Dropbox Attempts To Kill Open Source Project - <AUTHOR> http://razorfast.com/2011/04/25/dropbox-attempts-to-kill-open-source-project/ <comment><USER3> drew from dropbox here. i hope you guys can give us the benefit of the doubt: when something pops up that encourages people to turn dropbox into the next rapidshare or equivalent (the title on HN was suggesting it could be the successor to torrents), you can imagine how that could ruin the service for everyone -- illegal file sharing has never been permitted and we take great pains to keep it off of dropbox. the internet graveyard is filled with services that didn't take this approach.

so, when something like this gets called to our attention, we have to do something about it. note that this isn't even by choice -- if we don't take action, then we look like we are tacitly encouraging it. the point is not to censor or "kill" it (which is obviously impossible and would be idiotic for us to try to do), but we sent kindly worded emails to the author and other people who posted it to take it down for the good of the community so that we don't encourage an army of pirates to flock to dropbox, and they voluntarily did so.

there were no legal threats or any other shenanigans to the author or people hosting -- we just want to spend all our time building a great product and not on cat-and-mouse games with people who try to turn dropbox into an illegal file sharing service against our wishes. (for what it's worth, dropship doesn't even work anymore -- we've fixed the deduplication behavior serverside to prevent "injection" of files you don't actually have, for a variety of reasons.)

that said, when we disabled public sharing of that file by hash, it auto- generated an email saying we had received a DMCA takedown notice to the OP, which was incorrect and not what we intended to do, so i apologize to dan that this happened.

(*edited the last paragraph: we didn't send a takedown notice, we sent a note saying that we received a DMCA takedown notice, which was also in error)

<comment><USER4> > illegal file sharing has never been permitted and we take great pains to > keep it off of dropbox.

Which is great, except you are punishing the crime, before it even occurred. Remember use of torrents are not illegal per se, sharing files which you do not copyright of, and piracy is.

> there were no legal threats or any other shenanigans to the author or people > hosting. (EDIT - No applicable. Read Drew's edit.)

DMCA takedown notice is a legal threat. Worse part is, its not even valid, IANAL, but do _you_ own the copyright of the data or the copyright owner approached you to issue a DMCA takedown notice?

> it auto-generated a DMCA takedown notice to the OP, which as many pointed > out here was invalid and particularly inappropriate in this case, and was > absolutely not what we intended to do.

Please do not send legal notices, without lawyers reviewing them?

<comment><USER5> > Which is great, except you are punishing the crime, before it even occurred.

No, they aren't. They're enforcing the terms of use that Dropbox users agreed to when signing up.

I don't think asking folks to take stuff down was the correct solution...I think fixing the bug was the right solution, which they've also done. But, I don't see how Dropbox is "punishing" anyone, when they're just asking people to use the service as it is intended.

<comment><USER6> It's clearly a violation of ToS to _use_ Dropship, however, it's less clear whether it's a violation to _store code_ that has the _potential_ to violate the ToS.

<comment><USER7> Presumably if someone has reverse engineered Dropship¹ then we're not far off having an FOSS Dropbox-a-like to use it with? I'd have thought that is the problem Dropbox is most likely to be addressing?

Run your own organisation-wide Dropbox? Yes please.

Edit: ¹ I mean of course created Dropship by reverese engineering Dropbox's protocols.

<comment><USER5> > Presumably if someone has reverse engineered Dropship¹ then we're not far > off having an FOSS Dropbox-a-like to use it with?

That's a pretty big stretch. You believe the client-side code to trigger download of a file that doesn't exist on the system is "not far off from having an FOSS Dropbox-a-like"? That's like finding a hub cap in the woods, and deciding you've almost got all the parts needed to construct a car.

I don't believe Dropbox is using any techniques that are secret; I believe anyone with the know-how, and time, and inclination, could use publicly available algorithms to replicate everything Dropbox has done. The "secret sauce" is not the protocol. There are a number of protocols for doing versioned filed storage (WebDAV, for instance) and a number of protocols for transferring only the parts of files which have changed (rsync, for instance). The hard part is in putting them all together, not in any magic to be found in a few lines of code.

