Romania orders investigative journalists to disclose sources under GDPR - <AUTHOR> https://www.occrp.org/en/40-press-releases/presss-releases/8875-occrp-strongly-objects-to-romania-s-misuse-of-gdpr-to-muzzle-media?fbclid=IwAR3oyyn-S4AchYYnsQlw_jZASnHclQxLPwS66IsgF19W73WjtFXYU-FhuYM <comment><USER2> This is particularly concerning given that GDPR specifically requires member states, in enforcing GDPR, allow exceptions for journalism and documents/data "in the public interest." Considering the funds at the center of these Facebook posts went missing from EU coffers its clear the information falls squarely within both exemptions. At least it's a civil case. The fines for non-compliance with the request will surely add up quickly but I suspect this will make its way through the court system and reach a just conclusion.

<comment><USER3> > This is particularly concerning given that GDPR specifically requires member > states, in enforcing GDPR, allow exceptions for journalism and > documents/data "in the public interest."

That may not apply, because of the clever (evil too, but also clever) way they are doing this.

If they were asking as data subjects where the data came from (which data subjects have a right to under Article 15 1(g)), then journalism and public interest exceptions should apply.

But that's not what they are doing. They aren't coming in as data subjects asking about the data held on them. They are coming in as an Article 51 supervisory authority in charge monitoring GDPR in their country. They are claiming to be doing the tasks Article 57 assigns to the supervisory authority, and exercising the powers Article 58 gives them for that.

Presumably, someone who the journalists wrote about alleged that the journalists were not complying with GDPR in how they obtained and used the data.

And so now the supervisory authority is investigating that. Article 58 gives them power "to obtain, from the controller and the processor, access to all personal data and to all information necessary for the performance of its tasks". They can probably argue that in order to decide if a journalism or public interest exception applies, they have to know where the data came from and how it was obtained.

Assuming things are as corrupt as people have claimed, I'd expect they will go in, and if they obtain the information on the sources, they will rule that a journalism or public interest exception applies, and dismiss whatever sham GDPR complaint they had someone file to set this off.

<comment><USER4> Your post makes it sound as if, no matter how corrupt this is, their demand is within the letter of the law.

If so, that is a pretty nasty unintended consequence.

<comment><USER5> Usual thing with these laws, within the letter of the law but not within the spirit of it.

<comment><USER6> They write laws with ink not ectoplasm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well this was certainly an interesting link form the same page:

[https://www.occrp.org/en/28-ccwatch/cc-watch- indepth/8813-a-...](https://www.occrp.org/en/28-ccwatch/cc-watch- indepth/8813-a-scandal-a-murder-and-a-mystery-in-bulgaria)

"But the victim of the brutal rape and murder was Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova — and her last broadcast was about the theft of hundreds of millions of euros from European Union-funded programs in her country.

Even those who had never heard of the so-called "GP scandal" certainly know about it now.

In the program, which aired just six days before she was killed, Marinova interviewed reporters from OCCRP's Bulgarian partner, Bivol and its Romanian partner, the RISE Project."

<comment><USER8> This murder was most certainly not related to that report.

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/viktoria- mar...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/viktoria-marinova- murder-rape-bulgaria-man-kill-journalist-stade-severin- krassimirov-a8592051.html)

<comment><USER9> The 21 year old guy said he doesn't remember raping, robbing, or murdering her because he "blacked out" but he says he regrets it?

You believe that? That means he doesn't have to supply a single detail of how the rape and murder even happened. And the DNA evidence? Trivial to link to somebody in a corrupt system. If he's going to confess he needs to provide details, like if she was sodomized, where he hit her, etc. Plus what drugs was he on? Either he could still test positive or they can hair test him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They are one of the best journalists in Romania, of course they want to shut it down. If this goes their way we are doomed not only because they shut down Rise Project but the entire media.

<comment><USER11> The entire non-afilliated and non-partisan media. Or what you'd otherwise call the _free press_. The rest it's just propaganda machines in the hands of special interests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure if I understand. How is a data privacy law being used to get an organization to reveal its sources? The article mentions something about the government needing to know how data were stored, but that's all I could see that addressed this question.

Edit: Comments filled me in. The regulation seems to relate in part to people having the right to know who is collecting what data on them.

<comment><USER2> The source presumably had the information lawfully and, under GDPR, owed a duty to the subject of the information to (i) protect it from disclosure, and (ii) notify the subject of the information in the event of a breach or unlawful disclosure. However, GDPR does not extend that duty to protect/disclose when the data in question is being used for journalistic purposes. I suspect the corrupt government is just as eager to find the source of their leak as they are to bully these journalists into silence.

This is what the demand letter requests[1]:

\- The purpose and legal basis of publishing on the Internet (Facebook) of personal data, at the adress [https://www.facebook.com/notes/rise- project/teleormanleaks/1...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/rise- project/teleormanleaks/1937024593056150;)

\- The date/period of time when the said personal data was published on your Facebook account;

\- The source from where the personal data published on Facebook was obtained;

\- The support (electronic and/or physical) where you stored the documents/images published on Facebook;

\- If the mobile storage devices (tablet, HDD, memory stick) were/are password protected or encrypted;

\- If you have other information/documents containing personal data of the said people;

\- If the personal data or documents that contain personal data of the said people were revealed in other circumstances - with the specification of these circumstances;

\- The way in which you informed the said people, in conformity with Art. 13-14 of GDPR.

[1] [https://www.occrp.org/en/16-other/other- articles/8876-englis...](https://www.occrp.org/en/16-other/other- articles/8876-english-translation-of-the-letter-from-the-romanian-data- protection-authority-to-rise-project)

edit: formatting

<comment><USER13> Still having trouble following. They're saying that:

"If you host someone's information for public view on a website, under the GPDR, you have to say where you got it. Therefore, if someone leaks our (the government's) information and you're hosting it, you must say who the leaker was."

Do I have that right?

<comment><USER2> Yes and no. GDPR only protects the data of natural persons, not the government. It's difficult to follow because the natural person in this case happens to be the leader of the ruling political party and the government's reason for using GDPR as an enforcement tool tenuous at best.

GDPR does two important things: it gives natural persons rights over the data collected about them[1] and creates requirements for when/how/why a company can collect data about natural persons as well as what can be done with it (called "processing").

GDPR requires companies get affirmative consent from individuals in order to collect information about them and to inform them about how that information is processed. Importantly, the definition of processing under GDPR includes gathering, disclosing, and disseminating information.

From reading the demand letter and not knowing much else about the case it seemed to me that the government is taking the position that the data transaction between the source and the journalists was unlawful because the subject owner of the data (the politician) did not consent and that whoever provided the information (assuming they were permitted to possess the data) did not fulfill their obligation to protect it.

If you take the journalism/politician/embezzlement piece out of the equation the logic makes more sense. If you live in the EU and someone gets a copy of your tax return and posts it on Facebook the government would do well to figure out how that person got your tax return and make sure your accountant (who rightly has a copy of your tax return) is sufficiently protecting your personal information. Where the logic falls apart is that GDPR is expressly not intended to apply to information collected for "journalistic purposes," as is the case in Romania.

[1] [https://advisera.com/eugdpracademy/knowledgebase/8-data- subj...](https://advisera.com/eugdpracademy/knowledgebase/8-data-subject- rights-according-to-gdpr/)

<comment><USER14> > GDPR requires companies get affirmative consent from individuals in order to > collect information

No it doesn't.

<comment><USER2> You're right. That's an oversimplification. GDPR requires a "lawful justification" to collect the information. The six justifications all speak to consent or fulfilling legal obligations (government investigation, court order, contract performance, etc). Consent is a critical component of GDPR, though, as evidenced by the hundreds of GDPR consent emails that swarmed our inboxes in May.

