McKinsey: Half the World's Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-21/banks-must-act-now-or-risk-becoming-a-footnote-mckinsey-says <comment><USER2> I believe this is the actual article

[https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial- services/our-i...](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our- insights/global-banking-annual-review-2019-the-last-pit-stop-time-for-bold- late-cycle-moves)

Broadly it seems to be less extreme than Bloomberg's summary and more nuanced to particular conditions.

I like how exhibit 6 is rotated to encourage reading it from either direction. Haven't seen that before in charts.

<comment><USER3> Well of course it's more nuanced. Bloomberg is about speed not MECE.

<comment><USER4> _MECE_

Mango-eating computer engineers?

No, that doesn't fit in based on the context clues...

<comment><USER5> Mutually Exclusive & Comprehensively Exhaustive. It's how to do bullet points according to McKinsey. They had to invent it in the 1960s because apparently by the 1960s no one at McKinsey was yet, you know, aware of the existence of centuries' worth of literature on formal logic. So they reinvented the wheel as far as that particular cultural achievement was concerened. Or the first millionth of it, to be more precise, and left it at that, because the rest of it would have no longer fit onto a single PowerPoint slide.

<comment><USER6> God, these consulting companies are the _worst_.

<comment><USER2> Alternatively, this is just some guy asserting that everyone at McKinsey thinks they invented a brand new concept, when in fact, it's just a heuristic they teach people to communicate more effectively, because communication is hard.

<comment><USER7> I see you are unfamiliar with McKinsey.

<comment><USER2> Former employee

Edit: I cannot reply to the below, but I will say, that's a pretty contrived justification for your view.

Communication is hard. Few things done at a corporate scale are easy to implement. People like to point at big consulting firms and say "I could have done that" or "they could have just asked me" but that's really just a fraction of it.

<comment><USER8> Former employee of former McKinsey employees. Grandparent point stands: McKinsey seems to offer little to no value that isn't already known and easy to communicate.

I will say though that McKinsey alums I know seem to be better at playing corporate politics than the average, which can be a skill when married with technical acumen.

<comment><USER9> You call it playing politics, others call it effective communication.

<comment><USER8> Effective communication is pushing people the alums dislike out of their jobs and building silos?

<comment><USER2> "Playing politics" is is largely empathy and communication skills. Giving people what they want is actually not intuitive because, again, people are generally bad at communicating what they want. It's common to hear people maligned for being "political players" but I'll be honest; if you're bad at office politics, it generally implies you don't have people's confidence, trust, and friendship- often because you're fixated on the idea that work should stand for itself and not recognizing the massive importance that is working with others.

Being a dick with your influence is a different concept

<comment><USER8> Being a dick in influence is what I observe more often from my (biased, certainly) sample of McKinsey alum. We both agree that salability of work product is an important and underutilized skill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dawg- And if you're a bank, guess who is conveniently standing by ready to fix it for you with an army of $2000 an hour consultants? McKinsey.

Same exact scam as the shady mechanic who wants charge you $400 to flush your transmission fluid and convinces you that your car will surely blow up if you don't do it.

<comment><USER10> 2k/hr?????

<comment><USER11> It's basically therapy for corporate executives, delivered via powerpoint, with a healthy side of blame insurance. And yeah, it's expensive.

<comment><USER12> Dad worked at a bank (just below CEO). He once said that McKinsey was most useful when you wanted to kill a project diplomatically, and make sure it would stay put. Have McKinsey come in, make the recommendation that X project was no good, and kiss it goodbye with McKinsey absorbing the blame. Other way around was to give projects some extra push and credibility.

<comment><USER13> Or launch a thing, to be fair.

We came up with a product internally. So our CEO hired a top-tier consulting company to sell our own idea back to us. That process cost millions.

But they _do_ make real slick presentations and they have higher status than internal staff, and the CEO can say that a top-tier consulting firm recommended we do x, y and z... Blame insurance is right.

Once you hit a certain scale, e.g. where CEO is so stratospherically above rank-and-file in social status that it's not appropriate to speak directly anymore, consultants can act as a social buffer. Among other things they can launder recommendations from regular staff to management and put that objective shine on them.

The downside is that we know for a fact (when they accidentally published an android app to the playstore, I reversed it and it was our code) that collateral, research and demos that we paid for got sold to others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Much, possibly most, of the economic value in a downturn comes from weeding out the weaker companies -- through bankruptcy, acquisition, or restructuring/pivoting.

I well remember the "dot com" crash. It wiped out tons of companies that had no business existing (pardon the pun).

(Of course when it comes to banking, that can be a bit of a special case as we've witnessed multiple times.)

And yes, downturns are hard on people, and this is why a social safety net is invaluable. Gives them time to find a new job, or retool their skills, or otherwise adjust. And I don't pretend that's easy either.

<comment> ur-whale I believe the consecrated term is "creative destruction"

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sadly, regular taxpayers will pay the bill. Just like last time.

<comment><USER16> Once again completing the cycle of moral hazards in the name of reducing the "impact" of rescissions in the short-term. The only metric that apparently matters.

<comment><USER17> In the last recession, unemployment in the US reached 10%. How big does unemployment have to reach before you take the quotes away from "impact"? 15%? 20%? Unemployment in Spain reached as high as 26% because Spain was unable to reduce the impact.

<comment><USER16> The unemployment rate is the short term metric which is exactly what I'm taking about.

A long term perspective means preventing future recessions too, not just fixing the short term problems. Creating new moral hazards, negative incentives, behaviour and careers which would have been tarnished and discredited normally are allowed to continue, often with the same people and companies.

If we were serious about preventing recessions our policies should not only be measured in how they deal with the fallouts but also addressing the things that cause it in the first place, and balancing what's lost by not letting the markets naturally correct themselves.

<comment><USER17> We've had recessions for the entire history of capitalism, under a large number of legal regimes. We had recessions back when banking was much more tightly regulated. We had recessions under laissez-faire. Recessions are endemic to the system. Our choices are either "combat unemployment" or get ready for socialism to finally win the war of ideas.

<comment><USER16> > or get ready for socialism to finally win the war of ideas.

Yeah how's that working out in Venezuela and Ecuador (who only half-heartedly did it and still got burned).

<comment><USER17> It's working out badly. But we get 25% unemployment, and a lot more countries are going to try it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Problems with weak banks are usually solved by merging them with stronger banks.

It's the non-bank financial institutions that are more worrisome. Recall that Lehman Brothers and AIG were not banks.

<comment><USER19> > Recall that Lehman Brothers and AIG were not banks.

AIG was an insurance company, yes.

But Lehman Brothers _was_ an investment bank.

From Wikipedia:

> in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States

<comment><USER18> "Investment banks" were only colloquially banks. They were not members of the Federal Reserve, not regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and not FDIC insured. Survivors became banks after the crisis, but in their place we now have lots of hedge funds, private equity funds, etc. that have grown large to do similar financial operations without bank regulation.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not that I disagree. Its same pattern: half of the universities, most of liberal art colleges, 60% of IT companies, 70% of private Doctor practices and so on are too weak to survive next shock. The only sad part I see is nasty businesses like McKinsey is not fitting in any pattern of failure.

<comment><USER21> I don't agree on the private doctor practice. Source, married a dr

Worst, worst case, the ~15k/yr in rent, ins, and software put a dent in profits, but if each visit is min 75$, you can figure out how hard it is to break even. Upper revenue is 200k+/yr

<comment><USER22> Reimbursement compression along with EHR/EMR requirements has seen a lot of practices acquired by large health systems.

<comment><USER21> Not to get too bogged down with details, but this winter she is looking to change EMR systems. The current one is the most expensive/established EMR for her field.

Rent is 12,000 dollars of expenses. EMR is almost trivial.

<comment><USER23> Vast majority of private practices are closing or being purchased by larger hospital systems.

<comment><USER24> Sure, same is true for software startups. Trade long hours and slightly above market pay for a lump sum payment and predictable patient load? The increasing complexity of interacting with health insurance providers and diagnostic labs has something to do with it, also. Why wouldn't a lot of them do that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> McKinsey, the ultimate power point company. They also nobody got fired for hiring them. I could not believe this reasoning but it exists. We tried to solve problem X but even McKinsey failed. This problem is declared unsolvable now.

</comment><comment><USER26> McKinsey & Accenture could do with some anti trust investigation at this point, they have too much of the outsourced brain work and strategy of important western firms executed in a cookie cutter way that then exploits the inside knowledge for future projects. This banking prediction is an example of this type of thinking. McKinsey are the problem not the solution

<comment><USER27> Serious question: could you cite some Accenture projects with serious brain work? They are typically in the systems integration category while MBB (McKinsey Bain BCG) get the prestigious work.

<comment><USER26> I meant Accenture in the context of executing McK (& BB) projects in a closed loop. MBB & Deloitte are pretty short on 'serious brain work' and long on copy and paste of their own and others work in my recent experience

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> AKA On behalf of our banking customers we're going to be advising that governments get ready to do another bailout.

<comment><USER29> >do another bailout.

I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but in theory, are governments even capable of doing another bailout?

My understanding is that public debt in most Western countries (not sure about China/India) is through the roof. Other than printing money and risking a cataclysmic devaluation, what can be done?

<comment><USER30> The problem was never with banks failing, it was with some of them being "too big to fail". This news therefore doesn't mean attempts to prevent another 2008-like crisis have been unsuccessful.

