I'm Open Sourcing the Have I Been Pwned Code Base - <AUTHOR> https://www.troyhunt.com/im-open-sourcing-the-have-i-been-pwned-code-base/ <comment><USER2> For the lazy ones searching for a github link: It is not open source yet:

> HIBP isn't in a state to simply flick the visibility of it in GitHub, but it > needs to get to that point. Instead, I need to choose the right parts of the > project to open up in the right way at the right time.

and then further down:

> I don't have a timeline for each step along the way yet as HIBP remains > something I do in my spare time and I've always got a bunch of other stuff > on my plate, but the process has already begun and I'll be sharing more on > that as soon as I can.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very naive question. Suppose I offer a service (e.g. Have I Been Pwned) and I want my users to trust my service not to store/share their data. I understand that open sourcing the code base is one step, but how can I know that the server running the service actually does run this codebase and not something else?

<comment><USER4> On the side of your question, but HIBP's API is designed in such a way that you don't have to give them your password to get notified if it has been hacked. You instead provide HIBP with parts of the hash, and then it answers if you maybe have been compromised. Take a look at requests with devtools on the page [https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords](https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords)

So here it's taken one step further, you don't have to trust that it's the same code running on HIBP, because you don't have to trust them at all for the service to work.

<comment><USER5> But how many people will check in detail what's submitted? And again, how do you prevent that different users get different functionality?

<comment><USER6> > But how many people will check in detail what's submitted?

That's a valid criticism. It only takes one person finding clear evidence of problematic behavior to advertise that fact to the entire community. So long as a small fraction of people do actually check, the whole community will be fine. But if only a _negligible_ number of people check it, then perhaps no one will be checking when it is abused.

> And again, how do you prevent that different users get different > functionality?

Well, it depends on how the system is discriminating among users. To a great extent, that kind of abuse is prevented by anonymous users. You don't have to log into HIBP in order to use it. The system could still be discriminating by IP address, or even by various kinds of browser fingerprinting (including just collecting the advertising company cookies that so effectively eliminate anonymity for much of the web). Occasionally using TOR won't help against this -- a malicious operator could simply provide "clean" functionality to all TOR users.

\- - - -

On the whole, things like, k-anonymous API design, making source code open, or having a small fraction of users checking for security issues all help a great deal and make it difficult for a malicious operator to abuse the system. But none of them are _perfect_. In the end it comes down to trust. Troy Hunt has EARNED that trust due to his openness, and in no small part by choosing to implement protections like these that he didn't need to implement, and I find that extremely persuasive. If you take steps to ensure that your CANNOT cheat your "customers", then that's pretty good evidence you aren't likely to be trying to cheat them.

<comment><USER7> How do we know if anyone is checking?

<comment><USER8> Another good question but since it's trivial (opening the browser dev tools during a submission), we can assume a significant number. Doubly so because any service that says it's secure gets a lot more scrutiny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Troy does talk a little bit about the data here, but the codebase is not entirely useful without the data. I don't doubt it can be improved from Troy's one-man-efforts in that area, but the real value of haveibeenpwnd is in the data - and the code is useless without a huge trove of breach data - which I guess is never going to be open.

<comment><USER10> There's no perfect solution here: publish the raw data, and people who haven't changed their passwords get cracked, or publish hashed (in some way) passwords, and people will crack the passwords themselves. (That said, I guess most crackers will just get the data straight from the source, but still.)

<comment><USER11> He does publish the passwords hashed, with the number of times each password was leaked (without salt and the weak sha1).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hate to say it, but almost all of these sites/systems end up being far more annoying than useful. Why? Almost all the time, their alerts simply are not actionable. At best, they'll tell you that your username/email was included in a breach and often identify the breach itself by some nebulous data cache name that means nothing to you.

They almost never tell you which site was actually breached, nor do they ever give you any hints as to what password was actually compromised.

So really, when I show up in one of these alerts, I'm always asking myself:

\- Was this a recent breach, or a redundant alert from something I dealt with months ago?

\- What account do I actually need to update, if any, to be safe from this alert?

These questions almost never seem to be answered. As someone who uses a password manager and a different random password for every site, there's no way I'm going to proactively hunt down and change every single entry in its DB when I get the "alert of the week."

(FWIW, I once worked somewhere that somehow had access to a far better version of this data than they'll ever let the public get access to. That system actually did generate alerts that were actionable. I only wish I had a way to get useful alerts like that as a private individual.)

<comment><USER13> > They almost never tell you which site was actually breached

That's probably true for most people. But that's what email aliases are for. If I notice (through 1Password alerts) that my email@example.com email got leaked, I pretty much get an idea which site was breached. At least GMail and Fastmail support email aliasing.

<comment><USER14> I keep using that scheme but it's been clear for a while that most systems (and hence leakers) clean up those addresses. Which it has to be expected for a feature that has been around for 15 years.

<comment><USER15> I use `firstname.lastname@example.com` instead, which is easy enough to do with catch- all aliases.

<comment><USER16> Or me+Facebook and block email to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I give it 24 hours after release before someone rewrites it in Rust.

48 hours before its on HN.

<comment><USER18> This man knows

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One of the tweets in the article says Github is open-source: it's not.

<comment><USER20> True but FYI if you want to, you can reverse engineer the code of the GitHub enterprise version: [https://blog.orange.tw/2017/01/bug-bounty-github- enterprise-...](https://blog.orange.tw/2017/01/bug-bounty-github-enterprise- sql-injection.html)

<comment><USER21> The fact that you can (probably under break of license terms) get to source, doesn'tale it open source, as understood by majority of the community (which is somewhere close to OSI's definition)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there a _reason_ (Security, Competitive, etc.) that the code wasn't open source from the start?

<comment><USER23> Not wanting to have toxic user requests and issues open for something you do in your spare time could be one good reason.

<comment><USER24> It's entirely possible to run a Git server which is read-only (for the rest of the world, anyway) and doesn't allow anyone to bother you.

<comment><USER25> What's the point of doing that though? It's just chumming the water for unsolicited feedback.

<comment><USER24> > What's the point of doing that though? It's just chumming the water for > unsolicited feedback.

You'd do it to prevent feedback.

<comment><USER25> People shit-talking your code on Twitter is still feedback.

<comment><USER24> Nobody real monitors Twitter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's an interesting question: Could some open group etc replicate it entirely, e.g. something like Let's Encrypt (which is also a free service funded by various companies)? The data sources and import are the key bit where trust is an issue, and weirdly enough a single individual might have an easier time than a well-funded foundation etc.

<comment><USER27> Im not sure if those corporate institutions will allow it to notify breaches quicker, if HIBP is backed by likes of Facebook, google etc. Its better for HIBP to stay away from them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Isn't the data whats important?

Isn't the code just essentially a text input box that takes a string, hashes it, and runs it against hashed passwords in a database?

<comment><USER29> Yup. Gathering the data is a large part of the value he provides. I wrote an article about how to implement this, and data gathering tasks are crucial: [https://fusionauth.io/learn/expert- advice/security/breached-...](https://fusionauth.io/learn/expert- advice/security/breached-password-detection)

He touches on the non technical difficulties as well with his comment: "We invite parties to form their own views on the legality of the data." So the fact he's gathered it all lets HIBP be an service that other companies can use without worrying about the thorny legal question.

But there's also his reputation as a steward of the system, which is valuable beyond the data itself.

Anyway, while he didn't actually open source anything yet, I'm glad he's committing to it, as hopefully that will allow this internet resource to continue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wow this is awesome news. I always wondered how the internals could work. Can't wait to take a peak...

</comment><comment><USER31> Didn't Troy want to sell to someone just a few years ago?