<comment><USER15> The consent emails are evidence that people in charge were mindlessly following some rules given by some consultants.

Not all of them were necessary, and some of them might be harmful to those sending them down the road: if they had a valid reason before but asked, question is what happens if the person on which data was collected rescinds their permission? Answering "you refuse, but we have a legit reason according to GDPR" is a recipe for bad PR at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Muie PSD.

Crooked, corrupted political party trying to escape from a massive corruption scandal using GDPR. Shameful.

<comment><USER17> +1, now go ahead and donate here: [https://www.riseproject.ro/donatii/](https://www.riseproject.ro/donatii/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is exactly what critics of GDPR feared will happen. Meanwhile, the pro- GDPR hysteria went on until the inevitable happened.

But hey, at least now every tiny blog will dump a huge pop up every time I visit telling me how important is my "privacy" to them.

<comment><USER19> Oh, which critics were worried about journalists?

I've read most if not all the GDPR topics on HN and all the GDPR critics I've read were basicslly worried about ad-funded businesses or an abstract concept of freedom from government control - as in let the market decide.

So it's far fetched to now claim that everyone was worried about journalism.

Furthermore, this is clearly political power abuse. Apparently the same organisation was raided for a "fraud" investigation. The problem's the corrupt government, not the privacy law.

<comment><USER18> That "abstract concept" \- well this is how it gets implemented in the real world.

A corrupt government and an overreaching regulation (look ma, two oxymorons in a single phrase!) and this is the price you pay for... for what? What did you actually gain from gdpr?

<comment><USER19> I believe this same government was in the news for essentially making bribes legal, as long as they were under a specific amount... and yet you think it's the GDPR of all things that enables their abuse?

The GDPR which mandates exceptions for journalism, by the way.

<comment><USER18> No, GDPR _also_ enables this abuse. Because GDPR was the criticized one, not that govt.

Criticized for enabling this, for chilling effects on European startups, for solidifying the monopoly of huge web behemoths like Facebook and google, and for generally creating a shitty everyday browsing excperience.

All for the absolutely ZERO benefits GDPR brought so far...

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't say it has brought zero benefits. Many websites now offer the possibility of rejecting tracking cookies, many companies have reconsidered and modified how they are treating user data, and we now have the right to request all our personal data from companies. Hopefully the situation will improve further when a few misbehaving companies are fined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Where are all the people who were saying GDPR is fine to be underspecified because European governments are benevolent and will choose to be good even when they don't have to?

<comment><USER22> I don't see how this is a problem of underspecification.

<comment><USER23> It is a problem with under-specification, because GDPR is supposed to be just a guiding framework and each government should implement its own compatible laws.

I also was afraid the Romanian government (and other autocratic governments) will do a poor job translating the GDPR into national law.

<comment><USER22> That's not true; the GDPR is not a Directive, but a Regulation, meaning the actual text applies directly, it's not transposed by the national legislators.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_(European_Union)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_\(European_Union\))

<comment><USER23> That's correct, however the GDPR contains some clauses allowing each state to pass national laws to supplement it, and I expect most states will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's strange to see the Romanian government try to use the GPDR to harass journalists. Governments have become increasingly shameless about going after the press so no cover is required.

The UK government [1] has done this to multiple journalists including the Guardian, BBC [2], Greenwald's partner famously among others under the 'terrorism act'.

The US govt [3] is liberally using subpoenas, court processes and threatening new laws [4] to force journalists to give up sources.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/14/government- ter...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/14/government-terrorism- journalists-investigatory-powers-bill-snooper-charter)

[2] [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-use- terro...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-use-terror- powers-to-seize-bbc-newsnight-journalists-laptop-a6712636.html)

[3] [https://pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/increasing-number- journa...](https://pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/increasing-number-journalists- have-recently-faced-subpoenas/)

[4] [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us- politic...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us- politics/trump-leaks-jeff-sessions-media-give-up-sources-a7877421.html)

[5] [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/us/james-risen-faces- jail...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/us/james-risen-faces-jail-time- for-refusing-to-identify-a-confidential-source.html)

[6] [https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/press_subpoena_sour...](https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/press_subpoena_source_obama.php)

</comment><comment><USER25> Is it really a revelation that governments cannot be trusted any more than corporations with our data? Their potential for abuse is even worse: you cannot opt-out of using government like you can a Facebook or a Google.

<comment><USER26> At least you can choose the government...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Fighting EU with their own tools such as GDPR. You should know also that these guys from romanian government been involved so much with changing laws and finding ways to avoid it until they become experts. On one hand they give social benefits and impression that people have sallary growth in order for government members to stay in power. Then they make their deals and cover their traces thru laws and other 'justice system'.

Also be aware also on the multisystem universe called 'parallel state'.. that guy Dragnea, dosen't have any limits!

</comment><comment> shaki-dora Because I have frequently seen conspiracy theories regarding George Soros even on HN, I want to take this opportunity to point out that the organisation reporting this is sponsored by him, via his Open Society Foundation.

It's also fairly representative of their projects. In the way that, having been marginally involved with some of the work they do in Eastern Europe, I went looking for information on their sponsors with the specific expectation of finding the OSF among them.

<comment><USER28> Your comment adds nothing to this discussion. Soros was NOT mentioned in this post or thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> For some reason HN turned against WikiLeaks over the past few years, but this kind of thing is why Wikileaks is a good idea. Governments should not have the option of forcing journalists to do anything.

<comment><USER30> For some reason, reason being it turned into a Russian propaganda outlet.

<comment><USER31> And disseminating anti-semitic propaganda on their Twitter account.

<comment><USER29> It's not clear who posted that and it's a small blip in the overall stellar reputation of WL's journalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Seriously, If you want to be a journalist reporting about own government corruption. Storing the data inside the local country is the worst option.

Why nobody thought about that?

<comment><USER33> OCCRP tech here. The data exists in at least four different legal regimes. This is a legal issue, and whatever supporting technical work can be done has been done.

<comment><USER34> > OCCRP tech here.

Thanks for your hard work! It would be great if you could share more in this discussion.

> The data exists in at least four different legal regimes.

Doesn't redundancy have a negative effect in this scenario? I would think four legal regimes would very approximately quadruple exposure. If they can't get you in one regime, they'll get you in another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Predictable outcome from an over-reaching law :/ Definitely some good parts to it, but it went way beyond what it needed to.

And I'm tired of clicking cookie popups. I literally do not care.

<comment><USER36> s/law/government/. You do realize that corrupt governments abusing good laws is daily life in Romania?

I mean, you're in the US, so you should definitely know what that's like.

<comment><USER37> > I mean, you're in the US, so you should definitely know what that's like.

Whataboutism aside, most definitely, hence the opposition to such "good" laws in the first place. The perspective of taking the good-with-the-bad status quo compared to the alternatives is rooted in rational precedence.

<comment><USER19> The way it looks, many laws are being torn apart in the US, including environmental protection, etc.

It's gonna be every man for himself, except that some of those "men" are corporations which will flatten the rest of you like cockroaches. Unless you're some CxO or something?

<comment><USER38> > many laws are being torn apart in the US

> It's gonna be every man for himself, except that some of those "men" are > corporations which will flatten the rest of you like cockroaches.

Absurd hysteria, and then some.

The US economy is more regulated today than it was in the 1980s and 1990s, when it comes to both the environment and corporations in general. Even the banks are all under the direct control and supervision of the Federal Reserve now.

Somehow it must have been a miracle people survived the 1980s and 1990s. It was back in those mad max days, when anarchy ruled the day, and corporations just massacred people at will.