Also, let's the remember the last bailout was a somewhat underrated success: " TARP recovered funds totalling $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested, earning a $15.3 billion profit or an annualized rate of return of 0.6% and perhaps a loss when adjusted for inflation.".

Apart from that, public debt is up considerably in the US (mostly due to tax cuts) but rather flat in the EU. Nothing would preclude another bailout of the same magnitude as the last one.

But that's a somewhat silly question. Because if there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that the next crisis will be different than the last one.

Italy going bankrupt is a far more imminent danger than private banks, and one that would be too big to contain, for example.

<comment><USER31> From the bank shareholder's perspective the bailout was a stunning success. For the rest of us debtors, for those who greased the runways for the shareholders with their lost homes and lost savings that went to paying off debts in disinflationary dollars when stimulus and reasonable inflation would have made paying debts off easier, it remains an ongoing disaster.

<comment><USER32> >For the rest of us debtors...it remains an ongoing disaster

Taxpayers didn't pay for bailouts. The Fed did. Taxpayers did make a profit form them, however, since the profits the Fed saw from the bailouts were, by law, handed over to Treasury (except for statutory operating expenses), offsetting taxes.

>those who greased the runways for the shareholders with their lost homes

Most of those those losing homes did so by taking loans they could not pay, and the ripples were felt by those not taking such loans, in their retirement funds. Those who left those funds alone recovered the value and then some after the recession. Those who did not, or could not, did lose value.

But don't just blame bankers. Also blame borrowers defaulting.

<comment><USER33> > Taxpayers didn't pay for bailouts. The Fed did.

The 2+ Trillion dollar expansion of the Fed balance sheet during the crisis costs taxpayers every day that they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+ expansion. Every house that used to be $200K and is now $500K is part of the price people are paying for how the crisis was managed.

> But don't just blame bankers. Also blame borrowers defaulting.

The core function of a bank is to evaluate risk. Being able to do so correctly enables the bank to make loans at a profit. Being unable to do so means that the people involved should go do something else. Debtors have been defaulting for millennia, it's a well-understood process. The financialization and securitization of housing was the creation of bankers, not borrowers.

<comment><USER32> >The 2+ Trillion dollar expansion of the Fed balance sheet during the crisis costs taxpayers every day that they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+ expansion.

Taxpayers don't pay interest on Fed assets. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how monetary policy works. What makes you think your statement true? Did you read it in a explanation of how the Fed works, or did you make it up?

>The financialization and securitization of housing was the creation of bankers, not borrowers.

This is shortsighted and incorrect. If borrowers didn't default, there would be no crisis. Many were expecting housing to rise forever and were taking out second mortgages as piggy banks, then got in trouble when prices didn't increase forever. High risk borrowers could keep refinancing at higher and higher prices since house prices were climbing. When the prices stopped climbing, this process stopped.

>Debtors have been defaulting for millennia, it's a well-understood process.

And bubbles from irrational people have been happening for millennia too. Does this simplistic tautology allow me to assign all blame to borrowers?

<comment><USER33> Compare your

> 'Taxpayers don't pay interest on Fed assets.'

with what I said; 'they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+ expansion' (of Fed assets.) The Fed bought ~1.5-2T of MBS, turning bad loans that would never be repaid - credit that simply never should have been issued - into bank reserves. Those reserves both inflate asset prices and enable the banks to make loans on which interest is paid.

> When the prices stopped climbing, this process stopped.

The price climb - and the influx of less able borrowers - was primarily enabled by securitization.

> And bubbles from irrational people have been happening for millennia too. > Does this simplistic tautology allow me to assign all blame to borrowers?

Borrowers can only exist if they've borrowed from lenders. Hence my point about lenders needing to evaluate risk to continue to be lenders.

<comment><USER32> >Those reserves both inflate asset prices and enable the banks to make loans on which interest is paid

Banks don't need those assets to make loans. Banks can make loans whenever and where ever they want, and can simply borrow from the Fed. This is the point of short-term interest rates - banks can lend past reserve requirements whenever they find a decent loan to make. It's the difference between exogenous and endogenous theories of money, and modern economies with central banks usually work this way to allow the market to decide how much money is needed, not how much reserves a bank can obtain because a central bank absorbed assets.

And most loans rate people get are tied pretty directly to Fed rates, not bank reserves. This is again due to endogenous money creation - demand creates money, not reserves. So the Fed and banks having 0 reserves or having 100 trillion reserves is nearly irrelevant - it is interest rates that matter, and those are set directly by the Fed board.

Also, if you recall, the banks were famously _not_ giving loans after the bailouts, despite having the capital to do so [4]. I guess that also doesn't help your claims.

>they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+ expansion

If you're going that far afield, then it's simple to point out what financial trouble they would be in if the Fed didn't make those loans. People would likely be far worse, in which case it makes the argument for those loans even stronger.

It would be interesting to check even correlation between Fed balance and interest rates.

Here's [1] an IGM Forum economist poll of most of the country's top economists on whether or not the bailouts improved unemployment. I'd guess being unemployed is worse than claimed interest rate hikes.

Here's [2] their answer to the question: "the benefits of bailing out U.S. banks in 2008 will end up exceeding the costs" \- resulting in strong support with certainty (especially considering the types of questions these polls ask - check other questions).

So there's not much real argument on the bailouts being beneficial.

Now that the Fed is selling off MBS [3], shouldn't that cause the reverse of what you claim absorbing them did? Because those effects are not see in the markets. Maybe your effects did not happen?

[1] [http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bank- bailouts](http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bank-bailouts)

[2] [http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bailouts-banks-and- automak...](http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bailouts-banks-and-automakers)

[3] [https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm)

[4] [https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic- synops...](https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic- synopses/2016/02/05/bank-lending-during-recessions/)

<comment><USER33> I'm sorry to come back to this so late, but I've been otherwise occupied, and I think the topic really matters. I agree with the GP that the bailouts were a success for the banks and an 'ongoing disaster' for many others.

> Banks don't need those assets to make loans.

I agree with you on the endogenous theory of money (cf. Steve Keen), and understand that banks aren't constrained by 'loanable funds.' I was meaning capital and regulatory reserves, and mentioneing them only to acknowledge that not every dollar of the Fed's money creation went to asset price inflation. Just most of them.

> So the Fed and banks having 0 reserves or having 100 trillion reserves is > nearly irrelevant - it is interest rates that matter, and those are set > directly by the Fed board.

This is where I think you err. Once a bank's minimum capital requirements are met, its managers are going to look for maximizing returns on the capital available to them. To say that that will not have effects on the economy at large doesn't make sense to me.

> Also, if you recall, the banks were famously not giving loans after the > bailouts, despite having the capital to do so [4]. I guess that also doesn't > help your claims.

How so? Here are the chief claims I've made: > The 2+ Trillion dollar expansion of the Fed balance sheet during the crisis costs taxpayers every day that they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+ expansion. > The core function of a bank is to evaluate risk. > Debtors have been defaulting for millennia, it's a well-understood process. > The financialization and securitization of housing was the creation of bankers, not borrowers.

I don't see how any of these are contradicted by the data in the St. Louis Fed 'Bank Lending During Recessions' article you linked. The entire investment world recognised that they'd underpriced risk for years, and there was a correction.

> If you're going that far afield,

I don't think this is far afield at all; I think it's critical to consider the effects of additional capital, in the form of debt, on the real economy.

> then it's simple to point out what financial trouble they would be in if the > Fed didn't make those loans. People would likely be far worse, in which case > it makes the argument for those loans even stronger.

Which people? The banks, yes. A creditor's assets are someone else's debts, so larger debts are good for banks. Generally borrower's situations are improved by brrowing less, at lower interest rates for a given asset.

> Here's [1] an IGM Forum economist poll of most of the country's top > economists on whether or not the bailouts improved unemployment. I'd guess > being unemployed is worse than claimed interest rate hikes.

Here are my favorite comments from the economists in that poll:

> There were much better policies, but what was done was better than nothing, > give the bad policies that preceded.

> The question presumes Paulson's forced alternative. If the only choice is > between evil and Armageddon, evil might look ok.

From experience, being unemployed is terrible. Avoiding it on a mass scale is crucial. But avoiding unemployment is a pretty narrow question compared to the entire picture. Wages (real, median) have pretty much stagnated while housing (both a necessity and an asset) has inflated above historical norms (see Robert Shiller's chart from 1890-2005, and the Case-Shiller indexes.) That puts pressure on employed people that the poll question leaves out of consideration.

> Here's [2] their answer to the question: "the benefits of bailing out U.S. > banks in 2008 will end up exceeding the costs" \- resulting in strong > support with certainty (especially considering the types of questions these > polls ask - check other questions).

First, I note that the number of economists who strongly agree is outnumbered by the group who are uncertain or disagree.

> Now that the Fed is selling off MBS [3], shouldn't that cause the reverse of > what you claim absorbing them did? Because those effects are not see in the > markets. Maybe your effects did not happen?

There's been a ~10% decline after a ~400% increase. How much of an effect would you expect to see?

Lastly, my favorite comment from the second pol:

> Not compared to an ideal policy of an orderly reorganization imposing losses > on creditors according to seniority. But better than chaotic.

