Satoshi Nakamoto denies being Dorian Nakamoto - <AUTHOR> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=504715.0 <comment><USER2> Hmmmmm. Assuming the post was made by the actual Satoshi...

Dorian Nakamoto _is_ Satoshi: This is an attempt by him to throw people off his scent, which would be foolish and desperate since chances are the millions of eyes focused on him will find more concrete proof than the Newsweek article, rendering the posting moot. Almost guaranteeing the drama will continue, if not whip it into a larger frenzy.

Dorian Nakamoto _isn 't_ Satoshi: An attempt to absolve someone of harassment. Noble, but not wise, since now he will have to continue to disprove serious accusations of his identity, or else innocent people will be harmed again. And the corollary, if he _does not_ publish a refutation people will assume it's tacit agreement. People will continue looking for him.

It's late and I know I didn't think of everything, but I can't see this being a winning move by Satoshi in any scenario.

My personal theory? Dorian was a member of a crypto group that eventually gave birth to Bitcoin, but he was never part of the implementation. Maybe he thought of the original math/idea, so they named their pseudonym after him in his honor? Probably not true, but fun!

<comment><USER3> Dorian == Satoshi [1]

It's a desperate attempt to mislead.

[1] Here is Dorian making an in-person bitcoin purchase in July 2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354326](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354326)

<comment><USER4> That is not a source. That's a random comment on the internet.

<comment><USER5> Too true. I depend on hacker news for many things, but being secure is not a bet I'd put money on. There are ways of making more provable claims in either direction--unless it's either attested multiple times in the past (so as to be difficult to doctor) or it's cryptographically signed or there's a convincing prosecution, I don't think we'll be confident about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even more interesting: look who signed Satoshi's key on April Fools Day of _last year_ [1].

[http://sks.pkqs.net/pks/lookup?op=vindex&fingerprint=on&sear...](http://sks.pkqs.net/pks/lookup?op=vindex&fingerprint=on&search=0x18C09E865EC948A1)

(ignore the signature from today, anyone could have done that in the brouhaha following today's disclosures)

Based on that, it looks pretty clear to me that Dorian Nakamoto decided to "latch on" to the Satoshi Nakamoto founder's myth, either as a way to boost his reputation/ego or as some practical joke (or both!).

That or Satoshi the Founder is trolling us all.

1\. Originally noted a few moments ago by mpfrank on bitcointalk.

EDIT: Duh, it's fake. Obviously, it's possible to set your system clock back. I was so intrigued I wasn't thinking clearly, even after I pointed this very "attack" out during the Ed Snowden GPG affair. Sorry folks, maybe if it were timestamped in the blockchain.

<comment><USER7> Lol at the John Titor reference

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor) (for the uninitiated)

<comment><USER8> Hah, I caught it right away and chuckled, especially since it's got the timestamp faked back to 2001.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Direct link to Satoshi's post:

[http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open- sour...](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open- source?commentId=2003008%3AComment%3A52186&xg_source=activity)

<comment><USER10> Why does this post matter at all?

A. This account was hacked and it doesn't matter. This scenario might be uncovered if ning.com discovers a breach.

B. This is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, and s/he is trying to clear Dorian's name.

C. This is Dorian Nakamoto and he is trying to clear his name.

We can never distinguish between B and C, so I don't see the value of posting such a comment, and I'm pretty sure that the inventor of Bitcoin would understand this as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm confused by all this. I find the drama interesting, but Newsweek quoted this:

        "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss
        it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a
        swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other
        people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have
        any connection."

Did the reporter really lie about this statement? That seems like really a massive stretch, to me.

<comment><USER12> The trouble with that statement is that, even if you believe it's a verbatim quote, it isn't clear exactly what he said that in response to. We're meant to assume that it's a response to something like "Are you the creator of Bitcoin?", but the fact that the question isn't part of the quote implies that it isn't that clear.

This guy was involved in classified Government work at several companies, and the question could have been either about that, or vague enough that he could have misinterpreted it as being about that, especially if he had never heard of Bitcoin and had no idea what it was.

The quotes are a little questionable too. How many people really believe that an average street cop in a small town in California would say "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life." It's entirely possible they've been massaged a bit to be shorter and more clear. It's not like there's a recording of the conversations, at least not that we have access to.

<comment><USER13> 1) Temple City does not have a police force. It is part of LA County, and its officers are provided by the LA County Sheriff.

2) The LA County Sheriff definitely knows what Bitcoins are. LA is a major drug scene.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What a crazy bunch of events in the Bitcoin world today.

Of course, this isn't necessarily proof that Dorian isn't Satoshi. (I personally don't think that he is, but I guess we'll see.) Regardless, it sure will be nice when the media stops hounding this guy. Especially if he really isn't Satoshi. This could have the potential of completely ruining somebody's life, particularly one who seems rather private like Dorian.

<comment><USER15> Isn't it convenient that, right when there's a minor cascade of failures in Bitcoin related things, a journalist from Newsweek just _happens_ to figure out who Satoshi Nakamoto must be?

<comment><USER16> Do you have a hypothesized conspiracy or causal link that you would like to share, or are you just commenting on coincidences?

<comment><USER15> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7357862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7357862)

<comment><USER16> I think that is entirely plausible, but I don't really see how Newsweek comes into it. Having a fall-guy in case the shit hits the fan is a bit different from throwing the shit at the fan yourself (the NSA tipping off Newsweek?) and having a fall guy for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> New video released of Nakamoto at AP denying any role in Bitcoin: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrrtA6IoR_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrrtA6IoR_E)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is likely to be the admin of the site perhaps? Or a hacker?

I would have expected the real Satoshi to sign a message from his known address making it certain it's him.

<comment><USER19> Unless he's

a. lost/destroyed the key

b. purposefully keeping it uncertain

<comment><USER20> c. Hiding out at his kids house where he doesn't have his keys handy but knows his password.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So this guy has had a stroke and cancer.

Does anyone care the stress might kill him? I guess not.

How about we leave him alone.

<comment><USER22> People are concerned about the origins of something that has the potential of changing humanity (for better or worse) and dethroning the existing financial hegemony. I feel bad about all the cameras being shoved in his face, but there's nothing wrong with people inquiring.

<comment><USER23> Holy crap, get over yourself. Bitcoin is a flash in the pan fad. Maybe eventually there will be a cryptocurrency that's worthwhile but bitcoin having the "potential of changing humanity" is utter bullshit. Also, your argument is completely ass-backwards. It doesn't matter how important the issue is, means are just as important as ends.

Look at it this way, consider some other examples. Finding out whether or not someone is a pedophile is extremely important, therefore throwing around baseless allegations is warranted regardless of the impact it has on someone's life. Stopping terrorist activity is important and lives potentially hang in the balance, therefore torturing someone on the basis of limited evidence or limiting people's freedoms or discriminating against people because of their race is justified. It's all variations on the "won't somebody please think of the children!" argument. The seriousness of the issue does not and should not change the importance of protecting an individual's privacy, their rights, and their assumption of innocence.

If you thought that your neighbor had the secret to curing cancer that doesn't give you the right to break into his house and beat the shit out of him until he told you what it was. The privacy of Dorian Nakamoto is a slightly less serious issue but it's still important.

<comment><USER24> >Bitcoin is a flash in the pan fad.

Huh. I swear I've heard such comments before..

        "This internet thing isn't going to go anywhere"
              -- Most companies, early 1990's

        "No wireless, less space than a Nomad. Lame."
              -- CmdrTaco, the original iPod release

        "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
              -- Prentice Hall editor, 1957

        "I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones."
              -- Linus Torvalds

Keep a bit more of an open mind, hm? Things have an interesting way of catching on.

<comment><USER25> This is the "they laughed at Galieo" Gambit [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit) It's a lot older than your examples and is a reliable crutch for quacks.

Yes, most important advances are initially dismissed. But almost all things that are initially dismissed are not important advances. You cannot infer importance from initial dismissal. Dismissal does not in itself make anything more likely to be important.

<comment><USER24> Indeed. The only thing this proves is that people are really, _really_ bad at determining what things are going to catch on and which aren't.

Which is why I take such "Feh! Bitcoin is a fad!" statements as the uninformed nonsense that they are.

<comment><USER26> _The only thing this proves is that people are really, really bad at determining what things are going to catch on and which aren 't._

No, it really doesn't. It just proves that in some particular cases, some particular people were bad at determining that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If I were Satoshi (Dorian) Nakamoto and I wanted people to leave me alone, I might post as Satoshi and tell people I'm not Dorian.