Back in reality, very little has changed in the last two years, other than the hysteria has increased dramatically. Even the vaunted regulatory cuts have been miniscule in scale, less than 0.1% of Federal regulations have been cut; mostly all that has occured is a slow down in regulatory accumulation. Trump has been flat-out lying about regulatory reductions.

Environmental regulations - and a narrow subset at that, almost entirely focused on energy - have been rolled back about four years so far, to Obama's second term.

I'm skeptical a President + party controlled House and Senate have ever done less than what Trump & Co. have done in the last two years. The sole major change under this administration has been the corporate tax cut.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> If a government is doing this, it doesn't belong in the EU at all.

edit: the 'subjects' of the government however do need them in the EU, so hopefully the EU can protect those citizens against their own government?

<comment><USER40> Turkey?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I can assure this will not happen in Bulgaria and in Turkey (which is not an EU member but has a similar data protection law), because disclosed sources might reveal possible sources and uncover state corruption, to the point of invalidating a whole election.

<comment><USER42> turkey is not in the EU

<comment><USER41> Turkey is not in the EU, but it has a similar enough data protection law (KVKK), and unlike GDPR, this also covers the government operators (they cannot make 'we have different interests' excuse here); and unlike former EU DPD, we have strict data protection officer requirements (actually even stricter than GDPR by having a central track record of DPOs).

<comment><USER42> sure but the kicker here is that romania's government is using the EU as an appeal to "higher power" to justify its actions, while Erdogan can't do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Hey Europe, that's bot how journalism works. Without the basic protections of journalists, you don't have journalism, you have state-controlled propganda.

<comment><USER44> Please don't equate Romania with the rest of Europe. If this story holds truth there will soon be talk in the remaining Europe to show Romania the door out of EU.

You should also know that many countries in Europe has less corruption than USA. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index)

<comment><USER23> > If this story holds truth there will soon be talk in the remaining Europe to > show Romania the door out of EU

Are you serious? That's the last thing the EU wants. Strictly speaking it's not even possible (legally) to force a state to leave the EU.

<comment><USER44> I did not say EU. I said Europe. The behaviour from Romainian politicians is grossly unacceptable and inconceivable in most European nations. National politicians throughout Europe will talk about a EU without "bad apples" as they have in many other cases.

<comment><USER23> > to show Romania the door out of EU

> I did not say EU

Really?

Also, you want to punish a whole country for some corrupt politicians?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Did someone forget to stake Ceaushescu's body and pin it down with a big rock?

Is all the old repression and corruption coming back, now that the latest leaders are too young to remember what had to be done to reduce it, just a little bit?

<comment><USER11> It isn't coming back, it was there all along, and they're not leaders, they are members of one or several organised crime syndicates disguised as political parties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I work in email security and the WHOIS information we relied on to find out domains bulk-registered by spammers/phishers has essentially gone dark because of GDPR.

</comment><comment><USER47> The url should probably have the embedded tracking link removed. "?fbclid=IwAR3oyyn-S4AchYYnsQlw_jZASnHclQxLPwS66IsgF19W73WjtFXYU-FhuYM"

</comment><comment><USER48> Wouldn't this just incentivize people to stop sharing information?

</comment><comment><USER49> Well that didn't take long.

</comment><comment><USER50> They are trying it on.

The journalists should not cave.

<comment><USER51> Rise officially said they will not cave. Rise Project has exceptional investigative journalism and are very serious about their job.

<comment><USER50> Good to hear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> It's almost like there were a lot of people warning about legal ramifications of GDPR and nobody listened.

Same thing with the meme law

</comment><comment><USER53> you can't pass regulations requiring governments to protect personal data then get mad when a government goes to protect personal data. Who that data is about, whether a high-profile politician or an average joe, doesn't matter.

Either everyone is protected from third parties gathering data on them, or nobody is. Can't have it both ways.

<comment><USER54> > _Can 't have it both ways_

Yes one can. One can simply exempt the law's application to certain people, _e.g._ the fourth estate. GDPR does that. The problem, here, is the government is judge, jury and executioner.

<comment><USER55> Who decides which organizations are part of the fourth estate? Is the NYT part of it? Bloggers? CNN? Breitbart? The Daily Stormer?

<comment><USER54> > _Who decides which organizations are part of the fourth estate?_

In the United States, given our Constitution enumerates certain freedoms for the press, there is a rich corpus of case law drawing this delineation. I am not sure if such a corpus exists in the EU, and am fairly certain it does not exist in every one of the EU's twenty-eight member states.

<comment><USER6> What delineation? It doesn't exist. Anyone can say "fuck the President". There is no extra special secret first amendment for journalists.

<comment><USER54> > _What delineation? It doesn 't exist._

The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..." [1]. The comma is the delineation. In case law, the exploration of this delineation has produced definitions with precedent [2].

More practically, the linked-to article explores "whether the 'institutional press' is entitled to greater freedom from governmental regulations or restrictions than are non-press individuals, groups, or associations," concluding "the speech and press clauses may be analyzed under an umbrella 'expression' standard, with little, if any, hazard of missing significant doctrinal differences." (TL; DR There is a line, but it does not appear to matter much.)

[1] [https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-01/06-diffe...](https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-01/06-difference- between-speech-and-press.html)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_the_Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_the_United_States)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A note on iOS 12.2 input types - <AUTHOR> https://catskull.net/ios-inputmode.html <comment><USER2> None of these work on my iPhone running 12.1, but they do work on other sites. For instance the "search" type works on Google.

Am I missing the point?

<comment><AUTHOR> Possibly! The examples are to show how input types are specified in iOS 12.2, not necessarily how you should do them. For the time being it will need to be another attribute in addition to the types that worked on iOS < 12.2.</comment></comment>


Recreating the Midnight in Paris Opening Sequence - <AUTHOR> http://foobuzz.github.io/midnight-in-paris/ <comment><USER2> Very cool, good job.</comment>


Business of Software 2008 - registration open - <AUTHOR> http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2008/04/business-of-sof.html <comment><USER2> Ah - it costs > $ 1800</comment>


Sergey Brin's awesome webpage. - <AUTHOR> http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/

<comment><USER2> This should really be viewed in Netscape 1.2 to see the gray background as it was originally intended.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also awesome.. Sergey dressed in women's clothing: <http://www.werty.net/blogphotos/sergey-drag.jpg>

<comment><USER4> If for some reason google collapses, a modeling career awaits him at Victoria's Secret.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> that style of webpage is fairly typical for a grad student or researcher to display their publications and other academic works. even today lots of academic webpages i peruse look like that :) it's what happens when you write pure HTML with no CSS

<comment><USER6> I really like them too, it's quite a refreshing break from the full-ness of the rest of the web. It recalls a time when the web was meant distributing information as opposed to another sales channel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't forget about Larry! His page is at <http://infolab.stanford.edu/~page/> . The images are broken on the Stanford version, so I corrected the image sources and reposted it at <http://bit.ly/6iO8Bk> . (Hopefully he forgives me...)

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/resume.html>

He worked at Wolfram?

<comment><USER9> > A new project I have just started is going to generate personalized movie > ratings for users. The way it works is as follows. You rate the movies you > have seen. Then the system finds other users with similar tastes to > extrapolate how much the you will like some other movies. It is currently > written entirely in Python.

Netflix Challenge.

<comment><USER10> Indeed, think of what could have been, so much talent just wasted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> He looks like a capable guy and I would like to hire him.

<comment><USER12> Dunno, he seems nothing special.

I've interviewed lots of CS PHDs who couldn't code anything. He must be one of those. Look at all those overly theoretical-sounding papers.

