Ask HN: My co-founder and I are about to split, what to do? - <AUTHOR> Dear HN,
My co-founder (who is a close friend) and I have been working on a startup for about 1 year now. My co-founder had the "idea" for a startup. He needed a programmer, so we joined forces. His role is supposed to be design (though currently the application uses my design) and sales/business development/marketing.
The product is 99% complete and could be launched in a week. Unfortunately, we can't agree on partnership terms and ownership of the company. My co-founder wants 60% of the company and refuses to split the equity equally with me. My attempts at discussing/negotiating this with my co-founder only stir hostile, belittling responses from him.
I've often felt bullied and mistreated by this person, who treats me like a "resource" and bosses me around like a child. Though in certain stages of the project my co-founder has contributed significantly to mocking up the user-interface, we've gone through many iterations and, currently, 100% of the design AND code was created by me.
It's looking like we are about to go our separate ways, and my he is threatening legal action and asking me to sign an NDA.
He is not trying to take my work. He wants to start from scratch again by finding a co-founder or hiring a developer to build his idea. The thing is, I'm still invested in my product. I don't want to ditch it.
I haven't signed anything up until now. I think my co-founder registered an LLC, but we've never agreed and signed any sort of partnership/ownership/nda agreement. What power do I have in this situation? Could I find a new non-technical co-founder and launch my product? As a last resort, I would even launch my product for free so my co-founder does not find another poor technical co-founder to abuse. I feel very cornered right now.
I've spent over 1200 hours designing and developing and have a very strong vision for the product.
What can I do?
Thanks in advance, HN. You guys are the best.
* ONE SUPER-IMPORTANT FACT I FORGOT TO MENTION * My co-founder does not have access to my code. I've suspected a partnership breakdown for awhile now, and since I haven't signed anything legal, I decided to make sure all of my work stayed out of my co-founders hands. I've never signed any agreement. I haven't been paid a penny. <comment><USER2> Move on. The project is tainted. Neither of you will be able to use the code: your business partner has no rights to it, but surely has a good enough story about your partnership and his contributions to take you to court (see 'grellas comments on the TechCrunch v FusionGarage fiasco if you were hoping that everything is clean since you don't have an actual contract). Court = death. Forget investment; there's a storm cloud hanging over your business.

Your BATNA in this negotiation is "get on with my life and leave you with zero"; that may be a strong enough position to get your partner to let you buy him out (or vice versa). That's about the best that will come of this.

You could "lawyer up", but that's not going to help you that much, unless your former cofounder is dumb enough to take you to court or make a break for it with your code. It's hard to argue that someone shouldn't talk to a lawyer, so I'll just say: don't spend too much money on it.

There's no chance you're going to work with someone who threatened to sue you because you wouldn't sign over your code after he tried to take a 60% share of a product you coded by yourself.

I'm being grim, and surely that will irritate you or someone else in this thread, but I'm trying to point out the path that costs you the least time, heartache, and money.

<comment><USER3> This is a great starting point. Start by assuming you'll get nothing out of it, then see if you can claw back anything from there.

Giving up this fundamentally, fatally flawed business is step 1. From this fresh point of view, you might be able to come up with a relative win-win. Maybe your so-called cofounder can purchase the code from you instead of wasting many months getting it rewritten again. That would be better than walking away empty-handed.

That said, I propose a fundamentally different target for the "clawing back".

You said this is a close friend. Fuck money. Fuck the business. Save the friendship. In your position I would assume the business is lost and do whatever it takes to salvage the friendship. Get another friend to mediate. Come to an understanding. Accept that you've both got your fixed, blinkered view of things, and you're not going to agree about it, probably ever, but you can still get back to being friends despite that.

Close friends are far more valuable than any business. I was lucky to keep my best friend when my first business blew up. I am really glad I made the effort, as hopeless as it seemed at the time.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't call somebody a close friend if he planned to sue me, take the share that was rightfully mine (unless his work deserved 60%, maybe not in code, but in deals, connections and marketing), and insult me around. That person wouldn't deserve my friendship.

<comment><USER2> People do stupid things over money or careers. Friends sometimes screw each other over. Shit happens. If the worst thing you do in your life is to demand 60% when you're really entitled to 50% (or even 40%), you've done OK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a lawyer, I can't give advice over a forum such as this for your specific case but I would suggest two things:

1\. This one is complex enough that you should see a competent lawyer in your jurisdiction to confirm technical points such as who owns the code, whether an oral partnership exists (see, e.g., my comments on this at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1645130> for an analysis of this sort of issue under California law), whether you would or would not have a right to use your code for other work without obligation to your former co-founder, and (above all, given what your co-founder is asking) whether your co-founder has any legal leverage to force you to sign the "nda" or to do whatever else he is trying to force you to do.

2\. Most important, I consider what I would advise a hypothetical person in the position of your _co-founder_ as an abstract proposition: you don't have possession of the code and did not develop it or pay value to have it developed on your behalf; you have no work-for-hire agreement giving you rights to the IP, meaning that in your best case you may have only an implied license to use it and nothing more; you came up with the idea but most ideas are not protectable as such unless they are patentable; you might have a claim against your departing co-founder on a theory that you disclosed a trade secret to him in confidence as part of a proposed alignment that never occurred and, on that ground, might be able to claim that he misappropriated a valuable trade secret from you if that secret is truly proprietary and gives you a significant competitive advantage; the foregoing will not apply if the idea is of a type that is being pursued by others, as this puts it in the public domain and vitiates its trade-secret status; you may be held to have waived confidentiality by disclosing this trade secret to your erstwhile partner without having him sign a confidentiality agreement in connection with the disclosure; to enforce this claim, you would need to spend potentially thousands of dollars in a lawsuit fighting over it; in the meantime, your ability to do _anything_ with your idea would be severely impaired because you would have to explain to anyone who wanted to join your early-stage company that you would be devoting major portions of your limited startup resources to an expensive legal fight or, alternatively, that a cloud hangs over your venture in the form of a possible major legal claim by your former co-founder; this sort of thing is virtual death for most startups and serves to dissuade both prospective co-founders and investors from becoming involved with your company; and, last but not least, unless your erstwhile co-founder capitulates and signs documents giving you a clear path to go forward, he can simply sit and wait and potentially assert partnership and other claims against your company at any time it builds significant value, subject only to the running of the applicable statutes of limitations and to certain equitable doctrines that don't him to lay back forever in hopes of potentially sandbagging you. Likely advice to him: "Therefore, threaten away - your main leverage at this point is simply to intimidate."

Given the above, I agree with the many good comments in this thread that it is probably not wise to get embroiled in a legal fight over this situation - _yet_ , this doesn't mean you shouldn't consider using use the leverage you do have to negotiate, if possible, a mutual walk-away that gives you a workable path to use your code in a separate venture entirely, as for example by signing documents that give each party the right to pursue this independently going forward without obligation to the other party. This may or may not be a good option but you should discuss it with your lawyer to see if it might be effective here.

</comment><comment><USER6> _I think my co-founder registered an LLC_

One more validation that proves that an online database where you can explicitly pledge equity to someone upfront is a must. Check out the new <http://fairsoftware.net> that's what it does.

To answer your questions: if it's your code and you didn't sign anything, your "friend" is not in a strong position, since he most likely has no rights to it.

By the way, stop calling someone "your friend" when they threaten to sue you.

Now for a final word of advice and in the spirit of helping resolve a situation that I have witnessed many times, I'm willing to talk to both of you, as a neutral third party, hear each of you out and report back to both privately what I recommend. Use my contact info - I have done this in the past.

</comment><comment><USER7> Do you freelance, if so, what is your freelancing rate. A reasonable rate is $150hr for a quality freelancer. At that rate 1200 hrs is $180,000. I would tell him that it is 50-50 unless he buys down the hours as contracting hours. So to get his 60% he needs to cough up 18k. If he wants to treat you like a resource then he needs to pay to do so and he should pay the prevailing wage. Further I would tack on an amount for the fact that you are getting paid after the fact and took on a portion of risk assuming that you where getting a 50-50 split. I would put it in writing. It is going hard for him to legally argue against giving you the correct percentage if he is unwilling to pay prevailing wages. Courts usually frown on exploitation of uncompensated labor. If you have given him an out to pay prevailing wages with a justifiable premium for being paid after the fact and he refuses, it will weaken his position in court.

<comment><USER7> Another thing that I thought of, is that this relationship is soured so even if you come up with an equitable split you still have the future to contend with. In this situation what I would do personally is take the 40% on the condition that a. I am a silent partner and b. The software ownership remains in my name. I would sign an agreement that says that I cannot use or license to software so long as the (his) company. Is actively in business with no laps in between actively doing business. In the case that he stops doing business you are free to use our license your software how you see fit.

This gives you two things, equity for the work you have done with no commitment to work with him further. If he succeeds then it is all good, make sure you have a forced buyout clause, where you can demand that your share be bought out or that you can sell it. If he fails ownership of the software reverts back to you and then you can have a go at it.

The way I see it, that gives you two shots at making it work. Either he succeeds and you get a profit for the work you have done with no further involvement. Or he fails, you get 100% ownership and you get to have a go. Either way, it gets you out of this mess with no involvement with him anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ok, my $0.02:

Take your code, rip out the front end and the design, keep the back end and any business logic. Stick a new face on it and find a niche not directly related to your original target and pivot with yourself as the 100% owner of the new project.