He sort of sounds like Bagehot, ""Lend without limit, to solvent firms, against good collateral, at 'high rates". The choice that was made was to lend without limit to the largest firms against all collateral at low rates. That choice has consequences as well as benefits, and I would urge you to seriously consider both.

<comment><USER32> >This is where I think you err. Once a bank's minimum capital requirements are met, its managers are going to look for maximizing returns on the capital available to them. To say that that will not have effects on the economy at large doesn't make sense to me.

How did I err? Banks have unlimited capital available, borrowable at Fed rates. It does have an effect on the economy - it lets the economy grow at rates demanded by commerce instead of being constrained by too little capital or by being overflooded with capital.

But the fact remains banks getting assets bought by the Fed has almost zero effect on loans, which was your claim. This is empirically true as I demonstrated, and have given the theoretical reasons for.

>Here are my favorite comments from the economists in that poll:

Yes, you can post-select the side you want to be true. Now take the entire post instead of cherry-picking the answer you believe. It's not worth providing evidence of complex things with nuance to someone who has chosen their side and post selects the parts they like. So stop being dishonest with the evidence.

>Wages (real, median) have pretty much stagnated

Wages are a tiny part of total remunereation or of cost to employ. Fortunately BLS tracks both those variables - then the fact is that total remuneration has increased due to perks and legal requirements (go check the data), and cost to employ has gone up (due again to legislation requireing more cost per employee that is now paid by employers yet benefits the employee). BLS tracks all these - wages is far too simplistic.

Also, demographics have changed - a younger workforce is earlier in a career, and gets paid less, yet can still make more at each point in a career than previously. This is also a true effect and can be teased out of Census data.

Also, median wages now includes women and minorities, who have seen tremendous growth in their median wages for decades. The only class that has lost some is white men, and even there the losses are not very large.

So the "flat wages" is far from the truth on the quality of life gains people have seen. I doubt many would like to live at the equivalent wage in 1980 compared to now.

>while housing (both a necessity and an asset) has inflated above historical norms (see Robert Shiller's chart from 1890-2005, and the Case-Shiller indexes.)

Case-Schiller ignores (among other things) that the size of houses has increased. Not even factoring in quality increases like better insulated, lower cost to maintain, safer, when you simply factor in cost per square foot the values are remarkably flat for decades. [1]

The increase in size is mostly because people want and can afford bigger houses than in the past.

In short, your wage and housing views are too simplistic and ignore important nuances that reverse the evidence for the position you're taking. In both cases you're moving too many variables to make the claims you're making, and by holding important variables constant you get the opposite conclusions, ones which are the correct measurement regarding quality of life improvements.

>Lastly, my favorite comment from the second pol:

If you've chosen your answer the the point of not reading all new data with equivalent belief, then I see how you've reached your current world view. The comments you pick from so many while ignoring the totality or central points of the polls shows tremendous bias in your ability to absorb well sourced data. As such it's not worth it to continue if you treat this like climate deniers. Every complex system will have uncertainty - but the uncertainty is not the central feature of this one.

>First, I note that the number of economists who strongly agree is outnumbered by the group who are uncertain or disagree.

This precisely shows me you're dishonest. Why pick those categories while ignoring the "agree" one? To make the result not be what it is? For anyone reading this far, here are the results: Strongly agree 10%, Agree 49%, uncertain 13%, disagree 13%, strongly disagree 0%, no opinion 0%.

That you cite those two cases while ignoring so many counter to what you want to be true is dishonest and misleading at best.

With this level of intellectual dishonesty there is no reason to continue. It's not worth trying to deliver good evidence when you're clearly going to misread and selectively cite it.

[1] [https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/todays-new-homes- are-1000-squ...](https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/todays-new-homes- are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-the-living-space-per-person-has- doubled-over-last-40-years/)

<comment><USER33> > This precisely shows me you're dishonest. Why pick those categories while > ignoring the "agree" one?

Because it shows evidence of dissent in the community of economists polled. I am happy to admit all of the specifics into the discussion. I am adamantly opposed to painting over the real disagreements in the economics community, because I think it's important.

> That you cite those two cases while ignoring so many counter to what you > want to be true is dishonest and misleading at best.

On the other hand, you seem to think that I should accept the top-level conclusion you want me to accept without any reference on your part to the real disagreement present in the polls.

I don't think 'dishonest' is a fair characterization of my attempt to point out that you are presenting your favorite side of the argument without considering the dissent.

> How did I err? Banks have unlimited capital available, borrowable at Fed > rates. It does have an effect on the economy - it lets the economy grow at > rates demanded by commerce instead of being constrained by too little > capital or by being overflooded with capital.

Please clarify here: what would 'over-flooded with capital' look like?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder how credit unions would fare.

</comment><comment><USER21> I look at 8 year automotive loans, and I wonder- who is about to get screwed.

People with jobs at gas stations buying new $30k vehicles.

Either inflation is about to get bad, and our parents/Grandparents lose big or deflation happens and young people are screwed.

Are there any other options?

<comment><USER35> $30k vehicles are cheap these days. My mouth dropped when I was at the auto show and seeing SUVs like navigator and escalade with price of $80k+

<comment><USER36> The _median_ new car price is quickly approaching $40k. Probably 65% or so of new cars cost more than $30k.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> We can always make more money if we really want to. The economy might run out of oil, sand, gold, land, and willpower but it will never run out of money until the central banks stop the money supply or politicians cause a hard fault.

<comment><USER38> No wonder you are hiding behind a throwaway, as you clearly don't know what you're talking about and are just posting mindless drivel. If you want to know the outcome of "we can always make more money" attitudes, look no further than Zimbabwe. In ~2007 they had a 50 cent paper note. ~6 months later a common paper note was $10,000,000,000. Just a short while after that, paper notes were being printed in _one hundred trillion dollar_ increments. What could you buy with that $100T note? Basically not even something from a vending machine (aka worth less than 1 USD in value).

Source: I have all the above paper notes from Zimbabwe and have read about the economic policies that led to the collapse of the currency.

<comment><USER37> Zimbabwe did not run out of money.

I did not say that a bank can make everybody rich by printing money just that there is no limit to the money that the banks can print, as is evidenced by Zimbabwe. They ran out of everything else but not money. We are basically expressing the same thing from different viewpoints.

<comment><USER39> If Zimbabwe is your example that shows that you're correct, it also shows that your point is completely irrelevant in the real world. So they didn't run out of money. That did them no good whatsoever.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Running your own Private E-Mail server - <AUTHOR> At the moment I am just using gmail, but I'm fed up with the amount of snooping google does, I want my email to be private again (if it ever was).
I have considered a privacy focused provider like Lavabit or Hushmail, but are they really private or just a marketing gimmick? If their efforts are legit, does this not just make them a target for NSA etc? For $50 a year, Im not convinced.
For that sort of money I would rather get my own vps and setup a truly private email server.
Has anyone tried this? I looked at qmailtoaster and some other off the shelf scripts but couldent get a decent setup. I have setup a postfix + clamav + spamassasin + dovecot and so on, but its a lot of work and not something I look forward to doing, is there a better alternative? <comment><USER2> The question of running your own mail server comes up every couple of months. To quote the top comment on one of the threads "I run my own mail infrastructure. To say the least I wouldn't recommend it even to my worst enemies." [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16238937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16238937), [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16674320](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16674320)

</comment><comment><USER3> You can do it easily enough. I wouldn't advice a VPS, but instead a dedicated server. Even better: have it at your own home or office! You only need a fixed IP address for that. (Already a majority of systems on the Internet are using IPv6, soon you'll easily have fixed IP addresses, because you'll be working only in IPv6.)

Now, the administrative workload of maintaining a mail server is not enormous, but it's bothering, since it looks like the big mail companies keep inventing new systems and protocols (to "fight spam" so they say), so you would have to track all those new stuff and update your configuration.

Basically, talking to other fellow programmers with postfix is easy; talking to customers who use gmail is harder; talking to accountants and bankers who use Microsoft Outlook is hard. You will also have to configure imap and smtp with SSL/TSL (thankfully, nowadays there's letsencrypt.org to provide certificates for free).

And clamav or spamassassin are direly inefficient at modern spam filtering AFAICS. If you want spam-free email, it's Sisyphe-like fight every day.

So it's possible, but you will have to attend to problems from time to time, and it will hard to reach the same level of "quality" as gmail. On the other hand, if you run your email server at home, (or on a dedicated server at a trustable hosting), and use SSL/TLS for all your email connections (smtp-smtp and imap), then you will be able to exchange email in a private and secure way between other people doing the same. Of course, this will be lost as soon as somebody in the mail list is on gmail, or forward to somebody on gmail...

I'd say it's worth it, but it is a little tiring. For example, last month I had to spend a week changing courier-imap for dovecot, just because an update of courier-imap on my debian system broke sasl authentication. This kind of thing tend to occur at the worst time. But this has to be accepted if you don't want all your email read by all the spies and advertisers of the world...</comment>


The Sideways Elevator of the Future Is Here, and It's Wild - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/the-sideways-elevator-of-the-future-is-here/ <comment><USER2> Discussion from 4 months ago (248 points) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14935700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14935700)

<comment><USER3> Yes, the cautionary top comment by Animats is very important for evaluating the likelihood of this reaching fruition.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14936667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14936667)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Wonkavator

I'm pretty sure the technical term is "turbolift".