<comment><USER32> As mentioned in the article in the first paragraph:

 _" and it took a failed M&A process to get here"_

Second paragraph:

 _" especially in the wake of the M&A process[0] that ended earlier this year right back where I'd started"_

[0]: [https://www.troyhunt.com/project-svalbard-have-i-been- pwned-...](https://www.troyhunt.com/project-svalbard-have-i-been-pwned-and- its-ongoing-independence/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I asked in comments on post which open source license he picked. Will update if he replies.

<comment><USER34> Hopefully it'll be a proper free one.

<comment><USER33> Hopefully it'll _actually_ be open source, as in free as in money _AND_ free as in beer. That is, I hope the license Troy Hunt picks for Have I Been Pwned is _OSI-approved_ :

[https://opensource.org/licenses](https://opensource.org/licenses)

<comment><USER33> Needless to say, I hope it's also _free as in speech_. Saved the best for last.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's good just for the sake of transparency. Maybe he will find someone who is interested in helping maintain and contribute.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm curious what the code would be/how far of an extent it goes. I mean from my experience using it it's a search box, type in email, get results... so is this going to show scrapers or something where the data comes from?

Maybe has efficient hash comparisons or something...

<comment><USER4> He linked to lots of blogposts and also talked about the k-Anonymity API design that was invented for HIBP.

<comment><USER36> Interesting I have not heard of k-Anonymity before, will check that out, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What is this M&A process he keeps referring to?

<comment><USER38> He tried to sell it at one point.

[https://threatpost.com/have-i-been-pwned-no-longer-for- sale/...](https://threatpost.com/have-i-been-pwned-no-longer-for-sale/153401/)

<comment><USER37> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > I'm sure I speak for [Junade] as well when I say we couldn't be happier that > other companies have taken the model we pioneered and applied it to their > own services too because at the end of the day, that's in everyone's best > interests.

Socialism for "other companies," capitalism for us. It's details like this that prove to me how purely ideological it is to claim that we need capitalism to "produce value." _We_ produce value already. Capitalism uses that value for free or a ridiculously low rate, then turns around and charges us for it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Open sourcing code is one thing. Open sourcing the email addresses of vulnerable victims is something else. It's like publishing the largest vulnerability of all time before it can be patched

<comment><USER41> Am I missing something? I understand from the article that he _is_ open sourcing the codebase, not the data...?</comment></comment>


Long-lost U.S. military satellite found by amateur radio operator - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/04/24/843493304/long-lost-u-s-military-satellite-found-by-amateur-radio-operator <comment><USER2> I feel like "lost" is a bit of a misnomer here - this spacecraft was of course being tracked still, and it only took a couple seconds of googling to pull up the detailed info on the orbit from Celestrak[1]. There's even a nice visualization available at [2].

1: [https://celestrak.com/satcat/tle.php?CATNR=02866](https://celestrak.com/satcat/tle.php?CATNR=02866)

2: [https://celestrak.com/cesium/orbit- viz.php?tle=/satcat/tle2....](https://celestrak.com/cesium/orbit- viz.php?tle=/satcat/tle2.php?CATNR=02866&satcat=/pub/satcat.txt&orbits=1&pixelSize=3&samplesPerPeriod=90)

<comment><USER3> For a somewhat cooler visualization, which also gives you a comparison to the GEO belt and other satellites but may be bad for browser performance, see [http://stuffin.space/?intldes=1967-066E&search=1967-066e](http://stuffin.space/?intldes=1967-066E&search=1967-066e)

<comment><USER4> This kind of visualisation is fascinating, but it's also (for reasons I shall now explain) the root of a very serious misconception.

The misconception I speak of is the "junk in space" one. One sees images such as these and clearly reaches the conclusion that we've immersed ourselves in a thick fog of stuff which will soon become a barrier of fast-moving debris.

But... if one thinks about it, these objects are small, and if one were to lay them all out upon the surface of the earth, they'd actually cover a tiny fraction of it, and there'd be miles between each one. And furthermore, higher altitudes define a larger sphere, and surface area depends on the square of radius, so there's actually far more distance available to these objects (alternatively, to repeat the experiment on earth, one would need to considerably scale down the already comparatively tiny objects and satellites).

And on top of that, we have a whole third dimension to deal with, so it's not just one bigger sphere, but a continuum of spheres that all exist independently of each other.

Which leads to my core contention: even visualising satellites as the smallest graphical depiction possible (a single pixel) leads a viewer to vastly overestimate their size, and therefore the density of objects that exist in our sidereal neighbourhood.

And this irks me.

</rant>

<comment><USER5> What you did not consider is cascading collisions. If two high velocity objects collide, a large cloud of high velocity debris orbits Earth. The cloud expands and eventually parts of it collide with satellites, creating more debris that collides with other satellites, creating even more debris.

<comment><USER4> Oh no I understand that very well, I'm well versed in statistical mechanics. The thing is that the cross-section of the targets remain low, and therefore the amplitude of the scattering matrix remains pretty low. It's actually pretty unlikely to successfully trigger off a divergent chain reaction. To use a nuclear analogy, it's the density is well below a critical density (or rather, it's far from a critical geometry).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The "no comment" is really "everybody who worked on that has long since retired and nobody is in the office to check the paper records, if they even wanted to and were allowed to."

The communication protocols used by that old bird are probably still classified.

<comment><USER7> A satellite of that age would have used a very simple analog repeater or linear transponder, meaning that there is no communications logic occurring on the satellite. Any digital modulation, and more so encryption, would be the responsibility of the ground stations. This is still a common design pattern for satellites, referred to as the "bent pipe" model since the space segment is merely a "bend" with no logic, but it is subject to abuse by unauthorized operators so there's usually some degree of at least authentication today.

Military satellites launched into the '80s continued to use analogue transponders and, to some extent to this day, see unauthorized use. The only real deterrent was the difficulty of obtaining inexpensive equipment for satellite bands but the widespread use of DVB and VSATs changed that during the '90s and '00s.

That said, all related documents may very well have been classified at the time (owing especially to the lack of any authentication!) and even when declassify-on dates pass there is often institutional resistance to going through the motions of releasing this material, especially since Lincoln Labs (a contractor) would not be authorized to do so and would have to forward the request on to someone else. A more formal FOIA request, followed by appeals if necessary, can often unstick these wheels since it creates a legal obligation that a more casual media request does not.

<comment><USER8> Dude out of curiosity who are you and how can I learn all the things you know.

<comment><USER9> I knew a guy that was part of the beginnings of the cable frontier running numerous cable headends. Any time he needs to align a new dish, he does it by hand. He knows where a specific satellite is, and a particular signal coming from it. Once he finds it, he pans the dish across the line of satellites until he gets to the one needed. As you pan across the sky, you can use a scope to see each of the birds come in and out of alignment. The constellations are known, so you map out which ones are which. Some of the signals are scrambled, but there's a lot to be learned, and if it is TV broadcast, decoders are available. A lot of this gear is available second/third/fourth hand now. With the right gear, it is possible to learn a lot of this stuff on your own with some google searches. Learning to decode what's already coming down is just a step on the way to learning about what goes up.

Useless satellite trivia: from time to time, it becomes necessary to adjust the orbit of the satellites (like a wandering disabled satellite). They do not fire boosters to raise/lower the orbit directly as that requires too much fuel. Instead, they speed up/slow down the horizontal speed to increase/decrease altitude. With enough notice, they can do this very incrementally and fuel efficiently.

<comment><USER10> The necessary equipment is also crazy cheap at this point. You could easily start listening to satellites with a $20 USB SDR dongle and a DIY antenna.

