Design is becoming a competitive advantage for startups - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/05/design-is-becoming-a-competitive-advantage-for-startups/

<comment><USER2> This article seems ahistorical. It suffers from a lack of awareness regarding how far back some of these trends go. The inaccurate emphasis here is on something unheard of and new:

"Technical founders have already become prerequisites in the world of tech startups. Now get ready for the designer founder. The combination of this new duo is going to change the world of tech forever."

But this trend is not new for startups. 37 Signals has been preaching this for a long time now. I can not easily find the original blog post that I'm thinking of, but there is this:

"At 37signals, designers lead the teams. Each development team is made of up three people – two programmers and one designer. The designer also manages the project. In addition to designing the screens/elements, you'll keep the team focused and make calls about what's important."

<http://37signals.com/svn/design?n=25>

But I recall quotes on the 37 Signals blog from as early as 2004 where they were essentially saying the same thing. Since they first began talking about Basecamp, they have talked about this style of development. This is not new.

<comment><USER3> Back in the 90s I switched from Yahoo to Google because of the clean uncluttered look as much as the quality of the search results. And while UI guidelines have always been enforced fairly rigidly on Apple's platform, the quality and consistency of icons, toolbars, etc. on windows applications have always been a good proxy for the reliability and utility of the underlying code. ANSI or command-line software has a strong design element; _Norton Utilities_ , _Lotus 1-2-3_ and _WordPerfect_ were winners in their respective markets because they had robust visual grammars, and even a batch file or shell script needs some design to the extent that it's user-facing.

Recently I've been using a terminal to some ancient AS/400 database to look up property records at my local city hall, and it's an excellent reminder of how even the simplest task can become completely user-hostile if design is overlooked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's always been an advantage, we're just becoming aware of it.

Like, being fit has always been an advantage for organisms. But until organisms came along who developed language and became able to communicate that it was valuable (aka humans), nobody was saying "it's a competitive advantage to be healthy".

<comment><USER5> It's interesting, for sure. I'm not much of a programmer – I come from a print design background – but people here demo amazing weekend projects. In some cases, it seems like the sole difference between a weekend project and a marketable product is comprehensive design.

</comment></comment><comment> DanI-S Building a product is composed of two (blurry) stages: creating something that solves a problem, and adapting that solution to suit the person who will be using it.

Arguably, without design, there _is_ no product - by making decisions that are necessary to take something from paper into reality, you are going through a process of design.

Design is most acknowledged in consumer goods, but it is present everywhere. Imagine you are building a widget that forms part of the internal mechanism of a space probe. It will likely only be seen or touched by a few technical people, it probably doesn't need visual appeal, but you must still design it to be feasible to manufacture and convenient to handle during assembly.

You will have to make decisions above and beyond its basic function - does the form fit the assembly worker's perceived model of what it does? Can it be held in human hands safely and without risking damage? Would any damage or incorrect installation be visually evident?

There is a false dichotomy between engineering and design. Modern technology is closing the conceptual gap. Whilst we need a certain degree of specialization, I strongly believe there should be no such thing as a 'pure' engineer or designer. If we want to create usable tools, we all need to know a little of both.

<comment><USER6> I enjoy the discussion between engineering and design.

I used to think of myself as an engineering-type person. I _engineered_ solutions. Indeed, my undergraduate education was in math and physics. But then I began a lengthy graduate design education in architecture and, in the process, began to _design_ solutions. I had become a design-type person.

Yet when I reflected on these two types of tasks -- engineering and design -- I realized they were not different types of tasks at all. Rather, engineering and design are two different approaches to the singular task of creation: design is creation in which decisions are based primarily upon qualitative metrics; engineering is creation in which decisions are based primarily upon quantitative metrics. I was instead simply a creative-type person, just one with an ability to approach problems with both engineering and design eyes.

Perhaps my most important observation is that engineering and design are fundamentally more similar than different. And by improving your abilities in either, you are improving your abilities at that which is similar: the creative process itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> ...The use of that last phrase, "style over substance" has always been, as Oscar Wilde observed, a marvellous and instant indicator of a fool. For those who perceive a separation between the two have either not lived, thought, read or experienced the world with any degree of insight, imagination or connective intelligence...

Stephen Fry

<comment><USER8> That's a great quote as it shows aesthetics are part of what the product is, rather than something you can "add later".

But most people's preconceptions are of design being primarily concerned with aesthetics and visuals. I find it helpful to show that there is another kind of design that deals primarily with functionality. You could label the two graphic design and interaction design. And of course both are interwoven and interdependent, but they often involve different skillsets and methods..

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think it's useful to look at a different industry - cars - to see how this could play out.

Initially it was mostly about figuring out how to make them work. Later, it was making them work better and how to make more of them in a shorter time. These days a car needs to be able to sustain performance for many years with a tiny amount of failures or there's a lawsuit.

Design has clearly become more important. It's probably easy to say that design is the 'most important thing' since engineering is all good, but even now it would be wrong. Some marques need passable engineering and design, and focus on price. Others focus on great engineering with passable design (Volvo? IMHO). Others on great engineering and great design but passable price (Porsche, say, vs Bugatti). Toyota is much more about engineering and price, than design.

This mirrors Porter's 'generic strategies' [1] where different companies can compete in the same overall market, each embodying different principles by which they compete.

Similarly, I suspect that the design/engineering issue won't be 'answered'. Each niche and market will have different requirements. Different solution providers, each with a different design/engineering mix, will succeed based on how that mix and the resulting solution match the specific needs of the customer.

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

</comment><comment><USER10> Did you know that the left/right sides of the brain theory has been debunked and hasn't been seriously considered for the last few decades? Stop using it to talk about different types of skills, it just makes you sound stupid.

edit: just in case you need more info about this... [http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/10/the_left_bra...](http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/10/the_left_brain_right_brain_myt.php)

</comment><comment><USER11> "There is, however, a shortage of good startup designers, at least when it comes to people who have both interaction and product design experience and skill sets. Designers today are being asked to do more than simply build visuals and hand them off to engineers. They are evolving into experts in user research (customer development), information architecture (IA), interaction design (IxD), visual design, and storytelling (copy writing and messaging). They also possess back-end skills and have a thorough understanding of the technology stack that the product is being built on. "

It seems that the definition of a "good designer" includes various technical skills / knowledge, while the definition of a "good developer" does not include design. I've noticed this a few times in startup culture, where people are hesitant to hire UX/designers that do not code.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's pretty startling how some traditionally B&M institutions will neglect the UX of their online products. Banks, for instance, will spend lots of money and attention to their physical customer touch-points, but banks' online banking is woefully without character and lacking in usability.

I think things are improving, but the fact that design is still a strong competitive advantage (in many types of businesses, not just startups) shows how lacking it is. Companies understand the importance of their brand, but they seem to undervalue how the digital experience affects the brand.

</comment><comment><USER13> My problem with this type of article is that while it says design is important, it still propagates a false dichotomy between code and design (or form and function).

The takeaway shouldn't be that you need to find a designer co-founder that cares about design, it should be that YOU, as a technical founder, need to care (and learn) about design.

Developers who launch their startup need to learn about running a business even though that's not their main domain of expertise. So why couldn't they learn about good design as well?

</comment><comment><USER14> You can not make something "without" design.

You can find something ugly. You can try to make something more aesthetically appealing for a certain group of people.

If these people have "aesthetic appeal" as a criteria, you can have a competitive advantage. Unless you are selling jewelry or other luxury products.

But most of the time, aesthetic appeal is not a key decision factor. People may not decide really rationally but they are not going to buy something without any function that solves a real problem for them.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is the design co-founder becoming the new technical co-founder? (In terms of perceived difficulty of acquiring them).

So the difficulty of finding a co-founder would go like this: business < technical < designer.

I certainly feel a little like this. I am looking to start a startup, and I am MUCH more interested in hooking up with a really good UX/design person than a business person.

</comment><comment><USER16> "There is, however, a shortage of good startup designers, at least when it comes to people who have both interaction and product design experience and skill sets."

As a design/product guy I'd love to work at your startup IF the problem you're trying to solve is compelling. A good number of startups fail that litmus test for me.

If your idea is awesome, I'm in.

</comment><comment><USER17> Very true. My co-founder pays a dollar extra for each domain (he has around 100) just because GoDaddy's design sucks.

</comment><comment><USER18> For me, design needs to be taken into consideration from all sides. Technical, creative, everything needs to be put together just right for a project to take off--being good in all fields is a competitive advantage. Design in the sense that this article writes about is important (and as a not very technical founder I appreciate vb pumping my tires) but never forget the other parts of the machine that help make it run.