Oh, he can get loads of data from the web and make some fancy calculations. But can he make any money off that? Reminds me of Erik Naggum's take on lisp fanboys babbling about inverting large matrices...

He's got no sense of design either. Well, at least he can make his own HTML page by hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> His dad is still a working mathematician and teacher :-)

<http://www-users.math.umd.edu/~mib/>

</comment><comment><USER14> Animating a gif of his own photo was obviously a harbinger of the great things to come.

<comment><USER5> ha yeah back in 1998 that would've rocked everyone's 486 CPU

<comment><USER15> More like Pentium II:

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

The 486 came out 9 years earlier, in 1989.

<comment><USER16> I was using a 486 in 1998 to browse the web with Opera, reading my usenet with Internet News (Forte Free Agent later on) and my mail with Pegasus Mail.

486s were ridiculous expensive when they came out in '89 - remember a Commodore Amiga was advanced at that time. Even when I got my 486dx-66 in '94 it was towards the top of the range for a consumer PC.

<comment><USER17> My high school had a drafting lab, and I and a bunch of other guys would sneak in there during the lunch hour and fire up illicit games of Descent.

The rule was that the first one to successfully enter the lab would get to use the shiny 486 in there; everyone else had to use the 386s, which put them at a distinct tactical disadvantage.

I graduated in 1997.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's funny to see that his address was in the Gates building. I'm sure it's old news to Stanford alum, but I love the irony.

</comment><comment><USER19> So, he worked on an "automated detection of copyright violations"... Interesting...

<comment><USER20> I guess since Google is (that) profitable there's little benefit in seeking an income by detection of copyright violations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> From the source code:

 _<!--function Hi() { window.status='Please use proper postage.'; } // -->_

</comment><comment><USER22> It was a good idea to change the 1st G's color from green to blue.

<comment><USER23> You sir, just found the recipe for success. I must do this to my own site.

<comment><USER22> this was an ingredient., you might need a logo astrologist/consultant to get the recipe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's a phone number on there. Someone should call and ask for Sergey.

</comment><comment><USER25> i dont see what's so awesome about it

<comment><USER26> <http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/sergey.gif>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> GPS: Working on it. 1998 was around the time GPS was commercialized.

</comment><comment><USER27> So this is where they got the inspiration for the Google homepage.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Currently I am at Google"

Heh, you don't say?

</comment><comment><USER29> nostalgic for any google fan.

</comment><comment><USER30> shit

</comment><comment><USER31> Half the links seem to be broken.</comment>


Next Generation of Dense-Storage Instances for EC2 - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/next-generation-of-dense-storage-instances-for-ec2/ <comment><USER3> _all at a very affordable price_

AWS really needs to get back in touch with reality.

$500 USD/mo for a server with 32G Ram and 3x2T disks is not 'affordable', it's a rip-off.

For that money you can rent _10_ machines of that size at Hetzner/OVH - <USER2> they will be dedicated hardware.

<comment><USER4> That's the on demand pricing. You should check the math on reserved pricing and consider the TCO. Not saying you're wrong but it's at least important to accurately compare.

<comment><USER5> Reserved pricing requires a year lock in.

I can get something like that for about 40 Euros [and guaranteed 100mb/s on 1 gbit port] with no setup fee and no lock in beyond 30 days.

Even with reserved pricing for 3 years its $5,715 = 5715/36 = ~$158/month + Bandwidth.

The TCO with Amazon is only cheap when you have a very, very high variability in load. [e.g. Netflix]

<comment><USER6> Can you link to this deal for an instance with similar specs as the D2.xlarge for 40 a month? that sounds like a great deal and I don't need to host in the US, but this instance type is what I've been looking for.

<comment><USER3> Soyoustart 16G/4T for $42: [http://www.soyoustart.com/us/essential- servers/](http://www.soyoustart.com/us/essential-servers/)

Soyoustart 8G/8T for $69: [http://www.soyoustart.com/us/essential- servers/](http://www.soyoustart.com/us/essential-servers/)

Soyoustart 96G/4T for $84: [http://www.soyoustart.com/us/essential- servers/](http://www.soyoustart.com/us/essential-servers/)

Hetzner EX40 32G/6T for $64: [https://www.hetzner.de/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver- prod...](https://www.hetzner.de/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver- produktmatrix-ex)

LeaseWeb 16G/4T for $58: [https://www.leaseweb.com/bare-metal- server/configure/18403](https://www.leaseweb.com/bare-metal- server/configure/18403)

<comment><USER7> Hello distributed computing. Command + control at AWS, the heavy lifting at $cheap_dedicated_server_of_the_month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Network Performance: d2.xlarge - Moderate, d2.2xlarge - High, d2.4xlarge - High.

This ambiguity alone is the reason I and probably others will look elsewhere.

<comment> Pirate-of-SV If you put it like that every EC2 performance metric is ambiguous when not using dedicated instances.

<comment><USER9> They tell you specifically how much RAM you get, and there is no confusion. They also tell you exactly how much storage you get. In this case they very specifically tell you disk read throughput.

So there are a lot of metrics that are not ambiguous. Imagine if they told you that you get a "moderate" amount of RAM, and maybe it could be 4.5GB, or maybe it's 9GB.

There would be benefits if Amazon gave SLA style promises for these sorts of instances. When they see that they are falling short, they redistribute loads or add hardware to meet the promise. Otherwise it's generally somewhat meaningless because if you can't plan on it, you can't build a plan around it.</comment></comment></comment>


Toshiba Talks 5-Bit-per-Cell Flash, Demos First PCIe 4.0 Enterprise SSDs - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/toshiba-5-bit-per-cell-flash-plx-xl-nand-pcie-4.0-ssd,40237.html <comment><USER2> With 4 and now 5 bit per cell SSDs, I believe it's time to repeat the experiment The Tech Report did in 2014/15 where they tested a handful of SSDs to destruction. Those exceeded the warranty numbers by a wide margin, but those were all SLC and MLC units, with the only TLC drive being the first to fail.</comment>


China passes law requiring tech firms to hand over encryption keys - <AUTHOR> http://betanews.com/2015/12/27/china-passes-law-requiring-tech-firms-to-hand-over-encryption-keys/ <comment><USER3> _" This rule accords with the actual work need of fighting terrorism and is basically the same as what other major countries in the world do."_

 _" When changes in technology hinder law enforcement's ability to exercise investigative tools and follow critical leads, we may not be able to identify and stop terrorists who are using social media to recruit, plan, and execute an attack in our country."_

One of the above is from Li Shouwei, the deputy head of the Chinese parliament's criminal law division. The other is from the US FBI director.

<comment> singiht34-02 This is purely anecdotal, but countries that haven't actually been touched by terrorism seem to be a lot more terrified of terrorists than countries that have been. It's a lot more of a boogeyman when it's those-people-over-there- doing-crazy-things

I remember in Poland and Croatia people were so scared that a common sentiment was basically wanting to ban all muslims.. you know.. just-to-be-on-the-safe- side

So while yes, this is a scapegoat, people in China are actually scared of the terrorists.. it's bizarre

<comment><USER4> I think you don't follow Chinese news very much. They are heavily effected by terrorist attacks, low and high tech.

Also, I don't think China's position has anything to do with the peoples "fear" this is related to the governments position of trying to maintain it's power by staying on the right side of the information asymmetry the internet affords.

<comment><USER5> China has it's own definition of terrorism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Verge (referencing WSJ) says firms are not required to handover encryption keys.

