Matrix.org Security Incident - <AUTHOR> https://matrix.org/blog/2019/04/11/security-incident/ <comment><USER2> The attacker seems to have responded:

[https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/issues/357](https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/issues/357) edit: just saw the rest: [https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%...](https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+SECURITY)

"[SECURITY] SSH Agent Forwarding

I noticed in your blog post that you were talking about doing a postmortem and steps you need to take. As someone who is intimately familiar with your entire infrastructure, I thought I could help you out.

Complete compromise could have been avoided if developers were prohibited from using ForwardAgent yes or not using -A in their SSH commands. The flaws with agent forwarding are well documented."

</comment><comment><USER3> Did the blog get hacked (again?) in between this being posted and now? It has what looks like password hashes and `uname -a` from every(?) server in their infrastructure.

This is about as bad as IR can get: you realize you got hacked, you re-build your entire infrastructure and publicly say it's fixed, and then you get popped again...

<comment><USER4> i think so. here is a wayback machine link to the previous blog post [https://web.archive.org/web/20190412000400/https://matrix.or...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190412000400/https://matrix.org/blog/2019/04/11/security- incident/)

it stated "Having fully flushed out the attacker [...]" which i guess turned out to be false :-/

also im getting invalid HTTPS certs on the blog now. for some reason im getting a cert that looks like its for github.com ?

edit: now im getting a lets encrypt cert on matrix.org, but a cloudflare SSL error page when i go to www.matrix.org ? the lets encrypt cert looks like it was _just_ issued about an hour ago.

edit2: i guess both with and without www. are lets encrypt, but the _with_ www. cert was issued back in february (and gives a cloudflare SSL error page), while _without_ www. was issued today. (and gives the current hacked message)

<comment><USER5> Here is the message of the hacker, after the matrix.org admins allegedly cleaned everything up and wrote the original blog post: [https://web.archive.org/web/20190412055614/https://matrix.or...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190412055614/https://matrix.org/blog/2019/04/11/security- incident/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The most favorable reading of the current defacement page is that the attackers still controls the DNS, but no other parts of the infrastructure.

Otherwise, the page probably wouldn't run off github.

</comment><comment><USER7> Assuming the GitHub issues are from the actual attacker -- and I see no reason to doubt they are -- this is very troubling:

[https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/issues/363](https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/issues/363)

 _Compromise began well over a month ago_

Yikes. That's a long time for a compromise to go unnoticed.

<comment><USER8> Not really, the average in the industry seems to be floating between 70 and 400 days depending on the source of your stats on the topic (different vendors and reports use different stats for this)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > As we had to log out all users from matrix.org, if you do not have backups > of your encryption keys you will not be able to read your encrypted > conversation history

That seems like a fairly bad usability/security design?

</comment><comment><USER10> content before it gets fixed:

        Time for actual transparency.

        [list of servers, uname -a for each]

        root@[name]:/var/lib/postgresql# df -h
        [list of partitions]

        $ cat users.txt | grep [name] | head -n1
        @[name]:matrix.org|[hash]
        $ wc -l users.txt
        [~6M users]

        See you soon.

(affects whole site, even [https://matrix.org](https://matrix.org), site is on jekyll BTW)

<comment><USER11> Here's the source of that page: [https://github.com/matrixnotorg/matrixnotorg.github.io/blob/...](https://github.com/matrixnotorg/matrixnotorg.github.io/blob/master/blog/2019/04/11/security- incident/index.html).

<comment><USER10> account got banned :) (it's on archive.org though)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why was Jenkins running on a production server?

<comment><USER5> it was not, read again

<comment><AUTHOR> But it does seem to be the case that the same SSH key pair that was used to access Jenkins also provided access to the production infrastructure. Unless I'm misunderstanding the nature of the attack.

<comment><USER2> It seems the issue was developers using SSH agent forwarding which was abused to access the production environment.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.15.0 released - <AUTHOR> https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2018/gnu-guix-and-guixsd-0.15.0-released/ <comment><USER2> I ask this with no passive aggression; what are the advantages of Guix over Nix? I've used Nix a few times and thought it was pretty neat...

<comment><USER3> Here's something I wrote about this four months ago (with minor corrections). I hope this helps.

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

As one of the co-maintainers of GNU Guix I'm obviously biased, but here's what I consider some important unique features of Guix:

\- Guix is all written in Guile Scheme (with the exception of parts of the inherited daemon, which hasn't yet been completely implemented in Guile); this extends to development tools like importers, updaters, to user tools like "guix environment", and even bleeds into other projects that are used by GuixSD (the GNU system distribution built around Guix), such as the shepherd init system. There is a lot of code reuse across the stack, which makes hacking on Guix really fun and smooth.

\- Packages are first class citizens in Guix. In Nix the idea of functional package management is very obvious in the way that packages are defined, namely as functions. These functions take their concrete inputs from an enormous mapping. In Guix you define first-class package values as Scheme variables. These package values reference other package values, which leads to a lazily constructed graph of packages. This emergent graph can be used as a library to trivially build other tools like "guix graph" (for visualising the graph in various ways) or "guix web" (for a web interface to installing and searching packages), "guix refresh" (for updating package definitions), a lovely feature-rich Emacs interface etc.

\- Embedded DSL. Since Guix is written in Scheme---a language for writing languages---it was an obvious choice to embed the package DSL in the host language Scheme instead of implementing a separate language that needs a custom interpreter. This is great for hacking on Guix, because you can use all the tools you'd use for Scheme hacking. There's a REPL, great Emacs support, a debugger, etc. With its support for hygienic macros, Scheme is also a perfect vehicle to implement features like monads (we use a monadic interface for talking to the daemon) and to implement other convenient abstractions.

\- Graph rewriting. Having everything defined as regular Scheme values means that you can almost trivially go through the package graph and rewrite things, e.g. to replace one variant of a package with a different one. Your software environment is just a Scheme value and can be inspected or precisely modified with a simple Scheme API.

\- Code staging. Thanks to different ways of quoting code (plain S-expressions and package-aware G-expressions), we use Scheme at all stages: on the "host side" as well as on the "build side". Instead of gluing together shell snippets to be run by the daemon we work with the AST of Scheme code at all stages. If you're interested in code staging I recommend reading this paper: [https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01580582/en](https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01580582/en)

\- Bootstrapping. Some of us are very active in the "bootstrappable builds" community (see [http://bootstrappable.org](http://bootstrappable.org)) and are working towards full bootstrap paths for self-hosting compilers and build systems. One result is a working bootstrap path of the JDK from C (using jikes, GNU classpath, jamvm, icedtea, etc). In Guix we take bootstrapping problems serious and prefer to take the longer way to build things fully from source instead of just adding more binary blobs. This means that we cannot always package as many things as quickly as others (e.g. Java libraries are hard to build recursively from source). I'm currently working on bootstrapping GHC without GHC and without the generated C code, but via interpreting a variant of GHC with Hugs. Others are working on bootstrapping GCC via Scheme.

\- GuixSD, the GNU system distribution built around Guix. GuixSD has many features that are very different from NixOS. The declarative configuration in Scheme includes system facilities, which also form a graph that can be inspected and extended; this allows for the definition of complex system facilities that abstract over co-dependent services and service configurations. GuixSD provides more Scheme APIs that apply to the whole system, turning your operating system into a Scheme library.

\- I like the UI of Guix a lot more than that of Nix. With Nix 2.0 many perceived problems with the UI have been addressed, of course, but hey, I still prefer the Guix way. I also really like the Emacs interface, which is absolutely gorgeous. (What can I say, I live in Emacs and prefer rich 2D buffers over 1D command line strings.)

\- It's GNU. I'm a GNU hacker and to me Guix is a representative of a modern and innovative GNU. It's great to see more GNU projects acting as one within the context of Guix and GuixSD to provide an experience that is greater than the sum of its parts. Work on Guix affected other GNU packages such as the Hurd, Guile, cool Guile libraries, and led to a bunch of new GNU packages such as a workflow language for scientific computing.

On the other hand, although Guix has a lot of regular contributors and is very active, Nix currently has more contributors than Guix. Guix is a younger project. The tendency to take bootstrapping problems very seriously means that sometimes difficult packages require more work. Oddly, Guix seems to attract more Lispers than Haskellers (I'm a recovering Haskeller who fell in love with Scheme after watching the SICP lecture videos); it seems to be the other way around with Nix.

Having said all that: Nix and Guix are both implementations of functional package management. Both projects solve similar problems and both are active in the reproducible builds efforts. Solutions that were found by Nix devs sometimes make their way into Guix and vice versa. The projects are not competing with one another (there are orders of magnitudes more people out there who use neither Guix nor Nix than there are users of functional package managers, so there's no point in trying to get people who use Nix to switch to Guix). At our recent Guix fringe event before FOSDEM Eelco Dolstra (who invented functional package management and Nix) gave a talk on the future of Nix surrounded by Guix hackers --- there is no rivalry between these two projects.

<comment><USER4> Great explanation.

Other than daemon implementation and design ideas that migrated from/to Nix/Guix, is there a way to write a package in Nix and use that derivation in Guix or vice-versa?

I ask thinking if it would be possible to somehow leverage the work on packages from on project to the other.

<comment><USER3> I think that derivations are at a level that is too low to be useful for interoperability. The format for derivations has not changed in Guix (yet?), but you wouldn't work on derivations directly most of the time. Most of the fun happens at a much higher level where an abstraction for packages and build systems exists.