Your co-founder at this point contributed nothing but the idea, let him take his idea and reboot with someone else but reserve the right to use your code for projects not related to the market he wants to go after.

Make up a document that details the split and have an independent party witness the agreement and give a copy of the contract to your co-founder.

In dutch we call this an 'akte van finale kwijting', I have no idea what it's called in your jurisdiction but supposedly your friendly neighbourhood Grellas will be able to tell you and probably has a boilerplate piece of text for you.

It shouldn't cost you more than a few hundred bucks.

After that you both walk away with your original contribution.

best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Under [U.S.] copyright law, both the UI and the code could fall under the category of "joint work," namely "a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or independent parts of a unitary whole." If that's the case, _you could each be co-owners, with an obligation to account to each other for your respective future uses,_ for example, split the proceeds.

2\. In court, the accounting could be messy and expensive. As an alternative, if your "friend" were amenable, you could sign a walk-away agreement that, in essence, let him do what he wanted with the UI, and you do what you want with the under-the-hood stuff, with no obligation to each other. In the agreement, you could consider an early-neutral-evaluation clause (see <http://goo.gl/f2Js>) and a fee-shifting clause (see <http://goo.gl/J1JK>) to create incentives to settle the (likely) subsequent disputes.

3\. Another possibility is that, LLC notwithstanding, you were legally a partnership, with each of you owning an undivided interest in [EDIT:] the partnership, with the partnership in turn owning everything, e.g., the UI and the code. For that, a lot would depend on what state(s) the two of you are in.

(Disclaimer: I'm not your lawyer, YMMV, etc.)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for hanging out here and helping clear stuff up!

(I know Bindview from way back; my friend Adam Shostack used to work there, back when they competed with the security company I was at at the time.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Its situations like this that make me wish YCombinator had some kind of resource available to the general startup community to advise on similar situations.

I started a company about 4 years ago where I was the sole developer and the idea was mine, but the financing and business end were mostly being handled by my old friend/boss. I knew absolutely nothing about how incorporation or IP laws worked. I really wish that there was some kind of "Start Here" guide at the time, a "Startup for Dummies" kind of resource.

In my specific situation, the failure of the company wasn't due to disagreement or anything. Rather, the economy in Florida tanked earlier than the rest of the country. This negatively affected the folks I was working with and they needed to relocate elsewhere in the country to support their family. Meanwhile, I was going through a nasty and heart-rending breakup with my longtime girlfriend and ended up ditching everything and moving to San Francisco. In the end everything has worked out, and while I learned a lot from the experience, I still wish that "How to" guide was out there at the time.

</comment><comment><USER11> First of all, this is terribly hard to decipher with only one side of the story present (although it seems you have a presented a reasonably unbiased argument). But in my opinion if the idea is truly worth what you think it is I would consider a proposition to start out 50/50 and as revenue comes into the company he will have the option to buy out your equity (only up to his requested 60/40) at x number of dollars per share.

This ensures for him that he will get that ownership he wants, and although you will ultimately end up with less in the end if the company is a huge success being the technical founder of any startup leaves many more doors open for your future in the end. And the possibility that it will not succeed entirely yet you would still get a (presumably) significant amount of money from the initial windfall would seem like a win/win to me.

Again, that is just IMHO so take it for what its worth, but as someone who has out significant amount of time into several projects and seen some pay off both big and small that is an awful lot of time to just let it go to waste.

That said, whatever you do, do NOT agree to go separate ways AND sign a NDA. The situation you are in now holds up much better in a suit than one where you sign an NDA then decide to launch any way. With one man's word against another it is hard to decipher how that lawsuit would turn out, but I am willing to bet it is significantly more likely to be better for you without that particular paper trail.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hmmm, you made a mistake in not having your agreement in writing when you two agreed to work together.

Having said that you must now move on. You have the code, he doesn't have any rights for it. If you stay, this will backfire big time down the road.

The partnership must rely on trust and respect, clearly not what's happening here.

Move on.

</comment><comment><USER13> Firstly, are you sure you describe the situation objectively? If this were a novel, I would consider the storyline under-developed. There must be some reason, however injust, why your co-founder thinks he should get a majority share. For example:

"currently, 100% of the design AND code was created by me."

You may have done the typing, but you also acknowledge that there was a lot of discussion that led to the current design. I guess that this is an area where your co-founder may see things very differently ('(s)he did the technical stuff, but all the ideas are mine')

As to your question, you should decide what you value more: getting back on your co-founder, or having the product succeed. In the first case, go talk to a lawyer; in the second, I think you should get an agreement that includes you leaving the company ASAP. That ASAP is because of phrases such as 'bullied', 'bosses me around', 'belittling' that make me wonder about the 'is' in 'who is a close friend.'

How much you can get out of it depends on the value you have to the company. That will depend on the technical complexity of the product.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not "in" any company, though. Or am I? I've never signed any agreement. I haven't been paid.

<comment><USER2> You don't have to sign a contract for a counterparty to claim that a contract exists; worse still, your partner can claim, even the absence of a paper contract, that there are fiduciary duties you owe to each other. It helps you that you've never received consideration from your partner, but I doubt it helps so much that he can't take you to court out of spite.

<comment><USER9> Your "friend" might even claim you were an employee of the LLC.

<comment><USER14> Not unless he paid him regularly, offered him health benefits, and paid unemployment insurance. A claim like that could land his "friend" in jail.

<comment><USER2> This comment makes no sense. I'm an employer. I assure you, you do not need to offer health benefits, pay unemployment insurance, or even pay on a regular schedule for someone to be classified your "employee"; having seen unemployment insurance SNAFUs firsthand, let me assure you that "jail" doesn't enter the picture here at all --- they simply send you a bill.

<comment><USER9> > _This comment makes no sense_

I think tptacek is correct concerning the legal issues here. In any case, I didn't say the "friend" would prevail in his claim that the OP was an employee of his LLC, nor that he wouldn't suffer unintended consequences as a result of making the claim.

<comment><USER14> Failure to pay unemployment insurance can lead to jail time in many states. Quick search on Google yields an example for MA:

[http://www.ehow.com/list_6306349_massachusetts-state- unemplo...](http://www.ehow.com/list_6306349_massachusetts-state-unemployment- laws.html)

"Employers who fail to pay unemployment insurance premiums can also be ordered to serve time in a state prison."

You can search for the legislation on Mass.gov if you like.

<comment><USER2> I'm sure that if you refuse to pay when the state government escalates from reminder notice to nastygram to series of phone calls all the way to "takes you to court", and you do something that indicates to a judge that you were overtly trying to shirk paying, then yes, you could go to jail.

The point is that it's not relevant to the situation at hand, because 10 months before that could ever happen, the "employer" is going to get a notice saying they owe some trivial amount of money, and they're simply going to pay it to go away. You would have to be made of stupid to end up in jail over employment taxes.

Note that you're replying both to a lawyer (in dc's case) and to someone who's dealt with this exact situation (in my case); you may want bigger guns here than a pay-per-word Demand Media article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You put 1200 hours into this. If that is really true, that is 6-8 months worth of your time and investment. It's going to hard to just throw that out, and to be honest you shouldn't.

It sounds like your co-founder is extremely strong willed. This can make for a good trait if used well. On the flip side these people are not fun to work with.

      Who do you think would be more successful with the code?

      How can you generate value from your work?

      Can you opensource the code?

And then both of you can use it, and fork it? Most likely if you are a coder, having a well developed opensource project will do wonders for you being able to find your next role. And if you decide to start a company from the code via a fork, you could actually sell it because you are the original author, and you could dual license it. Since the code was not work for hire and there were no legal contracts as to the nature of the code you could probably do this. Get a lawyers advice.

Also since you are the developer behind the code base you can probably fork the code faster than your friend.

If your friend wants to buy the code from you, maybe you can do a rev share deal with your code and his business. There would be terms to transfer the IP, but I am sure you can figure that out if you need. In this case the code would stay private, and you would still have authorship rights to it, but he would have a rev share license to use and to derive from it.

I strongly thing that anyone that has asked you to throw out 6 months worth of work is giving bad advice, but this is a difficult situation and you can't expect maximum value out of this.

Your goal should be

      - get something for your time
      - part ways with this founder
      - leverage this experience and code base to find a new oppertunity

[http://books.google.com/books?id=l3GD2EgazCkC&q=retreat+...](http://books.google.com/books?id=l3GD2EgazCkC&q=retreat+double#v=snippet&q=retreat%20double&f=false)

 _page 48_ Sun Tzu - Without a way to retreat, an army fights with double or triple the spirit it would have on open terrain, because death is viscerally present.

If you offer your enemy a retreat they may take it.

<comment><USER2> He can't simply use the code he wrote, because his partner will have a claim on it.

Similarly, his cofounder probably can't simply pursue the business by having the code rewritten.

The best he can say is that he has something his former cofounder wants: a free and clear path to pursuing the business independently. Likewise, his former partner has something he wants.

It's worth talking that out, but if things gridlock, he's better off just doing something else.

<comment><USER15> Well, the code was developed without a contract, and was never shared. IE. it was not a work for hire. It was not documented, even if it was implied.

He also never agreed to any trade secret documents or IP documents with his potential co-founder.

      did you sign any incorporation papers?