From the lens of a role-playing gamer (big fan of Bioware games), I think this realization can best be described by the distribution of attribute points. You can drop all your points into strength, and sure enough there will be times that you excel as you bash things with swords, but there will be times when you think, boy it would be nice to have a bit of magic or better charisma or whatever to solve this problem (usually bad guys) and then you start going all magic... usually the best builds that provide the best overall advantage are the ones that are balanced. So again, as much hype as these Design people might be getting now, don't forget about the other "attributes" as it were.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is why there needs to be an easily accessible hub for designers and coders alike to present ideas and find people to work with. The idea of bumping into the ideal business partner while in school, at work, or out socially is somewhat arcane.

<comment><USER16> I've had great success finding talented programmers here: <http://builditwith.me>

(not an ad, I just really like the service)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Becoming?

<comment><USER21> It's common for personal discoveries to be interpreted ahistorically. It's a function of ignorance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Design has always been a competitive advantage for startups doing anything with consumers.

Case in point, Apple vs. every other small PC manufacturer in the 70's and 80's ... hell, even now.

<comment><USER23> What? I'm pretty sure Apple got their arse kicked all over the block in the 70's and 80's. I strongly agree that it is a competitive advantage, but I don't get this comment.

<comment><USER24> Apple had "the biggest IPO since Ford" in December 1980, so they certainly weren't getting their arse kicked in the 70s. Things were pretty grim from 85-97 though.

<comment><USER25> Yes, but that wasn't design related. They had desirable technology and software for the time and they marketed aggressively.

<comment><USER24> Well, Jobs' desire for a small, quiet (fanless) machine drove them to hire Rod Holt, who designed the switching power supply for the Apple ][. Jobs quote from the bio (it's unclear when he said this): "That switching power supply was as revolutionary as the Apple ][ logic board was. Rod doesn't get a lot of credit for this in the history books, but he should. Every computer now uses switching power supplies, and they all rip off Rod's design."

Would the Apple ][ have been as successful without the switching power supply? Hard to say. But even at the Apple ][ stage, Jobs' design sense was making its way into Apple products.

<comment><USER25> We may be at conflict with what we mean by design. I would consider the switching power supply to be an example of desirable technology, not design.

<comment><USER24> My contention is that they wouldn't have had the switching power supply if not for Jobs' design aesthetic. They would have just used whatever was standard at the time, making the machine bigger and noisier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's very hard to tell when design or functionality makes or breaks a site. I think we shouldn't be asking that question at all. The whole thing is completely situational.

For Craigslist the function is most important and credit should go to the back end guys. Something like Twitter would give it to the front end guys. I'm leaving scaling out of the equation for now and assuming all sites will perform the same under any load.

A site that is ugly doesn't get used. People always judge a book by its cover especially these days. But if the pretty site doesn't work then you're also screwed. I really hate this debate over who is more important: front or back end. You need both. Period.

I also hate the whole "design is easy" / "no, programming is easy" argument. Neither one is easy. They're different animals. The way you approach the front end and back end are totally different. I'm a generalist but lean toward design. I'm in awe of the back end guys but then some are in awe of me. We have totally different goals in mind when working. The back end guys are concerned with functionality. Security, scaling. The front end is all about beauty, load times, SEO, user experience. At one point in our work we do end up in the middle. That middle is when we're both thinking about the the front end is interacting with the back end and how will we code everything so that A) we can easily connect the two and B) we can efficiently extend the front end to accommodate new back end features and vice versa.

I understand the article wasn't exactly pitting programmers against designers but there's always that subtext and people always start thinking about it. It's a shame that the designers haven't gotten as much credit until recently but at the same time, even as a designer, I must give huge props to the back end guys as I understand the pains they go through.

But can we put the whole front vs. back debate to rest already? You just can't have one without the other. Period.

<comment><USER21> _A site that is ugly doesn't get used._

This, right after talking about Craigslist, a site that enjoys a monthly cycle of "Craigslist sucks, it's so ugly!" ranters who are reliably and continually proven to be clueless.

<comment><USER27> As mtgentry replied, Craigslist had a huge advantage in being first to market. But now as Craigslist is being supplanted by more niche focused sites, you better believe that good design will be an integral part of those new sites. Refer to [http://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of- cr...](http://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of-craigslist- like-most-vcs-that-focus)

<comment><USER26> Yeah. I knew someone would call me out for saying the thing about ugly sites right after mentioning Craigslist but I think my point still stands. The only reason I felt I could safely say that was because of your point exactly, imjk. Thanks for saying it better than I could.

<comment><USER21> No, your point doesn't stand when it's predicated on imjk's skills at predicting the future and a rhetorical interpretation of Craigslist's life so far.

Both history and reality confirm for us that ugly sites other than CL do just fine.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zuckerberg: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Collect Data 'Behind Your Back' - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396026,00.asp <comment><USER2> Interesting, and undoubtedly true. But the pot calling the kettle black doesn't make the pot any less black</comment>


Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/s/x83gyclt497fi8t/Ring%20Neighborhoods%20Portal_1.mp4?dl=0 <comment><AUTHOR> I found this dropbox link to Ring's marketing video for Police Departments to use their smart video cameras for mass surveillance. This was made before Amazon acquired them. At the end of the demo the CEO states that their facial recognition search feature will be available soon.

This software is made in Ukraine and the hardware is manufactured in China. There was no private company contract bid - Ring is just giving this to cops for free and offering customers a discount for letting their video surveillance from their home / doorbell be shared with the police in this portal.

over 50+ local police departments are now partners.

There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial recognition algorithms.

Ring Ukraine is hiring aggressively, they grew from 10 engineers to 500 in two years. It's one of the top image processing R&D labs in Eastern Europe. Based on their job descriptions.... the facial recognition search being deployed in the police portals of Ring is pretty advanced.

for more on Ring Ukraine www.ring-ukraine.com

I got this ring marketing video from officer.com / a website for police industry news.

<comment><USER3> > There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for > privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial > recognition algorithms.

Yes and no lawsuit will be won either. Every judge will strike it based on being in public assumption of lack of privacy. If you walk on public street, don't assume your privacy is protected :(

<comment><USER4> _If you walk on public street_

No, this is not public property, it's _if you walk on private property_. Ring cams are placed on private property and are targeted at homeowners. They usually don't record or activate outside of a range of 30 feet or so. So if someone drives by my house the ring cam doesn't capture it but if someone walks by my door it does.

<comment><USER5> > They usually don't record or activate outside of a range of 30 feet or so.

30 feet is often more than the distance from the front door to a sidewalk, and often well into the actual street.

<comment><USER6> 30 feet is often _across_ the street.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can not imagine developing this and thinking that it is Good. This type of product and platform completely ignores the reality of how it will be used and how police behave in American society.

In the demo video, their example has someone sharing a photo of "suspicious people" walking around outside their house, and has neighbors commenting "oh no!" on it. Now the police are alerted to this "crime" which may not even be a crime. Anyone who has an account on NextDoor knows the hysteria around a minor event like a car that someone doesn't recognize being in the neighborhood.

The next step is police or homeowner arresting or shooting someone captured on video and posted to this social feed as having committed a crime.

The developers, marketers, SV investors, etc who promote this type of surveillance as a good idea need a course in ethics and reality.

<comment><USER8> _Anyone who has an account on NextDoor knows the hysteria around a minor event like a car that someone doesn 't recognize being in the neighborhood._

Happened to me. I saw myself in a Nextdoor video as someone "suspicious," followed pleas from the homeowner and a chorus of cabbageheads for more videos from anyone living nearby so they could identify the car I drive.

That's what I get for walking through a public park that backs into a group of homes two hours before closing time.

The level of paranoia in the suburbs is just off the charts. I can't wait until I can move back to a city like New York or Chicago or Houston, where I can be safe from my neighbors, and only have to worry about the criminals.

<comment><USER9> Bad news, then. I live in the city of Los Angeles, and our NextDoor is just as bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is an example of Ring partnering with a police department - Orlando - <USER2> offer discounted video surveillance IoT devices to citizens, with caveat that they can share their videos with cops to fight crime.

Orlando police department was called out for civil rights violations when they partnered with Amazon's facial recognition technology. The thing about Ring is it's marketed to consumers as a cheap camera....not a hard core image processing face rec AI tool for policing built by Ukraine's biggest tech company.

Every single security article you read about Ukraine's cyber attacks warns about IoT and russian intelligence officials penetrating the private sector. Do american police forces even care about the vulnerability of having this portal app on their phones? Again, nothing is encrypted.

