.com/2012/05/microsoft-invents-portable- devices-with-transparent-displays.html)

<comment><USER21> Interesting! This reminds me of the new Playstation Vita's rear touch sensor. I think it's definitely a step in the right direction of preserving screen estate for what its primary function should be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Asetniop is a terrible name. It might be very intuitive to those who know your key arrangement, but for newcomers, the name conveys nothing.

<comment><USER23> They probably did the same about qwerty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can we also have a physical keyboard with just 11 keys on it?

<comment><USER25> Sure; physical chording keyboards have been around for decades: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chording_keyboard>

<comment><USER26> Indeed, they are called Stenotypes. Court reporters write on them at rates of 180 wpm, real champions reach twice that. But this ASETNIOP that's sold here says that experienced users reach just 80 wpm. What's up there, is it poor design?

<comment><USER25> I suspect the lack of any tactile/haptic feedback introduces a small refractory period between keys/letters.

<comment><USER27> Also, the chording behavior has a timeout between keypresses. So if you type "a" & "s" quickly (intending them to be separate), it is interpreted as a single "as" chord. You have to wait a bit after each keyup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I find that using that two finger combination for backspace is tedious, particularly because there are no arrow keys to correct errors without repeatedly pressing backspace.

Speaking of "discouraging use of the arrow keys", Imagine using ASETNIOP with vim: Despite the combo probably being a disaster in many ways, vim's use of y and p might ease some of the copy/paste issues.

At least we(QWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, and ASETNIOP EDIT: Not the french though...) can all agree on how to press the letter 'a' (and nearly 'm').

I would point anyone looking for the perfect non-chording keyboard to the kinesis advantage, regardless of your favorite layout. <http://www.kinesis- ergo.com/advantage.htm>

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm getting a 404 on this page. Does anyone have a link web-cached link or something?

</comment><comment><USER30> Direct link to the virtual keyboard trainer (set your input manager to US/qwerty first): <http://asetniop.com/keyboardTutorial.html>

<comment><USER31> Very cool, but the fact that the keyboard on the screen doesn't match the output (input?) nor the asetniop 'idea' makes it incredibly confusing and was enough for me to say 'ok, I'm done'. Unless it's just a problem that I'm experiencing, it doesn't seem like the author (or anyone) ever tested this tutorial out.

<comment><USER32> I was working on the versions for Colemak and Dvorak users at the same time and forgot to update the original; it's sorted now. Please give it another try!

<comment><USER30> Good to know. I was just setting up a test version in kr4mb with a dvorak variation to give it a shot.

<comment><USER32> Here's the Dvorak version for keyboards:

<http://asetniop.com/keyboardTutorialDvo.html> OR <http://asetniop.com/keyboardTutorialDvoQ.html>

Depends on whether your keyboard is mapped to the Dvorak layout or Qwerty (basically, try one, if it doesn't work the way it's supposed to, use the other one)

and for iPads:

<http://asetniop.com/ipadTutorialDvo.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Most people have a hard time with typing stuff into an iPad as it is. While you can probably type easily with a concept like this, getting users to understand the chorded keyboard will be a major challenge. There are folks that don't even get swype and the dictionary keyboard. If you can get over that bump, the product has potential.

I would not hide the keyboard for any reason. It can confuse people pretty easily. If I try to click a button on a website and end up typing a character instead, it can drive me nuts.

Cool concept.

</comment><comment><USER34> The keyboard trainer seems to be slightly broken, ASET != ARST and NEIO != NIOP. I'm on Win7, Chrome 23

<http://i.imgur.com/cdQdj.png>

<comment><USER32> Sorry about that - I was working on the CHORDMAK (Colemak-based) version at the same time and forgot to fix it. It's sorted now - thanks for the heads up!

<comment><USER35> Unrelated but I'm replying to this comment so you will hopefully see...

You guys should add a feature to your website for requesting to be added to a mailing list for information on product development, release dates, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Reminds me of the Microwriter and the AgendA. They did not have auto-complete but were very efficient for text entry and relatively easy to learn.

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

</comment><comment><USER37> The idea of it being invisible is stupid. But I like the idea behind chord keyboards.

</comment><comment><USER38> it's funny how he writes two lines then stops because his hands are obstructing the view

</comment><comment><USER39> pretty fun!