The needs of the two projects have diverged over time and the daemon in Guix is slowly being rewritten in Scheme (this has been the subject of a GSoC project and most parts already exist on the Scheme side for other purposes). I would not count on continued compatibility, nor do I think it is particularly important simply because the contents of the derivations is different, so that there would be little difference between running both Nix and Guix on the same system and feeding Nix derivations to the Guix daemon (if that even works).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love Guix and GuixSD and would like to move to it as my main OS, but I dislike that they actively censor information on how to run a custom kernel and get set up on a machine where some drivers linux-libre removes are required. I understand that they don't want to distribute those stuff and that's fine, but not everybody can buy new hardware and especially _any_ hardware easily. This is extremism for me (banning official information, not the offending drivers), it's distasteful and discourages me.

<comment><USER3> This is not censorship. We just don't want the #guix IRC channel or the project's mailing lists to recommend ways to use proprietary software. People are welcome to use non-project channels to discuss proprietary software.

<comment><USER6> So you have scatter information about how to actually make guix useful to a large number of users who over 13 different platforms that people use and hope users can use google search to reassemble said info.

This is inefficient and poorly considered. When my family got their first modern computer in my teens it ran windows. When we bought a better one so I could explore computer animation it ran windows. My first computer I paid for dual booted linux/windows. My computers now exclusively run linux.

I switched to free software because it was better ideologically but more importantly because I can presently use it to accomplish my goals.

Dual booting is surely inferior to just running free software from a software freedom standpoint but if I couldn't dual boot I might not have bothered at all.

Making nonfree sofware require an affirmative act beyond apt-install foo is a good step deleting all info from the official platform is unreasonable.

<comment><USER7> For more information, see the GNU Coding Standards:

[https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#References](https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#References)

In particular:

> A GNU program should not recommend, promote, or grant legitimacy to the use > of any non-free program. Proprietary software is a social and ethical > problem, and our aim is to put an end to that problem. We can't stop some > people from writing proprietary programs, or stop other people from using > them, but we can and should refuse to advertise them to new potential > customers, or to give the public the idea that their existence is ethical.

Excluding material isn't censorship---GNU stands by its principles. You wouldn't expect a vegan organization to advertise means of obtaining meat, for example.

<comment><USER3> I'd like to add that _using_ proprietary software is not an act that deserves condemnation, it's not a moral failing or something like that. The GNU project opposes _proprietary software_ as it is considered a social and ethical problem. Although I advise against it, you are free to use proprietary software for whatever reason (including possibly ethical or financial reasons) --- there are no mechanisms in place to prevent you from doing that in Guix (and the fact that Linux libre cannot load certain user-supplied firmware is a bug).

 _As a project_ , however, we do not recommend the use of proprietary software and don't provide a platform for advice on how to replace free parts of Guix with non-free software.

The _use_ of proprietary software becomes an ethical problem when network effects are in place. Otherwise, it is the mechanisms of proprietary software itself that we object to, for example the barriers it poses to helping friends or neighbours and the way it gives developers control over the users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let's say I want to have the last five versions of my application installed as a mortal user, for testing purposes.

Let's say that my application's build system pulls in a big GUI toolkit binary because reasons.

Let's say I don't want to create "official" packages for it, just something quick and dirty that will get me these versions installed.

Can I do this with GNU Guix?

<comment><USER9> With Nix you can, and Guix is a Nix reimplementation, so you can too.

In Nix, some details are still a bit clunky. Like pinning particular package versions. But Nix / Guix are, in my opinion, already more useful and robust that other distros.

For edge cases, I still use some ad hoc Dockers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Bootloader definitions are available for many boards—Novena, A20 OLinuXino, > BeagleBone, and even NES.

I'd love to see somebody try to run GuixSD on a NES.

<comment><USER11> By "NES" they actually mean "NES Classic Edition" which is just a fairly normal modern ARM board in a neat looking box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> very very happy to see the project lively and kicking :)

</comment><comment><USER13> The big problem that Nix/NixOS has is failure to integrate well with graphics libraries (OpenGL drivers, etc).

Does Guix solve this problem?

<comment><USER14> I have been using NixOS for a week now. I am curious, could you give more details? I haven't tried any games, but Plasma is accelerated.

<comment><USER15> Probably referring to the proprietary drivers, not the open ones that I assume were included in the distro.

<comment><USER14> But the proprietary drivers are too, just add

        services.xserver.videoDrivers = [ "nvidia" ];

or

        services.xserver.videoDrivers = [ "ati_unfree" ];

to the system configuration and do a _sudo nixos-build switch_ to switch into the new system with NVIDIA drivers.

(NixOS is pretty fantastic in this respect, in the installation live environment I just added

         boot.supportedFilesystems = [ "zfs" ];

to the configuration and switched to the new configuration. I could then do a root on ZFS install without any extra effort.)

[https://nixos.org/nixos/manual/#idm140737316292128](https://nixos.org/nixos/manual/#idm140737316292128)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Questions about the Sunday Times Snowden Story - <AUTHOR> http://notes.rjgallagher.co.uk/2015/06/sunday-times-snowden-china-russia-questions.html <comment><USER2> It is so difficult to parse this kind of article. We don't know if the sources are actually from the intelligence community, or politicians who are being fed a narrative by actual intelligence sources.

My hunch is that these agencies are compromised by hackers and most of this is a response to that in one way or another. Just this week we found out how security-clearance information has been extracted by attackers. This include records of "foreign contacts"—lists of non-U.S. officials that a person might know or have relationships with [1]. But maybe just blame everything on Snowden!

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/security-clearance- information-l...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/security-clearance-information- likely-stolen-during-breach-of-government-agency-1434143820)

<comment><USER3> "Just this week we found out how security-clearance information has been extracted by attackers."

And the week before the FBI is going around all the media complaining about encryption.

<comment><USER4> Well apparently it's easy to break encryption so I don't see what they're complaining about.

<comment><USER5> It sure it, just type 'override' when the 'access denied' prompt is shown.

 _sigh_ I hate what tv/movies have made people believe about tech.

<comment><USER6> Well if the UK government gets their way this is pretty much what they want to have in place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My thoughts exactly, I can't find the link now but last night someone published this story that linked to a photo image of the printed page and I thought it was a joke.

Made me wonder if some groups in gov't were either A) getting a little uncomfortable with all the heat on the survelliance programs or B) needed public pressure to pass more restrictive laws and decided to make up some claims to get public opinion back on their side. Any way you look at, articles like this one are why I stay away from mainstream news sources.

<comment><USER8> Mainstream media sources about most topics are propaganda, plain and simple. You can call it marketing, you can call it public relations, or you can call it propaganda. Same god damn'd thing. The news is simply a good way to know what the opinion leaders want us to think about various things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If there's any truth at all to the allegations, a much more likely scenario is the Russians and Chinese have either turned other NSA contractors, or have entered NSA computers via contractors' computer networks (see RSA SecurID breach).

Anyway, which idiot put the names of field agents on a computer which is accessible to contractors?

<comment><USER10> Or maybe the Chinese/Russians got the information from the latest data breach [1] but it's more convenient pointing fingers at Snowden.

[1] [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/13/standard_form_86_dat...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/13/standard_form_86_data_breach/)

<comment><USER11> If I were a betting man, this is what I would go with. I imagine the Chinese/Russians are rigorously reviewing all the foreign contacts listed on the SF86 and checking that with whatever database their governments maintain for suspicious persons. I'd think they would be building a web of who's who that has contacts with clearance-holding Americans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Sunday Times story is the same kind of bullshit journalism unleashed on Scots during the Independence Referendum and on the run up to the 2015 general election - "Independence Bad" "Too wee, too poor, too stupid", "SNP BAD" "Subsidy Junkies!" etc.

Over the past two years, I think rather fortunately, the Scottish electorate learned how to read newspapers with a great deal of scepticism. The indyref, despite resulting in a "No" vote (by just 6%) did however have the benefit of making our electorate more informed and more likely to question what they see printed by the metro-London press machine, and the shoddy journalism and reporting by the BBC in Pacific Quay (BBC's Scottish branch office).

<comment><USER13> And that's no coincidence: the prospect of Scottish independence was seen as a grave threat to the United Kingdom by HMG; so, yes, they conducted information operations against it.

I am quite sure that seeing the results that the SNP got in the General Election, however, may give them pause for thought about how such things may backfire.

<comment><USER12> And yet, they still aren't learning their lesson - from either the indyref or GE2015. Early polling suggests that the SNP will probably take all or most the constituency seats in next year's Scottish Parliamentary elections, and probably a good chunk of the list seats, resulting in an even larger majority for the SNP (in a system designed to prevent this happening).

Meanwhile in the face of this the unionist press continue unabated with the same shreaking and yelling about how shit Scotland is and that "you've had your wee moment of fame" and we should "just shut up and dae whit yer telt". The debate over Full Fiscal Autonomy being the current example [0].

[0]: [http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-best-and-worst-of- times/](http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-best-and-worst-of-times/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > (...) I've reviewed the Snowden documents and I've never seen anything in > there naming active MI6 agents.

Which documents does he mean? The ones that have been published so far? Or has he access to all of them and looked through them all (if so, why weren't they all released by now?)?