[https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange/os-orlando- ring-...](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange/os-orlando-ring- doorbell-20180501-story.html)

<comment><USER10> What do you mean by nothing is encrypted? Transport encryption?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can't say why this feels strange, but's it's also not as sensational as the title. Ring Users have to choose to share the information. As someone who has a Ring device, I find the neighborhood feature more a nuisance than anything. It's mostly people posting videos from their doorbell cams asking if anyone knows why's the guy with a clipboard was at their door, or posting videos of "suspicious" people in their neighborhood without any crime to report. Not hard to guess what the "suspicious" people shared usually look like.

Before these cameras lots of people knocked on your door while you were at work at you never knew.

<comment><USER12> Did you miss the part about facial recognition and suspicious activity detection?

<comment><USER11> Where? The OP combines a Amazon Facial Recognition controversy with Ring Video, which they did just acquire, but provides nothing to support the claim that the information is somehow connected.

The OP also makes the inflated claim saying it will offer facial recognition, when the video actually says person recognition. This is something Nest and other systems have offered for years. Person recognition ensures your system isn't recording pets or squirrels in your yard and instead records actions by actual people. If you want something to worry about, Nest is actually offering the ability to recognize different people, powered by Google of course.

<comment><USER12> I agree that Nest is similarly worrying, and has been providing surveillance footage to law enforcement too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've argued for a long time, that Nest, Ring, etc., will all become free or highly discounted services soon as long as you're willing to allow them to share the video data.

Based on your camera's location they would have tons of valuable data about the people who live in that area.

Do they go on walks? If so, with who & what.

Do they go to nearby stores?

I can see coming home & getting ads for "winter clothes" & "dog food" after walking my dog in shorts on a cold day.

I'm curious if people who live in more optimal areas would get any additional benefits. Kind of like social media influencers.

"Live in a popular metro area? Receive $100/month for installing a camera in your apartment."

</comment><comment><USER14> There is significant room for private policing in this space.

This past Saturday I went for my run at approximately 9:45AM, on my run I got a text from my bank of suspicious activity on both my credit and debit card for a total of $1,000. When I got back to my car it all made sense as my passenger window was smashed and my "run bag" with my keys and wallet stolen.

By the time I the cops got there for the report, I spoke to the bank located the time/store (footlocker) the cards were used, I had spoken with the store manager and confirmed 2 men used multiple cards that were declined and confirmed the store had video but the request must be made through HQ.

The cops dont follow up on this and request the video and footlocker won't give it to me. I know I could go to the store and grease the wheel to get a copy of the video (which I may do). It's so crazy because no one care more than the victim of crimes to see the criminals face justice, and the technology is in place for things like stolen credit cards or stolen phones but then corporate America gets in the way.

I'd love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource the identity of the criminals. Any advice?

<comment><USER15> So this is just anecdotal, but here's my 'running and car broken into story': I parked next to a busy dog park and went for my run. Came back to broken window. There was a lady there who took pictures of the perpetrators _and_ their license plate. I filed a report with the police. Guess what the police did. That's right! Absolutely nothing. Not even swing by the people's house and ask for my shit back (I was cool with paying for the broken window, even).

The idea that this kind of surveillance will be used for your benefit is simply wrong, in my opinion. It's a weapon. How does that NWA song go? The one about the police?

<comment><USER5> The police serve the state, whose interests may or may not coincide with the individual citizen; they don't exist to make you whole when you've lost something to wrongful acts, though they may sometimes help with that incidentally; that's primarily the role of the civil courts and private litigation.

<comment><USER16> Then why am I paying their salaries?

<comment><USER5> > Then why am I paying their salaries?

You, individually, are not.

Your shared interests with those with whom you are are collectively doing so are, obviously, not coextensive with all of your personal interests, but are a subset of them. Law enforcement serves (ideally) diffuse public interests, acute private interests are served (in the legal realm) by private civil litigation.

Particularly, you (individually, and society collectively) are not paying enough to have adequste police resources to treat every property crime as worthy of any follow-up beyond taking a report after dealing with every other higher priority as determined by the people elected and given the responsibility for setting police priorities; the fact that a crime affects _you_ doesn't make it a higher public priority than if it affected someone else, even if it does make it a higher _personal_ priority for you.

If you don't like the current law enforcement priorities or the resources available at particular priority levels, you can vote for different leaders or (in states that provide citizen initiatives) for different laws setting enforcement priorities directly, or for more resources for police to work farther down the list of priorities.

Or—or just in the meantime—you can avail yourself of the system set up for dealing with private harms that is largely independent of public enforcement priorities.

<comment><USER16> I'll be sure to remember this noble policesplaining explanation the next time a bond issue or tax bill comes up. Paying for the private administration of justice is not how things are supposed to work in this country.

<comment><USER5> > Paying for the private administration of justice is not how things are > supposed to work in this country.

It may not be how you suppose things should work, but the split between the public system serving public priorities and the civil system redressing individual harms is _exactly_ how things have always been supposed to work, both in this country and in the system on which it's legal system was directly modeled.

Yes, law enforcement advocates often blur this when seeking funding or new powers, claiming they work for victims. Thid has never been the case, which is why criminal prosecutions are "the State vs. defendant" whereas private litigation is "plaintiff vs. defendant". Public prosecutors and law enforcement represent the State, they aren't publicly subsidized to represent the harmed individual the way, say, a public defender is for the accused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This at Medium seems relevant from an Amazon employee on the facial recognition aspect of this.

[https://medium.com/s/story/im-an-amazon-employee-my- company-...](https://medium.com/s/story/im-an-amazon-employee-my-company- shouldn-t-sell-facial-recognition-tech-to-police-36b5fde934ac)

</comment><comment><USER18> Nice, efficient, low-friction slide into fascism.

<comment><USER19> A ring for every room citizen.

<comment><USER8> After all, if you've got nothing to hide, why wouldn't you let the police watch a video feed from inside your house?

You don't have anything to hide, do you, citizen?

/s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This type of stuff is specifically why I bought a Doorbird, which is very privacy conscious and made in Germany. Also, Doorbird has public API docs (it is just a bad http "REST-ish" API): [https://www.doorbird.com/api](https://www.doorbird.com/api)

It made it much easier to integrate with Home Assistant: [https://www.home- assistant.io/components/doorbird/](https://www.home- assistant.io/components/doorbird/)

Bonus points that the Doorbird is of a much higher build quality than the Ring or Ring Pro.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> original article with link to marketing video dropbox [https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers- soft...](https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers- software/apps-mobile-tablet-computer/product/20983888/ring-video-doorbell- home-security-surveillance-system-community-social-media-crime-information- sharing-app-neighborhoods)

</comment><comment><USER21> This seems fairly reasonable, as long as they keep the commitment that officers have to request videos from camera owners. Now, in theory, the PD could subpoena videos from ring without permission, but that's a higher bar than this.

<comment><USER22> Your statement reads in a pretty funny way:

> This seems fairly reasonable...

> ...as long as they keep the commitment...

I mean, I feel as if _everything_ seems reasonable as long as the original commitment is kept. Thing is, the original commitment is rarely if ever kept at all. This is nothing more than a problem waiting to happen, as are most things where large bureaucracies involve themselves.

Once I read that the data is completely unencrypted (oh, I can do a man-in-the middle and just send my own backend a copy of this video stream? awesome!) and _anyone 's face_ (i.e., those simply walking by) could potentially be recorded, I pretty much gave up any hope of this working responsibly.

But hey, just read another comment about Walmart apparently sending surveillance video to the Feds (which sounds like a _very_ Walmart thing to do actually), so apparently we have larger issues to deal with.

<comment><USER23> If I was Amazon or any other security cam company, my biggest fear would be government using my equipment to spy on customers. Because if that ever became public, it would kill adoption. If I was Amazon, I'd be lobbying to codify protections against warrantless surveillance and mass pulls of data.

<comment><USER24> Why not just design a system where you do not have access to the data? Using symmetric encryption it's possible for you to create a system where only the end customer can decrypt any of the data. Because of the mathematics involved it's effectively impossible for you to respond to a subpoena and law enforcement must make requests of each customer individually.

<comment><USER23> You'll lose lots of functionality since the provider just becomes dumb storage. I am not sure how you would even do machine learning on the data, you can't put it on the device unless it had its own massive storage and rings are just dumb battery powered cameras. You'll need a host device to crunch data before shipping it off to cloud for storage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I see a lot of comments about how this is "opt-in". By definition, all of the videos that officers can see the existence of through this portal exist on Ring's servers, not on some individually-owned machine.