[http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/27/10670346/china-passes- law...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/27/10670346/china-passes-law-to- access-encrypted-communications)

<comment><USER7> It requires the OS/product vendor to enable key escrow though. Apple used to have a mechanism for this. Microsoft has a mechanism for this. And presumably all of them will escrow encryption keys for any products they sell in China.

GCHQ wants this too. So if tech companies comply with China's law, why wouldn't they comply with the U.K.'s? And if they comply with the U.K. law, why couldn't there be one in the U.S.?

<comment><USER8> Do you have a cite for that? If Apple has to turn on / enable key escrow that's a very huge freaking deal.

<comment><USER9> I think the point is that Apple no longer has "backdoor" keys for encryption any longer so that they have no keys to give the government when they come knocking. I'm basing this conclusion off a quote from the article: "While the government insists that there will be no requirement for companies to install backdoor", as well as an interview with Tim Cook off 60 Minutes where he stated they won't be going the backdoor route anymore. I believe there are more quotes available from him if you google "apple encryption backdoor".

<comment><USER10> Apple can certainly read iMessage conversations and provide that data to goverments. They don't have the private keys, but they run the directory server that distributes the public keys used to encrypt to. So they can very easily provide you with the wrong public key for your recipient, decrypt that data and store/forward, and then re-encrypt on their end with the correct key and forward to the actual recipient.

"Secure" communications systems that rely on a trusted central third party to vouch for keys are no more secure than allowing that same third-party to implement key escrow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My wife, a current citizen of China, has a uniform response to these kinds of stories. "Well what do they expect!? If you do business in China, of course that's what you get. If they don't like it they can get out."

Her point being that no one should be surprised when an authoritarian government exerts its authority. Also, water is wet.

<comment><USER12> No offense, but it sounds like she's trying to justify authoritarianism by shifting the blame to its victims for not "getting out".

<comment><USER13> I read it somewhat differently. From my limited interaction with Chinese citizen as a resident of Singapore, many think more pragmatically.

"We do what it takes to get a billion people to first world middle class standard of living. Yes, there's a bit of collateral damage but you guys' industrial revolution was not all roses, read some Dickens. We can have the luxury of rights when we're there. You're telling me to eat cake since we ran out of bread."

In other words the _majority_ of Chinese citizen (that I know - YMMV, selection bias, etc.) think that the government is doing an alright job considering its constraints, and don't feel particularly oppressed - <USER2> authoritarianism is population-sanctioned. Just like the new French anti- terrorism measures.

<comment><USER12> > We can have the luxury of rights when we're there. You're telling me to eat > cake since we ran out of bread

The majority of economists would disagree. More economic and political freedom would accelerate economic progress, not hold it back. Check out Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu for an in depth discussion of this in relation to China.

<comment><USER14> The chicken-egg problem has been solved and nobody told me? my, my.

<comment><USER12> All I'm saying is that more freedom causes economic growth, which is not a controversial statement. I think you're saying that economic growth will lead to more freedom. I'm sure that's true to some degree, but there are counterexamples. The Soviet Union experienced dramatic economic growth, but freedom never improved, and eventually the economy stagnated, as will China's (I predict).

In any case, surely more freedom in China would not be a bad thing.

<comment><USER15> > All I'm saying is that more freedom causes economic growth

What about Russia in '90s?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A friend of mine has a startup in China. He told me a year ago that the law already required his company to talk with government officials every month. They also needed to create a backdoor API according to a well-written specification for the government to access all the information in the database.

<comment><USER17> _well-written specification_

That may very well be the defining difference between the Chinese and Western- governments.

<comment><USER18> "The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced." \- Frank Zappa

<comment><USER19> I think "selectively enforced" is a better way to put it.

<comment><USER11> No, Frank Zappa had it best. Your words may be more accurate but his words are better.

<comment><USER20> The point he was making was right. It's not randomly enforced at all, it's enforced only when it pleases the government.

<comment><USER21> But the government is not a single actor with agency, from the outside it might as well be random. +1 Zappa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well, HOPEFULLY, the western governments pushing for exactly the same thing might think twice now. Any breach in the Chinese system would also be beneficial in highlighting even more flaws in the concept.

<comment><USER23> If anything, the fact that China is doing it is evidence that we need to do it as well to maintain national security.

<comment><USER24> Sure most of us disagree with what "fucking_tragedy" is saying, he doesn't offer evidence, and it stems from a weak line of reasoning. But we shouldn't bury it just because we disagree with it.

Even though I side with encryption, I think it's worth at least exploring the other side's argument.

Does access to encryption give increased capability to China in such a way that it "profits" in matters of national security / finance / etc. Or will such a move ultimately "cost" China due to the side effects of weaker technological infrastructure, privacy, etc?

Will it be a detriment to the United States (assuming current government snooping laws remain the same)?

I think the answers to these, while they can be theorized and predicted, will best be fleshed out in due time, hopefully influencing US politicians to make the right decision.

<comment><USER23> I'm glad that you're arguing with that particular interpretation of my comment in good faith. It is refreshing to see.

However, what I meant to convey is this: despite the obvious problems with such a program, the government sees value in control and centralization of the country's secure communications. If we ignore the obvious problems with "We have all the keys" & "Secure communication" and look to recent initiatives and programs with similar contradictory goals, we've been told by politicians that they were implemented because everyone else is doing it and it's necessary for national security.

I see how nonsensical this is, but if a similar program is pushed, this is how it would be pitched to the public.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> No one outside of IT should have access to crypto keys for any reason. Dinosaur government institutions need to get with it or go away.

Now that I'm done with that this is a critical issue. Mass surveillance is one of the many issues of our time. Time to get to work and time to throw some money at this.

<comment><USER26> Crypto is too easy. Yes, too easy. Its too easy to make a single master key for a government to demand or someone to steal that unlocks everything.

In 1915 when a discovery subpoena goes out for all records relating to dumping dioxanes in a river, the company legitimately unlocks the filing cabinet and hands the files over. They don't get a key to the executive washroom or the telegram private code directory (unless that was in the subpoena) or the complete customer list or really pretty much anything but the paper files relating to dumping dioxanes in the river.

In 2015 when a discovery subpoena goes out for all records relating to dumping dioxanes in a river, the company freaks out because if they hand out "the" public key then both the .gov and any .com they're affiliated with and probably individual theives will pown every VPN they ever had and ever will, and all their records of every sort so "oh no we can't hand over keys never to no one".

When you look at it from that point of view, the abject failure of IT and IT companies to properly handle encryption is by no means any reason for the judicial legal system to be inconvenienced. In 1915 no judge would have tolerated a response like "Well we can't give you the dioxane pollution paper files and telegrams because then criminals would pown our company because we're incompetent at IT"

The other part is sociological. You may hold that phone in your hand, but its not yours, and using it is as dangerous as talking to a police officer or government official or hacker. Its not your phone, never has been, and any illusion to the contrary will result in tears. Ditto a site on the internet. Government protection of privacy assumes the privacy ever existed in the first place, which it doesn't.

<comment><USER27> The existance of "the" key is not an inherent problem in situations like this. Instead, it speaks to poor key management practices by the people responsible for implementing cryptography for an organization.

Consider, as an analogy, the (poor) practice of using shared passwords. What do you do when you fire someone who had legitimate access to this password? You have to change everything or risk a compromise of all the systems sharing this password. Hence, the need for tools like sudo that separate authentication (what password / auth key) and access control (what rights).

With encryption, it's similarly possible to break one big risk domain into lots of smaller ones using things like separate trust anchors (for authentication) or encryption keys (for access control). For example, If your org gets served a subpeona for your financial records you can give them your tape backups for the relevant time periods plus the necessary decryption key, but withold the decryption key for the backups of your R&D data and the signing key for your VPN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So basically any device manufactured in China and sold abroad should be assumed to be rooted by the Chinese government?