<comment><USER5> How about "train"?

<comment><USER4> Most trains I know have a big problem with the vertical, restricted to small slopes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The structure on Google Maps: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/48°10'44.8%22N+8°37'30.7%2...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/48°10'44.8%22N+8°email@example.com,8.6257922,523m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d48.179119!4d8.62518?hl=en)

Wikipedia-Article (German, has more info): [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufzugstestturm_(Rottweil)](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufzugstestturm_\(Rottweil\))

You can also see it from the Autobahn A81, driving to / from Rottweil...

</comment><comment><USER7> It'd be interesting to see a large/tall building with a back wall dedicated to an elevator grid. Each tennant, instead of a door to a hallway (or in addition to it) would have an elevator door. Press the button, the lift shows up, and it can take you to any other property on that building.

Eventually you could merge this kind of thing with other buildings, forming a kind of grid. Going out for dinner? Ask Alexa for a ride while you're talking in the foyer, 20 seconds later doors open and you're whisked away to a nearby restaurant where all you have to do is exit the lift and walk to your table.

<comment><USER8> You're still going to need conventional hallway and stairs for fire exit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I work in a building with two cores each with 5 elevator shafts, and two elevators per shaft. Sometimes the top elevator can't go down because the bottom elevator is just below it. Having an elevator able to overtake the other would be very nice.

Also, you could use one shaft for going up and another for going down. I definitely see the usefulness here.

<comment><USER10> Elevator shafts in buildings take precious floor space on every floor and end up reducing the usable space a lot, especially in higher buildings that need more elevators to get people up and down. It's a bit of a catch-22: the higher you build, the less usable space you get per floor. Having elevator cabins switch shafts reduces the number of shafts required. This is really going to change how skyscrapers are designed.

<comment><USER11> I've seen the numbers for this a few times, but never any mention of paternoster lifts.

I know the traditional design is mostly extinct due to safety concerns, but I've always thought there's potential for e.g. making larger cars (say, big enough for a wheelchair), spacing them out, and having them speed up and slow down between stops, so they can linger for a few seconds rather than having to hop on and off (which I found a little daunting at first ;) ).

Has anyone done a floor space vs height comparison of such lifts?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This sounds like some awesome tech, though the paranoid in me fears that in the off chance power goes off, what would keep these mag-lev cabins in place?

Maybe someone can chime in on this thought experiment, but how would an architect design this into a new building to take advantage of its full potential? From what I can tell, it seems that the system would need multiple horizontal planes for the elevator to run through as well as 1+ vertical planes. And if this should be able to go horizontally across the floor, then you might still need multiple elevator wells on a floor. With this design, I fail to see how this would be more cost effective than the 40% use of a standard system (in the article, Ctrl-F "40 percent")

<comment><USER13> > what would keep these mag-lev cabins in place?

I'd give the engineers a bit more credit to think about such a scenario.

I guess the real advantage here is you no longer need one lift per shaft - just dedicate a shaft as "up" or "down" and have lift cabins switch as needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Video showing them in action: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdTsbFS4xmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdTsbFS4xmI).

<comment><USER15> Fun factoid from the video: skyscrapers are being built so high now that the elevator cable can't support its own weight (let alone the cabin), thus presumably the search for alternatives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This could be good for seniors or people with mobility issues, for the rest, this will lead to articles about how lazy people have become and how we must get outside and get fit or cave in under the unrelenting laziness afforded by modernity.

</comment><comment><USER17> Can someone explain this whole magnet thing?

Electromagnetism falls off with the square of the distance and works on really short distances, no?

So how can it work to move an elevator all the way across a shaft? And what if it fails?

<comment><USER9> You don't use a single supermagnet at the top of the shaft, you use lots of magnets all along the sides of the shaft. Think maglev. Or maybe railgun, for a slightly less pleasant mental image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Reminds me of the People Movers from Disneyland's Tomorrowland. I guess tomorrow is finally today.

</comment><comment><USER19> More moving parts with a much more complex range of motion means it's more prone to failure.</comment>


Signal threatens to dump US market if EARN IT act passes - <AUTHOR> https://uk.pcmag.com/security-5/125569/messaging-app-signal-threatens-to-dump-us-market-if-anti-encryption-bill-passes <comment><USER2> 1\. The police are either lazy or incompetent if they say they cannot trace criminals because of E2E secure chat.

2\. You don't need to know the contents of a chat to glean massive amounts of metadata. FB Messenger and WhatsApp going truly E2E encrypted will still put FB (and anyone serving them with warrants) to know in real time who is talking to whom, what their IP addresses are, and possibly real location (if they are using the app on their phone). This can be used to created a Signature profile... many Pakistanis and Yemeni have died from a Hellfire missile strike because they matched a pattern of activity. Google "signature strike" for more info.

3\. The terrorists and pedophiles that are the most dangerous are using far more sophisticated means of communication than Wire, Signal, WhatsApp, Wickr, etc. Saying that this is "for the children" or "for our safety" is complete bullshit and anyone saying otherwise needs to prove it.

<comment><USER3> > The terrorists and pedophiles that are the most dangerous are using far more > sophisticated means of communication

The "most dangerous" part is doing a lot of work there. Just like I think law enforcement needs to admit what they can and cannot do (e.g. they cannot protect a golden key), I think we need to admit some things too. A lot of dangerous criminals are stupid. Maybe not the most dangerous ones, sure. But if law enforcement has a tactic that lets them catch, say, the stupidest 30% of terrorists, that's an _extremely_ valuable tactic that probably saves a lot of lives in practice. It would be wrong to claim that society loses nothing by engineering away that tactic.

I think this sort of thing leads to a lot of frustration on both sides. As a programmer, I find it very frustrating that law enforcement and the media consistently get some of the most basic details wrong about how communication and encryption work, and about the negative side effects of the new laws they're proposing. But I assume that law enforcement folks also feel frustrated about how people like me have no idea how they actually get their jobs done day-to-day, or the negative side effects of the technologies we're building.

<comment><USER4> > A lot of dangerous criminals are stupid.

The nice thing about stupid criminals is that they tend to be indiscriminately stupid. The ones who don't use encrypted messaging are the same ones who proceed to brag about their crimes in front of strangers, and have their phones turned on and with them during the commission of their crimes, and post incriminating pictures on Facebook, and choose equally stupid and unreliable criminal partners.

They are the low-hanging fruit, so you don't need powerful and invasive tools to catch them because they're practically self-incarcerating. When there are 100 other ways to catch them, there's no point in paying a high price just to have 101.

It's the non-stupid criminals that they have trouble catching, but those are the ones this won't catch either. So you're still paying a high price for really nothing in return.

<comment><USER5> I think you may be missing a large group of criminals in the middle. Like with ordinary humans in non-criminal context, you have a group of indiscriminately stupid people, a group of very smart people, and a large group - I think majority - that just parrots what everyone else is doing or recommending around them, with very little individual thoughts given.

You can compare it to COVID-19 reactions among the people you know. Almost everyone now keeps distance in public, because everyone knows they should and are expected to. But how many people don't connect this with the fact that they should absolutely _not_ meet up with their friends now? Or that they should absolutely _not_ visit their families this Easter? Or that it would be wise to wash groceries and deliveries?

We could say this parroting group is doing cargo-cult OPSEC. They can know they shouldn't brag about their crimes in person or on social media, and yet at the same time they could easily trip using communication tools they don't understand - unless the industry goes out of its way to make such tripping impossible. I think this is the group the law enforcement is talking about. Not the idiot criminals, not the smart criminals - just regular ones, who don't understand the world they live in well, and occasionally make mistakes.

<comment><USER4> The group in the middle is the group I'm talking about. At the far edges of stupidity are the sort of criminals who break into an electronics shop to steal GPS tracking devices or try to stick up a police station. The far extremes give you 1000 ways to catch them instead of 100.

The guy who carries his phone with him during the commission of the crime is the guy at the median.

It also doesn't hurt that the average criminal skews dumber than the average law-abiding citizen to begin with. But even for the somewhat above average criminal who gives you ten ways to catch them instead of a hundred, you still don't need eleven because you only need one.

What do you suppose the percentage of criminals is who are so diligent that having default insecure communications is the _only_ way to catch them _and_ they wouldn't have chosen a secure alternative regardless?

<comment><USER6> >It also doesn't hurt that the average criminal skews dumber than the average law-abiding citizen to begin with.

Is this true? I'd be interested to see the research for this. I would believe that the average _convict_ is dumber than the average law-abiding citizen, but how many criminals are lumped in with the law-abiding citizens simply because they don't say "oh yeah, I break the law all the time"?

<comment><USER4> You're going to have the _Three Felonies A Day_ problem there, where in practice everybody commits crimes all day long and the people "not getting caught" is really everybody, even including people currently incarcerated who are still guilty of many other crimes they haven't been convicted of.

But if you want to talk about, shall we say, "real" crimes then that's another story. The solve rate for murders is actually pretty high (because they're given significant investigative resources), to the point that the population of convicts is probably not a terribly unrepresentative sample, and the lower intelligence of the convicts is pretty well established.