<comment><USER15> He works at the Intercept so presumably as seen the real set of documents held by Greenwald. The aren't all released for obvious reasons, not least because the source said they shouldn't all be released.

<comment><USER14> Ah, I had no idea, thought it was a random "blogger". Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tl;dr: blame Snowden for the mess OPM made, based on no actual evidence.

</comment><comment><USER17> Not only could it be a cover up campaign to divert attention from recent unrelated leaks, it is more likely to be preparing the British public to accept new laws to increase surveillance - the so called Snoopers Charter.

</comment><comment><USER18> The Sunday Times, and the weekday Times, cast about for relevance these days since their content is not available online. Hence big splash stories with little substance like this, to keep their name current.

</comment><comment><USER19> Let's set aside the question of whether what Snowden did was right or wrong for a moment, and look at the situation objectively and logically, and taking into account the NSA's perspective.

I think we can safely assume that, when the Snowden story broke, the NSA had no idea what documents he had taken. Even today, they may not know for certain[1] (except for the 58,000 documents David Miranda was carrying when he was detained in Heathrow). From a damage assessment perspective, all they could do is look at what he had access to, and assume that he took it all.

The first few stories that emerged were about Verizon and Prism. At that point, it looked like Snowden was whistleblowing about NSA surveillance of Americans. However, he then revealed details of NSA operations targeting Hong Kong and mainland China[2], including IP addresses[3].

At that point, it became clear that Snowden was not going to limit himself to revelations about domestic survillance, and that he had downloaded _and was prepared to release_ details of foreign operations. If he had the IP addresses of targets, it seems plausible that he would also have information that could potentially be used to identify intelligence officers. It is probably somewhat less plausible (but still not beyond the realms of possibility) that he would have information that could be used to identify HUMINT sources (i.e. "agents").

Greenwald later said that "What motivated that leak though was a need to ingratiate himself to the people of Hong Kong and China"[4]. Snowden was later allowed to leave Hong Kong, despite an extradition request from the US[5]. Some suspect that China was able to copy the contents of the four laptops he took to Hong Kong[6].

So, from the NSA's perspective, they're dealing with a guy who stole operational details about operations against a foreign (and, from their perspective, hostile) power, and released that information "to ingratiate himself" with that foreign power.

So when, after having been stuck in Sheremetyevo Airport for more than five weeks, Snowden is granted asylum by Russia, it would not be unreasonable for the NSA to suspect the possibility of some kind of _quid pro quo_ deal. While Putin would probably have been happy to grant Snowden asylum anyway, just to embarrass the United States, I think it's safe to assume that Putin would have sought to obtain as much advantage as possible from the situation and I, for one, can easily imagine him threatening to return Snowden to the US if he didn't cooperate.

We only have Snowden's word that he didn't share anything with the Russians (or the Chinese, for that matter) and, from the NSA's perspective, Snowden's word means nothing - as far as they're concerned, he already lied, stole and revealed sensitive information to a hostile power, so they have no reason to trust anything he says.

However, let's set Snowden's trustworthiness aside for a moment and look at how else his archive may have ended up in the hands of the Russians or Chinese.

We know that large portions (if not all) of the archive were handed over to Greenwald, Poitras and various newspapers, who wrote stories based on the information contained therein, redacting information as they saw fit. For example, the location of the GCHQ monitoring station in the Middle East was initially kept secret by the media[7] but was subsequently revealed by Duncan Campbell[8]. We also saw Guardian staff redacting slides for publication in _Citizen Four_.

Would foreign intelligence services (FIS) have sought to obtain a copy of the archive that was held by those reporters and newspapers? Almost certainly. Given their capabilities and resources, would a FIS have been successful in that endeavour? I would say "Probably".

It also emerged that Snowden had distributed copies of his archive (by which I mean the entire archive, not just the subset that was handed over to the journalists and newspapers) to various people so that they could be released if anything happened to him[4]. Allusions were made to it having been encrypted but, at the end of the day, the key is out there somewhere. We know that at least one of the people involved was not particularly good at operational security (c.f. David Miranda carrying the password for an encrypted file on a piece of paper[9]) and was susceptible to being pressured into giving up information under interrogation (c.f. David Miranda's disclosure of his passwords[10]).

What are the chances that other people involved, whether couriers like Miranda, or the individuals to whom Snowden distributed copies of his archive, have been identified and targeted by FIS? Given the value of the information in the archive, it seems likely that they would be prepared to devote a fair amount of resources to such an effort. Knowing what we do now (thanks to Snowden!) about the capabilities of the US and UK intelligence services, and working on the assumption that the Russian and Chinese intelligence services must possess similar capabilities, it doesn't seem to be beyond the realms of possibility that such an effort could have been successful.

So, there we have three potential "attack vectors" by which FIS could have obtained a copy of the archive: from Snowden himself, from his media partners, and from the people he gave copies to.

If you're a decision-maker at the NSA or GCHQ and you know that Snowden had access to information that could be used to identify an intelligence officer or agent, you have a choice to make: Do you assume that (a) Snowden stole that information and it has ended up in the hands of a FIS (in which case your guy is at risk), or do you hope that (b) either he didn't steal it, or that, if he did, it hasn't been acquired by a FIS?

The story in the Sunday Times suggests that they went with (a).

1: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/us/officials-say-us-may- ne...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/us/officials-say-us-may-never-know- extent-of-snowdens-leaks.html?pagewanted=1&hp&_r=1)

2: [http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1259508/edward- sn...](http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1259508/edward-snowden-us- government-has-been-hacking-hong-kong-and-china?page=all)

3: [http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward- sn...](http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-snowden- classified-us-data-shows-hong-kong-hacking-targets?page=all)

4: [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/greenwald-s...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/greenwald- snowden-s-files-are-out-there-if-anything-happens-to-him.html)

5: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10138282/US- disappointed-that-Hong-Kong-refused-to-arrest-Edward-Snowden.html)

6: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/china-said- to-h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/china-said-to-have-made- call-to-let-leaker-depart.html?_r=0)

7: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive- uks-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-uks-secret- mideast-internet-surveillance-base-is-revealed-in-edward-snowden- leaks-8781082.html)

8: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/03/revealed_beyond_top_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/03/revealed_beyond_top_secret_british_intelligence_middleeast_internet_spy_base)

9: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10276460/David-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10276460/David- Miranda-was-carrying-password-for-secret-files-on-piece-of-paper.html)

10: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23776243](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23776243)

<comment><USER20> Regarding [7] and [8], Snowden has explicitly denied that he is the source for the GCHQ Oman leak - [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk- gove...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-government- independent-military-base).

<comment><USER19> No, he denied having "spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to the Independent."

Duncan Campbell has explicitly said that the information in question was in "documents revealed by Edward Snowden to journalists including Glenn Greenwald" and implies that the Guardian opted to not release the information as part of the deal with the UK government[1].

1: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/03/revealed_beyond_top_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/03/revealed_beyond_top_secret_british_intelligence_middleeast_internet_spy_base/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9714766](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9714766)

<comment><USER22> and also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9715062](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9715062)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It is either a smear campaign or a clumsy cover up for the recent total breach of all the security clearance files.

<comment><USER18> It is transparently made-up BS on every level, down to "encryption is magical so you should give us more security powers to protect you from evil wizards."

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Would there be any significant repercussion if the Russians and Chinese even had classified information?

<comment><USER25> Given what they were accusing wikileaks, Manning and Snowden of there should be. But I don't see anybody standing up yet and taking responsibility publicly for being so terribly sloppy with all this information. Much easier to blame the people we already know about and who the government has a score to settle with.

Another question missed to date by those looking at this article is that if the Chinese and the Russians have cracked this archive of data how come the United States is still in the dark about what exactly was taken (which they've admitted they do not know) and that they implicitly claim to have a full copy of the archive in readable form as well (otherwise the UK government could not make the claims they're making here).

So much inconsistency.

<comment><USER19> _> ..otherwise the UK government could not make the claims they're making here.._

Don't forget the UK government got hold of 58,000 documents from Snowden's archive when they detained David Miranda at Heathrow: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10276460/David-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10276460/David- Miranda-was-carrying-password-for-secret-files-on-piece-of-paper.html)

Even if the NSA/GCHQ got hold of the "entire archive", they have no way of knowing for certain that what they have is indeed the entire archive.

<comment><USER25> So what, they got those documents a long time ago, that's not the same as suddenly claiming access to a 1M+ documents archive unless something has dramatically changed and there isn't a shred of proof for any of that.

<comment><USER19> You wrote:

 _Another question missed to date by those looking at this article is that if the Chinese and the Russians have cracked this archive of data how come the United States is still in the dark about what exactly was taken (which they 've admitted they do not know) and that they implicitly claim to have a full copy of the archive in readable form as well (otherwise the UK government could not make the claims they're making here)._

I'm merely pointing out that the UK retrieved a subset of the archive when they detained Miranda. Therefore, the US/UK don't necessarily need "a full copy of the archive in readable form" to be able to come to the conclusion that the full archive contains information that would compromise ongoing operations. If the 58,000 documents they got from Miranda contain any such information, it inevitably follows that the full archive must too.

<comment><USER25> And again, no proof was presented to indicate that this is the case. But who needs proof when anonymous quotes are all that's needed anyway. For all you know the 'journalist' (for want of a better word) could have sucked this whole story out of his left thumb and you still wouldn't know the difference.