</comment><comment><USER40> Ahh novelties... Not sure why I am reading about one on HN.</comment>


Hey programmers, we need to talk - <AUTHOR> http://www.sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need-to-talk/ <comment><USER2> > _This programming thing is a lot of fun, right? We have been entrusted with > the unique responsibility of making pretty much the entire world go round._

I stopped reading after this quote. I don't have the will or time to wast in such ... naivety.

I wonder, do really programmers believe that they _change the world_ say the way Newton (principia mathematica - first one to apply the scientific method), Einstein (Theory of relativity), Platoo (Creation of first higher education institution on the western world - Athens Academy) , Solon (Famous policy maker of the first direct democracy - Athens 600 BC), A. Flemming (inventor of penicillin), etc. ?

Because Steve Jobs didn't change the world. Really, he did NOT. Neither Gates or Zuckerberg imho. Ghandi did, Mandela did, in ways that technology never will.

<comment><USER3> Maybe not Jobs, Gates, or Zuckerberg. But Turing, Von Neuman, Dijkstra, and the like have.

Newton and Einstein certainly changed the world, but modern physics would be untenable without computation. The LHC would be useless without the ability to deal with the data.

Computation is being used to revolutionize higher education from me being able to take learn CS from professors at top ranking universities for free to data analysis being used to develop more effective teaching methods in inner city schools.

Do you imagine that the next big antibiotic or vaccine will be possible without computational effort?

I imagine Ghandi would appreciate the power that the web has brought to individuals in voicing their opinions, in organizing against oppression, etc.

There is far more to programming than Facebook and iPhones.

That being said, his quote is quite arrogant.

<comment><USER4> "Gates, or Zuckerberg"

Perhaps not as a programmer but as a business person?

Gates (along with IBM and a zillion other things coming together at the same time) have allowed the popularization of computers and reduced the cost to allow many things to happen as a result of what they have done. Think of medical advances as a result of people who were able to cut their teeth on computers and/or components dropping in price. If no PC, no YC or PG and all that follows from that. Etc.

Things invented lead to other things.

In that sense even Zuckerberg has changed the world by the associations that people have made that have lead to something because of who they met or became friendly with on Facebook.

The question is really how do you define "change the world"? And how do you separate one persons involvement from just what happened to be around at the time and would have happened anyway had someone else done it first?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The submitted link redirects to sealedabstract.com. The correct link is [http://sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need- to-t...](http://sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need-to-talk/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why is it that a version of this that was posted half an hour before this was posted was killed, while this is allowed on the front page?

[http://hnrankings.info/6950735/](http://hnrankings.info/6950735/)

[http://hnrankings.info/6950932/](http://hnrankings.info/6950932/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Better chart is this:

[http://hnrankings.info/6950932,6950735/](http://hnrankings.info/6950932,6950735/)

No idea. I saw it, followed the link, and thought that while the item has some really, really bad points, it actually has some elements of truth, so I submitted it, and it survived.

It may well have been deleted by the submitter, or flagged to death - I don't know the circumstances of the demise of the previous submission. It's not clear why you talk about it being "allowed" on the front page.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for the new kind of graph! That's neat. :D

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome. I note that the chart now clearly shows that the submission has been flagged off the front page, and it's currently languishing around 160 or so.

<fx: shrug />

The foibles of HN - sometimes people don't join a discussion and find underlying truths, but prefer to flag it out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh come on. Imaginary internet points can definitely motivate me to spend 30 seconds writing a comment on HN. It's not good enough kicks at all to make me make significant contributions for open source.

No, to get me to code for free, Github karma or whatever you want isn't going to help a dime. The coding _itself_ must be interesting and challenging and attractive. I strongly suspect that nearly every other open source contributor needs similar motivations. Does anyone really code for fame or points?

I don't see the problem that the author describes.

<comment> vezzy-fnord Absolutely.

The author presents a very juvenile thesis which basically amounts to "How dare programmers have an online place where they can exchange discussion and lounge!"

They've been doing that since newsgroups. It's completely normal. The software ecosystem is doing just fine, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's important to keep in mind that humans are social beings, and communicating with others by writing witty one liners can be very rewarding in and of itself regardless of the karma points you get. That doesn't mean you never do anything useful though, it just means that you decided to do something you enjoy and find personally rewarding at this moment, maybe to take a break from writing that patch you are working on.