It also depends how you measure intelligence. The IQ of people who commit politically-motivated bombings is often significantly _above_ average, but they also choose to commit a crime that attracts a hugely disproportionate level of investigative resources and correspondingly has quite a high solve rate despite the perpetrators' supposed intelligence, so maybe there are different kinds of stupid too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think its better to just admit that freedoms / tech will always be misused by criminal actors, and that's just a price we agree to pay for privacy, security, and liberty. I don't think think that's a controversial statement, and we make such trade offs all the time unconsciously. The United States has largely agreed to accept a certain amount of criminal gun violence in the name of personal gun ownership. We agree that a certain amount of money laundering will occur due to shell corporations and foreign ownership of assets. We agree that police have to let a certain amount of crime go unpunished in order to protect against unreasonable search and seizure. The only difference between those things and this is that no one has the balls to stand up and admit that a certain amount of child abuse is an acceptable price given the stakes at hand, even though it is true.

<comment><USER8> And you need a warrant to go through a person's mail. How is that not defacto policy for digital privacy?

<comment><USER9> The EARN IT law enables warrants for digital privacy. The problem is that the choice is between "warrants are impossible due to encryption" and "warrants can be skipped by misbehaving actors".

There's no way to guarantee a middle ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you haven't already, please take the time to email your federal representatives. The EFF's tool [1] only takes a few clicks to use.

[1] [https://act.eff.org/action/protect-our-speech-and- security-o...](https://act.eff.org/action/protect-our-speech-and-security- online-reject-the-graham-blumenthal-bill)

<comment><USER11> > The EFF's tool [1] only takes a few clicks to use.

Your input is discounted at least in direct proportion to how little you sacrificed in order to provide it. If you really want to make an impression, telephone your representative.

<comment><USER12> _Your input is discounted at least in direct proportion to how little you sacrificed in order to provide it._

One of my college roommates works for a congresscritter. He says, at least for his guy, written letters still have the most impact, followed by telephone calls. He didn't mention faxes.

E-mail and social media are waaaay down on the list because they take the least effort and can be gamed so easily.

<comment><USER13> I'll probably send certified letters in this case.

<comment><USER14> Hand delivered.

<comment><USER13> I'll break out my calligraphy pen, ink, and sealing wax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> EARN IT will affect all encryption software, not just Signal. This bill is just the newest way Congress is trying to enforce required backdoors in all apps/devices. Last time it was under the guise of protecting us from terrorists, this time it's under the guise of protecting the children from pedophiles. I wonder what they'll try next time, when this inevitably fails again.

<comment><USER16> > when this inevitably fails again

May I ask where your confidence comes from?

I'll actually be more surprised if this _doesn't_ go through, at least in some form.

<comment><USER17> To be fair even if they get what they think they it will fail and then they'll pout and try to move the goal posts again like how the DMCA failed to stop piracy or DRM from being cracked.

Of course indulging their utter folly leaves us all worse off so we need to stop them. I notably haven't gotten even an email or after sending an email calling out EARN IT as downright nationally suicidal given the how much of the US economy is dependent upon secure cryptography, and the obvious relationship between GDP and power, and that if they gave a damn about the children they would be investing more in social services and investigation instead of trying to seize more power.

Not sure if I reached them or got it put in a proverbial circular file or "enemies list/ban from volunteering as disgruntled" by a staffer but the fact they didn't send a "for the children" form letter bullshit is somewhat reassuring that it reached a real human and they at least recognized one case of "too pissed to even try to form letter bullshit" is a small victory and enough negative tickmarks to say "this is a bad plan" is the current win condition.

Of course a large victory would be dropping from sponsorship but that would be near impossible even if I was a connected great speaker who called him out in person.

<comment><USER18> That said, does DRM comes under E2E messages?

<comment><USER19> No, because if the government wants to inspect DRM-encrypted media for some reason they can simply play it like any other customer, or order the company that encrypted it to provide an unencrypted version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's not really a "threat". I don't think Signal could legally operate in the US with this act in place. More like saying: "If you effectively ban end-to- end encryption, we can't offer our end-to-end encrypted chat app in your jurisdiction any more."

<comment><USER21> > I don't think Signal could legally operate in the US with this act in place.

Of course they could operate. They would just have to backdoor their encryption. Which, presumably, is what this legislation wants to achieve.

They don't want a world with no chat apps, they want a world with chat apps they can listen to.

What Signal is saying in this blog post is that they would rather give up the US market than weaken their encryption. Which is worth saying, because it's probably not true for most other apps. Most corporations would not give up the US market, no matter what compromises they have to make.

<comment><USER20> > Of course they could operate. They would just have to backdoor their > encryption.

Is it even possible to have end-to-end encryption (in the technical sense of the term) with a backdoor? If your product's marquee feature is security via end-to-end encryption your product is a non-starter in a jurisdiction that bans end-to-end encryption, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The state of respect from law and corporations upon consumers is already the single most depressing thing and now earnit. Grew up wanting to live in the future now i just want out. Remember that 15 year joke 'dont be evil'?

I believe i could self immolate a million times over in front of a variety of scenes and meanings, people could call, write and click, teach and learn. There is however an absolute, it seems, that there is no profitable path for relatively infinite powers (politicians and corporations) to allow any meaningful movement towards the more humanitarian, civil/passionate version of a culture.

Instead we will visibly or not be corralled into a highly monitored and monetized form of drone happiness. Its cool.. as long as zoom always works, right? In a sort of twisted 'we will do things to them but it wont happen to us'. Perhaps quarantine brain is boiling over into my comment style.

<comment><USER23> > The state of respect from law and corporations upon consumers is already the > single most depressing thing and now earnit.

After five decades of the bloody War on Drugs, I have _zero_ respect for the rule of law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Are companies afraid that opposing the Anti-Encryption Bill will automatically label them as in favor of online child exploitation?

I'm honestly curious about why there's no widespread opposition to the bill yet.

<comment><USER25> There are other methods of lobbying than just public, visible disagreement. They probably are registering their disagreement in private talks with people in congress.

Facebook publicly coming out against this might not be helpful: most people just don't care. Those that (potentially) do care are far more likely to be mobilized by the EFF or ACLU, which they tend to trust. Facebook isn't the most trusted brand name in privacy, as far as I can tell. Their support might actually be detrimental for the cause.

An open split of Silicon Valley and Republicans would also "politicize" the issue. Almost instantly, you'd have the 35% of Trump supporters galvanizing around the bill, even if they were previously ignorant or lukewarm on it. See the recent train wreck around Qunines-against-covid for a great example of this effect.

<comment><USER26> The Internet Association which represents them wrote a letter opposing it to Congress, although there hasn't been much other noise out of them, except for a minor statement from Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Senator Feinstein (D-CA) is a do's-onshore of the bill. Here's the form to contact her office and encourage her to not support the bill: [https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail- me](https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me)

<comment><USER28> do's-onshore = co-sponsor?

Thanks for the link, I sent an email with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> What is wrong with the wording of the title? The first line is "Signal is warning that an anti-encryption bill circulating in Congress could force the private messaging app to pull out of the US market." Being forced out of the market is different than "threatening to dump the market".

<comment><USER30> It might be a bit hyperbolic, but the end result is the same. Rather than compromising the integrity of their app, they'd rather no longer offer it to an entire country's market. Whether it is "dumping" the users or "pulling" out of the market, what's the difference? Lavabit shut their entire operation down once they were forced to compromise their system. While Lavabit didn't have much notice, Signal is signaling their intent to their users. If that signals their users to take action by contacting their congress critters to put pressure, then it seems like a good idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Thread of the blog post (source of the article): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815112](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815112)

</comment><comment><USER32> The sheer irony being that Federal workers have started using Signal instead of other apps, because it's encrypted.

</comment><comment><USER33> They achieved this in Australia by saying "we don't care how you achieve both security and putting backdoors in, just have a 'capability'". If you don't have the ability to open a backdoor for them you've committed an offence

The best counterargument I came up with at the time is the security of our children. Who the hell knows what teenagers are sending to each other these days? Do we even want to know? I don't, and it's weird that Attorney General Barr wants to open this door. Why risk letting the wrong person sneak into a position where they can see all of our children's messages, everyone deserves real security

</comment><comment><USER34> If Signal were federated, there would be no single entity to shut down. Alas...

<comment><USER35> Your comment makes zero sense, let me explain: most people use signal through the iOS app. It is very easy to shut down an iOS app.

Hope you got it!

<comment><USER36> If you care so much about uncensorable resilient service you probably already use either jailbroken iOS or Android. And if you don't, then do. iOS has a 13% market share anyways.

Hope you got it!

<comment><USER37> > iOS has a 13% market share anyways.

Not in the US, where as of March 2020 it maintains a 60.1% share.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> So much of this conversation accepts the government's anti-crime message is made in good faith.

Is isn't. What's more, you all know that. Everyone agrees the act is unlikely to to stop dedicated pedophiles and terrorists. The Republicans and Democrats know that as well. Crime is a useful pretext to openly push for what they can't say aloud. They wish to suppress dissent.

They know the threat unbreakable encryption poses to their wealth and to their power. It's freedom. Freedom from detection, identification, coercion to comply. Freedom to do what you think is right.