So if you decline to "share" your video with the police, they can just request it from Ring, who won't and can't decline to share. You won't be notified.

</comment><comment><USER26> Trippy. So what google is offering in China might already be for sale by Amazon here in the US.

</comment><comment><USER27> Anyone can download the Ring app and view this same content. You don't even need to own a Ring device, your phone just needs to geolocate to the area you say you live in.

</comment><comment><USER28> Ring customer here. I recently shared a video of crime on my property using the neighborhoods feature. I also downloaded the video to my phone, in order to email a copy of it to cops who asked for it (and apparently don't participate in the portal described here). The offender was subsequently caught thanks to the video, and the cops recovered my property for me.

The opt-in is limited to per video shared, as far as I've been led to believe and in my experience. I'd be quite alarmed to learn anyone could access anything I haven't designated without that specific sharing step on my part.

</comment><comment><USER29> A good reminder that with connected devices, your level of privacy is dynamic and can change with a single line of code.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you've been scammed or if you are in need of a certified hacker contact this guy Captain Spy on this e-mail address.....captainspyhacker2 @gmailCOM I found him useful when many acknowledge his service and how he had helped them with their hack job on Quora. I got his email and decided to hit him up. His response was fast and quickly I told him what I wanted. He did it earlier than the hours he gave. I got him other jobs; credit score score upgrade, my wife's phone hack, build a site and also clear criminal records and all was a success throughout. You can really trust him for a good captainspyhacker2 @ gmailCOM

</comment><comment><USER31> The vertical market solutions are worse.

My cities redlight camera system records 24x7 and retains for 30 days. All data is local and the camera is internet accessible.

</comment><comment><USER32> Isn't this an opt in feature? I understand free reign police surveillance is bad, but if a customer opts in, I don't see the issue?

<comment><USER33> My neighbor has such a doorbell. My facial data is captured every time I come over or walk by with my dog. When was I given an opportunity to consent to this?

<comment><USER34> In the United States, your consent is not needed to film you in places with no expectation of privacy.

<comment><USER35> False. It depends on how invasive the recording was, how recognizable you are and how the recording is used (e.g. using it for advertising).

<comment><USER36> Also in the United States, you have the right to video-record anything you can see from where you are if you have the right to be present. You have the right to record any happenings on or in your dwelling and its curtilage. There is no question whatsoever that everyone has the right to mount a doorbell camera and do whatever they like with the recordings.

The only exception is that if you are not in a single-party consent state, you might not be able to record the audio. It is unlikely that a legally protected conversation would be happening in mic range of the camera, though.

<comment><USER37> But what if we changed those laws?

We could, for example, make it such that you can continue to record, but that those recordings couldn't be used as input to facial recognition software without the consent of the person being recorded.

Just because you _currently_ can do something legally does not mean that it _must_ be that way.

<comment><USER36> You cannot abridge freedom of expression without an amendment. Nor can you abridge freedom of computation.

You should perhaps instead endeavor to strike down anti-mask laws as being contrary to existing freedoms. The logical counter to automated facial recognition technology is facial concealment practices. It is the least harmful to liberty.

Alternatively, we could all wear--with our masks on--t-shirts with other people's faces printed onto them (especially Batman's face). And we can, of course, ban _the government_ from using facial recognition technology without a specific, limited reason for doing so.

Just because _I_ can record you from my porch and identify your face as appearing often, doesn't mean I would be able to tie that image in to a compulsory national identity database with facial photograph data included. Individuals might instead be able to identify a face as "John Doe #154" on their own server, and maybe match it to "YourMetroArea Serial Package Thief #15" on neighborhood-watch.net . Maybe I can set up an alert if any of the shared criminal faces show up and get recognized, or I can voluntarily forward my video to the cops when an incident actually happens. Giving cops unrestricted access to everyone's raw feeds is a bad, bad, bad idea. You bring in the cops only when it is apparent that a crime has been committed, an identifiable individual is responsible, and there is now a tangible reason to deanonymize the culprit.

<comment><USER38> What's wrong with an amendment? I don't want to live in a world where I have to wear a face mask to get some privacy. And they will probably soon not even need faces but recognize you from your height and the way you walk.

<comment><USER36> Nothing, in theory, but I don't think any amendment can get enough legislature votes to pass and be ratified right now, and the Powers That Be are absolutely terrified of what might come out of a Constitutional Convention. Anything could happen: gun control, equal rights for women, gay marriage, abortion rights, a requirement that presidents must divest all businesses and show tax returns prior to inauguration, right to strong encryption without back doors or key escrow, technology privacy and personal data ownership... _anything_.

So then we'll need masks and privacy-enhancing shoes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Just another example of the utter amorality of the silicon valley mindset–which has been exported globally. Everybody cares about what they can achieve technically, while virtually no one cares whether they should or not.

</comment><comment><USER40> I use the Ring security system at home and own a couple of the cameras. The security "history" feature is dirt simple but very cool -- I can trivially see when I use different doors in my house.

The Ring smartphone app also shows me the Neighbors view for my area, which is very similar to this product being advertised here (a feed of locations, comments, and videos posted by smart device owners and others). I think probably every software company of a certain size builds a law enforcement portal, very standard feature.

My favorite part about the Ring Neighbors section of the app is that it provides clear evidence of widespread lawbreaking by people who have voluntarily disclosed their identities.

Specifically, Ring's cameras automatically record audio and cannot be configured to disable the audio recording. (I e-mailed their founder a while back and he said "soon" they'll ship a way to disable this.)

In my jurisdiction, audio recording without the consent of all people who are recorded is illegal. Disclosing an illegally made audio recording is another, separate crime. The law in my jurisdiction is extremely clear: if you do not have the consent of all parties and you disclose the recording; the maximum jail term is two years. Merely putting up a sign that says "there is a camera recording the street near my house and if you walk in front of it I'll be audio recording you" does not count as obtaining consent -- everyone actually has to acknowledge that they knew they were being audio recorded.

Now, police are free to choose not to arrest people for committing this crime. And prosecutors are free to choose not to prosecute people who break the law in this way.

This crime is actually prosecuted, albeit rarely (I think). But … sometimes the crime is prosecuted because people complain that they were wiretapped. One of the reasons we want to set up security cameras is there's someone we're afraid of who has threatened to harass us in the past and we want to know they aren't coming around. _If_ they came by our house, saw that we had Ring cameras, and talked in front of them, they could actually complain to local police that we are wiretapping them, and this would at the last cause us a major headache. So while we own some Ring cameras, _we are afraid to use them_.

Meanwhile, by using the Ring cameras in their standard configuration, and by sharing videos with the Neighbors feature, people are often explicitly committing a crime. And by signing up for Ring accounts and in many cases paying Ring money, people are making it easy to tie their identities to the crime.

This Neighbors law enforcement portal gives police a simple, handy map of all the people in my area who are breaking the law in a major way. They aren't using it yet. If they ever decide to step up enforcement of this law, they will have a handy pool of targets.

<comment><USER41> Can't you just block the mic somehow?

<comment><USER42> Exactly. This feels like a feature that can be disabled with a steady hand and a power-drill.

But I expect there's still a trap here for customers who don't know their local laws and buy these items thinking it's compliant with local ordinances. OP's comment is reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is not at all what the title makes it sound like - this is merely a portal for law enforcement in to what is in essence a social network feed. There's nothing to be seen here that isn't already publicly shared by Ring camera owners - heck, it's not even stuff that people are sharing privately. People share this stuff on Ring because they want someone to get recognized or caught for committing a crime (or a perceived one).

</comment><comment><USER18> The majority of people who I know who have all encompassing security systems are conservative and xenophobic. This system is ripe for abuse by racists and racist organizations. When private camera systems feed into state power, some very bad things are setup to occur.

<comment><USER44> You should really expand your circle of friends beyond conservatives and xenophobics.

Most of the people I know who have cameras use them to make sure their kids get home safe on time, or keep an eye on the dog in the backyard.

<comment><USER18> That is an uncharitable, low-comprehension reading of my first sentence. Didn't say they were friends, and the phrase "all encompassing", isn't for the folks looking after the dog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'd love to have this. It's certainly a lot easier than the process that I had to go through asking my neighbors to check their cameras for a mail thief (which police and postal inspectors didn't even bother to request).

</comment><comment><USER46> I get a "404 That file isn't here anymore" Error message.

<comment><USER47> Same here. Does anyone have a mirror?