It's a creative work, and... although his friend that intended to start a business didn't do what was necessary to lock up the code either. they both foobared this.

It might be hard to start a business with that code, but I am pretty sure he would not be liable for damages if it was opensourced.

By this logic and after legal advice, if one were to open source the code, it would be usable by both parties, and he would still have the technical advantage.

This is the leverage he can use to control the agenda of the discussions. Opensource gives him an advantage over his potential co-founder, one that can not be undone.

Also, if both parties agree to keep it closed, then they might agree to some partnership in each others new company.

I would advise against the freeBSD or MIT licenses, a good copyright lawyer will know which license will still allow for a derivative work, since you wont want to use the code just as a library.

I have hacked on projects with friends and for a variety of reasons have decided to move on. These recommendations are part of how we have discussed how to amicably move on. We are still friends today.

We wanted to sustain value in what we did, but decided that building a business around the idea was maybe not the best idea.

<comment><USER2> The world would be a lot simpler if logic like this was sufficient to dispose of legal issues as severe as "someone who I call my _cofounder_ believes he owns 60% of my business".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Lots of questions, a few answers:

A.) Yes, move on. Pack up all your work and put it in a safe place.

B.) Learn from it. In the future, all of the equity and administrative decisions should be made and agreed upon before writing any lines of code.

C.) While it might be satisfying to take your work and launch yourself (or hit him with a free service), think hard about it, and definitely consult a lawyer. It will be a sticky situation.

<comment><USER17> Point B cannot be overstated. You should _always_ have your corporate structure in order before you start working on a business endeavor with _anyone_ \-- even people you know well. Forming an LLC with an easy-to- understand operating agreement might take two four hour chunks of time and will save untold headaches down the road.

<comment><USER18> "You should always have your corporate structure in order before you start working on a business endeavor"

Sorry, that just doesn't sound practical. Do all you people actually do this?

<comment><USER19> They do not, and that's one of the primary causes of problems like this. Just because it's the intelligent thing to do does NOT mean that intelligent people actually do it!

<comment><USER18> It sounds to me like it just introduces more friction to Getting Things Done, which would not be the Intelligent Thing To Do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > I've spent over 1200 hours designing and developing and have a very strong > vision for the product.

> I think my co-founder registered an LLC, but we've never agreed and signed > any sort of partnership/ownership/nda agreement.

OUCH.

Sounds like there's something worth salvaging though, so why don't you two try and patch it up - maybe try to find a neutral third party or something? I think it might even be worth your while to jointly pay some kind of person who is good at mediating disputes to try and help you come to some kind of agreement.

<comment><USER21> I'd second the third party idea. If you both feel like there's something that could be salvaged, I think even hiring a professional mediator for a couple of hours might help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why not just take the 60/40 equity split, but demand 50/50 voting rights? Or maybe do the opposite. Chances are he simply feels entitled to a bit more of the company, but if the company is successful that 20% difference in wealth will be fairly meaningless.

Or, maybe he wants 60% of the shares but doesn't care at all about many of the decisions.

Bottom line: Ok your partner is a prick, but he may still be a good business partner. There are also dangers in working with people who are too nice.

EDIT: Also it's worth noting that VCs are often spooked when founders don't have an equal share b/c that is a predictor of things going south as the company grows. Perhaps your cofounder would be moved by that tidbit to suck it up and be equal partners.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd suggest agreeing to the 60/40 split. He'd feel like he got what he wanted & you would launch your 1,200 hours of work. HOWEVER, would it be possible to structure the 60/40 split so that any shares handed out in future rounds of funding will come from his 60% since he is the "business guy"? If you can do that, then your minority % may become an equal or even greater % as the site grows & needs capital for expansion.

My project has me holding onto the majority of shares, but with the full knowledge that those shares will be the source of shares allocated to investors as more capital is injected. Unless he is a greedy bastard I don't see why he wouldn't consider something of the sort.

<comment><USER8> I would think that would lead to the OP being sidelined completely and screwed out of his 40% after a while anyway.

If you can't get to an agreement based on a 1200 hour chunk of input then you have a problem. No point in going further with this person.

<comment><USER23> Sure he could be sidelined if the paperwork is poorly drafted, it would all depend on how strong that 40% agreement is.

Really if he wants to get something for all that work, 40% of a project that exists is better than 50% of one that doesn't. Yes it sucks, but it is better than walking away. Whatever he does, I think the OP needs to paper up in a way to ensure the partner cannot dilute the OP at a greater rate than himself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ooh. I would have to agree with tptacek. You need to just move on. At this point the project isn't complete and is not even a business. To get a lawyer will cost money and you will be fighting over intellectual property.

I don't want to tell you not to consult an attorney but it will be a long drawn out process that will kill your creative spark and passion for the project anyways.

I was just talking with someone last night about how once money or vested interests is involved it is too late to sign agreements. It must be done first. Sorry this had to happen to you. I am sure you learned some valuable lessons that you can't learn in school.

</comment><comment><USER25> Lesson learned. Move on to something else.

</comment><comment><USER26> Doesn't sound like a good relationship to me.

I'd think you should get a good lawyer asap.

Odds are you do have documentation. Get all the emails, receipts, etc. you can find, the code (hopefully you have logs, etc. of work in source control, although I'm not sure if they'd know what to do with that in court or if would be admissible as evidence), and talk to people who could testify on your behalf.

The other option is to ditch it all, but it sounds like you are invested enough where you would rather make a lifetime enemy than give it all up.

</comment><comment><USER27> Avoid further relationship with your "friend." Make sure you have good documentation/proof of the amount of work you've put in and what you've done in case anything goes wrong.

</comment><comment><USER28> The partnership is spoiled; sounds like you have to part ways. But, without some agreement, essentially neither of you could go forward with what's been built -- an awful lot of potential to write off. (He doesn't have the code unless he sues you; if you went forward without him, you'd be in for some legal hurt.)

Try to think of mutual-resolutions that both split you up and allow someone to move forward. (In the meantime, sign nothing and 'reserve all rights'.)

Something involving a side-payment or non-dilutable passive share might work. For example: you agree to walk away and give him the code for a cash payment and 25% share of the company with no further obligations. Then, if it does take off, you've got a great claim worth pursuing, but in the meantime, you're free of the headache and able to apply your talents elsewhere. Or vice-versa.

If you do go this way, you might ask him to 'walk away' with a payment and passive share first. When he says that's a raw deal, then see if he'd offer the same in reverse. And, make the negotiated agreement ironclad/final with a lawyer's help -- rule out as much possible 'but the code isn't as promised' or 'we had to rewrite it all' later-claims. (Remember: when shopping for lawyers, you essentially get 30+ minutes free advice from each one you talk to!)

<comment><USER9> > _When he says that's a raw deal, then see if he'd offer the same in > reverse._

That's akin to what's known as a <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy- sell_agreement>: One of you makes an offer to buy (or sell). The other must either accept the offer, or he can flip it around on you, in which case _you_ must accept it. (This is akin to "you cut the cake, but I decide which piece I want.")

If you went that route, presumably you'd want to put the buy-sell agreement in place first, then one of you would make the offer. You'd want to think through which one of you should be the one to make the offer - that could vary greatly with the circumstances.

(Disclaimer, more or less mandatory for lawyers: I'm not _your_ lawyer, YMMV, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> So it comes down to ownership? The 60/40 split?

The design as it is now does not matter that it's all yours. You've gone through several iterations and the mock-up was his. The initial idea was his. You are a resource. A valuable resource but a resource nonetheless. The 60/40 tells me he thinks it is all his baby and that he can replace you. You confirm that thought. He doesn't want your code and will start from scratch which tells me he really doesn't like how things have developed.

Now, you say it could launch in a week? Is it a NDA or a non-compete that he wants you to sign? NDA means nothing at this point. You built it. Non-compete would mean everything as you could take the code and launch your own project if you believe in it.

You haven't been paid, haven't any signed agreements, and have done all the coding. Legally, without any documentation, it sounds like your partner would have a tougher time to prove ownership. What's in your emails?

So ultimately you got this: Partnership is dissolved. Nothing is signed.

Talk to a lawyer to straighten this out. Likely a mediation to determine ownership is required.

And learn your lesson for the future: Get it in writing.

</comment><comment><USER30> First, congrats! It is a great achievement to have (effectively) single- handedly built your first startup.

If you're going to break-up, try and get what you can out of it. I don't think you should get lawyers or courts involved -- wait until there is real money (if ever) before taking that plunge. Instead, why don't you offer to have your co-founder buy you out? I don't know what you'd charge for contracting, but 1200 * 150 = 180k. If you make that a debt that he owes you due on a liquidity event in exchange for him having total ownership, then you walk away with nothing now (which is the most likely outcome regardless) but you do have recourse if he ever _does_ hit it big. It is also the best deal for him, as there is a working and near-done system that he can effectively get for free -- if he has a big liquidity event, then he should be happy to pay you a decent contractor's rate. Write something simple up in plain english and include a note where you agree to binding arbitration, which should save you both some cash if you ever have a deep disagreement in the future.

</comment><comment><USER31> 1) Taking legal action costs money. Your product hasn't launched yet so it hasn't made any money yet either. He is either going to have to sue you with his own money or find a lawyer that is willing to work on commission for a product that hasn't made a dime. I wouldn't worry about his threats.