<comment><USER19> _> And again, no proof was presented to indicate that this is the case._

That _what_ is the case? That the full archive contains information that would compromise ongoing operations?

We already know that the archive includes operational details. For example, the IP addresses of NSA targets in Hong Kong and China that Snowden released[1] in order to (as Greenwald put it) "ingratiate himself to the people of Hong Kong and China"[2].

Besides, if the archive didn't contain any such information, why didn't he simply dump the entire archive onto the Internet, WikiLeaks-style? I seem to recall that the stated reason for releasing it through newspapers was so that they could redact any such information before publishing it.

1: [http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward- sn...](http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-snowden- classified-us-data-shows-hong-kong-hacking-targets?page=all)

2: [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/greenwald-s...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/greenwald- snowden-s-files-are-out-there-if-anything-happens-to-him.html)

<comment><USER25> > Besides, if the archive didn't contain any such information, why didn't he > simply dump the entire archive onto the Internet, WikiLeaks-style?

Because then all the NSA apologists would be harping on their favourite theme of irresponsible disclosure, see also: wikileaks, Manning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Despite that he brought no files with him from Hong Kong, I can readily accept that the Chinese or Russians obtained the files from someone else.

The term "black bag job" commonly means stealing a codebook. Spy movies depict Peter Gunn breaking into an embassy then cracking a safe.

Real black bag jobs are such social engineering as when the Pentagon ordered the commanding officer of Midway Island to request a replacement for the base's broken water desalination plant:

"$THE_ISLAND_WERE_ABOUT_TO_ATTACK needs a new desalinator" reported a japanese spy.

<comment><USER27> It wasn't from a spy. It was the coded Japanese radio messages. The "Midway needs water" message was intentionally broadcasted in clear text.

[0] [http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/90midway/90facts1....](http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/90midway/90facts1.htm)

<comment><USER26> Sorry I should have been more clear.

The request for a desalinator was encrypted but in with the most insecure crypto used by the navy at the time.

The japanese intercepted it then reported it back to japan using crypto that we had already cracked.

My use of the term "spy" was intended purely for rhetorical effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Nobody (especially in the HN echo-chamber) wants to entertain the idea that what snowden did endangered hundreds of people directly, and the entire US indirectly, by leaking what he did. It is truly amazing to read the rationales on here avoiding this idea.

<comment><USER6> Hello Ernest Voice. Nice to meet you. (For those that don't know Ernest Voice is an NSA bot that posts stuff like this on forums.)

EDIT I doubt that this particular poster is actually such a bot. I am suggesting that his post is based upon not actually reading any of the facts and merely taking an opinion.

<comment><USER29> It's not ok to make swipes like this in HN comments. The implication of shilling is out of line, and even if someone hasn't read any facts, posting a comment that is itself factless doesn't help.

<comment><USER6> His post was either a shill or tragically ill informed. I merely highlighted this fact.

<comment><USER29> Everyone has an "I merely" defense in response to breaking the guidelines, but we all have to follow them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Steve Jobs as Apple's CEO: a retrospective in products - <AUTHOR> http://thisismynext.com/2011/08/25/steve-jobs-apples-ceo-retrospective-products/

<comment><USER2> Scrolling down this article is like walking through a gallery of how the world of consumer tech evolved since 1997.

I think the Microsoft partnership was a masterstroke. It lowered the barrier for switchers like me to come onboard. Interesting to see here that the scrumptious iMac was introduced less than a year later.</comment>


How to Drink Like a Pro and Maintain Your Professionalism - <AUTHOR> http://danleavitt.com/2012/12/03/how-to-drink-like-a-pro-and-maintain-your-professionalism/

<comment><USER3> << When drinking beer, keep it classy. You can flush your reputation and any respect you've earned down the toilet by ordering a PBR or Keystone Light. Amstel Light is usually a safe choice. >> One could flush their reputation by ordering a PBR but not by Amstel Light? You can't be serious with your advice with stuff like this.

<comment><USER4> The advice isn't about beer snobbery, it's about fitting in. The author is spot on with his recommendations.

Amstel Light is an extremely common and perfectly respectable choice for the mid-ranking employees of my clients and partners when I take them out to a bar. (Senior decision makers generally get a dinner where it's wine and scotch all round.) Natty light, PBR and Keystone are not acceptable and will lead to comments, raised eyebrows and a sense that you don't quite belong.

Edit: It is, of course, all about branding and not a bit about the beer. Amstel has made themselves 'premium'; PBR did the opposite. If you're a connoisseur, as your profile says, then you can avoid the issue altogether by ordering a good craft beer. That's still keeping it classy. You'll just need to exercise more.

<comment><USER5> If you're only drinking because everyone else is drinking you're a sheep. People who would seriously judge you by what you do or don't drink are not worth knowing.

<comment><USER4> The original article, this thread and my comment are all in the context of business functions. Specifically, taking clients out and attending conferences. You may not like your clients, but, at times, you are obligated to spend time with them in order to advance or retain your employment.

Nobody is saying you have to drink light beer, just that if you're going to drink light beer, pick one that isn't associated with daytime drinking rednecks and frat houses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This piece leaves out the most important advice for staying respectable when drinking: EAT. There's a huge difference between 4 drinks on an empty stomach and 4 drinks on a full stomach.

<comment><USER4> One thousand times this. And it doesn't count if you eat after the first drink, and hors d'oeuvres are useless. You need to scarf down a burger, a couple of slices of bread, some rice, pasta, _anything_ voluminous to line your stomach BEFORE that first sip. It makes all the difference.

<comment><AUTHOR> We can simplify it and just say - get some carbs in your stomach before you take a sip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree with the point about eating but I opted to focus on drinking behavior and interactions with the hope that people are smart enough to eat, or not show up dressed like a hobo for that matter. One could argue that the entire piece is mute because a person should not feel obligated to drink. In fact there are several celebrities that don't drink at all - <USER2> Trump, David Beckham, and Jennifer Lopez to name a few, but that's a conversation for another time. I merely wanted to draw attention to the fact that alcohol consumption plays a pivotal role in many business interactions and you rarely hear anyone emphasize how important it is that a person representing a company understands how to properly approach these scenarios.</comment>


Ask HN: Alternative to StackOverflow? - <AUTHOR>

Every time I post a question on StackOverflow I'm met with snotty attitudes, people questioning my very intelligence and downvotes for valid questions.<p>I'd like to find a place where people are actually helpful and if not polite, at least not downright rude... <comment><USER2> My experience of StackOverflow users is that they are generally polite and very helpful although I've noticed a trend over recent month towards less tolerance towards people asking questions who obviously haven't even done a basic Google search first. I think StackOverflow users see it as a place to get answers to questions that aren't answered anywhere else on the internet rather than as a way of getting someone to do a Google search on your behalf. Not that I'm suggesting that this is your situation.

If you're looking for an alternative to StackOverflow where the quality of content and discourse is high then Forrst (www.forrst.com) is a great place. It's an invitation only community of web designers and developers which is in part, I think, what keeps the place friendly and helpful.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't believe that place exists on the Internet. There are lots of books/papers/talks on why that is but they boil down to 'problem' people spend more time creating problems on the Internet because it makes them feel better about themselves. 'helpful and polite' people spend more time actually getting things done because that makes them feel better about themselves. So combination creates a disproportionate share of 'problem' people in forums and other online communities.

Create an invitation only version of Stack Overflow perhaps and require 100% full transparency on participants (real names, job, and affiliations). Experience with those sorts of communities show that folks will be helpful and polite (generally) but the community will not be vibrant or large.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you code to binaural beats? - <AUTHOR>

Are they bullshit or what? I have been looking for scholarly papers and anything repeatable. If I can trigger the placebo effect it looks like I should be buying some crystals to go with my monitor. <comment><USER2> [http://www.transparentcorp.com/research/](http://www.transparentcorp.com/research/)

Lots of peer-reviewed literature here. They are definelty not placebo, I have personally seen their effect through EEG.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you recommend a pdf or mp3 specifically? I'm really looking for an mp3 to put on repeat.

<comment><USER3> Just go to Youtube and search Binaural beats you will have all you need.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well if I'm going by the youtube binaural beats I might as well buy crystals and magnetic bands for my wrists.

Is there a .edu with a binaural beats mp3?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've used them. The effect is slight but seems to be there. At the very least it's a nice soothing background sound.

There's a nice app for iOS called Binaural, and an open source program called sbagen.</comment>


What Google should do to make Ingress more popular - <AUTHOR> http://thomasthethinkengine.com/2014/04/28/what-google-should-do-to-make-ingress-more-popular/

<comment><USER2> > It is absurdly complex and hard to learn

Yep. I made the mistake of trying it in the winter (over a year ago), and the tutorial was awful. Standing outside in the cold trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do was not fun.

I love complex games, but Ingress didn't seem complex so much as overcomplicated and obtuse. Simplicity is absolutely key when you're talking about fiddling with your smartphone while walking around a city.

<comment><USER3> > Standing outside in the cold trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed > to do was not fun.

A computer game which precisely captures the experience of doing sports!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I honestly cannot tell if I'm supposed to take this seriously or not.

<comment><USER5> Was it the part where he called "kittens vs pirates" skeumorphism? Because that was definitely my favorite part.