<comment><USER26> And any company related to the Chinese government, which is basically all of them. So if you make tractors and use Chinese computers to make tractors, your Chinese competitor who makes tractors can be assumed to have full access to your computer systems, for all practical purposes.

<comment><USER29> [citation needed]

<comment><USER30> Not OP, but "capitalism" in China isn't like it is in the west. The government literally runs everything, and can demand literally anything they want from companies. If China's government wanted Lenavo to start making blow up dolls, that's exactly what they would do. China's government has absolute authority and total control. People like to compare the U.S government to China's, but these people are fedora wearing neckbeards who almost never leave their parents basement. As someone who _has_ lived in China for a brief stint, expecting any device built, designed and manufactured in China not to have some sort of back door is like expecting the U.S not to spy. At this stage in the game, it's understood and expected.

If they're requiring backdoors on technology _imported_ into the country (source: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/obama_criticises_chi...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/obama_criticises_china_tech_rules_backdoor_terrorism/) ), why wouldn't they require them on their own technology that they build themselves? It doesn't make sense from a purely logical standpoint. Of course they're not going to come out and admit it, but we're also starting to see evidence of it:

Example 1: [http://www.zdnet.com/article/former-pentagon-analyst- china-h...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/former-pentagon-analyst-china-has- backdoors-to-80-of-telecoms/)

Example 2: [http://www.geek.com/chips/spy-agencies-shun-lenovo- finding-b...](http://www.geek.com/chips/spy-agencies-shun-lenovo-finding- backdoors-built-into-the-hardware-1563801/)

Example 3: [http://www.computerworld.com/article/2860742/chinese- android...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2860742/chinese-android- phone-maker-hides-secret-backdoor-on-its-devices.html)

Is it really so hard to believe? Especially when the indirect evidence and logic is so overwhelming? I'm no tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy nut, but come on here... It's China.

<comment><USER29> > _Not OP, but "capitalism" in China isn't like it is in the west. The > government literally runs everything, and can demand literally anything they > want from companies._

Well, in China the government controls the companies, in the west the companies control the government. Sort of the same end result, with the two being in bed with each other.

> _Is it really so hard to believe? Especially when the indirect evidence and > logic is so overwhelming?_

Well, haven't seen anything "overwhelming" in the list. E.g. the Chinese government had Huawei and ZTE add backdoors to their stuff. But we know that Cisco has done the same in the west -- and the government asked other companies to do the same thing, pressuring Apple etc. So isn't "overwhelming" a kind of a double standard?

<comment><USER30> > Sort of the same end result, with the two being in bed with each other.

No, not really the same at all. When the companies have all the political power, they do what's best for their shareholders - their bottom line. Whatever helps them acquire more profit and revenue. Here, it's all about the money.

When the government controls the companies (As it is in China), the government does what's best for the people in power (the government). And that usually means doing whatever helps them hold onto or increase their power by way of strict authoritarian rules & laws, censorship and all the indirectly related things that go along with it.

Their goal is to keep the population under control because that means they get to stay in power. China's biggest fear is a revolution or an uprising which is why they're so strict when it comes to public demonstrations, censoring things like Tienanmen square, and cracking brutally hard on rights activists and the leaders of these "change-bringers" (Source: [http://world.time.com/2011/02/26/chinas-fear-of-a-jasmine- re...](http://world.time.com/2011/02/26/chinas-fear-of-a-jasmine- revolution/)). The last and absolute worst thing that could happen to China is a revolution. They will commit atrocities like you can't even begin to imagine to keep that from happening.

In the west, you don't have to worry about that. Why? Because it's bad for business. Not good for profits and not good for revenue. The best environment for capitalism and for businesses to make the most amount of money is one of peace (Source: [http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/jan/22/iraq.economy](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/jan/22/iraq.economy))

<comment><USER29> > _No, not really the same at all. When the companies have all the political > power, they do what 's best for their shareholders - their bottom line. > Whatever helps them acquire more profit and revenue. Here, it's all about > the money. When the government controls the companies (As it is in China), > the government does what's best for the people in power (the government)._

And hopefully, in the latter case, the people. Because governments, even if not democratic (and I'd wouldn't call that 2-party/donations/gerrymandering system democratic either) have an interested in pleasing the population (e.g. out of fear of revolt etc). Whereas companies mostly in maximizing profit.

> _The last and absolute worst thing that could happen to China is a > revolution. They will commit atrocities like you can 't even begin to > imagine to keep that from happening._

Well, the absolute worst thing that could happen to China could actually BE a revolution. It's a huge ancient country, and it has always had its ways of government and its tradition of mandarins/confucianism etc.

Besides, places like Libya and Iraq, where "democracy was restored" are hardly success stories for toppling a stable system of power. China could well become a hell-hole, and have massacres that rival the ones in the "cultural revolution", EVEN if they manage to get rid of the ruling party easily -- the fight for the succeeding situation could make the US Civil War look like a Disney movie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The bottom of this article suggests that the requirement to "hand over encryption keys" isn't present in the bill:

[http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/27/10670346/china-passes- law...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/27/10670346/china-passes-law-to- access-encrypted-communications)

</comment><comment><USER32> Write laws against the dissidence, but call it terrorism. Then you can argue that you are just trying to get the same level of access everybody else is asking for.

</comment><comment><USER33> So US companies to be forced to put back doors into products that they sell in China. And the Chinese government DOESN'T think that the US government will also have those keys? It's like they're asking for the US to have full access to their sensitive data.

<comment><USER7> U.S. has asserted that subpoenas for data controlled by a U.S. company are valid, even if the data is stored exclusively out of the country. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corporation_v._Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corporation_v._United_States_of_America)

So I seriously doubt the Chinese government thinks the U.S. won't have the ability to get those keys. But these are device encryption keys used to encrypt data at rest on the device. This isn't a demand to escrow the private keys used for data in transit for email and messaging; I don't know how that works in China, i.e. the Great Firewall, if that just depends on blacklist/whitelist sites, or if all devices are required to use a Chinese government certificate for such communications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Many countries require this

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_King...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingdom)

UK is a great example and a good place to not store any valuable data.

</comment><comment><USER35> According to the original text, tech firms are only required to provide necessary technical support in decryption, not simply handing over the keys.

[http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-12/27/c_128571798.ht...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-12/27/c_128571798.htm)

</comment><comment><USER36> It'll be interesting to see what Apple do in this case, their having said that they would not build backdoors for their products --but it's difficult to see them turn away from one of their largest markets.

I'm guessing they will make concessions for the sake of market, whreas Google, so far, has resisted that temptation.

<comment><USER37> Well, the thing about Apple's approach is that they can't hand over encryption keys if they don't have them.

<comment><USER36> Given that impasse, they might be motivated to re-architect their services for the Chinese market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think in the most "civilized" countries for the long time already it's that we (as whole communities) agree to the law (and the authority) either because we don't know about it or we believe that we personally (as individuals) will never have to actually follow it.

I wonder if we're far beyond the point when we could actually stop following the law if it becomes bad enough and it's already virtually 1984 but we just didn't really notice. Or if there's still some hope out there, somewhere.

<comment><USER39> I'm terribly interested in what kind of environment "if it becomes bad enough" specifically refers to, in your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> China: We passed the law. Everyone on earth knows we are controlling the internet. U.S.: We support freedom but due to national security, we can control the internet without passing the law. By the way, please help us to hunt Edward Joseph Snowden. He violates our definition of freedom and transparency. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER41> First, I can't see this actually working out they way they want especially with open source software designed to thrwart detection from governments using amongst other things a form of encryption.