If I'm Satoshi Nakamoto and I'm not Dorian, I might post as Satoshi to try to get people to leave Dorian alone. But that's a pretty feeble attempt. If he cared enough to get people to leave Dorian alone, you'd think he'd come up with something that provided a bit more proof. Otherwise, why bother breaking silence?

</comment><comment><USER28> Should we change our beliefs based on this post? Based on Dorian's denials today, isn't this post just as likely in the world in which Dorian is Satoshi and the world in which Dorian is not? I don't have a strong belief one way or the other, but this doesn't seem like good evidence.

<comment><USER29> More interesting question why people even care? I doesn't really matter if this guy or _anyone else_ is creator of bitcoin. Bitcoin is already established, lets say we know for a fact Al Gore invented bitcoin. What changed? Nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The "real" Satoshi Nakamoto coming forward after all this time just to say he isn't Dorian Nakamoto seems kind of suspicious to me. It's not like Dorian Nakamoto is the first person to have been accused of being Satoshi.

<comment><USER31> We can only speculate, but I'd imagine the real Satoshi is a human being and doesn't want an uninvolved senior citizen (and his relatives, including a 90 year old mother) to be made targets for violent crime.

It's highly ironic that the media paints cryptocurrency as tools for a coldhearted clique that only cares for their own material wealth, yet they're the ones cruelly exposing someone who has done them no wrong and (in the case of the Newsweek journalist) refusing to apologize. What happened to kindness and respect?

<comment><USER32> All you people talking about violent crime .., I mean, what, do you think the Bloods and the Crips are following the world of bitcoin? I think the bigger story here, much more interesting than whether this person is Santoshi, is the kind of sociological story of nerd obsession with and belief systems about Bitcoin.

<comment><USER33> LA gangs contain a lot of people of which at least a few will be clued up on Bitcoin. And quite a lot more will be clued up now Dorian has hit main stream news.

Also a few desperate out of work in heavy debt old IT workers might do something stupid.

But I would be mostly worried about the mob. Italian and Russian mafia is reputed to create a large part of their wealth today by online scams and phishing, so they will have people that are fully aware of Bitcoin. And have no qualms visiting people or their relatives to chop off a few fingers.

After all I don't think the Silk Road and its compatriots was run by innocent people...

<comment><USER32> You haven't explain why he and his family should be anymore paranoid by fear than any other moderately wealthy people. Why don't all your mafia people just watch CNBC?

<comment><USER31> "$400m" is not moderately wealthy, it's extremely wealthy.

Most moderately or even extremely wealthy people are obscure. One of the wealthiest people I've worked for had a saying: "it's good to be wealthy but not famous." He dressed like a slob, drove a generic Japanese car, lived in a moderate house but in Los Altos (i.e., given the money he went for a safer location as opposed to a gigantic house), and so forth... He never once talked about finance issues despite being involved in angel investments, exits, etc... Most importantly, you'd never see his name in a press release much less in a newspaper story (except _once_ I think, where he was referred to as an engineer as opposed to his actual title).

However, Dorian Nakomoto's situation is far worse in that he's perceived as wealthy, but actually isn't: so he can't afford security, lawyers, a gated house (remember, he went through foreclosure -- he can barely afford a house at all!), and so on forth... He's sixty five years old, his mother is 90. He can't run, he's post-stroke so he likely won't be able defend himself even with a firearm. He also has much more at stake than others: he can't simply hand the home invaders or extortionists the money if, e.g., one of his relatives is kidnapped. Is this so hard to understand? Do you personally hate bitcoin so much that you're willing to be an apologist for endangerment of someone who isn't even involved in bitcoin?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Satoshi's Dilemma

Satoshi has created a new currency, a cryptocurrency. The currency has become more popular and valuable than Satoshi could have imagined. Satoshi now holds almost $1 Billion of his new currency. Due to the currencies psuedo-anonimity, low liquidity and it's value in illicit trade it is far too dangerous for Satoshi to cash in and reveal himself...

<comment><USER35> > Due to the currencies psuedo-anonimity, low liquidity and it's value in > illicit trade it is far too dangerous for Satoshi to cash in and reveal > himself...

\- None of Satoshis coins can be linked to illicit trade because he mined them himself.

\- Low liquidity isn't really a problem, the Bitcoin community is so fanatical that any coins held by Satoshi would likely sell at a premium... even without the fanclub, he'd certainly make enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life even if he couldn't liquidate all his holdings.

\- The same fanclub seems quite fierce in defending Dorian/Satoshi.

\- The tax situation has been official clarified in the UK. Now its recognised as a Capital Gain, US citizens can presumably come here to sell Bitcoin and avoid double taxation under tax treaty? (Possibly, I'm not an accountant or a lawyer)

<comment><USER36> If Satoshi still has his ~$400m in bitcoins, he could also likely strike a great deal with someone like Andreessen Horowitz (the cash), maybe with coinbase (build it), to create a sort of bitcoin bank (at a discount to his holdings in exchange for the liquidity to exit). It would enable a rather unique liquidity tool, sort of like a central bank; the new entity could provide bitcoins to bitcoin service businesses on demand for a fee (eg if they're having a hard time getting bitcoins or for any reason really).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> P2PFoundation.ning creator, Joseph Davies-Coates, confirms Satoshi's registered account is real:

[https://pay.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zs4z2/p2pfoundati...](https://pay.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zs4z2/p2pfoundationning_creator_joseph_daviescoates/)

</comment><comment><USER38> Is Satoshi saying he's not Dorian evidence of anything? That could also be a ploy to try and throw off the scent, as much as it might be Satoshi trying to save this random sap.

This reminds me of the knights and knaves puzzle for some reason: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_and_Knaves](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_and_Knaves)

</comment><comment><USER39> You can never hope to discover the truth behind the fiction of Satoshi. The closer you think you get, the further fiction will hide the truth. Indisputable evidence is nice, sure - but knowing is not being[0].

The man is a legend for a reason and will remain that way, regardless of anyone who claims or is proven to be, or not be him.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masked_man_fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masked_man_fallacy)

<comment><USER40> Sure, it seems like every time you get to the whole truth, the truth just divides itself into smaller and smaller pieces and falls out of your hands. Eventually, though, there must be some fundamental smallest unit of truth that is much smaller than an entire truth. We should come up with some sort of name for this smallest possible division of Bitcoin truth....

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This does not prove that he is not Dorian Nakamoto, it only tells us that he/them is still alive.

<comment><USER42> It doesn't even prove that unless and until it can be proven that the real Satoshi Nakamoto is the one who posted through that account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> "That's just what the real Satoshi Nakamoto would say!"

</comment><comment><USER44> Video of right before the 'car chase' of journalists: [http://instagram.com/p/lNv9-_QaNF/](http://instagram.com/p/lNv9-_QaNF/)

<comment><USER45> 'I want free lunch, I'm gonna go with this guy"

<comment><USER44> a genius

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> At this stage, given the conversation about possible hacking, what would constitute definitive proof that someone is actually Satoshi Nakamoto?

<comment><USER47> Here is is PGP public key: [http://bitcoin.org/satoshinakamoto.asc](http://bitcoin.org/satoshinakamoto.asc)

<comment><USER48> Or maybe [https://bitcoin.org/satoshinakamoto.asc](https://bitcoin.org/satoshinakamoto.asc) would be preferable instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> No, _I 'm_ Spartacus

</comment><comment><USER50> > I am not Dorian Nakamoto.

Is there any way Satoshi could prove this statement? Apart from revealing his identity?

<comment><USER51> They could hold up Dorian and ask Satoshi to post something requiring his key, although that couldn't discard the possibility of Dorian having instructed an acquaintance to do so in case of emergency.

There's really no way to prove (a posteriori) without doubt that someone is or isn't Satoshi, unless there was an encypted message left by him (a priori) saying "My DNA is (...)", to which he provides the key.

<comment><USER52> This is going to become a real life Death Note-style affair!

<comment><USER53> All we need is 33 bits. We can probably knock off 6-12 bits based on what we know so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> From the AP article [1] he has a response that seems really odd:

 _When shown the original bitcoin proposal that Newsweek linked to in its story, Nakamoto said he didn 't write it, and said the email address in the document wasn't his.

"Peer-to-peer can be anything," he said. "That's just a matter of address. What the hell? It doesn't make sense to me."