</comment><comment><USER9> > this person has decided to spend time writing this nonsense instead of doing > something useful

We are only responsible for our own actions. Judging others actions simply takes time away from judging our own actions. We're all guilty of this behavior, probably because a) nobody taught us differently and b) we live in a highly connected society.

I'd say the problem is going to get more challenging as the singularity approaches.

</comment><comment><USER10> Github has this cool way of displaying project contributions, I think they call it "graph" (they even sell t-shirts with an exemplary graph on them: [http://shop.github.com/products/contribution-graph- shirt](http://shop.github.com/products/contribution-graph-shirt)).

Looks like karma for pull requests to me.

</comment><comment><USER11> Seems down, Google cache

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1jg- St8...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1jg- St85mlQJ:sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need-to- talk/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER12> Server is struggling. Here's a cached link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A//sealedabstract.com/rants/hey- programmers-we-need-to-talk/)

</comment><comment><USER13> NO... we DONT NEED TO TALK, stop using that idiotic phrase.

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5980898](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5980898) _> >this person has decided to spend time writing this nonsense instead of doing something useful._

Not to agree with it is one thing, but to call it nonsense? Instead, I now choose to declare this author's writing as another example of SV-arrogance.

</comment><comment><USER15> I decided to not write a witty one liner...</comment>


$1 Camera Image Stabilizer  - <AUTHOR> http://akimages.metacafe.com/f/fvp/EmbedVideoPlayer_184.108.40.206.swf?itemID=1041948&mediaURL=http://akvideos.metacafe.com/ItemFiles/%5BFrom%20www.metacafe.com%5D%201041948.5984449.11.flv&normalizedTitle=&isViral=false&embeddingURL=http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=26463954&isWatermarked=true&postrollContentURL=http://akimages.metacafe.com/f/fvp/EmbedMiniCatalog_188.8.131.52.swf&networkingAllowed=true& <comment><USER2> What I do is take a weight and a workbench clamp. Then I take the center of the tripod out and put it though the hole in the weight. The clamp is used to keep the weight secured. It works relatively well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Or just get image stabilizer!

</comment><comment><USER4> Great hack!</comment>


Google to prioritise secure websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28687513

<comment><USER2> Good. Also, I recently poked the bear on the chromium and mozilla dev security mailing lists, and they started discussing ways to push https in the browser UI. Hopefully this momentum continues!

[https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/m/#!topic/sec...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/m/#!topic/security- dev/rGM2oiKZqZU)

<comment><USER3> I disagree. It's not that I don't think that secure websites are preferable, but instead I see Google's growing influence being able to shape the web the way Google wants it to be, and them being perfectly willing to use that influence. You can argue that the things they are doing now are making the web better. But are we assured that this will always be the case?

What happens if this influence turns completely and more directly self- serving? Such as, Google adwords customers are given higher organic ranking, weighted by how much they spend?

At first glance it might appear that such a scheme would work _against_ adwords, but it really wouldn't because the ad-click advertising just doesn't work for a lot of us, but organic search does.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that.

<comment><USER2> I would think in this instance that this is not just a Google opinion. It is now becoming a Best Practice[1].

[1] - [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7258](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7258)

<comment><USER3> But shouldn't page rank be about content?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The decision could encourage more sites to turn on encryption, which makes them less vulnerable to hacking".

What? This is entirely wrong. It makes them more vulnerable to hacking. There is a whole lot more complex software and configuration to get right, and we know SSL doesn't have a great recent history of that....

Of course it help secure the communications which presumably is what they meant but it's 100% wrong with the statement the article actually says.

<comment><USER5> If you consider stuff like sniffing cookies to steal sessions as hacking, which most people do, then it's true.

In terms of compromising the server you're right

<comment><USER6> As somebody else pointed out recently in another thread, being able to steal session cookies can even help you attack the server directly, as authenticated users usually have more/different write access to databases and the like, making (e.g.) SQL injections easier. In this regard, even if you don't consider it "hacking a website" if someone steals session cookies, HTTPS makes it more difficult to "hack websites" in the sense of "getting root access to the server".

How that compares to the increased attack surface of the HTTPS implementation is of course up for debate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great. SEO people will now rush in for their fancy certificates.