2)It seems to me that you've been very complacent with your co-founder up to this point which is why he thinks he can bully you with such a bogus claim. You need to politely say you've had enough of the abusive relationship and you wish him the best of luck.

3)Did you sign anything for the LLC? Anyone can put anyone else's name down when they register it online, but without a signature it's meaningless. Form your own LLC or S-Corporation and start learning the biz side yourself. Articulate exactly what you think you need a biz person for and start doing what you can. You'll get a better understanding of the expectations you'll have for the next guy, who may end up being an employee instead of a co- founder.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER32> I am not convinced that if this went to court you WOULDNT get 50% at a minimum. A key buzzword in law is "reasonable". You guys had no contract in placed and never set or agreed to tentative terms. In the absense of that, I believe it is assumed that it is an equal partnership. The fact that it's a technology product and you did the lion's share of the work goes to your favor.

At the end of the day you dont want to work with this guy anyway. If you're bent on being reasonable, I would tell him that the terms are 50-50 and nothing less. If he wants to get a lawyer he can. Remember that he is in the same place you are in. He cant just go start another company because you have the same claim on the IP that he does. So in order for him to do it completely detached from you, I would think he needs your sign off, which you wont give unless he expressly terminates your agreement.

Hope this makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder: this person is your friend, and he seems reasonable enough for you to have started this project with, so what's his side of the story? What's his rationale if, as you say, you've borne a brunt of the work?

This may well be the only side to the story, but something tells me there has to be more to it.

<comment><USER34> My guess is the friend is one of those people that thinks the idea is worth more then the work it takes to launch it.

> My co-founder had the "idea" for a startup.

<comment><USER33> I understand that, but it is also implied that the author iterated on a good deal of material provided by his partner and is now calling it his own. That seems a bit unfair also. I don't think we ought to prejudice the other party on the basis that he had the "idea." Yes, execution is more important than the idea, but it probably isn't that simple.

I'd be totally ready to render judgment if I heard the other guy use the idea argument but we need to hear it from his mouth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Launch. If it gets traction and it looks like court is the only other option, make a settlement with him. Don't worry what is "fair" or about the work you've already sunk in. Just make sure it's worth it for you, get him out of the way whatever it takes, and move on.

</comment><comment><USER34> First I would probably stop working on it immediately.

Then I would gather all evidence you have and create a full time-line of the project. From when it started, to who did what, what was previously agreed on, either via email or in person. Then it is time to talk with a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER36> Your idea has a 99% chance of failing so any chance so let him run the company. In the event it succeeds lawyer up, take a portion for free. Done. You win.

If you decide to keep the code for yourself, then you end up sweating it out with him, being stressed, and so on. Best to tell him good luck. I'm sure you're a smart guy so you'll find another adventure, so let that guy run with his pipedream, and just keep proof of the fact you built it, as I'm sure you have emails and proof showing equity division and so on.

Wish him the best of luck because ultimately if he succeeds you do as well (after the lawsuit), regardless if you split up or not.

You could always do a friendly "shotgun" clause tactic too.

<comment><USER37> If you can get a signed 60/40 contract with no vesting period, this might be the way to go.

Your co-founder launches it and then you quit with the equity. He can find someone else to carry on the code. If he's successful, then so are you.

Good luck. I've been where you're at. It ain't fun, but life goes on...

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> No advice; but, man, I feel for you. I was in almost exactly the same situation four years ago. I just let go, signed that 3 month NCA, cut the losses and moved on -- never looked at that code again. He wasn't very close friend of mine, fortunately.

He was going to hire a coder and proceed with the project; as far as I know, it didn't quite work, and he never launched. Not sure, though -- we don't talk much these days :)

Looking back, I'm glad I've got out of those toxic relationships. Yeah, seeing your invested money and efforts going to waste is not a piece of cake, but, really, having to deal with a toxic partner on daily basis can be _much_ more of a damage.

</comment><comment><USER39> You should explain to him that you are just as capable as he is to take legal action which would put a nice big hole through his funding possibilities. Then, offer to either sign something that says you owe each other nothing and that you are free to do as you wish with the code you wrote. Or, tell him he can pay you to sign the NDA. If your product is good, it's probably not because of the idea. It's probably because of the execution. If he is willing to pay you enough so you can spend 1200 hours on a new product idea. Go for it.

</comment><comment><USER40> How I can feel your pain. The same happened to me in a different scale: "partner" wanted 100%, but the situation only lasted 4 weeks.

The _BIG_ lesson from my and your story is: _BEFORE_ starting to work on an idea, _BEFORE_ even discussing an idea, discuss what "partnership" means to each other. Some people's concept of "partnership" might surprise you.

My little story here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1732039>

</comment><comment><USER41> to be honest, if this guy hasnt touched the code, given any money, registered anything, then i really don't see what IP he has. an idea is an idea. that is it.

<comment><USER2> He has whatever insight he claims he's informed the development with, along with whatever marketing awareness or lead gen work he claims to have done, along with any design or copy writing assets he can claim to have added to the project.

In other words, he has enough to take the issue to court. That he's unlikely to win in court is completely irrelevant; court cases can take years (the last case I was involved in didn't get an initial hearing for 7 months after we filed) and are ludicrously expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I would strongly suggest a mediator, or a group of mediators. I don't think you need lawyers, but other people whom you mutually select in the software business would be good. What's the revenue model for the startup? Will you need to take more funding or do a lot more work in order to get to minimum "buyable" product? If I were in your shoes, I'd try to figure that out frankly before deciding next steps.

</comment><comment><USER43> The most important question you both need to answer is which is more important: Friendship or the business?

If it's friendship then don't involve lawyers (that will almost certainly end it) and find a way to part under terms such that you can remain friends. In this case don't worry about plus or minus ten percent. It won't matter. Go your separate ways and preserve your mutual peace-of-mind.

</comment><comment><USER44> Ouch, some friend he is. What I'm wondering is why the split was never declared before you started working together?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've gone back and forth many times. It's hard to decide on equity when circumstances change. Also, I recently discovered that we are at pretty much at step 0 in terms of business/customer development. I thought my co-founder (who never really tells me what he is working on) had made progress but I found out recently that I'm expected to jump right into sales with him once I'm available to do so.

<comment><USER7> _I thought my co-founder (who never really tells me what he is working on) had made progress_

Discovery, will ferret this out in court and without a patent, who came up with the idea != an equitable consideration in the eyes of the court. If he truly has not done any or little work you may walk away with a larger stake than he is looking for. Exploitation is frowned upon in most courts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Do not under any circumstances sign anything. Copyright (<http://www.copyright.gov/register/index.html>) your code immediately. Then play hardball. Tell him you feel that you have done most of the work and want 60% or you will go your separate ways.

If he is threatening legal action, take legal action first. File a complaint if he even touched your software. (Uploads it to a server, tries to give it to another developer to reverse engineer, etc.). Don't say anything in email or verbally that you may regret later. In fact, assume that when you talk to him, whatever either of you say may be used in court.

Start going it alone right away. Try to market and sell the product by yourself. Your wrote it. Its yours. He might try to take you to court over this in that you had some "verbal" agreements wrt a joint venture and he probably has some emails to back him up (M. Arrington et. al.) so it is imperative that you either placate him or take legal action first.

</comment><comment><USER45> Maybe consider a mediator? It seems like everyone loses if the code just goes down the drain.

</comment><comment><USER18> One option is this: destroy the code (actually make sure there are 0 copies left). Then mourn (get drunk or something, or take a trip), and move on. Destroying the code might help, psychologically, to let go. Just throwing that idea out here :)

</comment><comment><USER14> "start from scratch again by finding a co-founder or hiring a developer to build his idea." more likely than not means he is taking you for a ride.

</comment><comment><USER46> I hate to say this, but you need a lawyer.

Cease working on the project until the situation is resolved.

Package up everything you have related to this, mail, I/Ms, code, everything. Any paper notes, any receipts, anything you did to track time. Document everything, make several copies. Don't delete information which is inconvenient or contradictory to your story, if it's digital it already exists somewhere else anyway.

The conflict may not be resolved in your favor, though the lack of any written contracts, ownership agreements, etc. is going to be a major stumbling block in any litigation against you.

Establish a fair value for your labor, what was the opportunity cost to you for the 1200 hours you worked on this instead of getting paid? Don't go nuts here, if you get paid $50/hr for contract work then that's a reference for a dollar value for your time.

Establish a value for —for lack of a better term— your good will: the intangible contributions, ideas batted about, subtle shifts in the product/business strategy, and your ongoing contribution of such.

Finally, how much would you take to walk away, handing over the code, all rights, etc, for zero equity, zero credit?

Now, ask yourself some questions:

\- what's the value of the product overall today? Is that based on real revenue? potential revenue? pie-in-the-sky valuation? sum of all labor/expenses?

\- is your friendship with your co–founder worth more or less than the "potential" monetary value of either the 50% or 40% equity stakes, or the sum of your contributions and your walk-away value?

\- is the relationship truly poisoned? Can it be rehabilitated? Can it be rehab'd with you working together? Or would it be better for you to split amicably?

\- is any of the monetary value at stake worth more than the potential cost to litigation? Or than the personal cost if there's a bitter split between you?

\- would you have come up with this idea, put 1200 hours into it, without the cooperation & dialogue with your co-founder?

Talk to a lawyer, learn what your options are.