Asked if he was technically able to come up with the idea for bitcoin, Nakamoto responded: "Capability? Yes, but any programmer could do that."_

For someone who only recently heard about BitCoin this seems like an odd response. It almost seems like if you made a factually incorrect technical statement about BitCoin in his presence -- he might correct you.

<comment><USER55> Only he doesn't really know how it works. He apparently thinks it's just about peer-to-peer networking, that's why the idea seems so trivial to him. In the AP video he alludes to the fact that he "never communicated with Bitcoin", further demonstrating that he believes it's about networking and not cryptography. He really doesn't know.

I've said it before in the other threads but it bears repeating. What Newsweek did was shameful and it looks to me that this guy is a very unlikely candidate. He still has money problems in real life, as well as severe health problems. Framing him as SN is irresponsible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> One thing is for certain, if Dorian is the real Satoshi, the Feds - NSA and FBI - are all over him, and they will know for certain whether he is _the_ Satoshi (if they didn't know a long time ago). If Dorian = Satoshi, he's going to be forced in front of the NSA, and interrogated about bitcoin, he will have no choice in the matter (it won't matter if he's no longer involved, and it won't matter if there are no weaknesses to give the Feds, they will still do it).

<comment><USER56> NSA isn't a law enforcement agency.

If you get contacted (or arrested or detained) by a law enforcement agency, you could ask to have a lawyer present before answering any questions. Your lawyer can help you assert your fifth amendment rights against self- incrimination.

I don't mean to deny that the Federal government might already know who the creator of Bitcoin is. They may, and they may have quite strong evidence. However, having "no choice in the matter" of whether to reveal one's identity under interrogation is less clear. At least in the context of a law enforcement investigation, the fifth amendment privilege is quite strong when properly asserted, and the government's power to compel answers from a suspect is correspondingly weak.

<comment><USER57> And the Patriot Act craps all over the 5th amendment unfortunately. A bitcoin founder could be called a domestic terrorist for creation of a "terrorist" money source.

<comment><USER56> Do you have an example of someone described as a domestic terrorist being compelled to answer questions in an interrogation as a result of the Patriot Act?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> NO, I AM NOT SATOSHI NAKIMOTO!

Seriously, how about we leave the guy who had a stroke and cancer but just happens to have a similar name alone. It's obviously not him and this is sloppy journalism.

</comment><comment><USER44> [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=504715.msg5559860#ms...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=504715.msg5559860#msg5559860)

</comment><comment><USER59> It would seem odd for someone who's otherwise been so careful about security to use his or her real name. It would seem less odd for them to flick through the phone book and choose someone else's name though (or pick it off a grave stone, randomly mash forename and surname together - whatever.) Sharing the name is weak evidence at best. With so many people, odds are if you pick something vaguely okay someone in the world will have it too.

</comment><comment><USER60> If Satoshi disappeared for as long as he did, would he really come back for THIS? It seems like a waste of time and it's awfully risky. I don't believe Dorian is Satoshi and I don't believe that the response from "Satoshi" is Satoshi. Or perhaps Satoshi isn't as intelligent as he is made out to be and this screw up will in turn screw him, just like the other internet recluses that have fallen?

</comment><comment><USER61> Why Dorian would say something below? Asked if he was technically able to come up with the idea for bitcoin, Nakamoto responded: "Capability? Yes, but any programmer could do that."

"Yes, but any programmer could do that." \---- Either this Dorian is ignorant or it is his natural response. This quote is weird.

</comment><comment><USER62> Poor guy just wants to be left alone.

</comment><comment><USER63> I hope Dorian is Satoshi's actual brother and they're just fucking with the whole media.

</comment><comment><USER64> Satoshi/Dorian just wants to be left alone and distance himself from it all; the press conference (if you can call it that) and this is all a big cry for having people leave him alone.

He's probably already taking steps to change his identity and location.

</comment><comment><USER65> HN dislikes ning.com; the new page is full of identical dead links to the primary source.

</comment><comment><USER66> Ideally he would have posted this with Dorian on live TV...

<comment><USER67> Wouldn't prove anything.

<comment><USER68> post what you saw about the surroundings on live tv

<comment><USER69> Could still be made by an accomplice trained to this exact kind of situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> That's exactly what Dorian Nakamoto would say.

</comment><comment><USER44> I have a sinking feeling hn's scheduled kernel maintenance is going to make me miss out on new developments of this movie.

<comment><USER71> Maybe that means pg is Satoshi!

<comment><USER72> Impossible; Bitcoin wasn't originally written in Lisp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> I'm awaiting an harassment case from Mr Sakamoto against the press in the next week or so. Either that or a name change.

</comment><comment><USER74> He had to connect with tor right? His brother said he would never admit to being the creator of bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER75> Help Satoshi by claiming that you are not Satoshi and don't tell anyone you read this here.

<comment><USER75> Alternatives: Post a pic with a pet, e.g., a dog saying "Such identity" or cat saying "I'm Satoshi. I can has your Coinz now?".

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Who is Keyser Söze?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the most compelling evidence that Dorian is Satoshi is described here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354326](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354326) [EDIT: if an eyewitness account is compelling enough for you, this is evidence. it is to me, apparently not to some.]

Dorian (as recognized by the retailer) bought a crepe from one of the first retailers to accept bitcoins, the 1st transaction of the crepe retailer's bitcoin address at 1KfQKmME7bQm5AesPiizWk6h3JPUekwoBC for 2.2 bitcoins on July 17 2011, can check the Crepe twitter feed: twitter.com/Ocrepes - "The award for being the first customer who bought crepes for @bitcoins goes to ... anonymous (the winner refused to reveal identity)"

Tracing those addresses/transactions back leads to large volume addresses. [EDIT: 432,000 coins]

<comment><USER77> Unfortunately, that proves nothing.

Early on, there were so few people mining that practically everyone had a "large volume". As such, if you pick any arbitrary bitcoin transaction at that time, it's highly likely it will have originated from a large volume source in the recent past.

I think it's more likely a case of mistaken identity; there are many people in this world, and I think that the chance of someone remembering someone from 3 years ago that they saw for half an hour, tops, with sufficient accuracy for a positive ID is much lower than the chance that there are simply two middle aged asian men who look vaguely similar. It's also improbable that "satoshi" would fly across the country for this purchase. One person's word is certainly not compelling to me.

Even if that account is 100% accurate, it does not link the man who paid with bitcoins to satoshi, but merely to Dorian. The HN link relies on the flawed NewsWeek article to make the further connection from Dorian to Satoshi.

<comment><USER3> >Unfortunately, that proves nothing.

Linking Dorian to Bitcoin at any time proves everything, proves Dorian = Satoshi. If Dorian paid for crepe in July 2011 with Bitcoin, Dorian is lying and Dorian = Satoshi. There was a large Bitcoin Conference in New York at that time, giving good reason to be there. The retailer said she recognized Dorian as the customer. He didn't want his picture taken or name recorded. Good odds to me it was him.

And "large volume" = 432,000 coins.

<comment><USER78> Except there's no evidence linking Dorian to that July 2011 crepe. Is there? Someone said "I dunno, he looks kinda familiar?" That's it?

<comment><USER3> >Someone said "I dunno, he looks kinda familiar?" That's it?

That's not what she said. She said it was him. They had conversation and interactions etc to form good memory.

<comment><USER78> You say "good memory," but there's no evidence of it. The post said "recognized him," though there's a bit of priming (A NEWSWEEK COVER STORY!) to encourage that process along: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354326](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354326)

Memory is highly fallible. Eyewitness accounts are highly unreliable even after a shorter period of time than three years. The burden of proof is properly on the Dorian == Satoshi folks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Meet Dorian Nakamoto. He is just a regular scientist who likes model trains. But the world thinks he is creator of Bitcoin and mafia is chasing him for his $400m fortunes.

What does he do? He cooks meth.

</comment><comment><USER80> It's obvious: his son is Satoshi Nakamoto... c'mon people</comment>


You Can't Fire Equifax, but Your Employer Can - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/your-money/equifax-breach.html <comment><USER2> Here's an example of a report sold by The Work Number: [https://www.theworknumber.com/samples/The-Work-Number- Employ...](https://www.theworknumber.com/samples/The-Work-Number-Employment- Data-Report-EFX-WS-0205-11-21-14.pdf)

Notice that one of the items they disclose about you is Workers' Comp. If you are injured at work you can get treatment for your injury through Workers' Compensation and this is usually much more generous than your regular health insurance: there are no co-pays or deductibles, for example. But be careful - when you interview for a new job, The Work Number may disclose this info to your prospective employer and they may consider this a red flag.