If someone wants a cheap way to learn orbital mechanics (like why you accelerate/decelerate to raise/lower your orbit), pick up a copy of Kerbal Space Program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if anyone's ever heard from SNAP-10. It was the first fission reactor in orbit (1965). It had, uh, problems and was shut down after 43 days. In late November 1979 it had a 'anomalous event', and it had 6 more in the next 6 years... releasing '50 trackable pieces'.

[0] [https://web.archive.org/web/20170503083646/https://ston.jsc....](https://web.archive.org/web/20170503083646/https://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS//_techrep/TP-1999-208856.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Great document. One of many eye-openers:

"The West German government sponsors a meeting called Safety Aspects of Nuclear Reactors in Space, in Cologne. Nietrich Rex predicts that Soviet space nuclear reactors will undergo 2-3 on-orbit collisions in the next 300 years. Each will result in world-wide reentry of radioactive debris."

That's a prediction from November 1989.

<comment><USER13> I can't find a source after a cursory search, but IIRC the Soviet RORSATs are still the second or third biggest source of space junk today (#1 being the 2007 Chinese test of an antisatellite weapon). A few of them had nuclear reactors fail in dramatic ways, although a lot of their debris is just from leaking coolant.

<comment><USER14> Per this document it appears that (frequent) Delta second stage explosions were one of the most significant contributors. By 1981 27% of all tracked debris (of orbital period under 225 minutes) were from Delta second stage explosions. (I'm guessing these are considered high velocity debris). It's quite interesting that NASA was surprised by this (asking McDonnell-Douglas to find out why in May of 1981) considering how long they had been launching the Delta rockets and tracking debris. From the document, NASA officials continually approved work to track orbital debris, but often didn't give the reports administrative attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1965\. Wow. Watching and listening to that waterfall was fantastic. And by the way, great use of links in the NPR article. I found a new blog to follow, a lab I've never heard of, a Twitter account to check out, and _Gunter's Space Page_, which we hopefully all know via intuition is a quality work to be saved for later in-depth review. ;-)

<comment><USER16> When I got my first rtlsdr dongle I spent hours just surfing the frequencies looking for interesting signals and trying to decide them. It's a great hobby!

SDR has opened up a new frontier for me, it gives me the same excitement I got when I discovered BBSs and then the internet.

I was lucky enough to have a project come up last year that required gsm/4G and GPS simulation. I got budget to buy a bladerf and a nice SBC and built a box that could simulate a GSM, 3G/4G basestation and simulate GPS.

<comment><USER15> That's awesome! Especially since your work experience seems to integrate with your hobby, and a very cool hobby at that.

Just to re-balance the universe a bit here, I almost stepped on my RTL-SDR the other day, in a neglected corner of my workspace, and felt pretty guilty about it ;-)

(Tangentially, I gave a cheap portable SW radio to my son the other day, after not using it for a while. I was trying to find a favorite FM radio station to demonstrate to him, and stumbled across one of the local emergency services instead, in the 150 MHz range. Haha, no wonder the dial markings don't match up at all. Now he's telling me what kind of makes & models he's hearing about over the air...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This reminds me of another thing a lot of people have been noticing lately with more time to look up.

What's been up with Venus? It's been really bright for weeks if not months now.

<comment><USER18> Venus is only a few weeks away from its inferior solar conjunction, which is approximately the point in its orbit (recurring about every 19 months) where it most closely approaches Earth: [https://in-the- sky.org/news.php?id=20200603_11_100](https://in-the- sky.org/news.php?id=20200603_11_100)

Interestingly, Venus' brightness is currently near its peak, even though the conjunction itself is still several weeks away. At the point of closest approach, the planet will be almost 3x bigger in angular area than it is today, but we will be seeing a much smaller fraction of its sunlit side.

<comment><USER19> That is one of Heinrich Dorrie's 100 Great Problems of Elementary Mathematics:

[https://www2.washjeff.edu/users/mwoltermann/Dorrie/MaxMinPro...](https://www2.washjeff.edu/users/mwoltermann/Dorrie/MaxMinProblems.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I got interested in rf spectrum in 2014 and haven't looked back. There's just so much fascinating stuff out there.

</comment><comment><USER21> One of the satellites found by this sleuth:

> _Transit 5B5 was a US Navy navigation satellite launched by a Thor Able Star > rocket. It carried a nuclear power source._

Wait what? Nuclear powered satellites? How do they safely dispose of these??

<comment><USER22> Yes, it's a thing. Most of the deep space probes were radio-nucleotide powered. Earth orbiting is less common for obvious reasons. One option is boost to a parking orbit where it'll be stable and out of the way for a couple of thousand years. But the stuff from the '60s was often "it'll burn up on reentry (cross fingers) and it's a cost of doing Cold War business if a little get's scattered around".

<comment><USER23> There are plenty of earth orbiting actual fission reactors, not like the RTGs you have heard about.

There were quite a few sent up by the Soviets (from 1967-1988) and at least one malfunctioned, failed to eject its reactor into a disposal orbit and scattered radioactive waste across northern Canada.

Even the Soviets didn't _intend_ to send nuclear reactors to burn up on reentry; I'd be surprised if that was anyone's plan.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BES-5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BES-5)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_1402](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_1402)

"...44 kg of uranium had been dispersed into the stratosphere after the incident..."

<comment><USER22> I've more than "heard about" RTGs, and I'm well aware of the kind of reactors that have been shot into space. We can argue the level of "intend", but in the Cold War, the reentry of a nuclear reactor was considered an acceptable cost of doing business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you're intrigued by tracking satellites and their transmissions more generally, check out [https://satnogs.org/](https://satnogs.org/)

</comment><comment><USER25> See also: [https://www.rtl-sdr.com/receiving-dead-satellites-rtl- sdr/](https://www.rtl-sdr.com/receiving-dead-satellites-rtl-sdr/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I guess that was before we had responsible satellite disposal.

[http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2017/04/Space_debri...](http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2017/04/Space_debris_2017_-_a_journey_to_Earth)

</comment><comment><USER27> Reconnecting with an old satellite has been done before. Perhaps it be done again.

 _The International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE-3) satellite was launched on August 12, 1978, and was originally meant to study the Earth 's magnetosphere from the L1 Lagrangian point between the Sun and the Earth, where the gravity of both bodies cancel each other out._

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pga3m7/techno- archaeologi...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pga3m7/techno- archaeologists-used-an-abandoned-mcdonalds-to-hijack-a-satellite)

</comment><comment><USER28> This has me puzzled:

>>> Confirmation will occur at ~0445 UTC this evening when the satellite should pass through eclipse.

Shouldn't it be stationary, if it's in geostationary orbit? Or is it just that the satellite has drifted out of that orbit over time?

<comment><USER3> The article says GEO, but actual quotes _in_ the article say "GEO graveyard orbit". What this means is that, at the end of the satellite's service life, it was boosted into a lower (in this case [1]) or higher (also common) orbit out of the way of the GEO line. There isn't much space in GEO, as it's a one- dimensional space [2] - only true anomaly (position in the orbit) can be varied. So you want to free up the slot once you're not using it anymore.

[1] This particular satellite is [http://stuffin.space/?intldes=1967-066E&search=1967-066e](http://stuffin.space/?intldes=1967-066E&search=1967-066e). Note the orbital period - it's shorter than a sidereal day of 1436 minutes, which means this is a lower orbit. It's also slightly inclined to GEO, which reduces the chance of collisions even further.

[2] By contrast, the set of Keplerian orbits is generally a six-dimensional space, with singularities at eccentricity = 0 and inclination = 0. Well, also technically at semi-major axis = 0, but that's not a physically possible "orbit".