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Nextdoor is going to have a ball with this one

<comment><USER49> If most Nextdoor members understood the implications, it would be great. But most people have no problem giving away their information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Something similar to this which I think has gone totally unreported is that large chains like Walmart are feeding their security cameras in real-time to the US government, which is being used to find and track wanted criminals.

Edit: Most of the above is speculation based on stuff I've been observing over the past few years. I don't have any evidence that the system exists, or that it is real-time.

<comment><USER51> Do you have substantive links supporting that real-time claim?

<comment><USER50> Nope, I'm making some assumptions, I'll edit my comment to that effect. This came to my attention when a news article about an abduction mentioned he was caught on Walmart security cameras. Usually these are tied to a credit card purchase, but this person was said to have paid in cash, so it piqued my interest. There's also a huge settlement Walmart had with the US government that was quickly followed by a big improvement in their security systems. I'm getting real close to tin-foil hat territory, and I acknowledge that :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ok so I'm not following the argument that this is for "mass surveillance" as if this is some gov't intrusion. I understand you might not want to be recorded walking through my neighborhood but hear me out...

I have several ring cams and their home security system, I'm also part of "ring neighborhoods". I live in a city with a lot of home break ins (we're number 11 in the US for robberies). With the neighborhoods feature I get alerts from my neighbors when they share videos from their ring cams. I haven't yet shared anything but I do comment on shared videos. I have an entirely different camera system on my property which records everything that happens outside my home because I have that right in this state. What I don't understand about this is how is me sharing video clips from my secondary camera system any different than this portal for ring neighborhoods?

I'm not seeing the problem here.

Lets take it to the extreme...

Assuming every home in my neighborhood had ring cams, and you wandered on to someone's personal property, and you were recorded, and they chose to share that video, why is that a problem? This is individual property owners choosing to surveil their property and share that video. We have that right.

Furthermore I hope ring is indexing the faces. There's several videos from my neighborhood of people casing homes. They ring the doorbell and when they see no one is home they jiggle the door handle (criminals are stupid, there's a Ring cam _right there_ ). Thieves have been recorded breaking into cars and homes but police struggle to identify the individuals. How is us, as home owners and renters, banding together to identify criminals in our neighborhood and willingly sharing that data with police a problem?

I'm confused.

<comment><USER52> > Furthermore I hope ring is indexing the faces. There's several videos from > my neighborhood of people casing homes. They ring the doorbell and when they > see no one is home they jiggle the door handle (criminals are stupid, > there's a Ring cam right there). Thieves have been recorded breaking into > cars and homes but police struggle to identify the individuals. How is us, > as home owners and renters, banding together to identify criminals in our > neighborhood and willingly sharing that data with police a problem?

Can you really not see the potential for issues here? Especially when it will be software making the determination for what constitutes "casing" and "suspicious behavior"? What happens if: I go to visit my friend and get mistakenly labeled as "suspicious" in the Ring network. Later I'm seen walking near the scene of a crime. I'm now a person of interest for no reason. And this is a pretty tame example that doesn't touch on deliberate misuse, ex Ring compiling and selling data on a persons movements throughout the day. There are so many ways this can accidentally and deliberately be misused.</comment></comment>


2020 Art Market Predictions - <AUTHOR> https://www.artnome.com/news/2020/1/27/2020-art-market-predictions <comment><USER2> >>> If I had tens of thousands of dollars to spend on art, all of it would be going to build a collection of important works by Vera Molnar

I sort of feel the same about Maurizio Cattelan ;)

These predictions, keeping in line with demographic shifts, are perfectly within the realm of what reasonable people would expect. And I may even be so bold as to say by 2030, auctions not backed by some form of distributed ledger technology will be a rarity.

But one of the most powerful new shows, if not the most powerful show of the current season, is "Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution" at the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent. It's already gone "viral"

[https://news.artnet.com/art-world/lamb-ghent-altarpiece- meme...](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/lamb-ghent-altarpiece- memes-1759152)

More than a decade ago Lucian Freud (whose new bio is one of the best art books i've ever read) came out of seclusion to restore a masterwork by Titian. New imaging techniques, enabled by high energy sources of xrays, as well as visualization using VR, are revealing mysteries hidden for centuries. And new restoration techniques of old masters could constitute a significant draw for public funds and art r&d and investment ;)

[https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-lives-of-lucian- freud-9781...](https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-lives-of-lucian- freud-9781408850947/)</comment>


Hulu: HTML5 Isn't Ready for Prime Time - <AUTHOR> http://newteevee.com/2010/05/13/hulu-html5-isnt-ready-for-prime-time/

<comment><USER2> Well, the lack of support for DRM is always going to be an issue as long as content producers insist on having DRM. I know we've all been 'round this tree before, but I continue to be genuinely perplexed that they still insist on DRM. Network TV is broadcast over the air unencrypted to begin with. Why is the internet so special that all that same exact content has to be locked down? It's like a bank building a safe with several feet of reinforced concrete on the top, bottom, and sides, but putting a plywood door on the front.

<comment><USER3> _Network TV is broadcast over the air unencrypted to begin with. Why is the internet so special that all that same exact content has to be locked down?_

Because the devices that generally connect to the internet are good at storing and re-transmitting content, whereas TV's aren't.

<comment><USER4> Not like it stops a select few individuals from recording OTA content and making it available online anyway. All it takes is one source to make the video available, so DRM really is pointless.

<comment><USER5> DRM in a browser doesn't stop a select few individuals from screen capturing content either. Hulu is only looking at stopping the majority so that they can secure their licensing rights.

<comment><USER6> Don't you mean, "The fiction that they maintain so that they can secure broadcasting rights?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The blog post itself seems to have been pulled, but here's a cached version: [http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=http%3a%2f%2fblog.hulu.com%...](http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=http%3a%2f%2fblog.hulu.com%2f2010%2f05%2f13%2fpardon- the-dust%2f&d=491976131405&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=3441454b,2f202d1c)

</comment><comment><USER8> I read it as "HTML's <video> doesn't have DRM". However, his concern about streaming and buffering capabilities seem valid. I'm assuming this will be improved as time moves on.

</comment><comment><USER9> Bruce Schneier's expression _Security Theatre_ really describes video DRM. It's to provide the _illusion_ of control, to reassure content intermediaries that their business model is safe regardless of whether it is or isn't.

</comment><comment><USER10> Basically, as of today, HTML5 video isn't ready. We all knew that.

The guy goes on to say that technology moves at a fast pace and they haven't ruled out HTML5.

Google's rumored VP8 release at I/O will help catapult it into prime time.

DRM is pointless imo, the sooner the networks realize that, the better.

<comment><USER11> _Basically, as of today, HTML5 video isn't ready. We all knew that._

Tell that to the people that think HTML5 is 100% supported, that technologies like Flash aren't needed, and that Youtube has actually moved to HTML5.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Rather, Hulu isn't ready for HTML5.

<comment><USER13> Hulu's video player is rock-solid. If they say HTML5 isn't good enough, I am inclined to take what they say seriously.

<comment><USER14> The thing to note is _why_ they say it isn't good enough.

The argument essentially boils down to: the studios and the advertisers are their customers: the studios don't like the lack of perceived control over the data stream and the advertisers don't like the loss of finer-grained reporting on data-stream consumption.

<comment><USER15> And those are important why's.

The end user isn't the only term in the equation is that is the internet.

I would agree that HTML5 isn't ready for mass consumption just yet - client- side uptake is not there, and current implementations are first-generation and very, very slow. We need to go through some more cycles before this thing is in shape for a large-scale deployment like Hulu.

<comment><USER10> I personally disagree. None of those why's are all that important except for the buffering because the end user is in fact the only term in the equation that matters.

Advertiser reporting tools are not crucial. They will advertise if they know the eyeballs are there.

Neither is DRM. If given a choice to monetize without DRM or not have a site at all and maintaining rights, the choice is obvious (if the business is interested in profits).

These are things that advertisers and studios "want", not necessarily need.

The only valid complaints are technical things like video quality and buffering. Everything else is secondary and only crucial to Hulu because their business thrives on giving a perceived illusion of ownership to distributors. But when push comes to shove, as it's been stated already in regards to DRM, your content is getting onto DVRs and can easily be redistributed illegally by other means, so what's the point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would think they'd be best-off with writing their own software as a plugin... though granted, that's more work than coding it once for Flash. It's one of the things which Flash is really quite nicely suited for.

But if they're interested in offering higher quality w/ lower bandwidth and lower CPU usage on more machines, Flash is _definitely_ not the way to go if you're making a custom DRM. Video decoding isn't exactly its strong point.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there a way yet to lock down the source file with HTML5 video in the same way that, say, Typekit locks down font files?