This happened to me. When I interviewed at a large software company the recruiter mentioned something about my using Workers Comp. Fortunately I had only used it a little and that was many years ago. She also thanked me for my honesty regarding my salary at my previous job. I found that appalling. Me voluntarily disclosing my salary is one thing, but some data purveyor selling my salary info to a prospective employer is a violation of my privacy, and it may depress the salary offered by the new employer. Unfortunately there are no laws preventing employers from disclosing your salary to such companies, and they often do.

<comment><USER3> > Me voluntarily disclosing my salary is one thing, but some data purveyor > selling my salary info to a prospective employer is a violation of my > privacy,

You consented to this disclosure during your application, or else Equifax violated its contracts.

<comment><USER4> Coerced consent isn't consent. A drunk person can't consent, and neither can someone who is presented with an impenetrable contract without a lawyer present.

<comment><USER5> Except you're not drunk when signing the papers at the beginning of the job... So I fail to see the parallel.

<comment><USER6> Then consider not being able to get a job with a stable employer and pay off your loans. Being pedantic about whether or not you're forced is not constructive, when there obviously exists a power imbalance that is causing a massive rift in society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd really like there to be a law that allows you to opt-out of credit reporting agencies. This would work similarly to the do-not-call list - I give them my social and they are instructed to disregard any data they receive that's associated with that number, and will destroy whatever information they currently have about it.

Doing this potentially locks you out of getting credit, but if you can do it on a per-agency basis, then it's a good way for individuals to punish bad actors like Equifax. If even 10% of Americans opted out after the breach, their business would be over, the remaining agencies would have proper motivation to improve their security standards, and it would open a gap in the market that a better run startup could move into.

<comment><USER8> I'm thinking EU residents/citizens should be able to do so under the GDPR. The main concern is that the request would cascade to their 3rd parties (as data processors) and it might be difficult to anticipate the total reach of the request.

<comment><USER9> EU doesn't have Equifax.

<comment><USER10> Applies to any EU citizen data anywhere.

<comment><USER11> Applies to EU citizen data for companies that operate in the EU. You can't enforce laws against a company outside of your realm of jurisdiction.

<comment><USER12> GDPR has what is called extra-territorial applicability.

<comment><USER13> If it's outside their jurisdiction, they can claim whatever applicability they like: the law is simply not enforceable outside that jurisdiction.

<comment><USER14> The law can be enforced against people who are, or have assets, within the jurisdiction, whether or not the alleged violation occurred there.

<comment><USER15> You can also have some very weird legal definition of a nexus, like this bank that allegedly opened a nexus in the US because they used US dollars for a transaction between two non-Us countries.

And there is also the case that the US army just land in your country and arrest anyone they could not kill.

<comment><USER14> > And there is also the case that the US army just land in your country and > arrest anyone they could not kill.

Unlikely; its a lot easier to kill people than arrest them, especially if you are the US army, which is optimized for the former over the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good to see. This is a great development hopefully others follow suit. It was telling in how Equifax announced their breach -- they stressed that "no customer information was impacted" very strongly, right at the top:

[https://investor.equifax.com/news-and- events/news/2017/09-07...](https://investor.equifax.com/news-and- events/news/2017/09-07-2017-213000628)

Most of US population got exposed but hey our customers are safe, so no big deal. We'll just give everyone credit monitoring and they'll shut up.

The thing is looking back, Equifax wasn't really that impacted. Their stock is back to where it was last January. They'll have some lawsuits but it doesn't seem like they'll be going out of business like everyone expected (hoped even). The other terrible thing there is that it was a lesson for others in the industry. They are watching and learning, if Equifax didn't suffer that much why bother enhancing their security posture. Why spend money if even with such a huge breach the consequences are not that bad.

People are always surprised how banks or other institution have terrible security practices, this is why.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, it's surprising how little impact this had on Equifax so far.

<comment><USER18> I wish I could say I agreed with you.

In truth, it's eminently unsurprising to me how little impact there has been.

Any time we see one of these "should be devastating" data breaches, people/ politicians shake their fist for about a week, but there's little consequences. Sure, sometimes a company might be fined _five per cent_ of the _profit_ they made from the behavior that lead to the breach. Not sure that's so much a slap on the wrist as a "tsk, tsk".

<comment><USER17> That was a really big one at a company that has a lot of valuable start on almost every citizen. I can't think of many worse possible breaches. Maybe the IRS or Visa?

<comment><USER19> OPM.

[https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity- incidents/](https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-incidents/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would _never_ work for a company that used this service.

> Lots of employers use it. Equifax claims that more than 5,500 have signed > up, including over 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies and many federal > agencies. The service works by setting up a sort of central line to your > employer's payroll operation, uploading your paycheck information each > period. It also records your job title and tenure.

<comment><USER21> Are you sure yours does not? Most large tech firms use Equifax for The Work Number.

<comment><USER22> How does this work? Does the employer have a clause in your contract, plus a deal with this company to feed them this data, in exchange for what? It wasn't clear to me from poking around their website. Does it buy the employer the ability to query this database about their new candidates?

I don't remember anything like this when last I worked fulltime for a bigco, in 2007.

<comment><USER16> > in exchange for what?

Guessing here but it could be in exchange to letting them use the data as well. By feeding data back into it, they might get some benefit like a discount for example.

People join and leave companies regularly and having access to the system allows them to low-ball people in salary negotiations thus saving them a considerable chunk of money.

Wonder how legal that is. It's obviously not completely illegal but it seems like it would be a gray area. Should the company be allowed to share a worker's salary information? Does that belong to the worker or the company? If it belongs to the worker the company could still just claim if you work here on page 95 of your contract you agreed to let us share this and it looks like you signed and agreed, so tough luck.

You can almost see some executive there realizing "Hey, I read in <whatever business journal> people are getting pretty good jumps in salaries just by moving jobs. Regular workers shouldn't be able to do those kinda things. It seems if we invent this new product we could fuck people over and make a good chunk of money for ourselves" (followed by maniacal evil laughter).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Voluntary forebearance is not a solution. Most companies are not The New York Times, and Equifax is providing powerful data for management to wield in relations with their workforce. Unless it becomes illegal (as it has in California), there will always be many, many companies who will not willingly give up such an advantage in information asymmetry.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. We are not their customers. Employers and lenders are, no more, no less, simple as that.

Even "fraud protection" / "credit monitoring", ostensibly the closest we come to being customers, is in many senses "protect you from our customers and our fuckups" (forgive the language).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've said this in every thread about these scummy companies, but it is entirely unconscionable that not only are we not allowed to constantly look at and correct the data about us that they have, we are forced to pay for it if we want to do it more than once a year. For them to profit off of us like that is completely and utterly immoral, especially when they clearly do not give a crap about keeping that sensitive data about us secure.

</comment><comment><USER25> This looks like a service we could recreate, and sell to employers who don't want to be responsible for handing over their employees' data to a firm that risks creating embarrassing PR for them. There are obviously network advantages, but you could bootstrap it if you got even a single employer on board. Is there some other complexity I'm missing?

<comment><USER26> There are massive network effects, employers only sign up to learn information from other companies, and give up their own information as a condition for the former.

It's a business that bootstraps when you have an existing customer base of related services, dealing with employee and payroll management, credit ratings etc. and mine your existing data for a prototype product good enough until the network effects kick in.

Maybe you could make it bootstrap by making it very cheap or free, so that, even if employers don't usually get anything from you, they still remained enrolled for the rare instance when you deliver something that others lack, so that you can buildup your database in time. But then highly secure, easy to use and long term come at odds with free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting question of what happens to the trove of data they have if Equifax does go out of business. Sensible alternatives are either regulators will have to step in or they are in too big to fail boat. Less sensible would be to do nothing and hope data does not end up in bad hands.

<comment><USER17> Somebody will buy the data. Equifax won't just disappear one day.