Second, I'm betting the US Government has enough sway to get special treatment for American companies.

<comment><USER42> _US Government has enough sway to get special treatment for American companies_

I don't think they do in this case; this is why Google pulled out and Cisco collaborate with the surveillance.

<comment><USER43> Although, they do probably have enough sway to get _all_ of China's keys. Perhaps not sway, perhaps just cracking.

Nice of China to create a central repo with everything one could want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I wonder if at some point in the future this will seem like a reasonable request for IS to make?

</comment><comment><USER45> So how does it apply to e.g. keys to backups of Apple devices if the device was bought out of China and then used in China?

</comment><comment><USER8> Will Apple have to start escrowing the root key for devices they sell in China?

<comment><USER46> It will be interesting to see whether they value their principles more than sales in the Chinese marketplace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> hahah good luck with that

</comment><comment><USER48> It's time to reconsider our irrational (actually inherited) opposition to "security through obscurity" [ * ].

In times when big brother knows you're using AES and forcibly asks you for the keys, it makes sense to not advertise your encryption scheme at all. Steganography.

[ * ] It actually makes more sense to enlarge the search space of an attacker by not providing him the fixed form of a known encryption algorithm/scheme.

<comment><USER49> The formal name for the concept is Kerckhoffs's principle. And no, it is not time to reconsider it.

It has more to do with defining what the "key" _is_ , and is quite compatible with steganography.

If your method is simply "cipher data", it can never have steganographic properties.. If instead it's "two redundant-looking blobs, one random and one AES", then you've got a leg to stand on.

<comment><USER48> You are free to stand by your principles.

I'm arguing that "security through obscurity" is not equivalent with the "Kerckhoffs's principle" but with adding more obfuscation layers (on which steganography may be one of them) on top of default schemes.

People who know better don't advertise their internal network topology. Nor do they show off with their encryption schemes (they might use known schemes but they won't tell you they do it).

<comment><USER49> How those additional layers are defined is quite important as to their effectiveness - do they hold up to scrutiny, or are they merely good enough to trick their designer? Lumping effective crypto along with feel-good ad-hoc schemes into one big category of "obfuscation" is a disservice to analysis.

I'll repeat - Kerckhoffs's principle is more about analysis than design. If you insist on eschewing it, what you're actually doing is making it so the "key" of your system includes the design of the system itself. And while it intuitively seems "more key" should make the system more secure, the net effect is the opposite as that poorly-specified "key" merely functions as a difficult-to-analyze crutch.

Gödel basically guarantees that anybody can make a cryptosystem so secure they themselves cannot break it. Don't be that guy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've decided I am going to say "tank man" in every China thread so their censors will kill the page.

As horrible as many of things the US has done in the name of its citizens (and on its citizens) one thing you'll never see happen here is internet censorship

(instead one-day some US agency will just record every page you've read, or maybe they will have the UK do it for them, so they are technically not spying on their own citizens)

<comment><USER51> > As horrible as many of things the US has done in the name of its citizens > (and on its citizens) one thing you'll never see happen here is internet > censorship

Internet censorship happens in the US, though its _mostly_ in the form of government pressure on major internet companies to remove access to disfavored content rather than _direct_ government censorship.

<comment><USER50> Hmm, it is disfavored or illegal content originating in the US?

Because I've seen US law enforcement takedown US websites that were breaking US laws but I've never heard of law enforcement forcing US isps block foreign content, even if it is breaking US law. I could be wrong though and I'd like to see an example in that case.

Maybe the government making youtube or facebook take down terrorist content, that would be censorship I guess if the content is not technically illegal but that's a pretty extreme example.

<comment><USER52> They've taken domain names, does that count as blocking?

<comment><USER51> When it is done because of content, and particularly to suppress content (as opposed to the domain owners rights to particular content), there is a pretty good argument that it is a form of censorship.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


HN: How can I make my brain/mind sharp again? - <AUTHOR> When I was a undergrad my mind was really sharp, I was clever and great at solving programming problems.  Though it now has been about a year since graduation, and while doing other non programming work my mind has gone cloudy.  I know it sounds funny, but it feels like their is fog or sand up there.  Even looking back at past clever solutions I made, today I don't really even understand them.  It's as if there is a mental block there, as if the nerve routing goes to the right place, but the signals just cant make it.<p>How can I get my mind sharp again and fast?  What are some good but difficult problems, which will keep me interested but also work the heck out of my mind? <comment><USER2> Exercise and nutrition are huge. If you are musically inclined (or not even) playing/learning an instrument has been shown to expand the number of connections in your brain.

I would also try meditation, there was several recent articles about how quickly (like 4 days) ones mind becomes 'sharper' from just a little bit of daily practice.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Stop smoking drinking. 2\. Have fun. Programming is about having fun with ur "robots". 3\. Plenty of physical activity to compensate mental activity. 4\. Wake up at 6 AM. 5\. Live now. no plans. Just catch the moment.

</comment><comment><USER4> Eat better, exercise, socialize. I don't know the specifics but maybe you're depressed. These things will help. You said you want to you want to take care of this before getting a job but a job itself might help.

Make sure you are doing something productive with your time. If you want to get it sorted out before getting a job, try freelancing, consulting, tutoring or volunteering. Be around other people and feed off their energy. Doing nothing productive with your time will make you depressed and could definitely be the cause of a cloudy mind.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like you could use some good ole defragging. Just get out to the nearest nature something place or a quiet spot and just sit there and watch your thoughts race by. Just do it. Don't think about anything in particular but just watch yourself think. This can do wonders if you keep at it for a while.

</comment><comment><USER6> Two things come to mind:

1) Program again, as much as possible. Like any other skill, you forget details of things as you spend time away from programming. Sharpen up again by programming some more.

2) Vitamin D is key in being able to focus, make sure you are getting enough vitamin D... this is true for eating well and getting plenty of sleep in general :) And lay off the pot ;P

</comment><comment><USER7> Everyone has great advice.

I recommend learning a language or 5. Ocaml, Erlang, Lojban, Japanese, Quenya, etc. Use Mnemosyne and Smart.fm for quick, cumulative study sessions, translate webcomics and such, play golf with old programs in new and differently powerful languages.

Also, read more. You'd be amazed at how many great SF novels you can read in a year, or how quickly you can devour Misner's Gravitation at a few pages a day.

I think the overwhelming point of all this advice is to have fun. Do things that induce flow.

</comment><comment><USER8> Watch for any of Dr. Daniel G. Amen's programs on PBS or read his books (Magnificent Mind at Any Age, Change your Brain, Change your Life, etc.). I've found the knowledge he shares to be incredibly useful, and practical.

</comment><comment><USER9> Warning: Highly unapologetic comment. :) Though, I don't mean to be rude, truly; I've processed the same thoughts and endured the same uncertainty. This was just what I finally realized.

So, everyone seems to be acknowledging the fact that your mind isn't as sharp as it was (maybe I missed a comment).

Thing is, it's simple. No, don't acknowledge it. Sure, there are hardened synapses, but to a large extent that's just an excuse for people to feel sorry for themselves. O_O

So basically, just get over the fact that you think your brain's not an sharp as it was. It's a load of crap. It's still all there, and you need to just overcome to emotional inhibitions that are getting in the way of you using it.

University is a pretty safe environment for exploring --as it should be; that's its purpose if nothing else. As a result, you're pretty well emotionally oblivious to the "what-if fears" of putting everything --all your mind and all your passion- into what you do. Perfect.