<comment><USER18> I certainly hope not.

<comment><USER17> Right, I'm not saying there should be or that I want there to be, but a) this entire post can be translated as "We're not using HTML5 because there's no DRM" and b) even though it's not a business I'd want to be in, certainly seems to be a market opportunity for it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My first thought on reading the title was that they don't want the content accessible from the iPad so that they could charge for an app.

The other reasons discussed make sense (merits aside), but I still wonder.

</comment><comment><USER20> Its about time a major video provider stands up for the current limitations of HTML5. I'm glad to see them do this and I would love to hear some BS response from jobs on why they are wrong.</comment>


Trump suggests 'nuking hurricanes' to stop them hitting America – report - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/26/donald-trump-suggests-nuking-hurricanes-to-stop-them-hitting-america-report <comment><USER2> Slow news day at The Guardian?

Why is it always

 __Quoting unnamed sources who were present at the meeting, Axios report that the response from one official was "We'll look into this." __

Tabloid News Source.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hurricanes and tsunamis come in many forms - some are hard to see...

SOS HN: Set up live early warning system for spoofed/deep fake news feeds

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20748195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20748195)

</comment><comment><USER4> At this point I'm not sure that I'd be surprised with any phrase being ascribed to Trump.</comment>


Covid-19 Impact Projections - <AUTHOR> http://covid19.healthdata.org/projections <comment><AUTHOR> This is a link contained within the paper I posted yesterday.</comment>


Facial Recognition Shows Why We Need Records on Police Use of Biometrics - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/san-diegos-facial-recognition-program-illustrates-why-we-need-information-police

<comment><USER3> I worked for a company helping WalMart get facial recognition working in their stores - with Big Data to cross reference their identity with other data. So when I read about the new WalMart stores with "smart carts" to personally price items for you - I see something that will be used to maximize profit based on what the billionaries who own WalMart think you can pay. We need much more regulation of business in general. (Denmark has employees on boards - <USER2> that isn't enough.)</comment>


Powerful virus attacks Android phones in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/31/3104284.htm

<comment><USER2> _Phones become contaminated with Geinimi when users download software applications that have been repackaged to include the virus, according to researchers from Lookout and Symantec Corp._

Nitpick: this is a trojan, not a virus. A virus implies self-replication.</comment>


Quantum computing: First two-qubit logic gate in silicon - <AUTHOR> http://www.engineering.unsw.edu.au/news/quantum-computing-first-two-qubit-logic-gate-in-silicon <comment><USER2> A bit misleading. Waveguides in Silicon have been used to make photon qubit gates for a while now. It isn't the first time Silicon has been used.

The real takeaway is "Here we present a two-qubit logic gate, which uses single spins in isotopically enriched silicon".

Paper found here: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/natur...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nature15263.pdf)

Using spin qubits is nothing new, but normally its done in an ion trap. Doing it in Silicon is novel. I've barely skimmed the paper so I don't really know what their decoherence properties are.

<comment><USER3> You seem to know a lot more about this than I do: in your opinion how much of a leap is this? Could this be the Chicago Pile of quantum computing or just another D-Wave?

<comment><USER2> So I did ctrl+f for "coherence time" and found this:

A marked improvement in coherence times has been observed by defining the quantum dots in silicon, which can be isotopically purified, such that quantum dots with single-spin fidelities above the threshold of surface codes can be realized

Meaning they get a bit less than a 10% error per operation.

 _the_ thing that will make quantum computing practical is quantum error correction. I describe it as "the hospital problem". Suppose there's a car accident. An ambulance gets sent to pick up the survivors and fix it. But an ambulance is also a vehicle and so there is a chance it will also get in an accident. You can send more ambulances to fix the situation, but those ambulances are also vehicles and could also get into accidents. The layout of the roads, frequency of hospitals, and probability of accident per meter will determine on average how many problems get fixed per ambulance. If on average an ambulance gets into less than one accident then it is worth it. Otherwise ambulances cause more accidents than they fix. The point where ambulances fix exactly as many accidents as they create is called the threshold. Once you pass the threshold, with sufficient hospitals you can make the expected number of accidents arbitrarily low (aka the probability of successful computation arbitrarily high).

When people talk about surface codes, they mean the broad class of error correction schemes which look a bit like the toric code. The toric code has a threshold value around 10% which is great! However it is literally a lattice of atoms (or other spin systems) embedded on a torus. Construction is difficult. It also doesn't scale. A toric code with a few dozen qubits works as well as one with a few hundred. In fact several no-go theorems show that any transitionally invariant lattice in less than four dimensions won't scale. My research is actually in getting around these theorems by throwing out the lattice idea entirely.

This research is important, but the real Chicago Pile of QC will be passing the threshold of an easy to implement correction scheme.

<comment><USER4> "When people talk about surface codes, they mean the broad class of error correction schemes which look a bit like the toric code. The toric code has a threshold value around 10% which is great! However it is literally a lattice of atoms (or other spin systems) embedded on a torus. Construction is difficult. It also doesn't scale. A toric code with a few dozen qubits works as well as one with a few hundred. In fact several no-go theorems show that any transitionally invariant lattice in less than four dimensions won't scale. My research is actually in getting around these theorems by throwing out the lattice idea entirely."

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, but it doesn't seem to be standard thought.

<comment><USER2> When you lookup "surface code" the first thing that comes up is "toric code". Off hand there's the toric code, the 3d toric code, welded toric code, color codes, and the surface code itself (which is a lattice of "measure qubits" next to a lattice of "data qubits"). The basic idea on all of them is the same as Kitaev's original insight of topologically protected data. IMO its completely fair to lump these together as "surface codes".

If you disagree with my choice of words then I'm happy to concede and rephrase. If something else I said doesn't sound kosher please by all means lmk.

<comment><USER5> No, he's correct. In addition I would add that passive error correction is taking leaps and bounds lately, making dephasing essentially a non issue in multi-qubit systems (scalability is yet to be fully manifested)

<comment><USER2> correct in what respect? I'm not trying to be rude here but it is unclear what exactly I'm being called out on. Do you disagree with my use of the word "surface codes" or do you disagree with the way I've lumped a bunch of QEC's together under one name? Or is the disagreement something else entirely.

And yeah I'm aware of the advances in passive QEC. Exciting time to be alive!

<comment><USER5> The he I meant was you, I'm not calling you out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A quote from a consultation I did this morning: "A QC capable of Shor's Algorithm is decades away, if at all possible." My reasoning was that you can do convoluted physics experiments simulating degree 1 qbits (2, 3 or 4) but raising the order of magnitude might be close to impossible given the physics we know. If we could manage to do 5-10 (2 degrees) in silicone, we should have engineering to do 6 degrees since we know a lot about the material. I was asked who was the largest stakeholder in QC. I said it probably was not the NSA since that's the obvious one. I've since had the thought that the NSA might be an anti-stakeholder, that they would be better off if QC _isn 't_ realized. They have pretty good leakage from current crypto systems. If the world is forced to move away from it, they have to break a whole new suite of cyphersystems.

<comment><USER5> If the National Security state is willing to piss away umpteen billions of dollars on shit like the F-35, the Osprey, the M2 Bradley, et al, you think a few billion on quantum computing just to be safe is even an eye blink?</comment></comment>


Looking for Procedure Mask Substitute - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/health/coronavirus-masks-hoarding.html <comment><AUTHOR> Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, the procedure mask, and surgery mask are in great shortage. One box of procedure masks in Hong Kong may cost more than $1000 HKD (which is equivalent to $128.74 USD). I am looking for an alternative for my local community, please help and give me some advice, thanks.</comment>


Microsoft must finish the job of opening .Net - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/article/2847372/open-source-software/microsoft-must-finish-opening-net.html

<comment><USER2> Open-source cross-platform WPF with a light scriptable syntax, getting improvements every month... Visual Studio on Mac and Linux... XNA-powered MonoGame... Not having to use HTML5...

Man can dream :).</comment>


How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-17/how-a-22-year-old-discovered-the-worst-chip-flaws-in-history <comment><USER2> Is there anything particularly special about his age to make such a big fuss about it? Sure, this thing is worth an article like that, but it's not the age that makes it remarkable. People this age can just be perfectly capable to do stuff like that. What would have changed in perception of this article if he was not 22, but 32 years old? Would it still be mentioned in the title?

<comment><USER3> Being young is often an advantage when finding something really elusive that is obvious with hindsight - I think Meltdown and at least Spectre 1 fall in this category. When you're older, you get influenced more by how things are meant to work, whereas when you're younger (or just new to an area), you make fewer assumptions. You ask the questions no-one else thought were worth asking, because the answer couldn't possibly be true - but then it is after all.