<comment><USER28> Actually it seems possible. The demand for their service won't disappear, but with their unpopularity and poor security practices someone who can might just decide to burn them to the ground. Their only assets are data. I'm sure they have offline backups, but a patient enough attack would bork the backups too. They'd probably try to continue doing business, because YOLO, but eventually enough erstwhile 850s would get their Audi leases rejected that the lawsuits would really pile up. About that time some pissed-off employees would start talking to reporters, and that would end the whole thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What about the crazy idea of nationalizing this? If it's a cartel and very hard to open to competition, and reap the benefits of centralization and not only the disadvantages.</comment>


Tony Hoare's Turing Award Acceptance Lecture: The Emperor's Old Clothes - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.raganwald.com/2004/07/emperors-old-clothes.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Working PDF Link: <http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~ravenben/papers/coreos/Hoa81.pdf>

The lecture came to mind when reading the comments explaining how difficult it is to get anyone to do anything within the stifling bureaucracy of a large corporation. Maybe this is as much a business parable as it is a programming parable.</comment>


Ted Cruz Ends His Campaign for President - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/us/politics/ted-cruz.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> My theory for the reason that people like Trump is this: genuine.

People are sick of politicians and the game they play. Trump comes off as genuine. Sure, most of what he says is wrong, but people don't care.

People don't like Hillary for the same reason, she comes off as the opposite of genuine. The common refrain about her is that she'll say whatever it is that she thinks you want to hear.

<comment><USER3> What Trump says feels safe and good to most of the people.

The human mind is lazy and doesn't want to think much if its gets satisfied easily unless you force it to do. But how many people actually put their mind while thinking about politicians. We just make conclusions from the things that we want and pleases ourselves.

<comment><USER4> I'm not so sure this applies to most of the people. Trump is a very polarizing figure. There are segments of the population for whom what Trump says feels safe and good. At the same time, there are segments who feel outrage and disgust at what he says.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What an incredible moment in the history of a major political party in the US. Trump is the man for the GOP, and it's hard not to imagine that it doesn't mark the beginning of the end of the GOP in some form, in the long run.

<comment><USER6> GOP has been selling "Washington establishment/insiders" hate-story to its electorate for a bunch of years, and finally that electorate bought it. One reaps what the one sows. Or something about the cake.

Anyway, can't wait to see Bill back in the WH :)

<comment><USER7> Hillary seems to be captured by special interest, almost completely so. She is loved by banks, defense companies and oil and gas companies:

[https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N000...](https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N00000019&cycle=2008)

[https://www.yahoo.com/news/hillarys-financial- armada-2330336...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/hillarys-financial- armada-233033648.html)

[http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaign-updates/hillary- clint...](http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaign-updates/hillary-clintons- connection-oil-gas-industry/)

She supported the Iraq war, and opposed the recent deal with Iran.

I am not sure what is a redeeming quality of Hillary as a democrat, she seems like an establishment GOP candidate in her positions, excluding social issues, more than anything.

<comment><USER8> >I am not sure what is a redeeming quality of Hillary as a democrat, she seems like an establishment GOP candidate in her positions, excluding social issues, more than anything.

You just said it yourself: social issues. That's the only thing where mainstream Dems and Reps differ. They use these "wedge issues" to give the illusion of differences between the parties and keep us distracted from the real issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is lining up to be a historic election. Both parties are set to nominate two very divisive and unlikable candidates. I wonder how, if at all, this will affect the two party system.

<comment><USER10> The non-crazies should annex a portion of Canada and start a new country.

<comment><USER11> or promote a moderate third party since most people are moderate anyways...

<comment><USER8> Won't work, it's impossible.

A first-past-the-post voting system like ours _always_ guarantees a two-party system. Once in a while there may be an anomaly, but in the end it devolves back to two parties. It's impossible to have a stable 3-party system with FPTP voting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wait, really ending for good, so he can't be nominated? What about all the party/convention rules shenanigans they can do, where they can still nominate anyone who won delegates? Was that a misconception? Or just the Democratic Party?

<comment><USER13> There weren't really any shenanigans available. The rules are:

1\. On the first ballot, pledged delegates will be counted as having voted for their assigned nominee

2\. Thereafter they can do whatever they want. You can call this "politics", or "the will of the delegates", or "shenanigans" if you want.

After Indiana, Trump will inevitably have enough pledged delegates to win on the first ballot, so that's that.

> What about all the party/convention rules shenanigans they can do, where > they can still nominate anyone who won delegates? Was that a misconception?

There was some vague talk about a rule change to unbind delegates on the _first_ ballot, but that was never, ever, ever going to happen.

<comment><USER8> >After Indiana, Trump will inevitably have enough pledged delegates to win on the first ballot, so that's that.

You don't know that. Kasich is still in the race for a reason. All they have to do is keep Trump from getting to that magic number of delegates, and then they go to a brokered convention. It's a bit of a long shot, but it's still possible, especially with Cruz out of the way.

<comment><USER13> Trump has 1,047 pledged delegates; he needs 1,237 to win on the first ballot without relying on unpledged delegates. That means he needs 190 more to remove even a chance of losing.

There are 520 delegates still up for grabs; that means he needs just over a third of them. Which...he's going to get.

Projections had him getting at least 133 delegates in California _before_ his only serious rival dropped out, and he's got a lock on 51 delegates from NJ. Add in the proportional share he'll get from Washington and Oregon based on current totals, and...

...yeah. It's over. The reason Cruz dropped out is he can do the math. If he'd won Indiana, _AND_ all the other contests still up for grabs, Trump could have been stopped short of 1,237. With Indiana in his pocket, he can't be.

<comment><USER8> >There are 520 delegates still up for grabs; that means he needs just over a third of them. Which...he's going to get.

You don't know that; you're making assumptions. When this race started, everyone thought the idea of Trump making it this far was utterly ridiculous, because of their own assumptions at the time.

I admit it's a real long shot, but the elections aren't over yet. Anything could happen. If it were really over, Kasich would have dropped out too. Cruz dropped out because it's _both_ mathematically impossible for him to get 1237 votes, _and_ for him to get the nomination in a brokered convention (he's just too unpopular within his party). Kasich will be an easy win at the brokered convention if that happens, so he's staying in until Trump reaches 1237.

Finally, who knows what kind of things are going on behind the scenes. I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP pulls some really dirty tricks to deny Trump the nomination somehow. Face it, their survival depends on it.

<comment><USER13> > If it were really over, Kasich would have dropped out too.

It was over for Kasich a _LONG_ time ago, but he stayed in.

> Kasich will be an easy win at the brokered convention if that happens, so > he's staying in until Trump reaches 1237.

...I feel like we've been watching different races. With different candidates. On a different planet.

> I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP pulls some really dirty tricks to deny > Trump the nomination somehow. Face it, their survival depends on it.

Both parties have survived worse nominees. The Democrats survived Mcgovern after all.

<comment><USER8> >...I feel like we've been watching different races. With different candidates. On a different planet.

I guess so, if you really think the GOP actually likes either Trump or Cruz. They haven't hidden their contempt for either of those two, and the idea that either of them would win the nomination in a brokered convention is sheer lunacy.

This is moot now, since Cruz and Kasich have suspended their campaigns. But seriously, how can you _not_ think Kasich would be an easy win if, through some miracle for the GOP, they got a brokered convention? Who do you think would win?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Trump was the mainstream candidate, no surprise there.

The idea that a far-right extreme conservative evangelical was going to beat Hillary was, as Trump would say, laughable.

Trump may also not beat Hillary, but he does have mainstream appeal and can connect with a much wider audience.

What will be interesting is how Trump now changes his outwards approach as he tries to win over the mainstream, swing voters, even some democrats who don't want an establishment figure, instead of registered republican voters that he has been targeting until now.

</comment><comment><USER15> Shamelessly stolen from someone on Reddit:

Cruz: "We're going to have to layoff all of the staff." Carly: "IT'S MY TIME TO SHINE!"

</comment><comment><USER16> The next few months are going to be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER17> He won't be missed.

</comment><comment><USER18> 48 up-votes in 54 minutes?

Why isn't this on the front page?

<comment><USER19> Same reason why every vaguely pro-Trump comment has been flagged or downvoted into oblivion.

<comment><USER20> It isn't that it's pro-Trump, it's that it's pure politics. Such posts always get heavily flagged, and it's hard to disagree with that, since they're typically not posted to gratify intellectual curiosity.

<comment><USER19> On the contrary, purely political stories are constantly upvoted and allowed on HN. They're just almost always left leaning stories.

      A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing
      542 points by warrenmar 17 hours ago | flag | past | web | 718 comments

I can almost guarantee that if/when Bernie drops out, a submission on it will be allowed to stay and hit hundreds of points.