Possibly talk to your "co-founder" about mediation, bear the expense equally, it'll cost less than either litigation or years of bitterness.

If you have the code base, you have a lot of power. The worst thing you could do right now is launch the product without having this conflict resolved.

I walked away from a startup after 18 months of work when the founder changed the terms of the organization of the company drastically. A number of us had worked together previously, and worked for that 18 months on mostly a handshake. We're on cordial terms now, years later, but not what I'd call friends. My lesson learned there was: if the ownership structure isn't documented promptly and up front, you don't have a startup, you have a lawsuit waiting to happen.

<comment><USER47> This got me thinking, which is always a bad sign.

One possible way to "timestamp" your entire code tree might be to zip it up, cryptographically hash the result, and then print out the hash and physically sign it with a notary.

I have no idea how legally useful this might be. I'm sure it would be legally difficult to explain. :-)

<comment><USER15> and will cost $10-$20 in the state of California every-time you want to time stamp it.

      sounds cumbersome.

<comment><USER48> I've wondered before about whether posting an MD5 hash of a snapshot to usenet or a bunch of free mail services (Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) might serve as a "beyond reasonable doubt" method of proving you had a specific bunch of files on a particular date. It _should_ be possible to argue that the likelihood of me being able to subvert Google's and Yahoo's and Microsoft's mail servers all at the same time is effectively none, and subverting every usenet server in the world even smaller.

I know where I come from (NSW Australia) there's already established legal recognition of MD5 hashes, they use them to verify authenticity of traffic enforcement camera data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> startupdisaster - I am interested in potentially featuring your situation on- air at "The American Entrepreneur". If you are featured, you will of course receive advice from our host, a 12 time successful entrepreneur, and potentially from one of our experts (we have many lawyers who often join us on the radio in these situations). Of course, you can remain completely anonymous. If you are interested please contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com. Below you will find some information about TAE radio, feel free to go to the website and check us out further if you would like.

Launched in 1999 by Mr. Ron Morris, TAE radio is a daily, national three-hour call-in talk show that exists to help entrepreneurs and business people of all types conceptualize, build, grow, and exit their own start-up. Some of the more recent and significant guests on TAE radio include: Robert Kiyosaki, Malcolm Bricklin, Steve Wozniak, Regis McKenna, Jason Fried, Dan Bricklin (inventor of VisiCalc, the world's first software product), Aaron Patzer, Steve Forbes, Ram Charan (the world's highest-paid business consultant), and many more. Visit www.TAEradio.com for more information.

</comment><comment><USER50> You have two options:

1\. Lawyer up.

2\. Walk away.

Either way, it may be helpful to at least see a Lawyer first.

</comment><comment><USER51> Get a lawyer

</comment><comment><USER52> From NOW ON:

1\. Any startup, get an agreement up front. Do not wait until something happens.

2\. do not write code without a contract, ever.

3\. Do not start a startup whereas developer co-founder code is hidden form one of the co-founders..ever.

For right now You need to stop all work and get a lawyer. Pick one that has some mediator skills</comment>


Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/mac/docs/Apple_T2_Security_Chip_Overview.pdf <comment><USER2> One interesting point in the discussion of UEFI secure boot: it appears there is no way to boot OSes other than Mac OS and Windows without disabling secure boot entirely.

> _By default, Mac computers supporting secure boot only trust content signed > by Apple. However, in order to improve the security of Boot Camp > installations, support for secure booting Windows is also provided. The UEFI > firmware includes a copy of the Microsoft Windows Production CA 2011 > certificate used to authenticate Microsoft bootloaders._

> _NOTE: There is currently no trust provided for the the Microsoft > Corporation UEFI CA 2011, which would allow verification of code signed by > Microsoft partners. This UEFI CA is commonly used to verify the authenticity > of bootloaders for other operating systems such as Linux variants._

It isn't clear whether new root CAs can be added or if there is a customer- accessible setup mode for secure boot at all.

Another part of the discussion is about the various levels of secure boot enforcement. In the default "Full Security" mode, the Mac OS setup (or Boot Camp assistant for Windows boot) requests that Apple sign the OS boot loader with a signature derived from the T2 chip's unique ID, and then the boot firmware on the T2 checks for this machine-specific signature on boot. As I understand it, Apple claims that by simply changing its online service to deny signing certain boot loaders, it can prevent many OS downgrades to versions with known vulnerabilities.

<comment><USER3> > As I understand it, Apple claims that by simply changing its online service > to deny signing certain boot loaders, it can prevent many OS downgrades to > versions with known vulnerabilities.

That seems like a very reasonable ability considering that "Full Security" mode says, "This mode requires a network connection at software installation time."

I'd guess it's a challenge/response deal with the T2 in your Mac issuing a challenge to Apple. The response could be as simple as Apple signing the signature of its software with the challenge, i.e. response = sign(challenge + sign(MacOS))

Presumably it's whatever Apple currently does for iOS, as my understanding is that it has the same downgrade protection feature and that is part of what makes jailbreaking so precious, you need to be on the vulnerable version of iOS in the relatively short window it's still being served by Apple (aka before Apple patches some or all of your exploit chain).

<comment><USER4> Last time this came around I believe it was shown that the process was similar to the one used in iOS.

<comment><USER5> With the very important difference that on the Mac, it can actually be turned off.

<comment><USER6> For now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "All Mac portables with the Apple T2 Security Chip feature a hardware disconnect that ensures that the microphone is disabled whenever the lid is closed." It's interesting, I don't know if other brands do that?

<comment><USER8> Why you need security chip to ensure that?

<comment><USER9> So no malware can be installed to override a software based interlock. No malware can alter the contents of the T2 chip so code there cannot be changed, altered or mitigated.

<comment><USER10> The T2 chip is just an ARM CPU running a customized version of watchOS. So in theory malware could take over control of the T2 chip.

I also wonder what implications on features like the mentioned microphone disconnect that'd have. My guess is that the T2 chip which also acts as audio controller, simply doesn't forward audio signals received from the microphone to macOS if the lid is closed.

Edit: Never mind. After reading further it becomes clear that it's really disconnected in hardware:

> This disconnect is implemented in hardware alone, and therefore > prevents > any software, even with root or kernel privileges in macOS, and even > the > software on the T2 chip, from engaging the microphone when the lid is > > closed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What happens if the T2 Chip fails? Is it possible to recover data on the disk? Or do we have to recover data from the last backup?

<comment><USER12> I'm just waiting for the Rossmann video when someone manages to spill some Coke on their T2 chip...

Shit like this is why I will never buy another Apple product. With my encrypted drives I can pull them out, put them in another machine and decrypt them no issues.

<comment><USER13> And the same goes for whoever steals/subpoenas your machine.

Shit like this is why I only buy Apple products.

The data I care about I have (encrypted) backups of. Not having backups and hoping that a specific hardware failure will not affect my ability to restore is equivalent to, well, just not having backups to begin with.

<comment><USER12> > And the same goes for whoever steals/subpoenas your machine.

Yes, because clearly all other encryption technologies are so vulnerable to theives and cops. There's only a pile of evidence of TrueCrypt and Bitlocker being quite effective in the field against both criminals and law enforcement agents.

And that's not to mention SSD-based technologies which still allow for portability while mitigating some of the more theoretical attacks.

> The data I care about I have (encrypted) backups of. Not having backups and > hoping that a specific hardware failure will not affect my ability to > restore is equivalent to, well, just not having backups to begin with.

This is a good strategy, I too employ it with the majority of my important data, but it's just not realistic for normal people. And I'm sure I'm forgetting some scratch note or IDA database file that I'd be missing if I lost my desktop drive today...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there anything different in the T2 chip introduced today in MacBook Air and the one in the MacBook Pro released earlier this year?

<comment><USER14> Doesn't appear to be. Apple lists the MBP and iMac chips as one and the same - assume that the MBA would be added to this list. [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208862](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT208862)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > _line-speed encrypted storage_

What does this mean?

> _The Mac unique ID (UID) and a device group ID (GID) are AES 256-bit keys > fused (UID) or compiled (GID) into the Secure Enclave during manufacturing. > No software or firmware can read the keys directly_

Does anyone know the details underlying this?

<comment><USER16> More information on the GID/UID can be found in the iOS Security Guide:

> With the exception of the Apple A8 and earlier SoCs, each Secure Enclave > generates its own UID (Unique ID) during the manufacturing process. Because > the UID is unique to each device and because it's generated wholly within > the Secure Enclave instead of in a manufacturing system outside of the > device, the UID isn't available for access or storage by Apple or any of its > suppliers.

> Software running on the Secure Enclave takes advantage of the UID to protect > device-specific secrets. The UID allows data to be cryptographically tied to > a particular device. For example, the key hierarchy protecting the file > system includes the UID, so if the memory chips are physically moved from > one device to another, the files are inaccessible. The UID isn't related to > any other identifier on the device. The GID is common to all processors in a > class of devices (for example, all devices using the Apple A8 processor).

[https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide....](https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> anyone who uses eGPUs (w/ Nvidia): whenever I setup my MBP shortly after buying (middle of this year), one of the steps required disabling Secure Boot and another security item via terminal. Is that still the case? Pretty sure my T2 chip is disabled due to this. Not a major loss if it must remain that way, but wasn't sure if it was just mitigating something that is no longer an issue.