When you depart, a profoundly unseen transition takes place; you don't have that environment anymore. So you continue with the momentum you had for a while --couple months, 10 years- and then it's gone. You're learned a new environment that pulls into your mind before everything else a whole mess of things; the clichés of "only what's good enough" and "dreams are just dreams."

And then there's the "age 27 factor" as I've coined from the film Proof. (actually, go it is. It's appropriate.) :) Look back over old work and you think you realize that you'll never be able to do something that great again. Again, load of crap. Honestly, for myself, I'm typically looking back over old stuff and, while realizing the significant merit they held at the time and to the process of moving to where I am now, they're working in a highly limited fashion. What consistently happens is I let their singular weight become a symbol, a pristine concept for the knowledge I gained and I hold them so much more highly that what they actually are. On a personal level, that's fine. But to compare that symbol to actual work, no. Don't do it.

So here's my final thoughts on what it boils down to: Get over it. Your brain is still all there unless you've found little bits on your pillow. It's only a simple emotional inhibition that's preventing you from actually using your brain. Don't blame it on _anything_ else. And finally, your old work wasn't that great. (ok, so maybe it was, but it's not _nearly_ as great as you're holding it.)

That's it. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. You're likely right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Several people have already mentioned exercise and nutrition; along the same lines, drinking plenty of water is kind of a big deal.

</comment><comment><USER11> Are you feeling depressed and uninspired in general?

Often I find that when I'm not into what I'm doing in my life at that time, I begin to lose the mental energy to form brilliant, creative, highly structured thoughts. Once I get "the rush" again, I can barely turn off the spigot of my thoughts.

Perhaps take a week in a very different setting and reconsider what you're focusing your attentions on.

<comment><AUTHOR> No not depressed. As for inspired, no im certainly not inspired. Cant say I have been in a very long time. I can create complex thought in verbal/written debate, but thats because I do that a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 3 things for me that help clear the fog: 1\. Nutrition, diet. Cut bad sugars and fats, increase protein (necessary for 2.), keep balanced meals, take vitamins and minerals if necessary. 2\. Exercise. Aerobic (running, swimming, cycling) and anaerobic (weightlifting, pushups, squats). 3\. Relaxation and rejuvenation. Meditation, massage, chillout/lounge music, fiction reading.

For more information there are plenty of books on amazon.com on these topics.

<comment><USER12> Yes one more. 4\. Work and sleep. A good chair at the workplace and a good mattress with pillow at the sleeping place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sleep well and you will do well. Consult your phisician for proper sleep hygiene and follow the advice closely without ifs and buts.

</comment><comment><USER14> To keep your mind sharp, you need to sharpen it. Challenge yourself with e.g. coding katas: <http://codingkata.org/katas/>

</comment><comment><USER15> Get a job?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to do this before I go and get a job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I had a similar issue, turned out I wasn't sleeping enough. Here is an easy way to fix it.

You're likely more sedentary, or not going to bed early enough to deal with when you wake up.

This is a common thing for people to start doing once they start working. Here is how you get back to sleeping normal amounts:

Stop drinking all caffeine by 17 hours before you need to awake the next day to get to work in time (so if you have to wake up at 7 to get to work, stop drinking it by 2pm; you may think it doesn't keep you up, which may be true, however it _does_ make you sleep less deeply). Try dimming your entire house/apartment 11 hours before you need to leave for work, turning off all screens, read, listen to soft music, etc for that hour before bed. No watching TV or doing anything other than sex and sleep in bed.

Then go to bed 10 hours before you need to leave for work, have a real bedtime.

Do this for about 2 weeks, and you'll find you _are so mentally alert_. You'll feel like your old self in no time.

<comment><USER17> This all sounds like good advice. I've been using f.lux lately and it seems to help.

I'm curious where you got 17 hours from? I've been cutting caffeine at around 5pm, but I can't help think this is later than I should.

<comment><USER16> 17 hours is a calculated number.

If you're trying to make sure you're sleepy enough to fall asleep 9 hours before you have to go to work, and you look at the half-life of caffeine: 4.9 hours on average (with a huge personal variance).

If you want to be "uncaffinated" when you fall asleep (which is hopefully <=8 hours before you get up, and a good 10 hours before you leave for work), you get less than 2 half-lifes, aka you get to drop your blood caffeine level to only 25% of what you had when you stop drinking it. Remember, caffeine not only causes you to stay awake, it causes your sleep to be less deep than it otherwise would.

Additionally: Effective use of caffeine means never drinking it in the morning (the only thing caffeine helps with in the morning is treating caffeine addiction. It's an antagonist of adenosine receptors, meaning it makes it so this chemical, which doesn't show up in your brain till late in the day, can't make you sleepy).

If you find caffeine helping you at all in the morning, you need to dial back your caffeine usage. It only starts becoming effective near 5-6 hours after waking up, and it's effectiveness skyrockets as the day goes on. So basically it takes less and less to keep you up the longer you stay awake (and has almost no effect to keep you up before a few hours awake, so morning coffee is somewhat silly).

If you _are_ trying to get the adrenaline surge you can get when: 1. Not a caffiene addict, and 2. an occasionaly drinker of strong coffee, just do a few jumping jacks (like 4-9). It will do the same thing to your heart and you'll have caffeine as an effective tool around noontime which can be used to keep you awake the rest of the day at work, yet not interfere with your sleep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 15 minutes of plain old clear-the-mind meditation every morning (or as often as you can). Get an egg-timer to assist. The mind is a muscle.

Get appropriate exercise and pay attention to your diet - this becomes more and more important as you age. Get appropriate sleep.

Do some programming on the side, just for fun if you can - you stay sharp at things due to practice, not due to innate unchangeable ability. If you're stuck for ideas, pick any online programming contest - there's a bunch that run continuously and automatically - and endless set of skill-sharpening questions to pick from and work up.

<comment><USER19> How long do you recommend for the meditation?

<comment><USER20> I cannot tell if this is a serious question or a joke!

<comment><USER19> Sorry somehow I missed the fifteen in your answer. Do you think ten minutes would do anything?

<comment><USER21> Try it and see. More will have a deeper effect, but I believe that any amount of focused mind-clearing has great effect (even 3 focused deep breaths at times throughout the day helps clear the head).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Psychology and Philosophy of Envy - <AUTHOR> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201408/the-psychology-and-philosophy-envy <comment><USER2> Gee, I wonder if envy would provide a fruitful lens through which to understand the current conflicts in our society?</comment>


Why Middle-Class Americans Can't Afford to Live in Liberal Cities - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why-are-liberal-cities-so-unaffordable/382045/

<comment><USER2> This was an interesting article. However, one thing that wasn't discussed is the correlation between existing population density and resistance to new construction. San Francisco is notoriously opposed to new construction, but it does have relatively high population density by US standards. I'm not saying that this means the opposition to new construction is justified, but I do think we might want to investigate the possibility that population density may play a bigger role than political liberalism.

This could be a difficult one to tease out, mainly because there aren't all that many highly dense areas that lean heavily conservative in the the US. New York, Boston, San Francisco, Washington, Seattle… they're pretty much all liberal cities (as measured by percentage voting for Obama vs Romney).

</comment><comment><USER3> Good economy, affordable housing, NIMBYism: pick two.

Liberal cities tend to be NIMBY cities -- there's a lot of zoning, an anti- development mindset among many, and other restrictions on new construction.

These cities also tend to have good economies and high incomes.

Constrained supply + increasing demand = exploding price. It's pretty simple.

Note the outlier: Orange County. It's got high income and is conservative (by California standards), but it has a sort of peculiar NIMBYism of its own. A lot of people in OC are opposed to "high density housing," and many of its neighborhoods are very planned with newer and higher density construction restricted. OC is the exception that proves the rule.</comment>