<comment><USER4> So what you're saying is that it'd be _more_ impressive if he was older?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Horn wasn't looking to discover a major vulnerability in the world's computer chips_

Maybe that's why he was the first to find it. He was looking where nobody else had thought to look, and he just so happened to have the combination of knowledge and resources (edit: and talent) to find a flaw there.

<comment><USER6> >>"he just so happened to have the combination of knowledge"

He had found security glitches in his school's computers network as a kid. Also, he was hired by a security research firm while he was still an undergrad.

In addition to knowledge and resources, he also had the knack.

<comment><USER7> He's german and Trust me finding a Security issue in german School Networks is not a big deal

<comment><USER8> That's right, when you do that in the US in any school the on-site cops come and arrest you. Initiative, competence and creativity are as a rule not prized in American education, conformity and athletic prowess are.

<comment><USER9> He meant that the networks often aren't secured at all, so it's very easy to break into them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In typical hackernews fashion, most of the comment (even the top comment) is someone downplaying someone else's brilliance.

Why cant you just be happy for the kid?

Some people are just plain better than you. And its OKAY. Most of us here are average, and will probably never see our own success story published like this. Kid has done and contributed so much at a young age. He's clearly way above average, judging from the reaction of his peers in the netsec community. His skills has benefited us all. His achievement should be celebrated, not met with bitterness.

<comment><USER9> He's brilliant; but it's not about the age. I'm in a similar position to him (working on a very senior position in a big enterprise even though I'm in my very early twenties, I'm even younger than him) and I can assure you people like us don't like others pointing out our age. Focus on our achievements, our knowledge and our experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I miss all the time I used to have to screw around with random things in my teens and early twenties. There's way too much adulting getting in the way as you get older...

</comment><comment><USER12> I thought meltdown and spectre were found simultaneously and independently by multiple groups?

</comment><comment><USER13> > When a fellow researcher asked him about another possible aspect of > processor design that might be vulnerable to attack, Horn said, with a > brief-but-telling smile: "I've been wondering about it but I have not looked > into it."

Anyone who was at RWC2018 who can tell us what this item was? Presumably it's too technical for bloomberg's readership and not secret.

<comment><USER14> Probably the comment regarding Trusted Execution Environments. The talk is online: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O8LTwVfTVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O8LTwVfTVs)</comment></comment>


67 Years Of Potato Chip Innovation, In 5 Animated GIFs - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/04/04/176182150/50-years-of-potato-chip-innovation-in-5-animated-gifs

<comment><USER2> Very cool and seems to use Wonka-derived technology....</comment>


Show HN: HN Card, Hacker News Profile Overlay - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mudulo/hncard <comment><USER2> This extension is trivially vulnerable to XSS - anyone can write javascript in their HN bio and it will execute in your logged-in context if you mouse over their profile. Here's the relevant code:

[https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/blob/master/chrome/js/hnpro...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/blob/master/chrome/js/hnprofile.js#L122-L147)

<comment><USER3> If I was to write something like this, would putting the content in an iframe help?

<comment><USER2> Yes and no.

It depends on the origin of the iframe - if the iframe origin is the tuple (https, news.ycombinator.com, 443) then even if it's in an iframe it still has access to everything. If you put the content into its own origin (say, with <iframe src="data:text/html;base64,..."></iframe>), then it would no longer† have access to your data, but someone who put javascript on their bio could still pop up an alert with arbitrary content in your browser, for instance.

† Well, it's also debatable whether or not an iframe with a unique origin would be sufficient protection in the age of Spectre/Meltdown style vulnerabilities, where code execution in a process means you have access to the entire memory contents of that process. Chrome has strong protections against this in the form of Site Isolation [1], but Firefox does not (though they are actively working on it with Project Fission [2]), and Safari/etc do not to my knowledge. We don't _really_ need to be worried about Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities being used against a Hackernews profile viewer extension, but at the same time it's easy enough to write safe code that doesn't allow javascript execution in the first place, so why not do that instead?

The right way would be to either use a templating language that takes care of it for you (react/angular/vue/etc), or to write some plain javascript instead of injecting DOM with jQuery.html(). Something like:

        const div = document.createElement('div');
        div.textContent = 'This is the bio. <script>alert("This will not execute");</script>';

[1]: [https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/site- isolati...](https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/site-isolation)

[2]: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Project_Fission](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Project_Fission)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a cool idea.

However, I personally like not glancing over user karma just to avoid bias. On Slashdot, for instance, I subconsciously assigned higher credibility to posts made by smaller (numeric) ids. The new reddit has it too.

<comment><USER5> I tend to agree. I know you are referring to karma but it also applies to comments. A few times I've found myself doing the same and then chastise myself for it. I think making comment histories private might be a potential solution, some are moving for reddit to do this.

I am honestly torn, as I progress in my career and life, as a sort of contrarian type, I get more and more worried some background check algo is going to find my presence on platforms, troll my history, and find some random comment from 5 years ago that might be controversial and blackball me for it, unbeknownst to me. On the other hand, I hate the idea that we increasingly self censor as we all become more aware of this.

This is why I still think anonymity is important on the internet, and lean towards burning accounts every couple of years on commenting platforms. This is also why I still value what others might call cesspools that are the chans, and of course onion sites et al.

I tend to always think about this Eben Moglen talk (listen from timestamp for 4 or 5 mins) : [https://youtu.be/sKOk4Y4inVY?t=427](https://youtu.be/sKOk4Y4inVY?t=427)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> HN Card lets you quickly glance at a user's profile without leaving the page you're on. You can quickly see a user's bio, karma, account age - plus quick links to their comments and submissions. Plus, if they have an email address or Github account in their bio (providing they've set up a Gravatar or Github avatar), you'll see their avatar too.

<comment><USER6> This is a nice project — I'm glad that you posted this because I've never read source code for browser extensions before.

With that, after looking through hnprofile.js and am curious if you had a roadmap in mind for improving it? These two things came to mind:

\- Adding localstorage for caching info from each fetch, adding last-visited etc

\- Adding formatting options for the drop

I'm interested in adding support for the first item if you'd like contributions. You can email me if you'd like to chat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thank you. Looks like the submission has been flagged already, so don't know whether its still going to be relevant to HN users, but I'm gona email you. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The extension Refined Hacker News does this too, and has preview overlays for comments/story links too, along with many other stuff.

Here: [https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker- news](https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news)

</comment><comment><USER8> Okay, I don't want/mean to be impolite, but all of the 15 commits I see after forking isn't really significant; Is this really a Show-HNable item?

I see you updated jQuery[0], added your screenshot[1] & edited the Readme each with trivial small edits[2]... and out of the 15 commits 11 commits is related to the screenshot and Readme.

I can't see any new code written, I can't help but suspect that this repo & account was made to get karma...

If you would like some project ideas, I would urge you to modify the styles of the current HNCard plugins to match the HN asthetics; like non-styled buttons/links with the beige background colors and less margin.

[0] [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/808060e869efc8205184...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/808060e869efc8205184651505e438a040dd612a) and [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/808060e869efc8205184...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/808060e869efc8205184651505e438a040dd612a)

[1] [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/cdfc024ba6aef1cb7562...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/cdfc024ba6aef1cb7562ee8e62dd552c98357c84) and [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/a42aaca31de97d894950...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/a42aaca31de97d8949501964b5cc126ca5819f88)

[2] [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/eae608db902b6501dc66...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/eae608db902b6501dc66320c7993e7a887b5477d), [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/dc756ffebdfe2d08ffaf...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/dc756ffebdfe2d08ffaf81082de70afca8c29f2d), [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/3d78b1c3a02bf1499016...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/3d78b1c3a02bf1499016dd2e1ac3199b22f23f3a), [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/1b96751bcadc8393e319...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/1b96751bcadc8393e3196a43e972d1f943505ad7), [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/6293499bb0d0bb87c889...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/6293499bb0d0bb87c8894d2d65f2cd2b85200e60), [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/205450c6998233fad28b...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/205450c6998233fad28b8f2d29137e9609f4dc51), [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/0c7b4d67df6b8ca19266...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/0c7b4d67df6b8ca19266c7d141eec471ae1a9a93), [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/596eef59eba83f1a0aad...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/596eef59eba83f1a0aaddc82870c5b688473d6f1), [https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/91e80d40f1a74c3479af...](https://github.com/mudulo/hncard/commit/91e80d40f1a74c3479afd5ba4dd74103458eaa91)

<comment><USER9> I have the same suspicion. There doesn't seem to be anything meaningful added.