If it's passed, terrorists will reasonably include domestic terrorist. Which will broaden to include Antifa [1] and Black Lives Matter [2] in the government's eavesdropping. Then people who attend the same protest that BLM or Antifa appear at will need to be monitored. And so on. This is the whole point. Not pedophiles. Not Al Qaeda or Isis. They pose no threat to the power of the ruling class. You do.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/20/senators-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/20/senators- want-antifa-activists-be-labeled-domestic-terrorists-heres-what-that-means/)

[2] [https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/06/the-fbi-has- identified-...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/06/the-fbi-has-identified-a- new-domestic-terrorist-threat-and-its-black-identity-extremists/)

<comment><USER23> As wealth/income inequality increases, capability to suppress dissent becomes increasingly important. And yes, "domestic terrorism" will include anything that threatens the wealthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Interestingly, The term "interactive computer service" has the meaning given the term in section 230(f)(2) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230(f)(2)):

 _The term "interactive computer service" means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions._

It appears that a P2P app would be off the hook, at least for now, because there is no "server" in the picture.

<comment><USER40> > any information service, system, or access software provider that provides > or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server

Wouldn't that mean every node on a P2P network would be considered a client, server, and interactive computer service?

Another way of interpreting this, I think, is that everyone participating in a DHT or scuttlebutt network would be responsible for every other user's behavior on that network.

<comment><USER39> I am thinking two phones knowing about each other's IP-6 addresses. No central directory.

You might be right though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> If you oppose the EARN IT act (I do), and you're a US citizen (I am), then you need to contact your US House and State representatives. It's generally easy, fill in an online form. Obviously there's no guarantee that they'll do what you ask, but that is the _minimum_ thing you should do.

</comment><comment><USER42> So...assuming this bill passes and Signal pulls out of the U.S., what can the average person do to continue to access Signal's servers in other countries? Can we VPN into an Apple computer based in the EU, build our own Signal client, and then somehow scp the files back to the U.S.? I think TestFlight would be out of the question, since you probably would need to sign Apple U.S. Terms and Conditions, and because Apple Developer Program is $99 / year.

Maybe I should get a Purism phone.

<comment><USER43> Thing is the VPN service would be subject to the same law, and so the connection would likely still be insecure.

<comment><USER42> Hmm, okay, so I can drive over to Canada, make a developer friend there, build an instance of the Signal iOS app using the licenses there, load it onto my phone via TestFlight or USB stick, then drive back to the U.S. and use it assuming TSA doesn't touch my phone?

<comment><USER44> After you load TestFlight and Signal build onto your phone, make a full encrypted local backup via iTunes.[0] Upload that backup image somewhere. Turn off Find My (iPhone) to disable activation lock. Restore iPhone to factory setttings. Return iPhone to factory sealed box. Optional: mail phone to self at destination or other location of your choosing in destination. Cross border. When at desired use location, unbox phone. Fetch backup you made earlier. Restore backup to iPhone. Use Signal.

[0] [https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/back-up-your-ios- devi...](https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/back-up-your-ios-device- itns3280/12.9/mac/10.14)

<comment><USER42> That sounds much more feasible! I copied and pasted your tip into my notes app. Thanks!

<comment><USER44> Another tip is that it doesn't have to be the same phone as far as the backup and restore is concerned. Enrollment of the TestFlight app might be impacted if the phone changes but that's just my concern because I haven't tested that part.

Here's some links related to these ideas which may be relevant to your interests.

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208079](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT208079) iTunes update that allows installing apps

[https://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/12/25/how-to-download- old...](https://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/12/25/how-to-download-older- versions-of-ios-apps/) Charles proxy how to download specific app versions

[https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/auabt7/question_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/auabt7/question_is_there_a_working_tweak_to_downgrade/) Context for AppAdmin jailbreak tweak which allows for downgrading apps from device via App Store

[http://www.i-funbox.com/en/index.html](http://www.i-funbox.com/en/index.html) iFunBox lets you backup and install ipa from device via pc or Mac

[http://julioverne.github.io/description.html?id=com.juliover...](http://julioverne.github.io/description.html?id=com.julioverne.ext3nder- installer) Jailbreak tweak to auto resign apps and install/backup from device

[https://support.apple.com/apple- configurator](https://support.apple.com/apple-configurator) Apple Configurator allows device management and provisioning by your whitelisted macOS devices

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Guns kill children!! Politicians - we need to defend ourselves and our rights. Keep the guns.

Encryption is dangerous to children Politicians - yup...take it away guys.

<comment><USER46> Feinstein, one of the co-sponsors of this bill, has a pretty good track record of going against _anything_ which could give power to the people rather than the government, including guns. Now, that didn't stop her from being one of the only people in San Francisco with a concealed carry permit (up until 2012)... laws for _thee_ , but not for _me_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Presumably, this would affect Apple and iMessage as well, correct?

Hopefully, Apple will publically denounce this act, putting stronger pressure on representatives and increasing public awareness.

<comment><USER48> Apple can already silently eavesdrop on all iMessages, because they control the public keys inserted to your device. There are no fingerprints to verify you're not under MITM attack so they can just start attacking everyone. Read my longer post on this topic here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21425897](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21425897)

<comment><USER49> Apple cannot do this "silently".

<comment><USER50> what evidence do you have to refute the longer post that the OP linked to where they explain the exact mechanism that this can be done silently?

<comment><USER49> The fact that adding a new key is no longer silent? iMessage will alert you when a new device is added to the account.

<comment><USER48> Does it alert you when your contact's key changes? Does it alert you when your contact buys another iDevice and installs iMessage on it? Thought so. That's where the attack happens, when you receive a new public key for contact's device.

Just because your account keeps track of your devices, doesn't mean Apple can't do this attack.

<comment><USER49> There's no need to be confrontational or try to "gotcha" people here; Hacker News is for thoughtful discussion. As for your scenario: yes, Apple could do this. But I'm not sure what your solution to this would be? Some UI to show the addition of a new key? Hashes that you could match? There's no reason they couldn't backdoor the UI as well as the key distribution for a casual user; and a sophisticated one who's looking for this kind of attack can just check the keys Apple sends them manually…

<comment><USER48> My intention was not to be confrontational. But such posts spreading misinformation aren't really thoughtful and shouldn't be tolerated.

The standard method to detect MITM attacks from server side is with public key fingerprints. Sure, that feature could be backdoored too, I've seen that in a real life product. But that's only half of the equation: you need FOSS client with reproducible builds to ensure the feature actually works. After that, the users can verify their E2EE is working the way it should. Fingerprints alone aren't enough.

As I point out in the long post, use Signal that allows this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> With all the press around EARN IT, this would be a great opportunity for companies with even a mild focus on combating criminal activity on their platforms (Facebook, Mailchimp, etc.) to collaborate with bureaucrats and/or testify in congress.

Thorn seems especially poised as mitigating child abuse is the essence of their organization. Whatever their stance, they appear to be an authority in the private sector spearheading technical efforts to combat child abuse. If any Thorn engineers/representatives - or any platform engineers focused on abuse prevention - are reading, I'd love to hear your take on the proposed legislation. It's imperative that we grant resources necessary to challenge such a horrific human issue without sacrificing our privacy and subsequent civil liberties

For context... [https://www.thorn.org/](https://www.thorn.org/)

</comment><comment><USER52> If anyone here is interested in helping to develop E2E encryption that cannot be shut down by the government here is my effort towards that end:

[https://github.com/Spark-Innovations/SC4](https://github.com/Spark- Innovations/SC4)

The project has been moribund for a while because it's hard to compete with Signal but it wouldn't take a lot of encouragement for me to take it up again. First on the agenda is adding a ratchet. Most of the heavy lifting is already done ([https://github.com/rongarret/ratchet- js](https://github.com/rongarret/ratchet-js)) it just needs to be integrated. I also have an iOS app that was kinda sorta working the last time I tried it.

</comment><comment><USER53> You can't maintain democracy or the rule of law with these laws in place. This isn't about privacy, making it about that is missing the point. Privacy is a nice side benefit, something we give up routinely for safety. Democracy isn't.

</comment><comment><USER54> When government agencies want to do something bad they always bring in child exploitation, terrorism or war against drugs.

Government agencies should be able to fight crime without massively spying and monitoring their citizens.

<comment><USER55> > Government agencies should be able to fight crime without massively spying > and monitoring their citizens.

Nor the rest of the world's citizens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> > Although the goal of the legislation, which has bipartisan support, is to > stamp out online child exploitation, it does so by letting the US government > regulate how internet companies should combat the problem—even if it means > undermining the end-to-end encryption protecting your messages from snoops.

As usual, one of the Horsemen of the Infocalypse:

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

</comment><comment><USER57> "Companies should not deliberately design their systems to preclude any form of access to content"

e2e encryption only prevents certain forms of access to the content. You can still find the physical device and (provided it's unlocked) read the messages off it.

Encrypting on one end and decrypting on the other could theoretically be performed manually with the message sent via an insecure channel. So is two party encryption what's illegal now?

</comment><comment><USER58> As much as I love Signal (I use it every day), wouldn't the USG, given its values, just say "good riddance"?

<comment><USER59> Many senators use it, apparently.

Hopefully some will switch to a surveillance platform and get outed for whatever it is senators do between screwing the country over.

 _grabs popcorn_

<comment><USER26> Some do after their security experts twisted their arms to get them to use it over emailing each other things which could be used to blackmail them.

I wouldn't expect them to understand the consequences of what they're doing, they likely think it magically just applies to all the people they don't like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> OK, instead of "dump US market", why don't they (or someone) create a clone that can't be fscked with? Maybe hybridize with Briar, or whatever. Take everything off clearnet, and have everything anonymous.