<comment><USER8> If cloudflare start offering free SSL certificates we'll start seeing so many with HTTPS if it actually gives a SERP boost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > "For now it's only a very lightweight signal - affecting fewer than 1% of > global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high- > quality content - while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS," > Google's Zineb Ait Bahajji and Gary Illyes said in the blog post.

Later, high-quality content will be carrying less weight than HTTPS.

Who knows what comes next.

</comment><comment><USER10> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146660](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146660)

<comment><USER11> It's good to see CloudFlare are going to make this free. In planning the launch of my own new site/blog/thing (hopefully launching soon), the one thing that's really stopping me considering SSL isn't the cost of certificates (which can be had for peanuts anyway if you don't care too much which CA you use) it's the ongoing costs and increased server load.

Right now, launching without CloudFlare would almost certainly result in the unfortunate death of my VPS. SSL would only expediate that. OTOH, the minimum paid CloudFlare package would quadruple my hosting costs - I'm not running enterprise scale infrastructure for my personal site!

If CloudFlare do make it part of their free package, I will definitely use SSL by default.

<comment><USER10> Yes, we are going to make SSL certificates available to customers on our free plan for free.

<comment><USER2> Nice! Which CA are you using?

<comment><USER10> I can't reveal that at the moment. That will be part of the announcement in mid-October. I can say that this will _not_ require anyone to install new root certs in browsers etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Uh. What if a site doesn't need https? Like if it has just static pages with public content?

<comment><USER13> Indeed. My static blog hosted on Linode behind Apache has survived a HN frontpage entry three times now. If I have to use HTTPS, does that mean I need a beefy server with lots of entropy?

<comment><USER14> Nope!

Google, from 2010: "On our production frontend machines, SSL/TLS accounts for less than 1% of the CPU load, less than 10KB of memory per connection and less than 2% of network overhead."

[https://www.imperialviolet.org/2010/06/25/overclocking- ssl.h...](https://www.imperialviolet.org/2010/06/25/overclocking-ssl.html)

Entropy is a different matter, but I believe pretty much all virtualisation platforms have ways to ensure the VMs have enough entropy sources - so it should be fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146433)

</comment><comment><USER16> But they also prioritise speed right? So if you have the same site served both in HTTP and HTTPS, which one will win?

<comment><USER17> Probably the HTTPS one, since the difference in speed isn't that big between the two.</comment></comment>


Sony Hackers Seen Having Snooped for Months - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-19/sony-hackers-seen-having-snooped-for-months-planted-bomb.html

<comment><USER2> _Hackers who broke into Sony Corp. (6758)'s Hollywood unit probably spent months collecting passwords and mapping the network before they committed a last act of vandalism, setting off a virus that wiped out data and crashed the system in 10 minutes._

 _Trend Micro Inc. (4704) arrived at these conclusions after running simulations on a copy of the virus that struck Sony Pictures Entertainment's computers. The Tokyo-based developer of security software declined to reveal where it got the malware._

I am so far unconvinced that this was the work of a foreign government rather than an insider, and this article does little to make the case for DPRK involvement. The US government is heavily implying that they are to blame, but as yet have not given specifics as to why they think so. This article provides little new information in this regard. In fact, if anything, the following quote indicates an insider is just as likely to be the source:

 _While it's unclear how the hackers got access to Sony's network, the virus they used to destroy it is available on the black market and can be used without a high level of technical sophistication, according to Someya. It was customized for the company, embedding in the program account names and passwords and targeting the security software, he said._

<comment><USER3> An insider strikes me as extremely unlikely. You would need to have someone that is normal and skilled enough to be hired at Sony (presumably in IT), but malicious or wronged enough to attempt to destroy the entire company, including wronging all of your co-workers and risking serious risk of prosecution from the U.S. government. Also, you would presumably be skilled enough to evade the FBI, but still somehow be stuck in some mid-tier Sony IT gig.

On the other hand, this strikes me as totally within the realm of possibility for North Korea. They have the skills, they don't really give a shit about pissing off Sony or the FBI, and they have motive.

<comment><USER4> I think that's too narrow. You need one person with access to feel wronged, and you also need strong black-hat skills, but they don't have to be the same person.