<comment><USER29> Are lower-than-GEO graveyard orbits common? I mean, I guess they are, judging by stuffin.space, but my intuition would be that it wouldn't take any more fuel to put a satellite in a higher-than-GEO graveyard orbit (and thus further minimize the risk of collision), no?

<comment><USER3> No particular reason why a higher orbit is any better than a lower orbit. As long as you're a good 1000 kilometers away from the GEO belt at closest, and preferably a little inclined so that closest approach only happens ~2 times a day, both high and low graveyard orbits are equally good for avoiding collisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > "The reason this one is kind of intriguing is its telemetry beacon is still > operating," Tilley says.

What exactly is a telemetry beacon, and what kind of data would it be broadcasting?

<comment><USER31> It's at a minimum simply a high signal on a certain frequency indicating the device is there and then you use math to gather telemetry data (position, speed, etc).

At most, it's packets of data that indicate telemetry data such as position, speed, temperature, and the current state of any instruments on board.

Telemetry data is typically pushed out at regular intervals to allow it to be recorded and graphed in a time series.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Rick Rhodes could really build 'em!</comment>


The Cost of an Email Unsubscribe - <AUTHOR> https://www.custora.com/cost_of_email_unsubscribe <comment><USER2> I love when you get things like "unsubscribing costs U.S. retailers about $5.8 billion per year.

So if you stopped people unsubscribing $5.8 billion more would be spent on retail? No, people have, roughly, a fixed amount to spend, stopping them unsubscribing isn't going to give them more money.

If that figure were true, 5.8 bil less would be spent in other areas. But let's face it, this figure is pulled from someone's arse.

OK, there's a bubble of apps claiming to do this at the moment, but the marketing just gets more and more cheesy. And if we find it cheesy, are we going to trust these folks with our marketing?

<comment><USER3> > So if you stopped people unsubscribing $5.8 billion more would be spent on > retail? No, people have, roughly, a fixed amount to spend, stopping them > unsubscribing isn't going to give them more money.

Yep. One retailer's loss is another retailer's gain.

</comment></comment><comment> X-Istence I thought it was going to tell me the cost of clicking unsubscribe, followed by the forgot my password dance to log in to my "subscription preferences" to turn off the emails being sent to me.

Or having to fill out the email address that received the email (change back to my email client, check the headers), something that they could fill in for me.

Or having to figure out that the unsubscribe link is two shades of grey darker than the rest of the email and is almost unnoticeable...

Or even worse, the unsubscribe link is only in the HTML portion of the email, but not in the text portion of the email.

Other times the unsubscribe button is an image ... and if you don't download images willy-nilly from random servers when you get email you can't see it, and thus have no idea there is a way to unsubscribe.

I could go on, email is starting to get more and more frustrating and I have gotten to a point that I simply don't care anymore. I will press the junk button in Google Mail or in my mail client, and in the future I will not receive messages from that company. Does stuff get caught because of that, which shouldn't get caught? Sure, stuff like password reset emails, or billing renewal reminders, but overall I am sick and tired of every little thing I do online causing me to receive an email.

<comment><USER4> I miss the days when email was plain text.

I've started to filter off any email that has the word 'unsubscribe' in the body to my spam folder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> First, the page is cut off on Safari on an iPad. But I can get the gist of it.

More to the point, it's the piracy argument all over again. If I unsubscribe from a retailer's list, I wasn't going to buy anything from their mailings anyway. It's apparent that I had no intention of reading them. They're missing out on nothing.

But maybe I'll buy something in the future, who knows? If it was an otherwise pleasant experience I'll keep them in mind. When I unsubscribe, I hold no ill will toward the sender if they make it a one-click, easy unsubscribe. Make it a pain to unsubscribe, however, and get nothing in the future.

Take Musician's Friend as a prime example. My first and only purchase from them was a Fender Greta amp (highly recommended, BTW). I gave them (my gmail alias)+firstname.lastname@example.com. They took it. They also spam me every other day. Fine, I'll unsubscribe. But the unsubscribe form's regex rejects "+" and tells me the address is invalid. Too bad for you, MF, as I'll just filter your mail, the paper catalog that I didn't ask for will go straight to recycling without ever entering the house, and I'll bad-mouth you to anyone that asks. That's because post-sale MF came across as obnoxious.

<comment><USER6> I've come to expect being added to marketing lists after having a transaction with any business. (That doesn't mean I like it though, and it's one additional hassle that keeps me from shopping at new enterprises.) I agree, if you make it easy to unsubscribe, no ill will.

What is most irritating is those businesses that I have already unsubscribed from, or clicked a box saying I didn't want to be contacted, who, months later, start a new list and make the default subscribers everyone who has ever had any business with the company. Saying I don't want to get your marketing emails doesn't mean I don't want them until you invent a new category of marketing; it means I don't want them ever.

It's a lack of respect and it pisses me off.

<comment><USER7> The master at that is Logitech. Every six months or so they decide to start new irrelevant lists adding in every customer they have ever had for any product.

My other pet peeve is that unsubscribe is one click. Anything more is hostile, especially those that want you to login or perform similar tricks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I found the interface annoying. Here's a rough copy of the text:

— CUSTORA PRESENTS — Clive AND THE Unsubscribe (OR, WHAT'S COSTING RETAILERS $5.8 BILLION EACH YEAR)

Clive loves shopping online From soaps to socks to jellyfish food, if he can think of it, it's only a few clicks away from his doorstep. It's miraculous, if you think about it. Along with 77% of shoppers, Clive actually prefers to receive emails from online retailers more than any other medium. It's an easy way for him to stay in touch with his favorite brands, discover new things, and take advantage of some great deals. Unfortunately, Clive is also one of those people who barely reads marketing emails.

50%* of people admit to never or almost never reading emails from retailers.

It's understandable, given people receive an average of 147 emails* per day. That's a lot to sort through. And sometimes, if he gets a bad vibe, Clive will unsubscribe.

And here's what happens: In fact, each year, "unsubscribes" cost U.S. retailers an estimated $ 5.8 Billion*. Yikes. That's $111 Million per week. We looked into when and why people unsubscribe, and discovered some interesting things.

5% of people unsubscribe within the first week of subscribing

6.5% within the first month

And 8.5% within the first three months

We also asked people to list their most common reasons for unsubscribing.

"Too frequent" Listed by 67% of people

"Too generic, not personalized" Listed by 63% of people

"Not relevant" Listed by 60% of people

"I hardly buy anything from them" Listed by 55% of people

So, back to Clive. How do you keep him "subscribed"?

Email works. Just keep it classy. Email's a really great way for retailers to stay in touch with millions of people, and customers actually prefer it over other direct mediums. The more tailored, the better.

First impressions matter. Those first few emails can make or break a relationship with a new customer, so make them count.

Timing + relevancy = happier customers It's all about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. Not too much, and not so little that they forget why they love you.

We believe online marketing can be a whole lot better, and we're getting started with email.

EVERY CUSTOMER HAS A STORY. MAKE THE MOST OF IT.

</comment><comment><USER9> You'd better hope that I unsubscribe. Because that's just a signal to you that I don't want what you're sending.

If I get really pissed off, I will go look up what else you've sent. Who else is complaining. Where you're hosted. How you got my address.

And then I start complaining. Not to you. To your webhosting company. To your email hoster. To your upstream network vendors. All of them have AUPs that say "you won't use our service to send spam".

And on a bad day for you, they listen. They see the complaint from me. They actually investigate. And maybe my complaint is the one that suggests to them that you aren't paying enough to be worth this aggravation.

Don't send spam. If you're going to send me email, we had better have an existing relationship where I actually handed you my email address and positively clicked on "Please send me email about stuff you think is going to interest me", or you had best be sending me a personal email written by a person expressly to me about a specific subject.