<comment><USER20> Basic Income stories are political, but they aren't purely political. There's an intellectual interest in thinking about and debating such a major social change. Political horse race stories are the opposite.

People tend to see HN as ideologically biased in favor of whatever they disagree with—that's a classic cognitive bias in its own right. Indeed there are some biases on specific issues (Snowden detractors don't do well here), but I'm not sure I agree they cut left or right overall. The community is pretty divided, much as the larger population is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Bye bye climate change denier.

</comment><comment><USER22> rangevoting.org</comment>


Ask HN: How to avoid legal issues when writing company-owned generic code? - <AUTHOR> I currently work in a cloud ops role at a large company, and some of the code I write is incredibly generic.  A specific example would be a wrapper script for system command.
Say I write a wrapper on company time for the `dd` *nix utility, and call it `MyCompany.BlockDecive.create`.  The company owns that code, and there's no question about that.  But now that pattern is stuck in my head, and for a personal project I write `MyPersonal.BlockDecive.create`.  The `Xxx.BlockDecive.create` is so generic, and uses a convention I like, that I might end up recreating the something nearly identical.  I don't wanna steal anything, and I don't want to even appear like I'm trying to open source company IP without permission.
Obviously getting a company's permission to open source something solves this problem, and I'm doing what I can to pursue that as an option.
Here's a real world use case for where this might come up...  On Friday, I don't know how to implement a technical solution at work.  Over the weekend, I figure it out, and post the code to GitHub in a sample app.  On Monday, I recreate the sample app in a company owned project.  Later on, someone discovers my sample app on GitHub, and now I'm being investigated for stealing company IP.
I've never gotten into trouble over this, and am not being investigated.  I'm just researching how to keep myself out of hot water, so that if anyone sees my coding style in two places, there's no issue to be raised.  I want to be conservative and honor the spirit of my employement contract.
"I am not a lawyer" (IANAL) responses welcome. <comment><USER2> IANAL

\- First check your work contracts. US corporations often make you sign abusive work contracts where they own anything you think or write even on your own time. In that case I would advise you first to negociate a new contract.

\- One way to avoid mixing work with pleasure would be to use entirely different programming languages and stacks. However, it's true that a program can be considered derived work of another independently of the programming language (in terms of copyright laws, translations are considered derived works), and there are of course those silly software patents and IP.

\- Therefore: Just don't do it.

\- Or, if you really cannot help, once you've pushed to github your own code, you could license it under GPL or BSD/MIT, and then at work ask for permission to include this open source library. This will give you a couple of weeks or months before the legal service answers by the negative, and then you will be able to re-invent it in a different way, or to find an entirely different solution.

</comment><comment><USER3> IANAL but the first question, which country do you live in?

<comment><AUTHOR> I live and work in San Francisco, CA, USA.

<comment><USER4> I am not a lawyer. My understanding is that CA has different laws concerning IP then most states, where is you don't use any company resources or write it for the company, you effectively own the code. I tend to think you are overthinking it... your generic wrapper scripts are likely not valuable enough the company to care about, they probably aren't the secret sauce.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I want to leave my empty co-op job. How do I do it? - <AUTHOR>

TL;DR - I'm miserable working at my job and I want to leave and take my summer into my own hands, but my school will give me a failed work term. Does it matter? Are they allowed to do that? What can I do?
(Also, after reading what I've written I realized I come off as sounding a bit whiny and possibly aggressive. Entitled too :). Anyway, that's absolutely not how I feel nor what I wanted to convey. So just keep that in mind, 'cause I really just want what's best)
I just finished my first year of mechanical engineering at the University of Waterloo, and right now I'm on my first four month work term. The co-op program at Waterloo is a little different than most - simply put, you alternate four months of school with four months of work until you're done the degree (six total work terms, eight total academic terms).
Anyway, the problem I'm having right now has to do with the job I'm at. I came back home to Calgary to work, and I got a job at a large defence contractor. Nothing immediately wrong with that, I felt pretty lucky to get a high paying job back home where I wanted to be. However, after being here about a month and a half, I've realized it's making me miserable. It's the first "big boy job" that I've had, and so far it just feels empty. I get to work at 8:30 and I stay 'til 5:00 basically just counting down the hours until I get to leave. When I get home I'm incredibly exhausted for what seems to be no reason at all. I mean, I sit at a desk all day, you wouldn't think that's tiring. But it is. This soul-sucking routine that they call work is more exhausting than if I had been shovelling dirt for nine hours.
It sucked but I tolerated it for a while, because that's what's expected of me. Recently though, I've been realizing that it's time for me to make a change. I kind of woke up and noticed that nobody has the power to make me do something I hate, and that if I want to leave that's a decision I own. I shouldn't make a passive non-decision that sort of says "oh well, it's just my first work term, I'll just tough it out," because that's habit forming and it's the easy road. I've formed general ideas about what I want to do in life, and none of them involve just putting in hours at a place that doesn't have meaningful work for me to do. If I don't start embracing those ideas and nourish them NOW, I feel like I'm going to get stuck like everyone else - spending 20 years thinking "oh I'll get my feet on the ground and THEN be independent." So, I've basically already decided that I want to leave (or at the least make serious, serious changes). I will probably end up spending the summer studying a book my dad gave me (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs). I'm also going to start a building project like a picnic table and gazebo.
But my real plea is for advice on how to deal with the other people involved, mainly those from my school. I'm told that if I leave without reasons derived from "extenuating circumstances" I will get a failed work term, which goes on my transcript. They make it sound as though that's a huge bloody deal that will really hurt my "career," but my gut instinct thinks I shouldn't care. If I want to stray off the beaten path that consists of going through school, getting a job, working 50 years then taking my gold watch and a pat on the head, then frankly it's not going to matter a whole lot what's on my transcript.
That being said, I still feel like a failed work term negatively affects my reputation in an unfair way. After all, I would leave because I'm interested in learning as much as I can and working as hard as I can, and my company can't offer me that - isn't that a good thing? I was third in my class out of 105 people at (what's widely regarded as) the best engieering school in Canada, and I always work hard. I don't feel like I should be punished because I don't want to go to sleep and settle for the status quo like most of the people I know.
So what do I do? Are they allowed to do that? Can I do anything besides talking to them, legally or otherwise? I promise I will do explain myself to all parties involved and I'll ask their advice as well. I will do everything reasonably, and I'm not interested in being a dick. I just don't feel comfortable with them having that much control over what I do, and it's something I need to change. So what on earth do I do? If I leave the co-op program and go somewhere else, do they still have control over what goes on my transcript?
NOTE: I've already spoken to my co-op contacts from Waterloo, and they were exceedingly unhelpful and didn't want to discuss the possibility of me leaving at all.
Thanks for reading this, I'm just trying to get as many perspectives as I can before I do anything. I'm not interested in making an impulsive decision. Just the right one. <comment><USER2> Being a 4th year student at UW on a coop term in California, I can somewhat relate to your situation, although - knock on wood - all my coop terms have gone great.

Now, you'll probably disagree with me but I recommend you stay at your position. The truth is - you're not thinking too rationally. There are other steps you can take to improve your situation than to just quit. First try talking to your manager at work - I assume you took this position by choice and therefore you want to get some things out of the job. Ask if they can offer you those things.

If that fails, talk to your co-op advisor in Calgary, that's why they are there. Don't be a rebel just for the sake of being a rebel, it won't help you.

If neither of those situations work, then you go to work and work on whatever you want to at work. Code your own things, and get paid by the company for doing so.

4 months isnt a long time, and even if you have a crappy term, it will still teach you a lot about things you should not do next time.

I hope this opens your eyes to coop - seems like you made the mistake a lotta students make of picking the place with the highest salary and the one closest to home. Instead, pick the job that you enjoy the most and get the most out of.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not interested in rebelling just for the sake of it. I also didn't clearly mention this, but I'm going to sit down with the guys at work and make sure they know what's going on. I want to discuss it with them and ask their advice, and maybe we can sort out something that works for everyone. I'm making sure I stay aware, I'm making sure that I don't overlook anything. This is not a random impulse, it's based on a development I've taken some time to think about.

But none of that changes the fact that I'm beginning to realize that I'm not really happy with this kind of environment. I don't feel comfortable explaining every detail of what I think, and I don't feel comfortable trying to justify myself. I gave a bit of background information in order to provide a bit of insight into the situation, but at this point I'm essentially asking superficial questions:

Suppose I've already decided to leave - how much are they allowed to control? What can I do to prevent them from 'punishing' me unfairly?