Hollywood is famous for screwing people over, so I doubt there is a deficiency in people with grudges. Suppose one of those people were willing to spend $50k on this? Suppose they had a friend or a second cousin with a connection to some people with skills and a taste for large-scale lulz?

<comment><USER3> These people literally threatened another 9/11, the FBI is involved, and the White House is apparently seriously considering responding in some manner. I think any regular black hat or American would rightly be pissing themselves and disappearing if this were just for the lulz or revenge. The risk is just too disproportionate to the 'gain.' Unless you are a nation state that already has no qualms about hacking others, and is immune from prosecution and knows that the U.S. is not going to go to war over this.

<comment><USER5> You're assuming basic rationality of people, which unfortunately isn't universally valid (I have the same intuitive tendency, which I've learned to be aware of and compensate for).

Disgruntled (usually ex-) employees have been known to do some pretty insane, destructive things, without appropriate regard for personal consequences. What was the name of that guy who locked his ex-employer out of their infrastructure and caused a big rumpus a few years ago, again? More to the point - we know that there exist people who are capable of walking into their workplace with an assault rifle; the existence of a person inclined to execute the attack on Sony should not be surprising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the truth could run in one of two directions. Todays news implied that Iran, China and North Korea were in cahoots and aggressively attacked Sony for months and finally penetrated their bastion. Sony was helpless to defend. That is what the press and FBI seem to be saying.

The facts seem to say that Sony was incredibly incompetent and had all sorts of sensitive files sitting on servers with no access protection. Sr. staff never deleted emails and made newsworthy statements in their emails, especially ones that attacked celebrities and even the President. With this juicy material, including unreleased movies, all free for the taking, the hackers used well known standard techniques to penetrate. Then they leisurely sucked down a lot of information and no one noticed the traffic.

While there is no excuse for theft, if I have shoddy locks, no lights, no alarms, on my home I may be at more risk than if I had solid locks, security systems, lights, etc. Whether it was North Korea or the next door neighbor, it was not a particularly difficult crime to pull off.

<comment><USER7> _I think the truth could run in one of two directions. Todays news implied that Iran, China and North Korea were in cahoots and aggressively attacked Sony for months and finally penetrated their bastion. Sony was helpless to defend. That is what the press and FBI seem to be saying._

this narrative just seems way to neat and prepackaged and allows under- informed US citizens to consume it and still feel safe and make sense of the connected world we all swim in every day.

i agree it's being spoonfed via media and politicians, but to me, that's all the more reason to be highly suspect of it.

this event is becoming the ultimate nail to everyone's hammer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In my experience it is worth ignoring anything said by anyone selling security software in matters of security.

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh, not an actual bomb.

<comment><USER10> Thank you, I thought the same thing. But the journalist just re-watched Swordfish, it seems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not being fluent in American English, does that headline make any sense at all? Because it sure doesn't in English English.

<comment><USER12> It's grammatically incorrect. English pluperfect tense should be used like so:

Sony Hackers Seen Snooping for Months, Planting Bomb

The actions of snooping and planting the bomb are in the past but before the implied event of discovery which is also in the past so it must be pluperfect. The form "Having Snooped" can only be used in a pluperfect inversion such as:

Having snooped around for months, the hackers planted a bomb.

<comment><USER11> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I found the use of "minions" interesting in this article. First time I've seen it used in reference to malware or a virus.

</comment><comment><USER14> Ah, so it seems to be confirms that North Korea are definitely behind the Sony hack. Thank you Bloomberg security consultant.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why hackers attack that hard Sony and not other companies? Or they don't spend enough in securing their systems?

</comment><comment><USER16> That title is mildly infuriating. Using the term "bomb" to refer to software when actual bomb threats have been made is the epitome of clickbait.

</comment><comment><USER17> > hackers

Sometimes I wonder if I should keep wasting breath trying to get people to call crackers for what they actually are.

<comment><USER18> You absolutely should stop wasting breath trying to define how others use language.

Hackers is clear in its meaning in this context.</comment></comment>


Show HN: My one month project, Statsgram.com: Website Optimization Tool - <AUTHOR> http://www.statsgram.com

<comment><USER2> Very elegant website!

I have a few questions. I ran it against one of my pet projects: www.smitestreams.com and 5 errors popped up.

I'm confused specifically about the following:

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>====

SEO Authority: Page Rank missing. - What exactly is this?

Security: Reputation - What is this?