<comment><USER4> > one of the steps required disabling Secure Boot and another security item > via terminal

Probably SIP from Recovery Mode. This doesn't disable your T2 chip completely, since it's still necessary do things like control your camera and microphone or read from your SSD, but it disables certain protections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm of two minds about how the T2 safeguards access to storage. On the one hand, safeguards like these are a great step forward for endpoint security to guard against device theft. On the other hand, if you break your machine in some way that your storage is still intact - too bad, you're locked out.

What Apple is really saying with this kind of design is that you need to treat your machine as if it were disposable. You won't worry about losing your data if your laptop only has a cached copy. If your machine breaks, ditch it, get another one, redownload your data from the cloud.

But most customers don't actually use their Macs this way. They don't see their highly-priced luxury machines as disposable. They don't pay for cloud storage; if they do, then they don't keep all their data backed up to their cloud storage accounts, and they expect that their original data will still be available. They don't have 3-2-1 backup strategies and they don't plan for being locked out of their cloud backups.

So this doesn't feel to me like Apple focusing on security. It feels like the security-focused extension of Apple's general strategy: rising prices and declining repairability as the basic formula for strategic revenue growth from their Western upper-class customer base. And that's something to be resisted.

</comment><comment><USER19> upvoting because I want people who know more than me about security to see and comment. :)</comment>


ASP.NET MVC security and user management done the right way - <AUTHOR> http://aspsecuritykit.com <comment><USER2> If you're the author of that site... You should get someone who's really good at editing English to polish up the language. There are some obvious, little mistakes. For example, "some bonus" should be "a bonus" or "a (bigger) bonus" or something like that.

Maybe I'm the only one who actually cares about this kind of thing, but to me, little mistakes make something look unprofessional, or make me assume I'm dealing with a person who can _only_ write code and doesn't have a broader perspective on things.

<comment><USER3> Hi author here. Thanks for the feedback. Definitely get this corrected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi author here! if you have any feedback or suggestion, do let me know. you can also drop me a mail – email@example.com

ASP Security Kit is my humble attempt to solve membership management problem for applications built on ASP.NET Mvc platform. I have periodically observed that There are many common but essential requirements for most real-world web applications that aren't served well. Like action-based and resource (entity record) aware authorization. ASK handles all such must-to-have requirements pretty transparently and is highly flexible. This is because it's been developped and actively improved as a basis of many consultancy projects I have undertaken over the years.

It has also many nice-to-have things and many more things planned. I'm pretty excited about it and looking at the trafic I have received, many other feel the same way. So thanks everyone for logging on to the site and special thanks to those who have shown interest and provided their email! I'll soon get in touch with you all personally sharing the progress and launch date.

<comment><USER4> You say that it "Implements salted password hashing" but you don't mention the details of the method. Which method is it - bcrypt, md5, scrypt, sha1, pbkdf2 or something in-house? Why not say which?

I confess that I had to look up "key stretching". Is it usual to do this, and why do you do it?

<comment><USER3> Glad you asked this. That is just a pre-launch page so it does not go into detail in length. Nothing built in-house – it uses Salted password hashing with PBKDF2-SHA1 and key stretching as mentioned on [0]. Password hashing is too delicate to write a custom algorithm.

[0] [http://crackstation.net/hashing- security.htm](http://crackstation.net/hashing-security.htm)

"Salt ensures that attackers can't use specialized attacks like lookup tables and rainbow tables to crack large collections of hashes quickly, but it doesn't prevent them from running dictionary or brute-force attacks on each hash individually. High-end graphics cards (GPUs) and custom hardware can compute billions of hashes per second, so these attacks are still very effective. To make these attacks less effective, we can use a technique known as key stretching. The idea is to make the hash function very slow, so that even with a fast GPU or custom hardware, dictionary and brute-force attacks are too slow to be worthwhile. The goal is to make the hash function slow enough to impede attacks, but still fast enough to not cause a noticeable delay for the user."

<comment><USER4> Good answer, thanks.

I intentionally gave you some good options (PBKDF2, bcrypt) and some really bad ones (MD5, in house) to chose from. I assume that you are using a tested and trusted library to implement PBKDF2?

But isn't the work factor - the "number or iterations" in PBKDF2 is doing the same thing as key stretching, i.e. "make the hash function very slow". There is also a similar parameter in bcrypt. So you don't need to add anything else special to the crypto, and indeed shouldn't.

<comment><USER3> No third party library. It uses standard algorithms like Rfc2898DeriveBytes (for pbkdf2), RNGCryptoServiceProvider ETC defined in System.Security.Cryptography (bundled into the .NET framework)

<comment><USER5> I'd advice bcrypt for it's slow hashing though.

I'd makes bruto forcing harder - longer :-)

<comment><USER3> No Problem – the power of ASP Security Kit hlies in its flexibility and extensibility. You can provide your own implementation for most things including hashing routines if you don't find existing implementation suited for your particular needs. Till now, it is either not possible (in some cases) or difficult (in other cases) in the default ASP.NET implementation for membership management.

<comment><USER5> I'll check it out soon.

My i ask, what do you use asp.net mvc for?

Myself (@Belgium):

ASP.Net MVC mostly for: \- Ecommerce \- Invoicing application (SMB development) - DDD application

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://github.com/brockallen/BrockAllen.MembershipReboot/](https://github.com/brockallen/BrockAllen.MembershipReboot/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Not Open-Source then. So how do we know that it is secure?

<comment><USER3> Most of it is installed as source files in your mvc project so you are free to change and inspect things. This is where protection against XSS/XSRF/over- posting attacks is handled as in Mvc. Only the core module is delivered as closed library. But that is more of a business layer than the security layer. The best thing about the core module is that every piece is swappable (including salted password hashing with key stretching piece) as everything is based on service pattern (interfaces and contracts).

<comment><USER8> These days, it's really hard to make people trust any library that they can't see the source of, especially those that manage "sensitive stuff" like authentication.

<comment><USER9> I'm not at all sure it's legal but it has been trivial to view decompiled source code for any .NET class with tools like Reflector for years. If you need to see how it's done, you will see it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Freelancers, do you charge for time spent writing emails, etc? - <AUTHOR> I've been doing freelance work for a client for a few years on an hourly basis. Typically I charge for time spent behind the computer coding, and testing. Usually I would not charge for time reading emails and responding, but I've begun to notice that this time really adds up. Sometimes the client's emails are somewhat garbled, which does not help.
If I were charging per day, this would be less of an issue, but this client is not going to agree to that.
So this question is for freelancers who charge per hour: do you charge for time spent communicating with clients (email, slack, etc)?
I do charge for time spent with reporting or bug-tracking tools like JIRA... I've assumed this is the norm. <comment><USER2> I charge for everything involving time spent on a client, including emails.</comment>


Redditors discover #ReopenAmerica was started as an astroturfing campaign - <AUTHOR> https://old.reddit.com/r/MassMove/comments/g3toiz/a_post_by_udr_midnight_collating_information_on/fnv8j69/ <comment><USER2> [https://twitter.com/alibreland/status/1252037486295031808](https://twitter.com/alibreland/status/1252037486295031808)

<comment><USER3> On the one hand, we've got a super-long effort post with lots of cites and documentation.

On the other, a guy on twitter met an old hippie that says otherwise.

Seems pretty metaphorical for the whole situation, no?

<comment><USER4> This is not just a guy on Twitter, he's a well-known reporter for Mother Jones Magazine.

What he's saying does not dispute anything in the well-cited Reddit post. It just offers new information which paints it in an entirely different light. Because rather than basing the entire allegation on WHOIS records, he reached out to talk to the person involved, something that reporters do, but the Reddit hivemind does not.

<comment><USER3> Did you read the comment that _this_ thread is linked to?

It's not based on WHOIS records for non-existent sites, it's based on CMS, HTML elements and identifies specific PR consultancies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's pretty easy to understand this operation exists as part of an ongoing campaign to sow discord in the West. What better way to divide a nation than to encourage and exploit an existing polarization, rather than doing the dirty work yourself. Political subterfuge has evolved to be a lot more subtle - plant the seeds of discontent via Facebook events or meme factories, and watch groups take them up.

Similar to how completely baseless ideas that 5G causes cancer or coronavirus popped up out of nowhere - and you wind up with citizens destroying their country's own infrastructure[0]. An adversary's dream!

[0]: [https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/03/uk- debunks-5g-coronavirus...](https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/03/uk- debunks-5g-coronavirus-link-after-conspiracy-theorists-burn-cell-tower/)

</comment><comment><USER6> That whole post is based on a misunderstanding of what OneClickPolitics does: it manages websites, paid ads, and social media campaigns for advocacy groups. These websites look cookie-cutter because the OneClickPolitics platform auto- generates them. It's like saying that all Shopify stores look similar.

Their "OneClick Acquisition" platform delivers "on demand, organic supporters through our proprietary _digital ad placement_ technology." They design and place digital ads to attract supporters to your campaign. If they were just hiring people to pretend to be supporters, they wouldn't need to place ads searching for them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Please see a follow-up from Mother Jones reporter Ali Breland [1].

While the Reddit thread accurately described that these domain names were all purchased by a single entity, it appears that this entity is not a shadowy conservative astroturf group, but rather a guy who purchased them to prevent them from being registered by conservative groups, or maybe just to squat on them.

He's now being doxxed.