I don't want to sound entitled or impulsive - that's not what's going on. But I want to cover all the bases, and that includes educating myself about how much power the school really has, and what my options are.

EDIT: I didn't choose the job blindly either - I would have been perfectly happy working for nothing if it was meaningful work in Calgary. Coming home was my first priority for a number of reasons. Pay was never a factor.

<comment><USER2> Although I have never failed a work term myself (and so cannot speak from direct experience), some of my friends have. It definitely has a major impact when searching for co-op positions. Since this is your first work term, I think it would be especially hard. You don't have the high-level courses to back up your credentials (although you are probably very bright), so future employers would look at your past co-op job performances. In most of my coop interviews, the emphasis is placed on prior job performance than on marks.

Down the road, if you decide to apply to some top-tier companies, remember that you may be tied for 1st place with another student and the failed work term will put him/her over you. I can't stress the importance of not having a failed work term. The truth is that co-op employers have heard students bullshit a lot, so even if you speak the truth, they will assume that you could not handle the rigors of your first work placement.

If I were in your position, I would try my best for 2 weeks to resolve the situation at work by talking to the appropriate people. If that doesn't work, I would take things into my own hands and work on what interests me at work. A caveat: If your employer gives you stuff to work on that you don't like, but that was clearly on the job description, you should do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The stigma that surrounds getting a failed work term doesn't bother me too much, because A) I've always found jobs on my own anyway, and B) I'd like to experiment with entrepreneurship, or at least something closer to it.

That being said, I think I agree with trying hard to make things work for the next couple of weeks. Even though it might be intimidating or uncomfortable to stick with it for a bit longer, I think that's the most responsible move to make. And on a less important note (but one that still matters), if I don't do that, I'm going to second guess my reasons for leaving - "Maybe I did it just to run away"

Besides, when making a tough choice I've often found that if there's no clearly defined path to take, the best thing is to just be patient until it becomes obvious what to do.

Anyway, it's nice to get to mull things over with someone who knows what I'm talking about (school-wise and in general). Thanks for the advice, I'm pleasantly surprised with how things are clearing up.

<comment><USER2> Best of luck man!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Serverless Architectures (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html <comment><USER2> This hasn't been updated since May 2018. Posted a few times here on HN already:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17790658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17790658)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18899034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18899034)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19590138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19590138)

<comment><USER3> A little tip: generally HN users expect links to old threads to take them to meaningful discussions. If not, they'll get cranky and come back and downvote you. Never cross a disappointed clicker.

In case it helps, you can use the "comments > N" search trick to find large discussions. In the present case, [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Serverless%20martinfowler.com%20comment) yields two of those, both from 2016:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11921208](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11921208)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115128)

<comment><USER2> Thank you for pointing this out, will certainly use that.</comment></comment></comment>


How We Made GitHub Fast: A detailed look at GitHub's new architecture - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/blog/530-how-we-made-github-fast

<comment><USER2> Hi, alexis here from RabbitMQ.

Yes, we implement AMQP. We also provide support for other useful things like STOMP and HTTP Pubsubhubbub. We implement these other protocols as well as AMQP because some times people don't need to use the full and awesome power of the AMQP model.

AMQP _is_ initially hard to grok. I think the main reason for this is that AMQP combines three things: Queues, Pubsub, and Messaging. These are Not The Same. Queues manage data in flight as state, Pubsub routes data to consumers, and Messaging frames it.

So yes, as someone pointed out above, it would be nice to use some but not all of this from time to time. We are working on ways to make that super easy - please get in touch if you can help.

Another thing that people find hard is figuring out when to use message hub technology, and when to use a database as a hub. Using a database to queue and manage subscriptions to data streams is generally Not A Good Idea. Here's a presentation I did which attempts to articulate some of the issues with this: [http://www.rabbitmq.com/resources/RabbitMQ_Oxford_Geek_Night...](http://www.rabbitmq.com/resources/RabbitMQ_Oxford_Geek_Night.pdf)

So, for someone using AMQP or any other Pubsub tech for the first time, there can be a 'huh, where do I start' element. But as some commenters point out, if you look at the client libraries it may be easier to get started. We've actually lost count of how many clients there are, so take your pick.

List of clients: <http://delicious.com/alexisrichardson/rabbitmq+client>

Getting started: <http://blogs.digitar.com/jjww/2009/01/rabbits-and-warrens/> (Python centric) and <http://www.infoq.com/articles/AMQP-RabbitMQ> (Ruby centric)

To the commenter who said the AMQP spec is 300 pages long. You may have a better time if you look at AMQP 0-91 which is much shorter than that at 40 pages mostly covering edge cases that you can ignore. The nub of AMQP can be communicated in under a page.

BERT and BERT-RPC look cool. But - re the comments above - I would not see BERT-RPC as an 'alternative' to AMQP though. The GitHub blog post talks about PB and Thrift and JSON-RPC, all of which have been integrated with RabbitMQ. If you want to do RPC, there is no 'one true system' yet. Typically we have found that different people get value from different RPC metaphors in different languages. Maybe BERT-RPC will get more traction than the others - it definitely looks interesting.

I hope this is all useful or at least of passing interest. Here are some more links that may be worth a glance:

General background: <http://www.rabbitmq.com/how.html>

AMQP and XMPP: [http://www.igvita.com/2009/10/08/advanced-messaging- routing-...](http://www.igvita.com/2009/10/08/advanced-messaging-routing-with- amqp/)

Feel free to contact us directly at info at rabbitmq dot com.

Cheers,

alexis

<comment><USER3> As it turns out the AMQP 0-91 spec is only that short because the protocol definition is split out as a separate (139 pages) document.

In contrast, the full STOMP spec fits on a page.

Of course they are vastly different in scope, but that is kind of the point.

There's a place for protocols like AMQP, there's a place for generic brokers like RabbitMQ, but there's also a place for far simpler protocols and simpler and/or specialized brokers. Lots of them.

For many applications being able to customize a simple, few hundred lines long, specialized broker is more useful than having all the extra capabilities you'd get from AMQP or a multi-protocol broker like RabbitMQ for example.

That's part of the reason you'll keep seeing a proliferation of these systems - it's trivial to implement a simple broker that can handle tens or hundreds of millions of messages a day on modern hardware (my last broker processed about 4-5 million messages/day using 10% of a single 2GHz Xeon core, written in completely unoptimized Ruby that took about a day to write), which means the barrier to writing your own and get something that fits your requirements exactly and where you understand every line instead of trying to find the ideal off the shelf solution is pretty low.

Now, there are many cases where an off the shelf solution to this is the right answer. The more complex your requirements are, the more critical proper failure handling is etc., or if external requirements involve speaking a complex protocol, the more attractive something like RabbitMQ gets.

But I doubt there will _ever_ be a "one true system" for RPC or message exchanges, because the needs people are using RPC and message exchanges to address are so vastly different. You shouldn't look at whether or not these systems get widespread traction for that reason. What matters is if they are good at meeting the needs of their specific niches.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for your comment.

I could not find the 139 page document to which you refer.

There are two 0-91 docs, one is the spec definition for users, which as I said short and is mostly edge cases you can ignore. There is a second doc for implementers which defines the classes and methods in more detail. This is 63 pages long. Note also that for the purposes of client codegen, the BSD licensed XML file in 0-91 is only a few pages long - because the _surface_ of the spec is surprisingly small.

As a comparison, the definition of _core_ XMPP (a Jabber server) in <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3920.txt> is 90 pages. BTW the core spec is just for IM not pubsub.

In the case of both AMQP and XMPP the length comes from the requirement to _interoperate_ between implementations.

You make a good point about STOMP above. We love STOMP too. There is as you say a place for it - for lots of protocols. We have however found with STOMP that because many behaviours are completely unspecified, that it costs us a lot more to support (find and fix bugs, maintain stable behaviour under different conditions, etc). It is less likely that the same application talking to two STOMP brokers will behave the same way with both brokers - deterministically and predictably. Maybe this is a good thing - there is more scope for competing implementations? I don't think it's ideal. And let's not talk about JMS in this regard.

I would not discourage people from writing their own brokers. You are among many who have done this and people will go on doing it. But although you may understand every line - what happens when someone else has to take over managing your code? What if the requirements change - or the scope of use grows? This is where products add value.