Anyway, I coincidentally started playing Ingress last Thursday and it is incredibly addictive and easy to learn. I'm not sure what is counter-intuitive about anything, although I do concede that the rules could be a little clearer from within the app (virus behavior, speed limits, etc). Then again, why would you expect a game from Google to involve no googling?</comment></comment>


The Future Generation of CSS Selectors: Level 4 - <AUTHOR> http://www.sitepoint.com/future-generation-css-selectors-level-4/

<comment><USER2> Know more about the future generation of CSS selectors at web technology knowledge sharing website www.findnerd.com</comment>


Don't bail out the cruise industry - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/23/21187076/cruise-line-industry-bailout-trump-coronavirus-us-companies-tax <comment><USER2> I'm not from the US, but I don't even understand the basic premise.

If these companies avoid paying taxes by not being registered/incorporated in the US, how could they possibly be eligible for help from the US government?

That just seems like a contradiction, like a huge case of having your cake and eating it.

<comment><USER3> Carnival Cruises is headquartered in Miami. They register their ships in other countries for various reasons. One of which is taxes. But the company itself is based in the US.

<comment><USER4> The pay no taxes.

 _Carnival Corp and Norwegian both posted negative income tax expenses — that is, they received more in refunds or deductions than they paid or set aside for taxes — with Carnival reporting an income tax expense of $71 million and Norwegian reporting an $18.9 million tax benefit._

They don't contribute to the public fisc in good times, they should have no call on it when times are tough.

<comment><USER3> So like Amazon? Have they never paid taxes? Because that quote seems to be referring to a single year?

<comment><USER5> They pay a ton income tax and sales tax.

<comment><USER6> What do they pay sales tax on that makes any material difference? And what's their income tax as a percentage of revenue?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The cruise industry is one of the most polluting and damaging industries in the world. It ruins cities worldwide. Their ships are petri-dishes for disease, spreading it directly into our vital cities. They are blocking perfect vistas of the sea. They are ruining local sea life and are spreading non-native species. Their exhaust fumes are extremely detrimental to local air quality in cities. The swarms of tourists are detrimental to local hotels and restaurants, since the swarms only buy souvenirs but lack incentive to spend big money on dining.

And all of that without paying taxes.

Let them go bust. Almost nobody is missing them.

<comment><USER8> To list a few positives.

Europe maybe not, but places like Honduras would be worse off without them.

The industry and shipyards are advancing technology in ways that other industries do not. New ships use LNG, batteries and renewables. A carbon neutral cruise ship is not too far away.

The intensive childcare offered allows parents who cannot otherwise get such services to relax.

Pixar's Wall-e was prescient in that most people would choose to live this way.

The demand for cruises is not going to go away.

<comment><USER4> > The demand for cruises is not going to go away.

In that case why the need for a bailout? If they are viable businesses either as is or after reorganization in bankruptcy, then what's the issue that needs solving by the government? That the very rich owners and lenders lost money and wish they hadn't?

<comment><USER9> You could say the same thing about airlines, but no one is arguing about whether airlines are a necessary component of the economy.

I don't support a bailout for cruise lines, but I also don't support a bailout for airlines or any industry.

This pandemic crisis is being exploited on all fronts, and the first thing that everyone is going for is money. There is a lot of FUD being spread around as cause to bailout special interests, and that's a short term solution for a long term problem. It will only make things worse and more difficult in the end to correct the current problems at hand.

The focus shouldn't be on where to be spending money right now. The focus should be on developing proper procedures that at best prevents the next pandemic or at worst controls and minimizes its effect.

<comment><USER10> Like a saying, don't bail out corporations so shareholders learn. Bail out people so they can can quickly start new businesses.

<comment><USER11> > Like a saying, don't bail out corporations so shareholders learn.

I agree with you for self-inflicted problems (such as the financial crisis, or a lack of general funds).

Requiring all corporations to hold enough cash for 6 months of runway with 0 income however? That's an extreme requirement on which most if not all companies would fail.

<comment><USER4> That's not necessarily the case. They'd have to either have that cash on hand _or_ be able to raise it in the debt or equity markets. If these are long term viable businesses, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do just that. Doesn't seem like any are trying because they'd rather get a government handout.

Fair weather capitalists.

<comment><USER11> > or be able to raise it in the debt or equity markets

The debt/equity markets are beyond fucked at the moment. Relying on them is what led the financial industry to the 2008 crisis and it certainly won't be a good idea to rely on them in future pandemics.

> Fair weather capitalists.

The entire point of governments in a capitalist system is to deal with stuff that is too big for companies and individual people to handle - which a pandemic certainly is.

<comment><USER4> The markets are liquid, the government is making sure of that. They might not have the pricing that companies think they deserve, but such is life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Better idea. They want a bailout? Sure. Turn all your ships to hospital ships for the next year. You won't miss them anyway.

One of these ships is basically a 10 floor high city block that can sustain itself off grid for over two weeks. Surely we have a good use for that.

<comment><USER13> "Turn all your ships to hospital ships"

Dear God no. Please don't create a covid19 death ship. Covid19 has proven to be a ruthless killer on recycled air systems. It would be impossible to screen for the virus - it would certainly find it's way on board.

<comment><USER14> In that case, the best use might be the "isolate mild cases" approach: everyone who tests positive goes on the ship, even (especially) if they don't have symptoms. If they deteriorate to severe, move them to a real hospital. This has been a big part of the Wuhan campaign.

<comment><USER15> Repeated exposure makes covid-19 cases worse.

<comment> barry-cotter I doubt that. It's more likely to depend on the viral load you're exposed to. Being a nurse with inadequate PPE intubating someone and being exposed to large quantities of COVID _once_ will give the virus a head start, whereas running through a cough cloud and just barely getting enough to infect you five times over the course of an hour will give your immune system a head start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I had a thought earlier today that might fix the economic situation, but it's extremely bold.

If the world congregates and places blame on the CCP for asking us to keep our borders open while knowing all along how contagious and deadly this virus was, that's criminally negligent. Maybe even malicious.

The behavior of the CCP after the virus spread internationally is equally alarming. They threatened to shut off access to medicines manufactured in China, placed blame on Italy and the US for the virus' origin, and shut down European and US travel to China.

Defaulting on debt is bad. But what if every nation collectively "cancelled" their debt to China? China would protest, but given the circumstance it doesn't seem like a credit downgrade would be necessary if this were taken as repayment for damages caused.

If we owe zero to China, we can then lend all of that money to businesses and individuals impacted. Pay off domestic debts.

I really like the idea of "cancelling Chinese debt". Now someone please tell me how this couldn't work. Would they retaliate? Would they consider it an act of war?

(I shouldn't have to say this, but I harbor no ill will towards the Chinese people. I love Chinese culture and studied Mandarin in college. I dislike the CCP and their actions.)

<comment><USER17> How much of the US debt owned by China is held by the Chinese government rather than Chinese citizens?

<comment> barry-cotter The huge majority of it. The Chinese Central Bank has to buy _a lot_ of T-bills to keep the ¥/$ exchange rate where they want it. And the domestic finance market in China is very highly regulated to maintain capital controls; I'd be surprised if you can even buy T-bills outside Hong Kong and Macau.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't think we should bail out any bigger industry without requiring them to create buffers for the next crisis. We bailed them out in 2008, that's fair, but if they sent all their profit to their shareholders instead of preparing for the next crisis then let their share holders bail them out.

I'm European though, so I may be more of a social democrat than most Americans.

<comment><USER19> Bailing them out is OK, but it should be through the government buying equity in those companies (essentially partial or complete nationalization).

<comment><USER20> > Bailing them out is OK, but it should be through the government buying > equity in those companies (essentially partial or complete nationalization).

Additionally, I think the government should be buying equity at a steep discount - something reasonable but not disastrous like 67%.

<comment><USER21> > buying equity at a steep discount

the gov't "loans" should be the same as the amount of equity obtained. For example, if the book value of the company is $100 , and the debt is $80 (so they need a loan of $80 to cover their debts), then the bailout will dilute all existing shareholders 80%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The cruise ships send millions of dollars of US tourists' money every year to countries in the US sphere of influence that they would otherwise never fly and visit.

It's not a bailout for the cruise industry. It's a bailout for nearly every island nation in this hemisphere. We keep the tourism money flowing and they'll keep flowing exported raw materials and food.

<comment><USER23> That's only true if you believe that there isn't some fundamental part of this business that is profitable and market forces won't eventually lead to new cruise companies popping back up in the future

<comment><USER22> In times of crisis, that's not what we care about, we care about uninterrupted supply chain.

Yes, I agree the system should not be that fragile, but for now it is.

<comment><USER24> In this case, I'd say we'd be better off letting that fragility run its course.

Very few (if any) Americans depend on the existence of the cruise industry to make a living or otherwise survive in our society. For the ones who do, it'd be cheaper to give them individual "bailouts". Cruise ships contribute jack all to the national or global supply chain except as consumers of it; letting cruise lines fail means more capacity on that supply chain for things that actually do matter (especially in times of crisis).

Even bank bailouts have a better value proposition, and that's saying something.

<comment><USER22> Tourism is an import/export like any other.

Trade imbalances aren't good for economies and eventually lead to wars 100% of the time. Read about the Opium Wars if you want a textbook example of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think there should be a much bigger discussion about bailouts. There currently seems to be a feeling that an industry that struggles deserves a bailout by default.