</comment><comment><USER10> The _only_ opt-in email marketing I've ever been glad to receive, and not soon unsubscribed from, are those that presented an exceptional offer in the _very first mailing_.

It seems like such an obvious engagement tactic, I'm surprised so many companies don't employ it.

(That said, those same emails will piss me off more than anything else if I've JUST purchased the product for full price. Another seemingly obvious fail.)

</comment><comment><USER11> From where does the cost come? Magic? Because it is nowhere to be seen.

<comment><USER12> For sources of the numbers, click on the link in the lower left of the page, and a methodologies window will appear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, for retailers specifically, the only one I actually read is Newegg. That's because, not infrequently, I've gotten a really good deal on one of their limited-time "Shellshockers". Just got a 180GB Intel 330 SSD for $100, for instance.

Why would I bother reading an email, and thus engaging your brand when _you_ want me to, if you're not going to offer me something I can't get by visiting your website when _I_ want to?

I bet the most successful retailer email campaigns are those that actually throw a bone, even if it's a little one like my new SSD, to their customers every once in a while.

</comment><comment><USER14> I couldn't care less what unsubscribes are costing retailers. Obviously it's not enough. The better question is what are _subscribes costing consumers_? How much of _our_ time is wasted sifting through spam marketing emails?

</comment><comment><USER15> OT: the site is hardly readable on ipad

</comment><comment><USER16> Ok, so overlooking the horrible mobile-hostile design of this site, the logic here is delusional. An unsubscribe==better value to the business because at the end of the day you have a mailing list of customers interests in your messaging, and these are the people likely to be buying anyways. Plus, that's one less e-mail you have to pay for distribution on. wtf?!?

</comment><comment><USER17> People receive on average 147 emails a day? 77% wants a newsletter?

Somebody gotta get his facts right.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is it bad that I'm as interested in the facts on this page as the graphic design? I had no idea Custora had killer designers onboard.

</comment><comment><USER19> I like the presentation. Very cool js slideshow.</comment>


Show HN: Actuflow – stop procrastinating using a smartphone - <AUTHOR> https://acture.app/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting. I'll give it a shot right now!

Just for curiosity, how hard was it to release this for both android and ios? (I assume since its free that its only a side project)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! Thanks for trying.

Yes, you are right that's a side project.

I spent a lot of hours after work playing with Swift on iOS and Kotlin on Android. But thanks to good Google and Apple documentation it wasn't a bad journey.

But about the release process, it was much harder with iOS than Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Trying it out, would be cool if you could configure it to only ask every 2mins or something

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for a try. It sounds like a great idea. I will take it into account. Are you on iOS or Android?

<comment><USER3> On Android!

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought about such reminders, but I have a concern that it will be too much notifications. But anyway, it can be optional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is simple and genius at the same time. Great idea, will try it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Waiting for your feedback :)

<comment><USER4> I don't know if this would work on iOS (or if it's already implemented), but any idea if I can make the app pop up directly every time I unlock the phone? This would mean that I don't need open the app manually myself /keep the app on top before I lock the screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not possible to overlay apps after unlocking on iOS. But I found a way how to change UX to fulfil that. All intentions should be marked as failed or successful after finishing, so the user should back to the app before phone lock. So by locking your phone in the app, you will not forget about filling intention next time. That's the only allowed way I found for iOS. There is a way how to show your app immediately after unlock, but it requires using private API that is not allowed by the App Store.

<comment><USER4> OK thanks. Great idea nonetheless!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The AI Top Gun That Can Beat the Military's Best - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3662656/The-AI-Gun-beat-military-s-best-Pilots-hail-aggresive-dynamic-software-losing-repeatedly.html <comment><USER2> A more informative link: [http://phys.org/news/2016-06-video-games-artificial- intellig...](http://phys.org/news/2016-06-video-games-artificial-intelligence- tactical.html)

The paper itself from the Journal of Defense Managment (pdf): [http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/genetic-fuzzy-based- artif...](http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/genetic-fuzzy-based-artificial- intelligence-for-unmanned-combat-aerialvehicle-control-in-simulated-air- combat-missions-2167-0374-1000144.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: Using Containers for Local Compilation - <AUTHOR> Are there any team/projects out there that are regularly using docker containers or similar in lieu of natively installed compilers/build stacks?<p>This questions is specifically not focused at CI/CD pipelines but what developers are using for day to day build tasks when working locally. If so what stacks are they working with? <comment><USER2> Hi there, we have developed Earthly ([https://github.com/earthly/earthly](https://github.com/earthly/earthly)) exactly for this use case. We hear about this use case quite often, but is a bit cumbersome with Makefile+Dockerfile.</comment>


Show HN: Hack on Notion with TypeScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/saasify-sh/notion <comment><AUTHOR> Just published a set of focused open source TypeScript packages for working with the unofficial Notion API, Notion types, and related utilities.

This is the first release of a larger project that extends Notion via native react rendering coming soon.</comment>


The J1 Forth CPU - <AUTHOR> http://www.excamera.com/sphinx/fpga-j1.html <comment><USER3> Another Forth CPU by the Forth creator Chuck Moore and colleagues: [http://www.greenarraychips.com/](http://www.greenarraychips.com/). It's has 144 cores on a square centimeter chip.

Each core is equipped with its own little data and control Forth stacks, making it a fully fledged independent computer (that's why the more precise term is "multi-computer chips" rather than "multi-core").

The cores talk to each other via communication ports. Writing to a port suspends the core until the peer reads the value. And vice-versa. (similar to channels in Go language).

Some other interesting properties (quoting the docs):

A computer can read from multiple ports [corresponds to Go's select] and can execute instructions directly from those ports.

FINE GRAINED ENERGY CONTROL: ... The read or write instruction is automatically suspended in mid-operation if the address [one or more of communication ports and I/O pin] is inactive, consuming energy only due to transistor leakage currents, resuming when the address becomes active.

NO CLOCKS: Most computing devices have one or more clocks that synchronize all operations. When a conventional computer is powered up and waiting to respond quickly to stimuli, clock generation and distribution are consuming energy at a huge rate by our standards, yet accomplishing nothing. This is why "starting" and "stopping" the clock is a big deal and takes much time and energy for other architectures. Our architecture explicitly omits a clock, saving energy and time among other benefits.

[http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/PB002-100...](http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/PB002-100822-GA- Arch.pdf)

<comment><USER4> "A fully fledged independent computer"? You need several such "computers" to compute an MD5 checksum according to an application note at their site.

Anything anyone in the industry dares to call a "core" (apart from NVIDIA's ALUs misnamed as "CUDA cores" or whatever) blows a GA "computer" out of the water, in particular, in terms of memory (you'll get kilobytes or more likely tens of kilobytes of cache and/or RAM per core.) And anything anyone in the industry dares to call a "computer"... well, it's in an entirely different league from a GA "computer", for starters, well, damned _peripherals_ are considered to be a part of a "computer".

Good luck running anything of use on 144 tiny cores only talking to their neighbors, only supporting 18b integer arithmetic and having tiny RAMs for code and data. (Do you even get a DRAM interface? How about Ethernet?)

The chip is a bloody impressive achievement - an async design, no reliance on standard EDA tools, etc. etc. And perhaps it has its uses in really - <USER2> \- energy-efficient applications with very - _very_ \- limited functionality.

But the "multi-computer" business... let's say that it makes GPU marketing look honest.

<comment><USER5> It's an interesting chip. You can _implement_ a SRAM interface[1] using a few cores. And also generate a VGA signal[2]. Or run 10base 10 ethernet[e].

It's probably better to compare it with a FPGA that allows for rapid programming, than a multicore computer. Only you can sort of configure the whole thing as a SOC. Which has great power management. I'd love to see some updates from Greenarrays -- there hasn't been much news lately.