A lot of our customers have extremely simple requirements like "don't ever lose my messages" or "broadcast to twenty different types of subscriber". So, I don't think it's fair to make generalisations about "complex requirements".

I completely agree with you about RPC.

Cheers,

alexis

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _We have patched our SSH daemon to perform public key lookups from our MySQL > database_

That seems strange, that could be a PAM module at the least. If you patch SSHd then you are burdened with keeping up with changes, etc. There's even a module for direct mysql: <http://sourceforge.net/projects/pam-mysql/>

<comment><USER5> I don't think you can use PAM for authentication if you want to use public key authentication (see auth2-pubkey.c in Portable OpenSSH).

<comment><USER4> Thanks, sorry for the confusion. So what they needed but did not have is an authorization (not authentication) callout after the daemon has verified the remote user's identity (vs. the built in 'callout' of looking at a user's authorized_keys file).

<comment><USER5> Hmm, I think this part is still about authentication as sshd cannot authenticate the user without the keys. According to the article, GitHub does the authorization in their Gerve script.

<comment><USER4> This is all sort of pedantic but the way I read the situation is that the only authentication is proving that the entity on the other end possesses the private key associated with a certain public key. The authorization part is two fold: is key X authorized to access account Y. And then it's passed on to Gerve for more specific authorization checks. Having implemented such things, I am probably thinking more about the internal situation, sorry..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome post Tom. Smaller deployments are pretty straight-forward, and complex deployments are still pretty cookie-cutter. This is a breath of fresh air, as it uncovers a lot of the pain points you were faced with, and the not-so- common solutions. Thank you very much for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER7> > For our data serialization and RPC protocol we are using BERT and BERT-RPC. > You haven't heard of them before because they're brand new. I invented them > because I was not satisfied with any of the available options that I > evaluated, and I wanted to experiment with an idea that I've had for a > while.

> As much as I want to like Thrift, I just can't. I find the entire concept > behind IDLs and code generation abhorrent.

No (CORBA) skeletons in his closet.

Most importantly, his non-requirement:

> No need to encode binary data

<http://github.com/blog/531-introducing-bert-and-bert-rpc>

<comment><USER8> BERT supports binary data natively, you don't need to encode it like with JSON-RPC.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the clarification

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why do you use DRBD instead of the built-in mysql replication?

</comment><comment> brown9-2 Ironically, github.com is now down:

 _GitHub is Temporarily Offline.

Either we're getting more requests right now than we can handle or you found a page that took too long to render._

</comment><comment><USER10> No diagram? :(

</comment><comment><USER11> Off Topic: I miss your giant RSS icon... :(</comment>


Why experts are overwhelmingly skeptical of online voting - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/why-experts-are-overwhelmingly-skeptical-of-online-voting/ <comment><USER2> Lol honestly I don't trust anyone who says their system is secure. The idea that some random company that built an android or iOS app with an aws backend magically has no vulnerabilities is laughable, especially after they had hard coded credentials in their repo. The more the ceo says it the more he loses credibility. I might trust a big 5 company to implement this, _might_. But generally until our systems are secure by default I don't think anyone could do this right, and there are so many resources going into hacking it it will take a lot of guarantees for me to start to feel better. Mail in voting is simpler and much less vulnerable to scalable hacking.

<comment><USER3> As you should, when these systems are closed sourced. Would you trust an open source system, though?

[https://github.com/microsoft/electionguard](https://github.com/microsoft/electionguard)

<comment><USER4> Open source is not enough, since you have to trust the compiler and hardware the system is running on as well [1,2]. But from the page you linked, the key benefit of that system isn't that it's open source, but that the results are _verifiable_. I.e. you can check that the results are trustworthy, _even if_ you don't trust the code or machines it's running on?

[1] [https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/hh/thompson/trust.html](https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/hh/thompson/trust.html)

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's simple: you can't tell the difference between a compromised and a secure system. Not by looking at it, not by taking it apart. Nothing short of checking each bit with an electron microscope will do (can't trust the disk firmware not to lie, after all). And unlike with banking, you can't tell from the results either.

</comment><comment><USER5> What makes online voting so hard when we regularly trust online systems with our finances?

<comment><USER6> There is a monetary incentive for the company running online systems such as banks to keep things secure(ish). They are made by mostly technically savvy people and in general are audited properly.

Electronic voting goes to the lowest bidder. They have no incentive to keep things secure and test it properly as that would cost more and cut their middle line. It just needs to work and look secure.

<comment><USER7> Don't think fiscal incentive assures good implementations. If it really did, places like Experian wouldn't keep getting caught with their pants down. It really just incentivizes hard to audit ones, and extensive legal engineering more often than not as the mathematics dictate. Sometimes it's cheaper to erect legal barriers than to actually dove the problem.

This is what separates "business" from "academia", and unfortunately when the stakes are as high as politics, the business good enough solution leaves too much open to doubt for a healthy civic trust to form.</comment></comment></comment>


You're so vain, you think in-office work is about you - <AUTHOR> https://www.ctothink.com/episodes/2018-03-20-14.html <comment><AUTHOR> In this week's episode, Don and I discuss our history with in-office and remote work, why junior devs might reconsider working outside the office, and how requiring folks to work in your proximity is a trait of managerial vanity.</comment>


The roots of Anonymous, the infamous online hacking community - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/roots-anonymous-infamous-online-hacking-community/ <comment><USER2> An article which discusses the origin of anon, without once mentioning 4chan.

Impressive.

<comment><USER3> Those guys seem to confuse Anonymous with Batman.

"Anonymous" being just a bunch of people who cares about something, and in coordination with others who equally cares about it, do something about the matter seem to be a too abstract concept for most people.

<comment><USER4> Surely the point of anonymous is that they're a group of people who _don 't_ care. It's a competition to be the most callous.

<comment><USER5> Believe it or not, there's a certain amount of dissent within this large collective of individual human beings.

You've touched on a point the group is divided on: How much heroism (however defined) should the group engage in? Is it nobler to lulz, or to take up LOIC against a sea of shitheads, and in DDoSing, convince CNN to notice?

That, or some people are sociopaths, some people are zealots, and deciding who's who says more about you than about them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Huh. More intelligent that most media descriptions. It lacks a description of 4chan or Project Chanology.

Probably should be interviewing Gabriella Coleman[1] for a translator of Anonymous to the world.

> And one of the parts of the story, what I'm reporting on is a few years ago, > there were briefings on Capitol Hill about this idea about this threat of > Anonymous. Keith Alexander at the time was saying — suggesting that > Anonymous had the capability to attack power grids.

Given the right ip address, a telnet session, and a plastic-covered keyboard, I expect a deranged orangutan could take down power stations by throwing poo at the keyboard. Some of those SCADA systems are _not_ designed to be error- tolerant on the control plane in any sense.

[1] [http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Colema...](http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman)

</comment><comment><USER7> Are we still pretending that "Anonymous" is a cohesive group? Has the entire planet's media forgotten what the word "Anonymous" means?

<comment><USER8> Anonymity and disorganization aren't synonymous. An organization can be highly organized and yet secret.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Node.js port of WhisperSystem's libsignal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ForstaLabs/libsignal-node <comment><USER2> One of the nice things about JS versions of stuff is being able to run it everywhere. With that being said, I'd be skeptical of using this since it doesn't appear to have any tests at all. How do we know it's actually compatible with libsignal?

<comment><USER3> This has a native part written in c and only runs on node.js v8 and up, according to the package.json.

<comment><USER4> So it is "bindings", but not a "port"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How much is this based on the libsignal-protocol-JavaScript code? Where does it differ from it? Where are the tests to test protocol steps?

I actually love seeing things like this, but it'd be nice if there was some more documentation on the project. Crypto libraries generally aren't the kind of thing you want to pick up when they're new unless they are both heavily audited and developed by those with backgrounds in crypto work.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's ported directly from the javascript lib so most of the interfaces are exactly the same (async differences in some cases and a couple storage interface differences, see: <[https://github.com/ForstaLabs/libsignal- node/issues/1>](https://github.com/ForstaLabs/libsignal-node/issues/1>)). The commit history is intact as well. Haven't had enough time to port tests but she works.. We use it for various bots in our signal based message platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What disturbs me about this port is that they did not use Typescript. I would have expected that they would use a strongly typesafe language in the ideal case.

<comment><USER7> Many checks still need to be done in runtime. Bindings to C code can cause the program to exit if you pass incorrect input.</comment></comment>