Why don't we have a discussion about which industry provides important services to society? And particularly how helpful it is likely to be in the larger crisis we have looming over us - climate change - and which won't go away? It seems like the absolute worst idea to bail out high carbon industries, and that's not just true for cruise ships, but also for airlines and many others.

</comment><comment><USER26> I went on a cruise ship once. Was very bored. I was so bored I tried to wangle a tour of the engine room (after all, I'm an engineer) but no way said the captain. The food was nice. The captain avoided a big storm. I figured if I ever went on a cruise again it would be an a much smaller boat. After all, who doesn't want an oar thrust in their hands and have someone yell "ramming speed!" at them? "We keep you alive to serve this ship! Row well, and live!" and all. Much more fun than the gift shops and roulette wheels.

When I was a kid we crossed the Atlantic in the SS United States. For a kid, that was a blast, especially when we steamed through a huge storm. Wowsa! I'm sad to see the rusty hulk it has become.

<comment><USER27> The Hurtigruten is a coastal freighter cum cruise line traversing the Norwegian coast between Bergen in the south and Kirkenes near Murmansk up north, making loads of stops underway to on- and offload cargo and passengers.

The Norwegian coast can be quite rough in the wintertime - a friend of mine is the steward on one of the ships, and she assures me every winter there are numerous passengers who insist on being dressed up in full survival kit and quite literally being tied to the mast - to experience the full wrath of a winter storm from a safe position.

To each his own. It probably isn't boring, at least. :)

<comment><USER26> Do they make the passengers walk the oars, too? [https://youtu.be/8SW6a1z_hUk?t=112](https://youtu.be/8SW6a1z_hUk?t=112)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Bailouts are very unfair and undemocratic. I can understand for Boeing where the military absolutely depends on them and if a war were to start, being able to build planes is essential.

But Carnival cruises, who cares if they go under? another one will prop up with a better business model that is sustainable.

Every company should be able to weather a couple of months if they rode the bull for the best 11 years of stock rise in history. If your executives fucked it up, too bad. You can get a low interest loan, but no free bailout money.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm bemused that anyone would even _consider_ bailing out the cruise industry, of all things. Like, what is the "in favour of" argument?

<comment><USER30> The campaign donations those companies gave you last election.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> A market based solution would be investors buying struggling companies at a discount, or companies using their reserves that they have built based on normal risk management.

Bailout money should be used to help people during unemployment.

<comment><USER32> I mainly agree with this. Companies living paycheck to paycheck should sell equity. The US government should set aside money to buy into these new equity offerings.

For non-public and small business there can be funds set aside to help them.

And then yes, simply increase unemployment distributions for the time bring to 80% previous income for a couple months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The article missed another point: they're competing with US based tourism. Every person who chose to go on a cruise didn't visit a US city and spend money there.

<comment><USER34> On the Caribbean and Mexico cruises we've taken, we spent a few days before and after in the US ports Fort Lauderdale and San Diego, so it is common for both same-day flyers and short term stay visitors to embark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why do bailouts at all instead of letting them go bankrupt? Bankruptcy doesn't mean that people lose their jobs, it means that investors / lenders lose money.

<comment><USER21> bankruptcy does mean the people who worked there would lose their jobs. They will have to be re-employed, if the new buyer of the assets sold to cover the debts, decides to continue running a cruise liner. This certainly takes some time, and in the interim, all the employees will be fired (or at least, not paid).

If the gov't bails out the cruise liners, they may be able to force them to continue paying the employees in the intrim, and so "save" them from being unemployed and "save" welfare. The gov't can also end up owning equity in the business (which is not a bad thing - it's basically extra income for the state/treasury in the future).

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Tourists from cruise ships destroy nice vacactions.

Many hundreds of people come on the streets in groups, go throught the streets loudly and fast to take photos, than go back to the ship.

People who _really_ go to these places and spend money for staying and try to blend in to have a peaceful vacation can't.

<comment><USER37> Your comment seems like the statement of someone with an axe to grind rather and lacks factual evidence.

<comment><USER27> -I used to live in a small town (Aalesund, Norway, pop. of town centre - 10,000 or so).

It is a popular port for cruise ships doing the Norwegian coast. I assure you, during summer season one could have 2-4 vessels in port - effectively a DoS attack on town.

Getting from A to B on foot was nearly impossible, forget any shopping or café visits - a town built for 10,000 suddenly had twice as many people in the streets. Go figure.

While the cruise tourists leave a little cash behind, it is much less per head than, say, camper van tourists do.

I didn't mind all that much - but I can see valid reasons for not wishing to have a cruise entourage come crashing down on your hometown on a regular basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Other threads debate the merits of cruises and/or bailouts, but this specific idea has a unique challenge: there may not be a viable market for cruises until COVID is at least treatable, if not preventable. The CDC's guidance is to "defer all cruise travel worldwide"[1] and that may not change until treatment exists - particularly for those over 50-60. 51% of 2019 passengers were over 50[2].

Cruise ships manage to contain norovirus[3], but we've seen how different the consequences are when NCoV is present on a cruise ship.

[1]: [https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/warning/coronavirus- cru...](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/warning/coronavirus-cruise-ship) [2]: [https://www.cruise1st.co.uk/blog/cruise-holidays/how-old- is-...](https://www.cruise1st.co.uk/blog/cruise-holidays/how-old-is-the- average-cruise-passenger/) [3]: [https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/pub/norovirus/norovirus.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/pub/norovirus/norovirus.htm)

</comment><comment><USER39> If you guys are handing out bailouts I'd like one too. I don't pay any taxes in the US and I don't do anything particularly useful. I can guarantee that absolutely zero US jobs will be saved by bailing me out. I am not bankrupt and I don't need the money. I think I'd therefore be an excellent candidate to receive a bailout. Let's say five billion should be sufficient.

</comment><comment><USER40> There's no easy solution to a once in-a-century pandemic. The most important issue is economic continuity.

It's better to prop up companies and industry for the short term if it means thousands of people continue receiving a paycheck and can afford to live.

Suddenly laying off all those people while companies and vendors collapse will lead to major cascading effects that can be far more disastrous.

</comment><comment><USER41> In case anyone is not aware, the planned relief for companies in the private sector is in the form of loans, not cash giveaways

<comment><USER42> You don't think a loan to a company on the brink of bankruptcy is a cash giveaway?

Well, it would be nice if you're right...

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Puzzling that the CO2 issue is buried far in the list of grievances. Does this reflect the reporter's priorities or more widely the Verge's or the readerships?

</comment><comment><USER44> When the cruise industry gets a bailout, it is not to save the cruisers but the financial corporations, which have been financing this madness.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why would you ever bail out an industry that is not essential to society?

<comment><USER46> One thing I've had nailed home during this fiasco is that almost all businesses consider themselves essential, even at the possible cost of their employee's lives. We have call centers doing cold call sales trying to call themselves essential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Bailouts not not won't effect the long term size of the industry.

</comment><comment><USER48> What do you call a cruise ship full of lawyers at the bottom of the sea?

<comment><USER49> A start

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Fuck em, they flag in other countries so they don't pay taxes, but also because they can treat employees like slaves, pollute using bunker fuel, and generally fuck over the world.

Fuck em.

<comment><USER50> Airlines also pollute and dodge taxes. But love them or hate them, it's hard to argue that airlines don't play a critical role. The broader economy would suffer badly if they were to fail.

Cruise ships, however, do not. They are purely recreational and the economy would not fall apart if they were to go. They also share some of the blame for spreading Covid-19 in the first place!

<comment><USER51> > The broader economy would suffer badly if they were to fail

Why? The planes are not going anywhere. If airlines fail, someone will be able to buy them at a discount. They will need to hire pilots and cabin crews. Shareholders in airlines will be hit - as it should be.

<comment><USER52> That's even more true with cruise ships. That industry will be effectively bailed out one way or the other, the other is banks eating the losses after bankruptcy and new companies starting out with lower debt after taking over the assets at firesale prices.

But that only strengthens the point of the article: the optics of an actual bailout would be so much worse and the outcome would only really differ for shareholders.

<comment><USER4> It's not even banks, they don't lend at those scales, it's bondholders. Let them take their lumps. If investors wanted government guarantees they could have bought sovereign debt instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> And of course, they avoid paying taxes by sailing under other countries' flags

</comment><comment><USER54> Let it die. They provide no useful service to society.

Maybe the replacements will create an ethical, sustainable, and environmentally friendly business instead.

</comment><comment><USER55> Man, I hate how people have all kinds of "reasons" why industry X shouldn't be bailed out. Uh, no. _Nobody_ should be bailed out, as a general principle.

<comment><USER56> This is a very short sighted view. Police forces cannot maintain order in the event of massive unrest and the best way to prevent this is to keep people above the poverty line and the death rates low. Desperation leads to upheaval.</comment></comment>


What skills should I learn to become successful? - <AUTHOR> http://www.fikkrah.com/skill-learn-become-successful/ <comment><USER2> Define success?</comment>


Ask HN: Good payment provider in Europe? - <AUTHOR>

What is a good payment provider in Europe? <comment><USER2> Some recent discussion of this over at hackful: <http://hackful.com/posts/370>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have worked with Ogone (<http://ogone.com/>) several times. No complaints so far.</comment>


Show HN: Just launched - No more crappy apps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.appstorehq.com/post/10727580357/appesp-v3-no-more-crappy-apps

<comment><USER2> I always hoped that one day, technology would advance far enough to reward me for being a thought leader with a pretty picture.