<comment><AUTHOR> You have definitely have a point, but at the very least the original could not install on Firefox, and I thought the project was cool so I forked it.

Its more like this project is cool, but it was last updated 5 years ago, let me fix and share it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are there any fundamental differences between this and the fork ([https://github.com/timdavies/hnprofile](https://github.com/timdavies/hnprofile))?

</comment><comment><USER10> Really cool project! I've been trying to find time to experiment with making a browser extension and I'll probably be referencing this project while I learn. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, Great to know. Yo welcome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like it, nice clean look. I cloned and installed from source (Firefox) and works fine, haven't tested installing from the store but I imagine it's the same.

Small typo in the readme under the Firefox instructions. It says go to the "about:debugging" section and click "This is Firefox" but it should be "This Firefox" (no 'is').

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey,thanks for trying it out, let me fix the typo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks nice but you should make the bio window a bit larger so scroll ain't necessary

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, saw this too on detailed bios.

<comment><USER13> You might consider changing overflow: scroll to overflow: auto so that on short bios it isn't forced to show scroll bars.</comment></comment></comment>


Whispererly - <AUTHOR> http://whispererly.weebly.com/ <comment><USER2> I made something similar to this (it was an Irc bot that allowed tweeting via a command on a fairly large channel) and got shut down, my host subpoenaed (Linode at the time) and eventually got a visit from law enforcement at my house due to people sending abusive tweets. Just a heads up, I would add moderation sooner than later.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wait, do they track who says what themselves? [https://twitter.com/whispererly/status/615513760107732996](https://twitter.com/whispererly/status/615513760107732996)

<comment><USER4> Judging by the fact you have to DM "to get send anonymous messages" (as per their profile description on Twitter) I would suggest it's not that hard to track in the event they need to report the end-user to law enforcement.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is NOT a tweet we wrote but an anonymous one by someone we do not know!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Whispererly is a twitter bot that allows you to send anonymous tweets by simply direct messaging it your tweets!

The bot can be used to joke around, express political views, give feedback to you're friends or any else you want it to be used for. We already have close to 200 tweets in the past two days and can't wait for what the Hacker News community comes up with!

Test it out, and if you have any questions or suggestions feel free to drop them in here.

<comment><USER5> Pretty obvious to the HN community, but perhaps worth making it obvious before this becomes a public thing that this is definitely not even remotely law- enforcement proof, just in case someone thinks of using this to tweet something illegal. You know it's only a matter of time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> With all the existing issues with abuse on twitter won't this just acerbate the problem?

<comment><USER7> Yes.

I would say I'm shocked anyone thought this was a good idea, but I'm not, sadly.

Privileged nerds seem perpetually oblivious of any problem that doesn't personally harm them.

<comment><USER8> Has abuse actually happened? Have you considered that the author might have actually thought about it? Hurray for pre-condemnation.

<comment><USER7> It's called forethought.

I know that doesn't fit well with the whole "move fast, break stuff" attitude in SV, but then, tech people usually aren't the ones being broken.

<comment><USER8> Again, how do you actually know the author hasn't thought about it? I'm not praising the attitude your referring to, I'm criticizing your prejudices against the author, the baseless assumption that (s)he fits the label of "oblivious privileged SV tech nerd" you've decided to attribute.

<comment><USER7> If it takes you more than 30 seconds to come to "An app that allows anonymous public messages on a social network currently wracked by abuse is not a good idea", you haven't been thinking.

<comment><USER8> I think you're confusing "anonymous" with "uncensored". Nothing prevents these messages from being filtered for abuse.

Not to mention that being a single account, and hence easily blocked, the potential for abuse is minimal compared to the alternative of simply creating a new Twitter account, which would be just as anonymous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I thought about this a while back. I'd imagine it would be better to not use DMs and just have them create an account on your site so as to not tie them together. I had thoughts about twitter eventually banning the account, so you'd probably need an account creation script (possibly use the handle of the account being mentioned plus _w added to the end). It would also be a good idea to add language filtering and check the tweet against a database of abusive words so as to really slow down the abuse. I thought about this as an employee feedback tool at first, but everyone could use a little anonymous constructive feedback. Keep at it, many of the problems can be solved with a little creativity. Good luck :D

</comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't Twitter ban you if you send too many @-messages to random people?

</comment><comment> martin-adams I wonder where this would stand if the app was used for cyber bullying or some kind of threat?

Side note, typo in the footer comment on the homepage. "creat" rather than "create".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For cool secret features of the bot and some more information - [https://medium.com/@Go_Soroush/introducing- whispererly-705f6...](https://medium.com/@Go_Soroush/introducing- whispererly-705f627660d8)

<comment><USER11> Typo: "Not only will know one know who it was but you will be hidden behind a random animal! This is our way of guarantying 100% anonymity."

<comment><USER12> I would be careful about "guaranteeing 100% anonymity" too. I think that would very quickly not be the case should law enforcement get involved after your service is used to send threatening messages to someone it shouldn't.

<comment><USER2> Ya pretty much don't ever use this app if you actually want to be anonymous. DM's are logged and I really doubt the author would not comply if the Feds came knocking.

<comment><USER13> It would not even be up to the author, Twitter would have the data and could provide this to authorities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's with using *ly names that aren't on a .ly domain? I'm extremely likely, especially with a long and somewhat contrived name like whisperer-ly, to misremember the web address if it's a faux .ly.

</comment><comment><USER15> Very fun, do you plan to let user choose which anonymous animal will whisper it's tweet ? I don't trust anonymous chipmunks ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> What animal would you choose?

<comment><USER15> Unicorn obviously :)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is one of the options!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That can be fun :) How do you plan to moderate it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do have plans and ways of moderating in place but, for now I want to see what the community can do with it!

<comment><USER16> Sounds reasonable :) We too often build restrictions before even being sure we actually need them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Always good to be precautions!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anonymity seems to appeal most to the dregs of society. Whatever the intentions of the developers, I honestly can't see this ending well.

<comment><USER18> Well said, "kitd".

<comment><USER17> A username isn't the same as anonymity. You can look through my comment history (and as it happens get a pretty good idea of what I do and where I come from). And my username relates pretty closely to my real name. That isn't much protection of my identity.

Total anonymity (no username, no identity) opens the door for anyone to say anything. In some cases that's good. But IME, it is a benefit that ia mainly used by the dregs .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> maybe change the name of the product? it's quite easy to confuse this with "whisper", which is also another anonymous product.

obviously whisper and whisperly are different, but it takes some mental effort to separate them, which is not good for branding</comment>


This is just so clever - instant JavaScript comment/un-comment - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/every-keystroke-is-a-prisoner-a-neat-commenting-trick

<comment><USER2> In files that ignore unknown or unused definitions (like CSS and HTML), my preference is just to misspell keywords and identifiers by adding an "x" prefix.

For example, if you have a block: .mystyle { font-size: smaller; . . . }

You can virtually comment-out the whole thing with one extra character: .xmystyle { font-size: smaller; . . . }

This also works to kill just one property: .mystyle { xfont-size: smaller; . . . }

It applies to HTML attributes too, e.g. <mytag class="abc"> could be disabled with <mytag class="xabc">, which is much simpler than any hack to comment-out the HTML tags or delete the class attribute.</comment>


Test Drive: Nissan Leaf - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/08/04/test-drive-nissan-leaf/ <comment><USER2> _and newly re-sculpted for aerodynamics_

Really? If we were discussing the aerodynamical properties of a Veyron or even a Tesla I could understand the relevance of this statement but a car of this nature is never going to be affected by the aerodynamic properties of it's headlights.

Fine, it's an electric car, fine you have to take every measure to conserve power, I can conceed that you do need to make the car as aerodynamically fluid as possible in order to increase it's range but the design of the headlights can't possibly have any significant impact on this car. If it added two metres to the cars range I would be blown away.

It's this kind of irrelevant, paragraph padding reporting that winds me up about car reviews.

/rant

<comment><USER3> Though I'll freely admit I don't have an authoritative source, I have heard in the past that 50mph was the approximate cross-over point between rolling resistance and aerodynamic resistance for a typical car. Of course this car isn't going to be doing that speed very often (well, unless you happen to commute a short distance along a fast road).

<comment><USER4> What? My commute is approximately 18 miles each way, almost all of which is highway with a 65mph speed limit. Is the Leaf not going to be able to get me to work and back on a single charge? If not, the 100 mile range they're claiming is pretty disingenuous.</comment></comment></comment>