[1] [https://twitter.com/alibreland/status/1252037486295031808](https://twitter.com/alibreland/status/1252037486295031808)

<comment><USER7> > described that these domain names were all purchased by a single entity

That definitely isn't all of them, because a lot of them resolve to actual sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't really understand the evidence being promulgated. Anyone care to explain? In particular I'm confused at the distinction between 'astroturfing' and 'grassroots'. The chief complaint seems to be that a 'corporation' is behind the campaign as if this stands in opposition to a group of concerned individuals being behind it. Last I checked, any group of people can start a corporation, apply for non-profit status, and register a domain name. Shouldn't the criteria for distinguishing between astroturfing and grassroots involve more than just seeing if a corporation is behind the campaign? Shouldn't we have to look into which corporation is doing it, their history, etc? And if it is just another NGO/non-profit, which shouldn't the be allowed to campaign on behalf of their donors? I'm just confused honestly, and have never understood astroturfing. Help me hacker news.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps your comment was directed at a different post? This post is about spreadsheets.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps your comment was directed at a different post? This post is about a twitter hashtag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A related discussion from /r/bestof/ which tries to be a meta-discussion about the "best" posts and comments on reddit

[https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/g3sw2l/the_user_udr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/g3sw2l/the_user_udr_midnight_uncovers_a_massive/)

</comment><comment><USER12> This post was quickly taken off of the front page. Can we get an explanation?

<comment><USER12> I guess it was flagged because it was kind of political and would probably start a flame war. I don't know why I couldn't think of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Now do all the protests from 3 years ago

</comment><comment><USER14> I've seen a lot of "just asking questions" about the difference between astroturfing vs. grassroots in discussion related to this issue. Phrased in an oddly similar way.

Keep your head on a swivel.

</comment><comment><USER15> These people are calling it Astroturfing but in reality it's just organization.

I am dumbfounded that opening the country now that the curve was flattened is now political.

<comment><USER16> The purpose of flattening the curve isn't to then celebrate victory and return to normal. Now we need to _ride out_ that flattened curve.

Open everything now will just result in all that we've been through thus far being for nothing as infections spike again.</comment></comment>


What are good linux laptops for 2018? - <AUTHOR> I'm a developer who's getting a bit sick of the high price of apple laptops. Their hardware used to be more reliable and I could justify the price for a great trackpad (the best I've ever used honestly), good battery life and OSX. I realize though I spend most of my time in chrome and the terminal and in theory I could be spending a lot less for something almost as good. (Maybe something with a better keyboard?)
It's been years since I've looked at the PC ecosystem and I frankly it scares me. I have no idea what's a marker of quality and what I can trust.
What are good linux laptops for 2018? <comment><USER2> I have a Dell XPS 15 and to be frank I would advise against it.

Good points:

\- Strong hardware

\- Looks nice

Bad points:

\- M2 SSD requires changing some BIOS preferences to work on Linux

\- Nvidia graphics card is a pain on Ubuntu. Do a Google search for nouveau.modeset

\- The fans are on most of the time, even during idle. The machine isn't hot either - it just likes to run the fans

\- The 1920x1080 screen isn't that great and a "4K" option is quite expensive

\- The carbon-fibre looking plastic looks cheap and is a magnet for finger prints. It does not look good and is difficult to clean

\- It's not a great machine to move about with. Mine weighs almost 2KG

\- No Ethernet port unlike a T470. You need a USB adapter

<comment><USER3> My company-supplied Dell Latitude 7480, running Debian stable with its stock kernel:

> \- M2 SSD requires changing some BIOS preferences to work on Linux

No BIOS fiddling, except for disabling Thunderbolt security for docking station to work (external monitor, network card, USB ports including keyboard, second sound card (though no volume control here)). But this is because Linux kernel doesn't support it yet.

Or maybe I did change its "RAID" to something that's not a lie, I don't really remember.

> \- Nvidia graphics card is a pain on Ubuntu. Do a Google search for > nouveau.modeset

Mine has Intel. I had no problems with running it.

> \- The fans are on most of the time, even during idle. The machine isn't hot > either - it just likes to run the fans

Quiet most of the time.

> \- The 1920x1080 screen isn't that great and a "4K" option is quite > expensive

1920x1080 gives way too small bitmap fonts on a 14" screen. I'd rather have 1280x800 or similar, but nobody ships that resolution anymore.

> \- The carbon-fibre looking plastic looks cheap and is a magnet for finger > prints. It does not look good and is difficult to clean

The plastic seems OK, but maybe I don't know what to look at.

> \- It's not a great machine to move about with. Mine weighs almost 2KG

1.5kg

> \- No Ethernet port unlike a T470. You need a USB adapter

Ethernet port present.

<comment><USER2> 7480 looks like a much better Linux machine than the XPS I have. I should be switching to a ThinkPad next week!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's my experience. If you develop everything locally, get a decent laptop with Ubuntu or Windows 10 Pro.

Windows 10 Pro Edition comes with WSL, a Linux subsystem which is pretty decent for my deep learning implementation and small scale test. With Xming, I can do some visualization as well. There will be downsides. If you get a laptop that just comes with Ubuntu or any Linux distro, you are good to go.

If your development is cloud based, Google is push Chrome OS into a Linux friendly direction. Chromebooks are pretty good choices, price-wise, functionality-wise and portability-wise, you name it. At the time of writing (July 20s, 2018), Pixelbook and a few more Chromebooks receive the support of Linux container. More will be supported.

<comment><USER5> I haven't used it enough to know what its limits are but there's a lot to like with Windows Subsystem for Linux running either Ubuntu or Debian. Compared with macOS, it's current (apt-get to your heart's content), as opposed to macOS' terminal environment, which is hopelessly out of date. I really like what Microsoft is doing here.

<comment><USER6> What do you mean by macOS' terminal environment is hopelessly out of date?

<comment><USER7> Not OP, but guessing it's things like having Python 2 instead of Python 3 installed out of the box. It took them forever to update to Git version > 2.0.0 too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm typing this on my Lenovo T480 running Ubuntu. Here is a little review I wrote after a couple of days with the machine:

[https://reprep.io/writings/20180621_lenovo_t480_linux_review...](https://reprep.io/writings/20180621_lenovo_t480_linux_review.html)

I ended up installing NVidia's proprietary driver which let me disable the MX150 and use the Intel video card instead. Machine seems to run a little cooler since.

I was pleasantly surprised that Ubuntu auto detected my network printer. It also played nice the first time I plugged into the RJ45 port.

I'm still underwhelmed by the audio quality of the built-in speakers. It's sufficient for video conferencing, but it's a little sad when playing music.

Another minor annoyance is that when restoring from suspend, the laptop briefly flashes the previous desktop before showing the lock screen.

</comment><comment><USER9> I bought the new Dell XPS15 with 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and Nvidia GPU the week it was released, and straightaway installed Ubuntu 18.04. It is powerful enough to last me three years and the price was good.

I am mostly happy with it - superfast, great screen. The two problems I had were when installing the Nvidia drivers, plus the fans stay on more than I think they should.

Rather than waste hours trying to solve these, I have decided to wait patiently and see what the community and Nvidia come up with.

Would I recommend others to buy one? Yes, though perhaps wait a while if any of your key requirements are not yet fully supported.

<comment><USER10> I went from Latitude E7200 series to XPS15. I love it except for:

1\. The webcam placement is terrible. If I'm taking notes during a call, everyone else gets a great shot of my fingernails.

2\. I have to carry dongles for Ethernet and HDMI.

<comment><USER11> You can get a combined dongle like the Dell DA300 that combines Ethernet with VGA, HMDI, and DP (if you are doing customer presentations you need all three unfortunately.) That is what I use rather than carrying around a couple different dongles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pretty happy with my System76 Galago Pro with high-dpi display. It's small and light and has a really crisp screen.

That's my home machine. At work I have a 2015 MacBookPro. Comparing the two the only downside of the System76 is a trackpad about 70% as good and heat management design isn't so great so the fan spins up more and louder. (and the fat bezel around the screen, but whatever, the pixels that are there are good)

</comment><comment><USER13> I put linux on my x1 carbon (gen 5) and it works well enough. Some notes, in no particular order:

* great keyboard

* kind of shit trackpad

* trackpoint is pretty nice at least

* hidpi is a pain in the ass to set up

..* looks great once you get it working

..* some apps like Zoom refuse to scale up, so the buttons are tiny

* light weight

* really long battery

<comment><USER14> Setting the QT_SCALE_FACTOR=2 env var does the trick for Zoom on my end.

<comment><USER13> Thanks, I'll try this out next time I need to video call!

edit: good stuff, it works!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Buy a T-series Thinkpad. They're sturdy, have really good Linux support, and even the older ones are extremely robust. Look for an older one, such as a T420; or, if you want a newer one, the T480. Those are going to have easily- replaceable memory, battery, and storage.

<comment> yoz-y T series Thinkpads only come with U class processors. This is fine for many usages but depending on what you want you might need to go for the P-series.

<comment><USER16> T470P didn't, I'm typing this on a Core-i7-7700HQ w/32GB RAM and the 2560x1440@14" screen.

Cracking little machine for massively less than an Apple machine with a faster processor and until recently twice the max RAM the 'Pro' could have.

<comment> yoz-y It looks like Lenovo did not make the T480P models. Hopefully they will still get to it. I am in a similar situation to the OP. Currently it looks like the only option is the Lenovo P51, however it has a numeric keypad on the keyboard.