</comment><comment><USER3> I may not be the target market, but downloading a crappy mobile application, finding out it doesn't do what I want or I don't like it, and deleting it (or not) is not a big enough pain to download a mobile application to solve this problem, find out it doesn't do what I want or I don't like it, and then ultimately delete it.

Downloading an app that tells you to download apps is not a business model - regardless of what kind of social connectivity graph search you have going on in the background.

"Discover good software" is harder than "making good software". Lets all start on that problem first.

<comment><USER4> I don't think you can say this isn't a business model without some data to back that up. Just because you are not the target market does not mean that there isn't a target market willing to pay (though I'd like to see updates from them to hear if this works).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You lost me at "Here at AppStoreHQ, we love – I mean LOVE – mobile apps!"

</comment><comment><USER6> This is great, but of course they can only do it on Android, because they have to be able to troll through your list of installed apps to generate recommendations.

<comment><USER7> I did some contract work for another company that did something similar for iOS. We ended up building a Java applet that would scan your iTunes folder for apps.

<comment><USER6> That's clever (though it shows how far backward you have to bend to gather that info on iOS).

Is the applet released? Can you share the name?

<comment><USER7> The applet is integrated into the client's site (appolicious.com). That was a couple of years back, so I don't know what the current status of everything is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like this. I was recommended Hulu plus right away which, on account of the android market's terrible app discovery, i didnt even know existed.</comment>


A Micropayments Marketplace - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@21/the-first-micropayments-marketplace-38c321127d12#.4az5jhduc <comment><USER2> > Paypal famously got to scale by becoming the currency of choice for eBay > buyers and sellers.

Slightly off topic but after seeing this statement, it triggered an old question in my mind: would anyone happen to remember how payment-industry companies like Paypal were able to scale so well when their model depends on traditional ACID properties? I've never been in the payments field, but I've always wondered how their backend structure differs from those of say Netflix or Facebook, of which I'm more familiar with.

<comment><USER3> Transactional logs. It's like double-entry accounting. You build the state by keeping each transaction and then processing them in order. You can obviously cache at intervals. This allows for a full audit trail. Bitcoin is also a sum of a complete series of transactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems pretty useless, in that it requires particular hardware.

<comment><USER5> right now.

> _If you have a 21 Bitcoin Computer, you can explore the marketplace today at > 21.co /mkt; if not, please go and sign up for our forthcoming free client at > 21.co/free and you'll be able to access it soon._

<comment><USER4> OK, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would be very interested in a micro-payments marketplace though, I think they need a better presentation, because I didn't understand. Do I need to signup? Give them my bitcoins? What do my customers have to do to pay me?

</comment><comment><USER7> Fantastic good job 21.co team. Just got a txt directly from 21.co computer</comment>


ACL: Animation Compression Library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nfrechette/acl <comment><USER2> Thanks for linking to my work! In the next week or two I should be able to publish the results I had when compressing over 8000 Fortnite animations with it, stay tuned and check my blog: [http://nfrechette.github.io/](http://nfrechette.github.io/)</comment>


Ask HN: Points to ponder while designing/building the MySql DB  - <AUTHOR>

I am the only one working on my idea. Java based web application and it has other components as well which needs to be integrated. What worries me is preparing MySQL database for this project. I am using ORM and it is taking some of my worries by not worrying about writing SQL but I want to design it properly even for the alpha release.
Please share any tips or the points I need to remember focus on while I am designing. Any links/resources would be appreciated as well.
Thanks Mapping <comment><USER2> Don't worry too much. You don't need to get it "right" the first time.

Just create a table as needed for each of your domain entities (eg like Customer, Product, ...) and iterate as necessary until you feel comfortable.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think I found my answer on this website <http://www.agiledata.org/essays/bestPractices.html></comment>


Cliff Click Jr: Experiences with Hardware Transactional Memory for Java - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.azulsystems.com/cliff/2009/02/and-now-some-hardware-transactional-memory-comments.html

<comment><USER2> For me, this quote is the hard-earned kernel of wisdom that affirms what I've been saying about transactional memory for the last three years: "Why make the code XTN-friendly when they can make it lock-friendly as well, and have it run fine on all gear (and not just HTM-enabled gear)? Also locks have well understood performance characteristics, unlike TM's which generally rely on a complex and not-well-understood runtime portion (and indeed all the STMs out there have wildly varying "sweet spots" such that code which performs well on one STM might be really unusably slow on another STM)."

Transactional memory sounds appealing to programmers who've worked hard on making lock-based systems scale because the grass is always greener. Locks sound easy, too, until you try to build a huge system with them. It sounds like Azul has built the first industrial scale TM implementation, and done it with some of the best and brightest, but has not found the going significantly easier or faster than with traditional methods.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a wikipedia article that I found more comprehensible as someone who knows nothing about transactional memory:

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

So, as a Java guy, here's what I take this stuff to mean:

Synchronization blocks are implicitly pessimistic locking. Even if the probability of a collision is close to zero, we still make threads line up for admittance to critical sections.

Transactional memory allows us to employ optimistic concurrency. If any other thread modified stuff that is encompassed in your transaction, you get an exception.

This sounds much like the scheme employed by Hibernate to do optimistic locking for DB stuff. Am I thinking about this correctly?

</comment><comment><USER3> It was clear from the slides that Azul thinks about financial analysis/trading systems when designing its stuff. Many other cool technologies have been developed with financial services customers in mind (Terracotta and various other grid computing stuff comes to mind). This is well and good, but I'm worried in general that the ill health of the world's financial institutions will erode the market signal that has brought so much innovation downward to less lucrative markets. If Azul was trying to raise money now, would VCs bite given the ill health of the most likely early adopters?</comment>


Announcing RemoteIE: Test the Latest IE on Windows, Mac OS X, iOS and Android - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/11/02/announcing-remoteie-test-the-latest-ie-on-windows-mac-os-x-ios-and-android.aspx <comment><USER2> A great idea but it exposes a lot of rough edges in Azure:

1\. The Microsoft Remote Desktop Mac app is a UI trainwreck – not just wasted space and odd keyboard shortcuts but things like the Azure login process disabling password managers and the one-time auth code via SMS service never arriving.

2\. Azure's federated Live.com logins are broken, cycling between the login page and the console hitting you with a "You have logged out elsewhere"

3\. In US East, US West, Southeast Asia and East Asia, connections hang (20+ minutes) at "Please wait for the User Profile Service"

I'm really looking forward to trying this service when Azure is more stable and, hopefully, they add older versions of IE.

<comment><USER3> Hi acdha, 1\. You can go to [http://feedback.azure.com/forums/247748-azure- remoteapp](http://feedback.azure.com/forums/247748-azure-remoteapp) and share your feedback with the Remote App team. They really want to make it as useful as possible and it is still on Preview so now is the moment to influence the team 3\. Yes, we are working on it and should be fixed soon. Regarding the older versions of IE, unfortunately we are running on top of Server 2012 so we are locked to IE11+. At this moment you can use the dev tools and change the compat mode and we are thinking about adding Enterprise Mode to the service so you can test on "IE8".

<comment><USER2> Are bugs related to Remote Desktop performance best reported against the client or Remote App? It doesn't appear to support bitblts so simply moving a window is extremely jerky and things like CSS transitions are basically a slideshow.

Enterprise Mode would be useful since that's getting a bit of traction as an alternative to staying mired in IE8.

<comment><USER3> There is no GPU acceleration. When running IE through RDP we default to software rendering and unfortunately there isn't anything we can do about that :(

<comment><USER2> Not even old-school acceleration like we used to have in the 90s? I thought RDP used to at least support things like "move this rectangle to a new position" for the performance win over things like VNC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure I'm getting the feel for this at all. It's almost as if it's targeted at reducing friction for people to test with internet explorer, but you need a Microsoft account to use it, you are limited to VNC speeds, and you need to expose a webserver to the internet with your test service on it. There's not many situations I can think of that this would be useful, especially if it's something finicky like scrolling performance that needs debugging.

On the other hand, Microsoft offers a bunch of freely downloadable virtual machines with every version of Internet Explorer you could care to test in[1]. Why would anybody in the world want to use this particular product for testing over the alternative?

[1]: [https://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization- tools#downloads](https://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads)

<comment><USER5> Because the alternative (the downloadable VMs) is a gigantic, unbelievable pain in the ass.

1) You have to download a _complete system image_ of a machine running the specific versions of Windows and IE you're interested in testing against. _Each_ of these images can require downloading up to 4 DVDs worth of data just to get it bootstrapped, which can take forever even on a fast pipe.

2) Want to test against a _different_ version of Windows, or IE, or both? Now you get to download _4 more DVDs_ , all over again! (Yep, if you started testing, say, IE9 on Windows 7, and now you want to test against IE10, you have to download a whole new virtual machine from scratch.)

3) For reasons known only to Microsoft, they don't distribute the VM images as unified packages; instead, they're a bunch of DVD-size RAR files that have to be _assembled_ into a complete VM image after downloading. One of those RARs get corrupted en route? Back to downloading!

4) _RAR files?_ In _2014?_ For serious? Yes, RAR files, for serious.