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>====

Fantastic project! Very well done and simple to use.

<comment><USER3> Page Rank is a rank that Google uses for search results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't seem to work. Try: meddbase.com <http://statsgram.com/www/meddbase.com>

It says we don't have google analytics – we do It says we don't have robots.txt – we do <http://www.meddbase.com/robots.txt> It says we don't have a site map – we do <http://www.meddbase.com/sitemap.xml> It says we're based in the USA??? That IP is registered to the UK – in fact it's got the wrong IP. It says 22.214.171.124 – we're: 184.108.40.206

Any reason for these catastrophic inaccuracies?

</comment><comment><USER5> Very Nice, reminds me a lot of google's speed tool. One thing, your crawler seems to have a small enough viewport for my website to switch to "mobile mode". This may change quite a lot of things, depending on the site.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am not sure which came first but the logo looks uncannily similar to <http://sidebar.io/>

By the way, congratulations on shipping.

<comment><AUTHOR> My logo is better :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks neat. The "Statsgram" name I'm not sure about - my immediate thought was "meh, another Instagram hashtag stat tracker?" and I'd have lost interest if it wasn't on HN.

<comment><USER8> I misread the title at 1st and thought it was statsgasm.....

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> WOT is giving this a big fat WARNING when you visit the site. "Warning! This site has a poor reputation."

Check it out: [https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/statsgram.com?utm_source=...](https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/statsgram.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=warn- viewsc)

" Amelyshark 03/09/2013

        Malicious content, viruses

keep out! Full of Viruses and Malware! "

Is this true?

<comment><AUTHOR> Statsgram has no viruses and Malware.

<comment><USER9> You may want to resolve this with WOT -- with the Firefox WOT plugin, I get a big warning that I have to click through in order to visit your site, not to mention that there's derogatory comments & marks for your site. Check out the link I posted above and follow the resolution procedures. Someone is bad- mouthing your site / domain if it's not true...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Could you possibly show us the statsgram dashboard for statsgram.com? I'd like to see how optimized your optimization tool is. :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool website... I run it on a project and it says: WWW Resolve

This website without www doesn't redirect to www (or the opposite). It is duplicate content.

but it actually does redirect with a 301 redirect.

One other question, where does it get the Visitors data it displays?

<comment><AUTHOR> Please recheck your website.

<comment><USER12> I've noticed the same: My site does 301 redirect www -> no-www, but you service doesn't detect this properly (I've entered the url without www). I've double-checked the headers on my site, the problem is in your script...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Waited about 5 min for results and gave up. Looks simple, need to improve response time.

</comment><comment><USER14> Can you add an info box to some of the sections explaining more in detail about them. I have no problems for me on most of them apart from the "Security - Reputation" part which incidentally I am failing and would like to know why!

</comment><comment><USER15> Doesn't work for me. Entered my site and then gave me a 404 after some seconds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Show me your website.

<comment><USER16> Same for me - 404 straight away

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great looking service. FYI - There's a typo in your crawl screenshot @<http://statsgram.com/img/main/crawl.png> Short Title - "lenght"

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For SERP tracking I like <http://norrth.com/app/serptracker/> which is 100 keywords for $19/month.

</comment><comment><USER19> FYI, ran into some signup problems w/ a randomly generated 1Password (try: 'r:T%Z&HDzrs7[gp2Viak' for example) - it tells me I need "at least one letter."

</comment><comment><USER20> What differentiates you from hubspot? I'm impressed with the design/interface, but agree that you should try and improve the response time if possible.

</comment><comment><USER21> A small typo under the Crawl Data section:

"Statsgram will crawls your site each day," should be

"Statsgram will crawl your site each day,"

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I will change it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Seems very similar to <http://www.woorank.com> but cheaper.

Few issues when running my site rottenapples.co.uk:

Dosen't recognise WWW resolve

Couldn't find robots.txt

Couldn't find the sitemap (uses a sitemap index)

Did you know your site has a poor WOT reputation (<http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/statsgram.com>)?

<comment><AUTHOR> About WOT Reputation: Big thanks to our competitors...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is it a copy of woorank.com ?

I made some test, it looks very unreliable. I will stay with woorank.

<comment><USER24> yes, it is really a pale copy of Woorank.