I was thinking that Session/Loki was better protected, but the Loki Foundation is likely just as vulnerable.

</comment><comment><USER60> This kind of thing and the pulling of HKMaps are the main reason I'm running Android again. Being able to run apps on my phone that my government won't allow in an official app store is looking more and more likely to be an essential freedom.

<comment><USER61> Aren't there many proprietary blobs starting at the SIM card level, which are black boxes that could contain malicious code? I can't trust Android phones "completely" because I'm not sure just how much of it is truly open source - so iPhone is a more convenient alternative of the same thing with at least lip service to privacy and security...

<comment><USER60> I don't really _trust_ my Android phone but at least I have some escape hatches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> [https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1247938861184909312](https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1247938861184909312) Their tweet on Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER23> If EARN IT passes, and if Signal wimps out, something tougher will replace it.

</comment><comment><USER62> I just wonder what leaving the US market means. Sure, they can ban American IPs and pull the app from Google Play, but will they still be liable if an american gets an apk and goes through a VPN?

<comment><USER63> How would a company be liable if it isn't stationed in the US nor does any business there? Asking sincerely, I don't see any way that it could be.

<comment><USER62> It could be liable in the same way copyright violators / darknet drug store owners are liable. If you live in a European country and host your torrent website there, but you host Harry Potter, Star wars and so on, they can extradite you to the U.S.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Related: [https://www.protocol.com/earn-it-act-hearing- section-230](https://www.protocol.com/earn-it-act-hearing-section-230)

</comment><comment><USER64> It is only a threat if it has leverage.

Forcing Signal out of US market is the goal.

</comment><comment><USER65> In Soviet Russia, government spy on everyone's phone.

In Capitalist America, phone spy on everyone for government.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why can't clients encrypt client side?

Chat apps should support input plugins. If a user encrypts locally, there's nothing the network can do about it.

<comment> t-writescode That is how E2E works. But that means the software you're using must be able to communicate with your client, unless you want to copy-paste every message into a decrypted. That's a pain for normal communication.

Therefore, we have programs like Signal that do that for us.

<comment><USER66> I wonder if a keyboard app could do it, since they sit between the user input and the chat app.

It would be nice if message transportation were decoupled from composition and consumption. Default bundling is fine for ease of use, but allow first-class replacements.

<comment><USER48> These are called in-line encryption systems. They're generally not apps, but separate devices with automated ciphertext transmission. I've been working on something that does this [http://github.com/maqp/tfc](http://github.com/maqp/tfc) and that can be plugged to almost any transport system with relative ease. The current design is using v3 onion services for each endpoint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> So the US govt declares war on Math. Again. What else is new? Tech won't stop them, we have to vote those assholes out of office.

</comment><comment><USER68> Makes me wonder if Signal moved elsewhere to avoid the EARN IT act, could they still publish their app to the Android and IOS stores?

<comment><USER69> If they had users in the US, they would be operating in US jurisdiction. I think the only answer, if the law turns against us all, is to move to a decentralized system like Matrix. Signal as a centralized system has a single point of failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Slowly but surely personal privacy is getting chipped away in the name of "Good"... smh

</comment><comment><USER71> This just kills me: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/senator- backing-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/senator-backing-anti- crypto-bill-calls-out-zooms-lack-of-end-to-end-crypto/)

<comment><USER72> There's a coherent worldview where this isn't hypocritical:

> Encryption is for hiding our comms from China and Facebook, which keeps you > safe. Hiding your comms from America makes it harder for America to keep you > safe. Encryption should be weak enough to let the US government have the > knowledge it deems necessary, but strong enough to build a moat around that > superiority.

It's misguided for a bunch of reasons that HN well understands, but it holds water. That's what makes it scary: not that it's absurd, but that unless you're both well educated and skeptical, it sounds downright responsible.

<comment><USER73> People keep saying that backdoors weaken security in general, but that's simply not true. If you create a cryptographic backdoor that only one third party entity can access (because only they have the private key to do so), this doesn't fundamentally make it any weaker than ordinary end-to-end encryption (where the recipient has the private key to decrypt the messages you send them).

<comment><USER49> It does, because the third party may share their keys with others.

<comment><USER71> > It does, because the third party may share their keys with others.

It makes the store where the keys are kept a priority target as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> This is why something serverless is needed. Then there is nobody to sue.

<comment><USER75> Well there is tox and other protocols that work through Tor network

<comment><USER74> True, I will probably switch to something like that.

The problem with tor I don't like is that it's no longer the lighthouse of freedom it once was. It's too tainted by all the perverts and heavy criminals that abuse its power. The same happened with Freenet sadly and completely killed it for the mainstream public. This "slimy" feeling is slowly corroding tor as well. I can't help but feel it does need some kind of control, not identification of peers but some kind of banhammer.

Also, the anonimity tor/tox provides is not really needed as I'll use it to communicate with people who know who I am anyway.

Finally, tor isn't exactly serverless either. Governments could shut it down if they wanted to. But I think they rely on it too. I'm sure they run exit nodes to keep tabs on things and I'd imagine they use it for communication with their own spies. After all, it was invented by the US government itself for such reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Can we please have new articles at least state the law correctly as anti- security instead of anti-encryption?

</comment><comment><USER77> Does Biden support the EARN IT bill?

Does Trump support the EARN IT bill?

</comment><comment><USER78> Has anyone here actually read the full-text of the bill [1]? I don't see any mention of banning cryptography/encryption in it at all. In fact, the only thing that the bill proposes is the creation of a commission to establish best practices for child exploitation. Seems a bit unfair to call this an ANTI- ENCRYPTION bill.

[1] [https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s3398/text](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s3398/text)

<comment><USER79> Scroll down to section 6 - it amends CDA 230 to strip protections from companies that don't follow the "best practices" (which might not involve backdoors, but are presumed to based on past statements by the commisioners- to-be, especially AG Barr) established by this commission.</comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo's bang - <AUTHOR> https://duckduckgo.com/bang <comment><USER2> I much prefer that the browser fulfills this role instead of the search engine.

Like in chrome you can start typing "yt" [Tab] and search youtube

Or in Firefox you can setup keywords and do "yt" [space] and search.

<comment><USER3> I've recently switched from Vivaldi back to Firefox, and I'm unfortunately finding this somewhat lacking. In Vivaldi you are able to set the URL for any custom search you wish (for example, a Google search would be setup via [https://www.google.com/search?q=%s](https://www.google.com/search?q=%s)), however in Firefox this seems to rely entirely on whether or not there exists a plug-in to provide this function. Just yesterday I wanted to setup a Wolfram Alpha search in this manner, only to find out that it wasn't possible due to the Wolfram search bar plug-in being out of date. For many search shortcuts like this I've been forced to rely on DDG's bangs.

<comment><USER4> Firefox lets you set up search shortcuts for any keyword, but the feature isn't very discoverable. (I just found out about it last week.) You right- click on the search field and select "Add a keyword for this search". Then when you do a search you just put your keyword before the search term, like "yt cat vs cucumber" to search YouTube.

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from- address...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address-bar)

<comment><USER5> This can also be done manually by going through the bookmark menu (Ctrl+Shift+B) and adding a keyword. Using this keyword then replaces the phrase "%s" in the URL with the search string.

You can e.g. create a bookmark to '[https://whereisscihub.now.sh/go/%s'](https://whereisscihub.now.sh/go/%s') with the keyword 'sci' to search for articles or urls on scihub.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find bangs lacking from a UX perspective. It's not that I struggle to use them, like most of you I'm used to the terminal and text-based interfaces, but it just seems like a bad form of feature discovery for non-technically literate people.

It would be nice if this sort of domain filtering could be done with the UI instead of relying on the bang itself (by all means leave it in for power users). You could just check a checkbox and a separate text box would appear for typing in the domain you want to filter on.

<comment><USER7> I like bangs because they can be used from the address bar of any browser. That couldn't be done with checkboxes.

<comment><USER6> It's a good point. But I don't suggest removing them as I mentioned they are great for power users. I just think the functionality could be extended to users who are not used to text based interfaces like we are.

<comment><USER8> Like the Firefox search bar? [https://media.askvg.com/articles/images5/Mozilla_Firefox_New...](https://media.askvg.com/articles/images5/Mozilla_Firefox_New_Search_UI.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am a long time DDG user, going on 4 years? I am just now starting to revert back to google more and more as I start to find their results lacking. The main problem I have with bangs is that my mental mode for searching is always going directly to the search string first. The friction of having to back out of that and insert a bang is too much. I would love to be able to add the bang at the end, as it is often then that I realize a particular search string would be better suited for google or some other service (but mostly google). I'll send them that suggestion.

<comment><USER10> I've been adding the bang at the end of the string for years, and you can even add it in the middle:

        hacker news !g
        hacker news!g
        hacker !g news
        hacker!g news

all work.

<comment><USER11> I must be too dumb to use this feature, because everything I enter, including the examples from the page, gives me "No Results Found". (Seems like it works from the main page, though.)