[1] [http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/AP003-110...](http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/AP003-110810-SRAM.pdf)

[e] [http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/AN007-141...](http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/AN007-141112-10BASET.pdf)

[2] [http://www.colorforth.com/haypress.htm](http://www.colorforth.com/haypress.htm)

<comment><USER4> How about a DRAM interface? That is both necessary for sufficiently complex applications, and damned hard. An FPGA can do it, for some frequency (though many FPGAs come with a hard DRAM interface to save area and improve the frequency.) This thing? I rather doubt.

Also, "implement an SRAM interface" \- perhaps, but not one particularly easy to program against, I believe.

<comment><USER5> I don't think it's a particularly good fit if what one really wants is the equivalent of a "PC" (ie: n cores of ~broadwell cpu with x gigs of ram) -- I tried to highlight that it is an entirely different system, and one which allows for some interesting streaming, straight forward, approaches to solving many problems. You won't be running python on this thing, but that doesn't mean that you can't do some interesting signal processing -- at _extremely_ low power.

Maybe "really, really smart dsp" is a way to look at it...

<comment><USER4> Interesting signal processing - perhaps.

I mentioned DRAM because

* An FPGA could do it and the GA chips probably can't,

* You can't do a whole lot of embedded DSP apps without DRAM - it's not a question of "trying to be a PC", you just need memory to store stuff :-) and SRAM is too expensive.

Without DRAM, you're pretty much limited to what you call "streaming"; a whole lot of things don't work without being able to keep a working set in RAM. I don't argue that the chip is useless, just that it's useless in a huge range of use cases including many embedded ones, which is a sharp contrast to the connotations of its self-description as a "multi-computer chip"... And BTW even a really really _dumb_ DSP chip can usually do DRAM :-)

I look at it as "an array of incredibly weak _and_ energy-efficient cores" :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I loved Forth as a kid, I thought it was a great language to learn on.

I think that it's much better than BASIC for small projects and I would love to see someone make an arduino or BASIC STAMP type product (maybe kickstarter it?) with a little bit of an ecosystem.

I think a lot of people who are hardware focused but need to do some software would benefit, and software people who want to get into hardware would benefit too.

<comment><USER7> I have something along those lines in progress now... if you mail me at the address on this page:

[http://excamera.com/sphinx/index.html](http://excamera.com/sphinx/index.html)

I will let you know when it launches.

<comment><USER8> I am new to FPGAs. I have a Terasic DE0 Nano. Would I be able to get the J1 running on it with the Verilog code, or do I need to translate it? Does the DE0 Nano have what it takes? I appreciate if you could answer my beginner questions. Thanks.

<comment><USER9> You'll need to change the RAM primitive to the Altera equivalent, but it should fit just fine. Then you have to figure out how you're going to interface to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wrote a huge amount of Forth (polyForth) in the '90s and was always fascinated by the simple definition of a Forth machine. When implemented on many uProcessors, you only used a small subset of the available assembly language instructions. Even back then, people were building custom CPUs to optimize Forth's execution speed.

Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER11> Well check out this project: Andrew makes an entire GPS receiver with a FORTH CPU as a side project...

[http://www.aholme.co.uk/GPS/Main.htm](http://www.aholme.co.uk/GPS/Main.htm)

</comment><comment><USER12> This alumnus of Harris' RTX product group salutes you.

</comment><comment><USER13> Maybe a little off topic, but the comp.lang.forth mailing list is quite active, and a bit.. strange.

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.lang.forth](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.lang.forth)

I often wonder what kind of jobs a lot of the posters do. I don't know much about the language but it's quite fun to poke around and see how small the community is.

</comment><comment><USER14> I was amazed when my best friend wrote a full game in Forth while he was still in high-school. I couldn't do it, and I'm still puzzled about it :)

<comment><USER8> I found reda4 a forth created by Pablo Reda. He created a whole environment - examples, games, built-in sprite editors, text editors, compiles with FASM to a very small exe for Windows, and although people have criticized the aesthetics, I find them pleasantly retro and quirky. I will be attempting to enter my second Ludum Dare using it.

      https://github.com/phreda4/reda4

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone have any good links to tiny fourth implementations with examples?

<comment><USER16> jonesforth is a nice literary programming tutorial for making a forth using x86 assembly; and then forth - the same approach would work for implementing it in js, C or other languages.

[https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/jonesforth-git- reposit...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/jonesforth-git-repository/)</comment></comment>


Dotcom search warrants declared illegal - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/dotcom-search-warrants-declared-illegal-ca-122374 <comment><USER2> I'm not declaring this a conspiracy. It could have been as easily as some prosecutor somewhere letting zeal exceed judgement. But...

I somehow get the impression that what ever forces perpetrated this don't really care it wasn't legal, so long as MU got ruined for some reason, any reason. Even if it was by accident.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure. Such a ruling like this one would give Mr. Dotcom "do not touch this guy" status (if he wins, expect him coming back from ashes and starting this or another online business, whether on the edge of legality, or not, still making big bucks), that means next time a prosecutor will try to go after him whether due to RIAA/political pressures or not, they will be highly discouraged by the outcome of this case.

Such a ruling would also encourage others to do things on the edge of the law because others got away with it. So no, by any means they wanted to put Mr. Dotcom behind bars and keep him there while thousands of his hard drives rot and fall apart.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't assume the authorities in question had any of this well mapped out (their preparation indicates they didn't), nor that they're all that interested in this case (it's not that high on the todo list). If this were strictly a matter of stopping Dotcom, and it were that critically important, they'd simply kill him if they couldn't beat him in court (heart attack, he is after all morbidly obese). We kill foreigners 24/7 around the globe for all sorts of reasons (war on drugs, war on terrorism, who knows what else), they could just internally label him an intellectual property terrorist, Obama signs off on an assassination order, and goodnight.

I believe destroying MU was thrown together mostly haphazardly out of desperation. This is an annoying sideshow for an organization like the FBI. They're doing the bidding of a higher up master, that is doing the bidding of the money in Hollywood.

<comment><USER5> "We kill foreigners 24/7 around the globe for all sorts of reasons (war on drugs, war on terrorism, who knows what else), they could just internally label him an intellectual property terrorist, Obama signs off on an assassination order, and goodnight."

Seriously, what are you suggesting? That the US assassinates prominent citizens of allied nations inside allied nations for no other reason but to support the business interests of large multinational corporations?

Are we really seen to be such a mafia state as this, now? Honestly, when has this ever happened?

<comment><USER6> We've funded coups <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Honduras> and instigated armies against their own people <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre> in order to support business interests.

<comment><USER7> I'm sure these people we "instigated" had no personal motivations in matter at all.

<comment><USER6> You really think they'd turn their guns on their own citizens just to break up a union dispute with an American corporation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Its actually not too rare for these to be declared illegal. The problem is that most judiciary offer no protection in this case. Fruit of the forbidden tree is not a world wide principle.

</comment><comment><USER9> This appears to be related to the raid on his house, is the seizure of all of the servers in VA still valid? That is where I'm sure the majority of the evidence related to the case lies and if that is still valid I would think there is still a major case to be had.

</comment><comment><USER10> I guess that since the farcical attempt at pressuring NZ into submission failed, a full-scale war on NZ is now MAFIAA's only option. This shouldn't be very hard to arrange - NZ surely must have WMDs, no?

<comment><USER11> New Zealand is probably one of the most unlikely nations to harbour WMDs ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand%27s_nuclear- free_zo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand%27s_nuclear-free_zone))

<comment><USER12> Please don't confuse me with facts, I already have an opinion!