I hope he will incorporate different features, and opt in for a UI that is more distinct from Woorank's...

Funny also that it's presented here as a 'mone Month project' although articles from Aug. 2012 speak about it: [http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/statsgram-check-website- trafic-...](http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/statsgram-check-website-trafic-html- info-whois-other-stats/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looks beautiful and very descriptive. This is something that I definitely will consider exploring

</comment><comment><USER26> One small typo under 'Crawl Data' - Dublicate titles should be Duplicate titles

<comment><AUTHOR> Ohhh, thanks a lot!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Liking this project. What kind of new features are in the pipeline?

<comment><AUTHOR> Bug fixes :)

<comment><USER27> That's it?

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment - yes.

<comment><USER28> Good for you for concentrating on bug fixes BEFORE writing new code!

Congrats on the release and best of luck! :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It returns a 404 when you run it on www.google.com.

</comment><comment><USER30> From the FAQ:

Do you charge VAT? No.

How come?

</comment><comment><USER31> Where does the "related websites" info come from?

<comment><AUTHOR> We use third-party API

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Die" is not a bad keyword in German ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> No comments ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Guys, do you have Dribbble.com invite?</comment>


Free Online Courses from Top Universities  - <AUTHOR> http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

<comment><USER2> I see less and less reasons to return to my university to finish masters right now. I realized this yesterday, after spotting like... 9 awesome-looking courses from Stanford planned for January, which is quite enough for full-time studying...

<comment><USER3> Networking with your peers & professors is quite beneficial, unless you plan on being a lone genius.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It turns out, at least for me, that the courses themselves have been widely available in various formats (such as through MIT OpenCourseWare), so that by itself isn't new. The main difference that I've seen is that I think Stanford not only has the content, but is also chose to the right approach to providing an online experience that is amendable to actually learning the material.

As I said, having the videos themselves is not a sufficient motivator. Either I start out with full enthusiasm and quickly burn out, or I procrastinate and never start the video series in the first place. Or I see a question, answer it, and have no idea if it's even in the right ballpark. By adding some form of scheduled assessment, even if it isn't "real" (let's face it, the actual grade in these courses is meaningless), I think they've hit a sweet spot -- and these are the types of courses that I'd like to see more of, particularly in CS, where automated assessment (submission of programming assignments for evaluation) is more easily feasible.

</comment><comment><USER5> Everyone should check out the The Teaching Company, they have LOTS of good stuff in audio format. Not free though.

Anyone else here a passionate autodidact (that's "self-learner" for you less pretentious folk)? Interested in starting a startup in e-learning? Contact me.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's difficult to get a sense of quality with lists like this. Nonetheless, I think it's great resource. Heading over to check out the Heideggerian Philosophy "courses" right now!

<comment><AUTHOR> The small taste of free courses from Stanford was exactly what I needed to remind me what I enjoyed most about college. I especially like how they allow you to take and retake quizzes until you achieve 100%; a great way to reinforce concepts. A community curated list of free university courses would be fantastic, an aggregator of sorts.

<comment><USER7> That's just what we're working on at Polymath! <http://www.whatispolymath.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If anyone is interested in learning a bit more deeply some of the underpinnings of OWS and the fallout of the financial crisis (most/all of which has not been appreciably cleaned up yet), check out Yale Professor Robert Shiller's course on Financial Markets, particularly session 2 on Risk Management and session 7 on Behavioral Finance. (Yes, he wrote _Irrational Exuberance)

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been a developer for a bit and decided to brush up on some of the basics. Started watching the CS50 class (yes - I'm starting at the beginning!) with David Malan. And wow, it's really fantastic to see such a knowledgeable individual with so much passion on the subject speak. Made that hour and 13 minutes fly right by. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER10> Do we have anyone interested in teaching their skill online? I'm building classfrog.com and would love to let few of you in early. Email me firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER11> getting spoiled with the choices...what to say</comment>


Friendfinder files for bankruptcy - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/17/us-friendfindernetworks-bankruptcy-idUSBRE98G0AM20130917

<comment><AUTHOR> That's partialy a good news for many website as their affiliate programm (AdultFriendFinder, ...) was attracting lots of people using black hat technics to acquire trafic (fake websites, ads, Google bots manipulation, etc).</comment>


OpenPhotoVR - photo albums with 3D transitions (like MS Photosynth) - <AUTHOR> http://openphotovr.org/ <comment><USER2> Thanks nickb. But for some reason I don't think it will catch on HN.</comment>


Build Cities for Bikes, Buses, and Feet–Not Cars - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/cities-without-cars-san-francisco-jeff-tumlin <comment><USER2> While a nice idea, adding "buses" to this sentence negates any benefit from removing "cars" from the landscape because they are fundamental the same sort of vehicle, are they not?