<comment><USER16> The i7's available for the T480 are quite different to the ones in the T470 so perhaps they don't need to.

The i7-8550U benches about equal to my i7-7700HQ in real world use at half the TDP (so better battery life) though I'd be curious to see how it holds up under load for my workloads so perhaps they won't bother with a T480P, I've not seen any rumours so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have a x62 and it's an all around great Linux laptop for development (but I only code for fun, YMMV but I read good reviews using it in professional environment). I built it myself and it honestly was one of the funnest hands- on project I had in a while. Reminded the fun I had when I first learned how to built my own desktop.

</comment><comment><USER18> I haven't tried them personally, but there are linux-specific vendors puri.sm and system 76.

<comment><USER19> A vote for Purism's Librem line. Not for all use cases, but great if the specs fit what you're looking for and your support of freedom and control makes it worth a bit of flexibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> System76. I have a 2017 Oryx pro. Its fantastic. Not perfect, nothing is but as a developer it's the best laptop I've owned. The specs trounce anything Apple.

System76 is also one of the only companies that sells machines that is committed to Open source, linux and hardware. They recently released their own Linux distro Pop_OS!. Its a really well put together Ubuntu based distro. Great design and continuity.

They recently opened a factory and are designing and building their machines in house. You get lifetime support.

I don't work for them but I really can't say enough nice things about them.

They are worth a look.

1.

<comment><USER21> Thank you for this. Looks very interesting !

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I use a Thinkpad X1 Carbon as my daily driver with Ubuntu and it works well. My main advice is whatever laptop you choose, make sure there is good driver support (unless you really like tinkering).

</comment><comment><USER23> Hands down: T,W,X,L-ThinkPad-Series from Lenovo are IMO still the sweet spot.

The keyboard is the best, the trackpad is ok but far away from macs, the battery life is meh but good enough with an extended battery.

But what I value most is: it's a sturdy thing. You will not break it as easily as other laptops. It will not get hot and burn your legs. Most models can be opened, cleaned and upgraded. Depends on the Model, but you can get ALL the ports you need! And, AND the freaking docking station. I have one at home and one at work and I just put the Laptop in the Docking station and I get all the ergonomics of a desktop Computer (because of external screen and so on). It's true, they are not what IBM used to build. But as I said IMO still the best for people who want to get stuff done and value hipness very little.

XPS are cool and all but for me it's more for people who value the hip parts of a mac, like shiny and cool, but fundamentally they only got the better looks.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've been using an Dell XPS-13 with the Dell-provided Ubuntu for about three months and it's pretty nice. The trackpad is the best I've used on a Linux machine (still not as good as the Apple trackpads, but lots better than others I've used). Everything (sound, wireless, etc.) works across a system sleep. I still find the UI janky compared to MacOS or Windows, but it is bearable.

A year ago I tried setting up a vanilla XPS-15, wiping the Windows install and doing my own Ubuntu setup, and gave up hope after a couple of weeks that I'd be able to make the trackpad not suck, or for sleep to not screw the system to the point that it was easier just to shut the machine down every time instead of sleeping. That machine was also fairly heavy (normally I don't care much about that, but it was definitely noticeable).

</comment><comment><USER25> I wrote a blog post about my (good) experiences with the Lenovo x220 and the more modern Lenovo X1C 4th Gen / 2016 edition here:

[http://www.pixelmonkey.org/2017/09/01/lenovo- linux](http://www.pixelmonkey.org/2017/09/01/lenovo-linux)

Hope it helps.

</comment><comment><USER26> Any of the Chromebooks that have gotten linux app support. I have an ASUS Flip and it's fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER27> Apart the Thinkpad and the XPS lines already mentioned there (almost exclusively), don't put aside the laptop line of Xiaomi (specifically the Air and Pro models).

They are suprisingly well supported on linux, in addition to being very good all-around ultraportable at a small price.

</comment><comment><USER28> I bought a refurbished Thinkpad X230 earlier this year and I'm very happy with it.

What tipped me over the edge is the repairability and modifiability of the laptops. After an ASUS laptop broke and I was only able to fix it because some random eBayer was selling a working keyboard, I swore off non-business laptops. There's a whole community of people who do nothing but mod Thinkpads, and companies that just refurbish ones (which have often been sitting in some office somewhere and are in great condition). Linux runs fantastically on it as well.

As for the trackpad...well, it's not great, but I use the trackpoint which I've always preferred. The keyboard on the other hand is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER29> I recently set up a personal use Linux laptop. I picked the Lenovo Ideapad 720s. There was a good price and I really like lightweight and thin laptops. I set up Antergos on it and am a very happy user now. I run VS Code to work on side projects and work in both nodejs and php/apache and everything works flawlessly.

The setup itself involved a lot of gotchas, I wrote a post about it: [https://medium.com/@bigilui/installing-antergos-linux-on- a-l...](https://medium.com/@bigilui/installing-antergos-linux-on-a-lenovo- ideapad-720s-amd-ryzen-dual-booting-with-windows-10-1ac8e2bd94a6) Hope it helps if you decide to do it.

</comment><comment><USER30> *30 series Thinkpads (ivybridge) have the broadest support across all OSes (windows, Linux, BSDs, even some hackintoshes). If you don't want a new laptop, you can get one of those for cheap. General advice: Don't get anything with nvidia.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm quite happy running ubuntu on hp spectre x360 15 2017. Good build quality. I was surprised that the rotating touch screen and the tent/notepad modes work so well with ubuntu. Had to fiddle with bios during install to handle the SSD, ended up removing windows. The MX150 graphics card is not in use, but I guess if I were gaming I would find a way to use it. It's not a cheap option, but was way cheaper (roughly half the price) than the equivalent MBP.

</comment><comment><USER32> T480s. No weird issues with the laptop itself. The Thunderbolt dock can be finnicky. It loses USB of the dock sometimes; that's about it. Kernel patches are underway I believe. Thing is an absolute joy under linux. Don't get me wrong, it excels in nothing. But it's 4 out of 5 for everything.

\- Battery is fine

\- Weight is fine

\- Dimensions are fine

\- You can add a ram stick for 24GB total (8GB is soldered on).

\- Thunderbolt

\- Fan management is fine.

\- Thermals are almost fine.

\- Exception: The speakers are embarrassingly bad.

For context, I came from a Macbook Air 13.

</comment><comment><USER33> Another few weeks old Lenovo T480 user here.

What I like: 32GB RAM option. No dedicated GPU. Good trackpoint and great keyboard. Arch runs like a charm.

Note regarding the batteries: Internal and external battery, both easy to exchange. It however drains the most healthy battery first (down to 5%) before it starts draining the second one. I'd rather have it always drain the external battery first since that one is easier to replace.

</comment><comment><USER34> They hardly get any credit, bit HP laptops are cheap, sturdy and play very well with Linux (or at least Ubuntu)

<comment><USER35> I just got a HP x360 15z, AMD Ryzen 7 (2700U), Vega 10 GPU, 16GB ram, 256gb SSD and its working great so far. You'll need ubuntu 18.10 or some other distro with kernel 4.16 or newer for GPU support. Wifi is in kernel 4.14 LTS. I've got gentoo running with sway and its quite swell.

I have a very minor cosmetic defect from manufacturing, but HP is allowing me to send it off for repair or get a complete replacement. I choose a repair since it can be done in under a week compared to 2-3 weeks lead time on a replacement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have always used Thinkpads without issues or regrets. Very reliable. I have a P70 now that's great.

</comment><comment> a-saleh Ever since I have worked with RedHat, I really like the standard-issue lenovo ThinkPad. I am writing this from Fedora linux on T470s.

But the best idea probably is to just get what your friends/coworkers are using :)

</comment><comment><USER37> I currently have Fedora 28 installed on a T470 and a T480s and it's pretty flawless. Not the sexiest laptops out there, but they seem pretty good for Linux.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've been really happy with the Lenovo X260 and, were I in the market today, would get an X280.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have a System76 Lemur and I love it.

I imagine the other models are also pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER40> everybody is asking about linux laptops but i do really would like to switch to freebsd. are there any good laptops that work well with freebsd?

<comment><USER41> Not directly an answer, but you'll find a lot of stuff on the internet suggesting that intel integrated graphics don't work; as of freebsd 11.2, almost all of them do! Specifically, support was added for broadwell and newer, through drm-next-kmod.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> How about Surface pro? If you are interested in AI, reading Math book many times, surface helps you a lot. I think its for Math/AI laptop</comment>


Should we be sceptical of science? - <AUTHOR> http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/anthony-gottlieb/limits-science <comment><USER2> The conclusion:

"Happily, there is another way out of the impasse between fallible science and even-more-fallible non-science. The contest is not a zero-sum game: the shortcomings of science do not make it rational to believe cranks instead. It's a fair bet that many of today's scientific beliefs are wrong, but only your grandchildren will know which ones, and in the meantime, science is the only game in town. Or, as Hilaire Belloc put it, in a rather different context:

...always keep a-hold of Nurse For fear of finding something worse."

</comment><comment><USER3> Saw this story on The Browser (thebrowser.com) and loved the blurb:

"Science prides itself on making progress by falsifying past theories. So why do scientists keep on insisting that they are right, when history may very well prove them wrong?"</comment>