(I assume the OP refers to the Iraq war which was justified with WMD that never were found)

<comment><USER13> Actually, if I understand the wikipedia link, the nuclear free zone allows nuclear weapons.

<comment><USER11> > prohibiting any New Zealand citizen or resident "to manufacture, acquire, > possess, or have any control over any nuclear explosive device."

<comment><USER14> That seems designed to allow NATO enclaves.

<comment><USER15> NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; New Zealand is in the South Pacific.

We haven't allowed any naval vessel carrying nuclear material (be it for weapons or power supply) to enter our waters since 1984. It's always been quite a point of contention with the US. It also happens to be a point of pride for the grand majority of Kiwis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So who goes to jail over this? I mean, it's "illegal" isn't it? So that implies someone must get some jail time for it?

<comment><USER17> No, that's not implied at all. The remedy for most "illegal" things is repayment of damages suffered, or a statutory fine. Nor can you imprison an inanimate entity, like the government that carried out the illegal warrant.

<comment><USER18> How convenient.

<comment><USER19> What's convenient ? ? The inability to imprison inanimate entities ? Isn't that... you know... logic.

Maybe you're speaking of the fact that most democratic judicial system have a tendency not to send everyone to prison ? I understand that this seems strange in US... but in most places, prison is really the last resort. And I'm happy that people are not sent to jail jail for mistrials. Or for abuse of the judicial system. If I had a risk of imprisonment... I'll probably not even risk any judicial process... too risky.

I think your being quite silly in there.

<comment><USER20> I think the point is, there's a line of thinking that when anyone, a person or an entity, uses force against someone in a way determined to be illegal (not just making some mistake on paperwork), some _person_ should be put in prison over it. Whether it's the leader of the illegal operation, or the bureaucrat who authorized it.

A few bureaucrats and agents would end up in prison due to mistakes, but _private citizens_ already end up in prison due to law enforcement mistakes. If government employees don't like taking that risk, they shouldn't be government employees. Better a few government employees behind bars "unfairly" than more than a few citizens behind bars "unfairly".

<comment><USER19> I'm sorry, but you have a terrible conception of Justice.

We should never think that prison "should" be the solution for anything. That's the reason there is 4.5 times more persons in prison per capita in US than in NZ [1].

In continental Europe we tend to consider that prison is there as a punishment for really severe things (killings, sexual abuse, severe drug trafficking etc.) OR a way to avoid reiteration. If there is no risk of reiteration and the damage was light, then fines and other non-socially disruptive punishments are better suited.

And your conception that : private citizens always end up in prison so should government representatives, is wrong. If private citizens always end up in prison, then that's a problem that should be solved... not ampliated by putting more people behind the bars. Your vision almost sounds to me like a bitter revenge : "Hiii, we pooooor citizens always go to jail, they should taste their own medicine". No, the least prison, the better.

The best example of this is your terrible transformation of an important Judicial principle. You wrote : « Better a few government employees behind bars "unfairly" than more than a few citizens behind bars "unfairly". »

Dude. Read yourself. There is no way, people behind the bars unfairly is better than anything. It's the wrost thing. Remember the Blackstone Principle : "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer".

And finally, do not forget that police is by essence making mistakes, it's impossible not to do, because they do something called investigation. If they were only to act in full certainty, then they would almost never act. They gather data and facts about a possible crime, and they have to use force to do that, and then they send all of this to a judge who will decide if there is enough to effectively find someone guilty or not. What you are asking for, is that police only act when they're so certain of the guilt that there is almost no need anymore for a trial. The judicial system cannot work like that. You must allow police force to make mistakes... or we're going to end up with police acting like Judge Dredd.

Which by the way does not mean there is not going to be any punishment, and if they do some really grave trespassing, then they might even end up in prison. It's a question of scale.

[1] [http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime- pris...](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners- per-capita)

<comment><USER21> > We should never think that prison "should" be the solution for anything. > That's the reason there is 4.5 times more persons in prison per capita in US > than in NZ

It's because in the US, prisons are a business venture.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/private-prisons- buy...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/private-prisons-buying-state- prisons_n_1272143.html)

"Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest operator of for- profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for "challenging corrections budgets." In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus _an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full_"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone have a quick summary of this?

<comment><USER23> Not a quick summary but...

This line from the ruling PDF basically explains why the searches were declared illegal:

"The warrants did not adequately describe the offences to which they related. Indeed they fell well short of that. They were general warrants, and ash such, are invalid."

The judge then goes on to say:

"Before I leave this topic, there is one further peculiarity about the form in which the warrants were sought and issued which I record: the applications did not extend to racketeering, or to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. It included money laundering rather than conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Attached to the warrant was this document that stipulated what could be searched and seized by the authorities. It listed this particular part:

"All records and things in whatever form, including communications, relating to the activities of the Mega Conspiracy, including but not limited to, Megaupload, Megavideo and Megastuff Limited"

The judge says about this (in reference to Dotcom's lawyer I believe):

"I accept his submission that without definition of the 'Mega Conspiracy' it is hard to imagine what falls within this category"

Another juicy bunch of tidbits are these:

"Assuming then that the police were operating under a valid warrant, what were the police entitled to do in this case? There were required to conduct a preliminary sorting exercise at the premises, as the warrants could not authorise an officer to removed from the premises indiscriminately all documents and records. In this case the police faced the additional difficulty that they were not the investigating officers and had limited knowledge of the operation."

"Given the state of knowledge of the police, it would have been proper approach for them to involve officers from the FBI in this exercise. Section 46(1) authorises the use by police of "such assistants as may be reasonable in the circumstances for the purpose of the entry and search. Because assistants would have been foreign law enforcement officials it maybe have been prudent to have them as named assistants in the warrants authorising the search."

"Providing the police act reasonable in so doing, following the initial sorting exercise, they were then entitled to remove from the premises those things which at the time they reasonable believed contained material which might be of evidential value."

Short story is: the warrants were too broad, didn't accurately describe what the items were being seized for in relating to the offences and thus the warrants were unlawful not to mention the police technically weren't allowed to seize what they did from the properties in the warrants.

<comment><USER24> > _"All records and things in whatever form, including communications, > relating to the activities of the Mega Conspiracy, including but not limited > to, Megaupload, Megavideo and Megastuff Limited"_

That bit reads like someone wrote up a search warrant after watching a few episodes of CSI: Miami.

<comment><USER25> More like a police force looking to impress the FBI bent over backwards. What a bunch of provincial clowns. I'm sad to be a New Zealander when stuff like this happens (see the police raids on so called 'terrorists' and the recent court shambles for more of the same).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I took it to mean that by and large there is no support for nuclear weapons by New Zealanders.

<comment><USER26> I was 15 at the time and I recall my family being anti nuke but not anti american. We banned any nuclear powered ships from entering the harbour from memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What's somewhat amusing about this, perhaps, is that NZ up until recently did not even have a "Bill of Rights". And the inspiration for it came from guess where? Many years ago, one of NZ's former Ministers of Justice spent some years in the US (U. of Iowa? I have forgotten) and when he returned to the Antipodes he brought the idea home with him. Though there is no "constitution", and Parliament is still supreme, NZ does have a Bill of Rights. And though it's rather unusual in a Parliamentary system and arguably "toothless", it was mentioned in this opinion!

Now, looking at this series of events: the use of the NZ equivalent of a "SWAT team" in order to take an allleged copyright infringer (with no history of violent crime) into custody (how much did that show of force cost the NZ taxpayer?), and the way they handled the evidence, it's the US that seems to be lacking procedural safeguards. Or maybe they are just ignoring them.