<comment><USER12> The page linked here is a searchable list of what bangs exist, like !hn for hackernews.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The problem with ! is that it's a shifted character, so it's not a good choice for something which you use many times a day. An unshifted character would be better. E.g. comma: ,w for wikipedia

<comment><USER14> It would be more efficient. If it was vim or emacs, you could rebind. I think it should be easy enough for ddg to make the special character customizable as set by a cookie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Privacy is cool and all but this is the main reason I use DDG. I use the ! constantly. It makes search so much faster and enjoyable. I can go straight to what I want.

<comment><USER16> Hard agree, I just feel faster using DDG. Every once in a while I need to throw a !g to find what I want and that isn't a huge deal breaker for me. For 90% of searches it works great.

<comment><USER17> Do you guys program? Google is like a brain extension, I'm worried DDG wouldn't give me the same results, and it would hurt my work flow.

<comment><USER15> You got !g for google, !gi for images, !gm for maps, !gt for translate, !gn for news, !gv or !yt for video, heck even !gf for flights. It helps you go straight to what you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I switched back to google after more than a year using duckduckgo, the results were just not as good as Google.

However I'm still using the !bangs which are just an awesome feature, I higly recommend using [http://www.duckduckgoog.com/](http://www.duckduckgoog.com/) which provides bangs on top of google search.

</comment><comment><USER19> I recently switched to DDG and while the results sometimes aren't as good as Google, the feeling of not worrying what my searches will do to my filter bubble is priceless. I realize I'm still tracked and profiled in a million other ways, but any improvement is welcome. The bangs are a nice touch, but much less important to me.

</comment><comment><USER20> This idea was tried 15 yrs ago or so.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20040612211249/http://www.osx.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20040612211249/http://www.osx.com/)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a great presentation of the feature and a good directory to learn more about the bangs available. I use them all the time, usually regarding programming topics (language reference, GitHub, etc.), but now I see there are many more I could start using. !astock for Adobe Stock is just one example. Great feature! (I have DDG as my default in Safari so searching and using bangs is a breeze.)

</comment><comment><USER22> I find myself using !g, !a, !w, and !mw the most. I like that I can go directly to these services instead of a search page.

</comment><comment><USER23> Such a fantastic feature. I can even search through Unity's docs, right from my search bar. Sure, DDG can be a little behind with search, but the bang feature more than makes up for it IMHO. I probably use DDG for ~80% of searches and it gets the job done. It is a small price to pay for peace of mind. Keep up the good work!

</comment><comment><USER24> Interesting but probably not very useful.

Major public websites invest heavily in SEO. So practically speaking, what the user actually wants can often be better surfaced with Google (which draws upon a great number of signals) than with on-site search (which could merely be backed by elasticsearch or by a relatively simple homegrown system).

</comment><comment><USER25> I use DDG kind of in the same way that I use multiple web browsers, where I _prefer_ everything locked down in Firefox but occasionally sites won't work very well unless I switch to Safari without add-ons running. Sometimes you just need Google results.

Also, DDG+g! is a great way to get de-AMPed Google results on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER26> Several years ago I built [https://shortmarks.com](https://shortmarks.com) as a way to use search shortcuts from any browser. The code isn't pretty and I haven't updated it in eons, but it works well enough.

</comment><comment><USER27> Here's my collection of favorite DDG bangs: [http://duckgobang.com](http://duckgobang.com). It's my way of getting people off the Google habit and to try bangs instead.

</comment><comment><USER28> It took me some conscious effort, but I finally managed to train myself to make DuckDuckGo my default search engine.

I was vaguely aware of bangs, but I had not known how many other search engines it can tap into, this is really cool.

</comment><comment><USER29> A discussion from 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11772034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11772034)

</comment><comment><USER30> Go to chrome://settings/searchEngines, click to add a custom search engine and add search engines with short keywords. For example you can add "[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s"](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s") with the keyword "y", then if you type "y whatever" in the omnibar it will search "whatever" on youtube. The big draw back is that you won't get search suggestions when using a keyword.

Here are my most used custom search engines:

w [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s) search wikipedia using wikipedia's search engine

ww [https://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Awikipedia.org+%s&btn...](https://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Awikipedia.org+%s&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky) search wikipedia through google and open the first result

h [https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+%...](https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+%s) results only from hacker news

r [https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Areddit.com+%s](https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Areddit.com+%s) only search results from reddit

y [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s) youtube

b [http://184.108.40.206/search.php?req=%s](http://18.104.22.168/search.php?req=%s) search for books on libgen

m [https://www.google.ca/maps/search/%s](https://www.google.ca/maps/search/%s) google maps

wo [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%s](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%s) wolfram alpha

ima [https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=%s](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=%s) google image search (I tried using "i" and "im", but those are often part of my query)

s [https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Astackoverflow.com+%s](https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Astackoverflow.com+%s) search stack overflow through google

st [https://stackexchange.com/search?q=%s](https://stackexchange.com/search?q=%s) search all stack exchange sites through their search engine

<comment><USER31> defaults vs tedious setup</comment></comment>


After I Lived in Norway, America Felt Backward - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenation.com/article/after-i-lived-in-norway-america-felt-backward-heres-why/ <comment><AUTHOR> Most relevantly for the HN audience:

"The truth is that almost a quarter of American start-ups are not founded on brilliant new ideas, but on the desperation of men or women who can't get a decent job. The majority of all American enterprises are solo ventures having zero payrolls, employing no one but the entrepreneur, and often quickly wasting away."

This is an interesting perspective that probably doesn't get much air in the tech startup world.</comment>


Bilingual Peptide Nucleic Acids Encode NA&Proteins in Self-Assembling Biopolymer - <AUTHOR> https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.9b09146 <comment><USER2> Sounds useful.

> Here we describe the design, synthesis, and stimuli-responsive assembly > behavior of a bilingual biopolymer that integrates both amino acid and > nucleobase sequences into a single peptide nucleic acid (PNA) scaffold to > enable tunable storage and retrieval of tertiary structural behavior and > programmable molecular recognition capabilities. Incorporation of a defined > sequence of amino acid side-chains along the PNA backbone yields amphiphiles > having a "protein code" that directs self-assembly into micellar > architectures in aqueous conditions. However, these amphiphiles also carry a > "nucleotide code" such that subsequent introduction of a complementary RNA > strand induces a sequence-specific disruption of assemblies through > hybridization. Together, these properties establish bilingual PNA as a > powerful biopolymer that combines two information systems to harness > structural responsiveness and sequence recognition. The PNA scaffold and our > synthetic system are highly generalizable, enabling fabrication of a wide > array of user-defined peptide and nucleotide sequence combinations for > diverse future biomedical and nanotechnology applications.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my first affiliate page attempt - <AUTHOR>

Hello again, HN. In my ever-expanding quest to make a living online, I decided to give an affiliate page a shot for some passive income (based on a product I actually do use and believe in).
The products are electronic cigarettes, and the page is an overview (with affiliate links, of course) to three of the top brands.
The address is: http://whichecigarettefor.me/ (http://whichecigarette.com also redirects to the first address)
I'm looking for thoughts on:
- SEO efficacy
- Presentation of the info (I know it's a bit text-heavy)
- Ideas on how to get the word out without being ridiculously spammy...
- Anything else you've got: suggestions, criticisms, etc.
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> I once registered a domain for ecigs - didn't do anything with it and I let it expire. As of now, it's still available. It might do better for long-tail searches. howdoecigswork.com -- a question that almost anyone interested will wonder about.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll look into buying it and redirecting with a bit more info about ecigs, themselves. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Site (page) looks good to me.

> SEO efficacy

I have just one questions: how are you going to get a 1-page site to rank for popular keywords.

> Ideas on how to get the word out without being ridiculously spammy

Perhaps, (meaningful) participation in forums (related to health, lifestyle, environment etc.) that allow sigs in posts?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your thoughts!

I had not thought of the issue of it being a 1 page site (I'm fairly new to the SEO world) -- I'll add a page for each product with more details, photos, videos, etc. as a start. I'll also start looking for forums that I could participate in.

Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Make the headings easy to scan through, most readers dun not read in details, just the headlines. Also, in the pricing table, recommend them a plan. And give them incentives to take action now.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://whichecigarettefor.me/>

</comment><comment><USER5> no success advice.. just watch what you do to advertise. Those adwords asswipes banned me for life on the first offense

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow... Sorry to hear it. What was the specific issue? Surely not that it's an affiliate site in general?

<comment><USER5> No,specifically, the affiliate target site violated their landing page policies (Good luck trying to get more clear details than that from them). I managed to contact them and they agreed to remove my violation if I changed the page at the offending URL. I repeatedly insisted that I was just advertising as an affiliate, and didn't control the actual site, therefore couldn't "change" it to fit their policies.. I could only stop advertising it on Adwords and on their platform. Removing it from Adwords wasn't enough though for them.. I had to actually take down a site I didn't own in order for them to be satisfied. So its not explicitly stated, but only advertise for sites you control. (No, it wasn't porn or anything illegal either)

Google, F*#@ you. Seriously.

<comment><USER3> Not too sure here, but I think they have a strong 'anti tobacco' policy - perhaps, that's the root cause of the troubles you faced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> the ecig niche, unless you're going completely longtail, is very blackhat. if you're just learning seo, its not a good niche to find results with unless you pick up on advanced tactics quickly.

also, a single page affiliate site will be very hard to rank for anything. add content and make it into a real site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent suggestions. I'll definitely be adding more content, and I appreciate the advice regarding the niche itself.</comment></comment>