5) Now you've made it through the epic download, assembled your VM image, and are ready to get started. Hey, guess what! Microsoft is so paranoid about the chance that you're an Evil Pirate™ rather than a legitimate developer that they put a special surprise in the VM, just for you: when it reaches the end of the calendar quarter, the VM _self-destructs._ Yes, you read that right -- after all that, this VM that you marched through Hell to put together becomes useless after three months at most. So at that point, you get to do all the stuff listed above _again._

(Yes, I know there are hacks you can make in the registry to extend this time for an extra quarter or two. It's still insulting.)

The whole process is such a pain that people have written tools like ievms ([https://github.com/xdissent/ievms](https://github.com/xdissent/ievms)) just to automate the endless, tedious downloading-unpacking-installing-self- destructing-downloading-etc. cycle. And vendors like BrowserStack ([http://www.browserstack.com/](http://www.browserstack.com/)) make good money charging people to do the same thing they could conceivably do with the VMs, just because using the VMs hurts so much people will happily pay to avoid it.

And the kicker: all of this nonsense, of course, is only necessary because you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side. And the only reason you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side is because Microsoft, back when it was Pure Evil, decided to _make it that way_ to force people to upgrade Windows when they wanted to upgrade IE.

Microsoft management are considerably more enlightened these days than they were back then. But this huge, ugly, painful, _completely unnecessary_ wart on the Windows development experience that they forced upon the world back then still persists, either because someone in Redmond thinks it's a good idea, or just out of sheer laziness.

<comment><USER6> I totally agree. It would really make more sense if they put their effort and resources into releasing IE 9 or why not 10 for Windows XP [1]. I assume this would really eliminate the purpose of testing to those older IEs.

I rarely open IE 10 for testing, anyway. I assume if my website does work on latest Chrome, Firefox, Safari it will work also on recent Internet Explorers ( >= 10 ). If it doesn't work as expected, it's MS bug of a browser that users can actually upgrade, so it's not such a big deal.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_versions#Wind...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_versions#Windows)

<comment><USER7> I suspect as we approach 2015, the remaining users of XP & IE9 (or earlier) are mostly in the " _doesn 't update software_" camp, more so than the " _can 't upgrade IE_" camp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is really great, but I am much more interested in being able to test older (9/10) versions of IE as well.

<comment><USER9> Microsoft provides free VM images for IE6 through 11 -- [https://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization- tools#downloads](https://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's interesting to see how well they've managed to lock this down. You're able to view a list of usernames with access to the machine (or domain?) that your account is on. [http://imgur.com/t1IP02T](http://imgur.com/t1IP02T)

<comment><USER11> How d'you find that?

<comment><USER12> I don't know how he got there but I can get a similar list by getting a Browse dialog out of Downloads and going to the security settings for a folder and looking at the dialog for selecting users to add to a folder's ACL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> All I see is "IE Technical Preview" and when I try to connect "Please wait for user profile service" Anyone else getting that?

This highlights why I prefer to just have these as local virtual machines. When I'm working on a project and I need to do an IE pass, I don't want to rely on this server being available. Even things like BrowserStack, which are definitely nice, have been super laggy right when I happen to need them. Not to mention that you can't really gauge performance over a connection like this.

I do like the Modern IE iso's they are providing now though. Paired with Parallels, it's one click to download and initialize a new Windows/IE combo, and it lasts for (30?) days

<comment><USER10> There was a short delay, around 10/15s. After that, it was pretty smooth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe it's just me, but displaying 4 wobbly out-of-sync vine videos at once is really distracting.

<comment><USER15> And why didn't they use a screen recorder instead of shaky camera recordings? Looks really unprofessional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Now if only Apple would do the same thing for Safari...

<comment><USER17> Or you could just run any WebKit browser on Windows.

<comment><USER2> 1\. WebKit is not created equal – if you need to test anything related to system integration (e.g. font rendering, video/audio, etc.) you need real Safari. You're also exposed to differences in the WebKit version + vendor patches.

2\. That doesn't help at all if you need to test against Mac or iOS clients and want the underlying layers to match. I've found a ton of Unicode-support related issues rendering text properly which worked on Windows 7 or maybe only 8 but not OS X (or earlier versions of windows, etc.). Similar problems exist for HTML5 media playback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This seems to work really well (for me at least) and I like the idea. However, for actually testing the product we're building it's currently not usable, since they've disabled cookies completely. Our product requires a login, so I guess we'll have to stick with the VMs for now.

<comment><USER3> Cookies will be enabled soon :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> 1) Clicked the link and downloaded/installed the app from the Mac App Store.

2) signed in with my work Microsoft account.

3) No Internet Explorer listed under remote apps.

4) Signed out and tried to sign in with my personal Microsoft account.

5) Mistyped the absurdly difficult Captcha 5 times and decided to stop wasting time trying to play with this.

EDIT: Just now received an email inviting me to try remoteIE with my work MS account. I just need to log back in and refresh to see invitations.

EDIT2: Tried logging back in and hitting refresh and it's still not there. I forgot to mention that it prompts me with a message that remoteapp is not available and that I may sign up for a free trial. If you decline the free trial you are immediately logged out! Still no IE.

<comment><USER3> Give it a try again. We've done some changes on the server side so you should see IE and log into IE much faster. Just make sure to use the same email as the one you received the notification.

<comment><USER19> Tried logging out/in and still not seeing IE.

FWIW I tried Paint and the experience is pretty awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's sad to see that they have resort to such methods to keep their browser alive. Developers are beginning to skip IE testing because of this inconvenience.

I wish Microsoft would finally untie their Browser from the OS and provide standalone packages.

<comment><USER21> Agreed. My first thought when I saw this is that I hope people _don 't_ use it. I know that many people developing sites for a living can't afford to ignore IE, but I really think that IE incompatibility is MS's problem that they've foisted on everyone else. I wish more people would design sites to standards and when they get complaints about "bad design", kindly point IE users to MS tech support.

But that will never happen. The sad fact is that you have to cater to your audience, and almost all people will just click back and look for another site if your site doesn't render perfectly in their browser of choice (or in the case of IE, the only browser they've ever known, even though they didn't choose it). So much time and effort wasted due to MS's anti-competive practices and incompetence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Remember, this uses Azure: if you're in Western Europe, pick 'Northern Europe' and not 'Western Europe' for better locality. See [http://www.robblackwell.org.uk/2011/04/12/azure-northern- eur...](http://www.robblackwell.org.uk/2011/04/12/azure-northern-europe-is- dublin-and-western-europe-is-amsterdam.html)

</comment><comment> slipstream- I can't help noticing the RemoteIE VM uses a later build of Threshold Server than is publicly available (public build is 9841.fbl_release, this uses 9860.winmain).

I guess there's no chance MS will release the ISO of said build though, especially because this build includes the usual private-build watermarks first introduced in Windows 8.

<comment><USER23> 9860 is publicly available though, at least the client version.

<comment> slipstream- 9860.fbl_release is publicly available.

RemoteIE uses 9860.winmain (as in, it's 9860 from the mainline branch, rather than 9860 from the fbl_release branch). And naturally, it's server -- 9860 server isn't public at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not being able to access localhost makes this much less useful than it could be. Does anyone know of any good tools to temporarily tunnel localhost onto a public URL?

<comment><USER25> Have you seen ngrok.com?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's not free, but I really like Browser Stack.

<comment><USER22> Browser Stack isn't usable in Europe, at least, due to latency. As in 'type characters and wait for them to appear on screen' or 'Eclipse' slow. modern.ie originally used it, I hope moving to their own system speeds up responsiveness.

<comment><USER27> Wait a second... Eclipse as in the naturally-occurring phenomena or the IDE? I just got to view my first partial eclipse two weeks ago and have seen firsthand how slowly the moon creeps across the sun and don't really think Eclipse the software is _that_ slow.

<comment><USER28> If you're low on RAM (and you will be... Eclipse's Law states that you _will_ download enough plugins to fill all RAM allotted), then the slightest page-in from virtual memory can make typing in Eclipse quite the ordeal. Even if its autocompletion is asynchronous, that's no help when your plugins are thrashing in and out of memory all over the place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wow, that site loops heavily in Firefox and blocks 1-3 cores at 100% with the embedded vines...

</comment><comment><USER30> I always used Crossover Mac for this. Might not be pixel perfect but exposes rendering issues.

</comment><comment><USER31> Announcing RemoteIE: The only way to safely use IE.

</comment><comment><USER32> great. now you will

be blocked occasionally when site is down or your connection is bad.

not be able to save a predefined vm and reboot it every 30 days like before.

they will certainly not take into account your important project that is due tomorrow when planning for site upgrades as you would if it were local.

and to top my day: now i will have to wait legal to allow me to test secret project of the day on a3rd party service.

... please Microsoft, don't pull an apple and take those vms down just yet.

<comment><USER33> The VMs are not going anywhere. This is an additional service for those that can't or don't want to use virtual machines, or find this more convenient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> IE on iOS & Android, finally.

</comment><comment><USER34> In my world I should not have to test the latest browsers. If it works in a modern browser, I would assume a even newer browser would not be less standardised.

To be honest do I only use and develop in Firefox and these days it generally works on all other browsers as well.</comment>


List of artists who died in 1943 and the copyright has expired - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_in_art

<comment><AUTHOR> For some countries the copyright expires 50 years after the author's death, but most western countries it's 70 years.

Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_le...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_lengths)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A new year and a new bunch of expired copyrights. Here's a list of musicians who died in 1943 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_in_music](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_in_music)</comment>