NZ is now put in the strange position of reviewing the actions of the country which is supposed to be the "world leader" in concepts like freedom from unlawful seizures of property; heck, they inspired NZ to adopt a Bill of Rights!

Wozniak was recently in NZ and visited Dotcom.

At least one prominent NZ musician has stated he's behind Dotcom's cause.

Whether or not it was intentional it seems the way this case was handled by whomever was making the decisions is backfiring on them on the public relations front.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, we don't have a Bill of Rights. We have no supreme law. Nor should we. That just drags large, societal disputes into the courts rather than the democratically elected Parliament. That means that the highest courts become political battlefields. See also political appointments to the USA's Supreme Court.

The Bill of Rights Act and the Human Rights Act are ordinary law. If a future Parliament wanted to breach the rights provided in those statutes, they need to face the political force of doing so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> When I first read the title I thought that search engines that all .com domain searches have been declared illegal and now the Kiwis cannot search on .com domains (I know that sounds weird, more like meaningless :)).

Edit: Now the title has been updated, previously it was: <Dotcom searches declared illegal (judgment full text)></comment>


Top 3 Code Editors For the iPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2010/12/code-editors-for-the-ipad.php <comment><USER2> Having used the iPad quite a bit, I don't think code editors are the problem when it comes to coding. After all, you can do that in pretty much anything.

The biggest disadvantage would be the keyboard. Especially how it handles "weird" characters that the average coder needs to be first-level rather than hidden somewhere deep.

Here's a good idea on how the keyboard could be greatly improved -> <http://rosscarter.com/2010/320.html>

<comment><USER3> A _fixed_ layout of a _virtual_ keyboard is a silly problem created by Apple — keyboard customization is a private API.

Hopefully the restriction will be relaxed in future versions of iOS.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't call enforcing consistency in a primary interaction mode "silly." There would be a considerable increase in cognitive load if a user had to parse what they're seeing every time a keyboard appears. You'd benefit the tail (e.g., people who want to code on an iPad) but reduce utility for the majority of users. Like most things, it's a trade-off, and Apple usually (almost always?) lands on the side of simplicity in that trade-off.

<comment><USER3> They did it successfully for Numbers.app.

All applications are curated, so they could add "Confusing keyboard" to long list of rejections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> FTP is a relevant feature while SSH and source control support aren't?

</comment><comment><USER6> I may be daft, but what is the point of coding on an iPad when you cannot compile or execute the code on it? (Except for Javascript I suppose.)

<comment><USER7> If you take a bus/train to/from work, it would allow you to hack out an idea on the go and test it when you arrive. Of course, that assumes you don't already have a laptop that you could use.

<comment><USER8> I'm actually one of those minority of people who have completely stopped taking my laptop anywhere (and when the time comes to upgrade to a new machine, will absolutely be getting a desktop).

I used to write code "on the go" in a computation notebook (actually I do that even when I'm not on the go), and only after getting it working the way I want do I actually enter it into a computer.

Typing in code on a portable device has pretty much replaced my notebook, and I'm more than happy with the tradeoffs entailed in using that type of device.

I should caveat everything by saying that I'm not a professional software developer (I make my living breaking software, not making it), so my use case for development might not match up with most people's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is anybody using their iPad with org-mode? I've installed MobileOrg, but I don't really care to subscribe to the whole workflow they've gone for (with push and pull commands on the emacs side, and staging directories). I'd really just like to find a text editor with support for Dropbox and a basic understanding of org files. Bonus points if the editor can manipulate outlines and provide a quick asterisk button.

</comment><comment><USER10> Forget code editors for the ipad. What about code editors for the mac? Your options are jedit (hideous) or smultron (buggy abandonware), or pay through the nose for textmate (also abandonware)...

<comment><USER11> BBedit (for anything), Xcode (for non-web & iDevices), Coda (for web & collaborative), NetBeans (for anything), Komodo (for javascript?). And others I'm probably forgetting.

And yes, most on that list cost money. But nothing a couple hours or so of work couldn't cover.

<comment><USER12> Espresso for web development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If there was a code editor with tight Git integration and easy connection to a build service, I might not actually need a laptop. But I guess that is still some ways off.

<comment><USER14> Come on, you'd have to be soft in the head to do that. The novelty would quickly give way to frustration.

<comment><USER13> Maybe, yes. But, small machine, ten hours of battery life might still be enough to keep me there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can second a recommendation for Textastic. Specifically, it uses Fraise's syntax definition files, so it has support for a crapload of languages: ([http://www.textasticapp.com/manual/lessons/Which_file_types_...](http://www.textasticapp.com/manual/lessons/Which_file_types_are_supported.html))

I see people complaining that you'd have to be an idiot to write code on a touchscreen device, but I honestly don't have any issue with it.

<comment><USER15> Ironically, I think the one language it doesn't support is Objective-C.

edit: sorry, correction, I must have been thinking of the other one, Code2Go, which also features a lot of languages and also lets you run them on a web- bound service, but doesn't do Objective-C (ironically)

Textastic is a very neat program. Especially useful if you just want to review code. Very nice highlighting/search feature. Looks like they're going to add Dropbox support too.

<comment><USER8> Actually, it does support Objective C (at least according to their web page, I've never edited an Objective C file in it).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I absolutley must code on my ipad I use Mides. It's quite good as far as ipad code editors go- but coding on an ipad is still a terrible experience.

</comment><comment><USER17> I would be very concerned if any of my development team announced they were going to use their iPads for developing code. The iPad is a device that is best used for CONSUMING information, not creating it. Developers need large screens, efficient processing and multi tasking. Perhaps some small work could be done (like reviewing), but not serious development.

Brett Miller <http://www.customsoftwarebypreston.com/android-iphone-ipad>

<comment><USER8> I keep seeing comments like this posted in this article, and maybe I'm just being defensive; but I kind of think that's a dangerously dismissive point of view.

I think developers have been creating applications long before they had "large screens, efficient processing and multi tasking". I won't argue that these things make development easier, but they are certainly not a requirement.

Every day I hear about people using these devices for creating content, and every day the trope about them only being for "consuming information" seems more and more absurd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why is this getting up voted?

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.

I don't think any hacker would seriously consider coding on a touch based interface.

> If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, > we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it.

See title.</comment>


Ask HN: With all our software built on so many dependencies, is anything secure? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> No because there is a trade off between always getting the latest patch of your dependencies (for bug fixes, to maximise security) and not getting the latest patch (because of potential bugs or malice, to maximise security).

I am thinking of both compile time code dependencies and runtime dependencies (e.g. Windows updates).

</comment><comment><USER3> No.

</comment><comment><USER4> Correction: with all your software.</comment>


Ask HN: my website doesn't work in Opera (it works in Firefox,chrome,explorer)) - <AUTHOR>

www.winteriscomming.com (just test domain name,i know it's wrong)
Don't know what to do to make it work with Opera. Any help? Thanks.
It's theme from themeforest, and it worked until I made some changes, but I can't remember what changes exactly.
EDIT: wow,just downloaded Opera at my workplace, and it works.Don't know what's the problem with Opera at my home (latest version) <comment><USER2> Seems to work OK in Opera here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Tobben.Seems that something is wrong with my Opera at home.I will reinstall it.</comment></comment>


It's possible to determine your pulse based on how you click. - <AUTHOR> http://pulse.media.mit.edu

<comment><AUTHOR> If anybody has any comments or feature requests, please share. This is my grad school project. I still have another year to make this thing kick ass, but it's a decent start for now.

<comment><USER2> Very nice - isn't the HN title a bit misleading, though? I was under the impression that it would find my pulse rate :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Isn't that what marketing is? Telling a version of the truth but doing it in a way that leads minds to another ideal? Apple, Think Different.</comment></comment></comment>