The main issue is not the aesthetic of having a bicycle and "expertly pedaling" it or not, but the time it takes in transit. I wish to magically teleport from one venue to the next, and the in-between I call transit. We can rethink transit as a necessary and primary principle, or we can keep kicking it downfield and placating our people with the strategy that "you can bike everywhere, even in America!"

Trains are economical, well-established in huge cities elsewhere, have decades if not centuries of engineering knowhow stacked up, and move many people extremely efficiently when they are all going to the same place or the same direction.

Is there some way to hybridize the train and the car, or can we electrify the whole grid to make modularized trains a possibility and eventually a reality? I agree it's nice to bike, but grandpa can't bike everywhere and he still wants to enjoy the city.

<comment><USER3> SBB (Swiss federal railways) have an amazing plan. For around 1000.- a month, you have unlimited train travel within the country and access to a fleet of Teslas parked at major train station to complete your journey. It's a bit too expensive for me but I love the idea. I wish they had cheaper cars for more people to afford it.

I see they offer more options now and it goes from 600.- per month with a 1/2 fare card and a Nissan Leaf to 1800.- with a GA and a Tesla.

<comment><USER4> I am missing that plan from SBB. Wish they could offer something like that here in the UK</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to conduct interviews to identify hackers? - <AUTHOR>

HN,
I'm walking to interview people for internship from renowned technical institute here in India. What are the approaches I should take in interviewing to identify their hacker quotient?
To clarify, the internship will be into technical -- identification and implementation of user behavior analysis, statistics and pattern algorithms. <comment><USER2> I noticed that a simple, open ended task with a lot of time to solve it gives you a nice idea. I'm not sure what kind of task would be applicable for you, but I do a simple database manipulation in python. Some people will just do the minimum that works (or sometimes doesn't), but some will send the whole git repository, show that they did tdd, generate documentation, handle logging/reporting, etc. It becomes obvious quickly who do you talk to.

These are done at home before the interview - I don't think we need to worry about anyone getting outside help to get a perfect answer. With the amount of bad/mediocre answers the onesI'm looking for tend to really stand out. And issues can be verified at the interview.

The trick is to invite people to go as far as _they_ want instead of giving strict boundaries. And lots of time. If it should take an hour to complete, give out a couple of days before the interview anyway. If the answer is really good, the interviewed person will be able to talk for hours about the details.

</comment><comment><USER3> A few suggestions.

I'd avoid a maximal test as a basis for your decision. It's fine to test to make sure a potential intern has the technical knowledge to succeed, but studies have shown that given a familiarity with the subject, real world ability is largely not correlated with being able to do really well on a test of how fast/smart they are on a test. What seems to be a good predictor is something called grit... Basically how well a person deals with setbacks, keeps moving, perseveres etc. You should ask about setbacks and challenges they have faced and how they dealt with them.

I recall that there are grit assessment tools like questionnaires; I know West Point recently began to use one for it's cadet applicants. There may be one available online.

Remember that good hackers may be introverted, shy, or lack social skills. People have inherent biases against such people, tending to think of them as less intelligent and capable. Also remember that people have a bias and will rate more attractive people as smarter, more competent etc. Try to be aware of these inherent biases. so you pick the best candidate on their ability and merits.

Hope that is helpful.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ask them some basic coding exercises. Mind you, I don't mean testing them on specific knowledge of a language (e.g. "does java always pass by reference?") but rather testing how they solve a specific problem. Iconic, overused example of this is reversing a linked list, though by now I feel like everyone has memorized how to do it because it's such a common interview question.

</comment><comment><USER5> For starters you could check if they have a github account. This might not be the best indicator, but it could give you a hint.

You could explicitly ask for open source projects they have contributed too (or that they are following).

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, thank you for the idea. Although I'm not quite sure undergraduate students here contribute much to the open source projects.</comment></comment>