I highly doubt this is all a conspiracy to prevent people from building a FOSS "Dropbox-a-like". People can already do that, without needing any Dropbox magic. Oddly enough, no one has. I reckon it's because it's really hard to put all those pieces together in a way that works easily for end users. Highly technical users have had these kinds of capabilities for years in the form of version control systems, rsync, etc. Open Source developers have solved the hard algorithmic problems already (and Dropbox is standing on their shoulders). What Dropbox did is make it accessible and usable by anyone.

Do people really need any explanation other than, "Somebody made a mistake and sent out the wrong email"? They don't strike me as being particularly evil guys when I've met some of them, and while they aren't bastions of Open Source generosity as far as I know, they also never seemed to be anti-Open Source, to me.

<comment><USER7> > _The "secret sauce" is not the protocol._

Verily.

> _People can already do that, without needing any Dropbox magic. Oddly > enough, no one has. I reckon it's because it's really hard to put all those > pieces together in a way that works easily for end users._

These two sentences are contradictory. The magic clearly doesn't lie in the protocol _per se_ or the specific idea but in the implementation. Having a client that emulates Dropbox _seems_ to be the hard bit strange as that may sound.

I have used the web interface, but the client is generally the only point of contact I have if I have a new client that does exactly the same and that client can be switched to a new server my experience will be >99% unchanged and, in my scenario, the effectiveness will be the same.

If I can switch service without noticing any change in interaction (dropbox just sits there after all) and in fact can use the same client with either dropbox itself or a different server then it seems like a bad thing for dropbox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Consider that maybe what's happening here is boring. Recognize that we all have a cognitive bias towards narratives, and especially interesting narratives. The discussion on this story is trying to build a narrative about Dropbox vs. open source developers. The real story is probably not that interesting.

The CTO of a service as technically interesting as Dropbox certainly knows that he can't prevent the disclosure of their proprietary protocols. So impassioned arguments about "security through obscurity" and "the futility of trying to hide protocols" aren't adding much to the discussion. Everybody understands those things. To the extent that Dropbox's protocols factor into this story, they are obviously a fig leaf.

Thus far, the only thing Dropbox is purported to have done here is to politely ask a developer to remove an application; then, presumably believing that the mirror posts were simple nerd-rage, and that the author of the application agreed with Dropbox, Dropbox's CTO filed takedowns at Github. This is not the end of the world. As has been amply demonstrated, Dropbox can't effectively suppress MIT-licensed code, and probably won't try to.

Instead, consider that maybe all Dropbox is trying to do here is establish a track record of "not wanting Dropbox to become Rapidshare". This story then is not a "PR nightmare" for them; it's the expected outcome of their actions. They are trying to communicate both through words and actions that they are going to do what they can to not be Rapidshare.

That Dropbox cannot technically keep determined nerds from trying to coerce them into Rapidshare's use case is also not worth arguing about. I think we all know that's true. But how many of us are going to go out of our way to stick a thumb in Dropbox's eye?

<comment><USER9> Understandable except the assertion of filing a dmca because he thinks that the reposts of code are "geek rage". The DMCA provides that you may be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys fees) if you falsely claim that an item is infringing your copyrights.

Using this powerful law as a scare tactic isn't acceptable. If you wish to claim that the code was infact infringing, then the conversation is different.

This seems to be:

* illegal use of dmca by dropbox * dropbox says dropship using reverse engineered sync protocol broke anti-circumvention techniques or contains their copyright

Either of which are bold statments

<comment><USER8> Are we arguing over whether filing DMCA takedowns on innocuous MIT-licensed code was a mistake? I'm sorry if I communicated that I didn't think it was a mistake. But it's my perception right now that _even Dropbox_ thinks this was a mistake; the guy who wrote this blog post posted more mirrors of the code. Is Dropbox trying to get them taken down?

People make mistakes. In the grand scheme of mistakes, this is an extremely trivial one.

<comment><USER10> I don't think that the unjustified and unilateral removal of code from someone else's access or threatening anyone with legal action is _ever_ an acceptable mistake, let alone "trivial".

The law is not a toy, and it's not supposed to be wielded casually. The DCMA is certainly not treated with the respect it is supposed to afford citizens, and this is just another example of that.

<comment><USER8> We disagree. The mechanism for getting Github to take down code is the DMCA request; it's what you use when someone at Github is hosting code that they didn't own that you'd like removed and you feel you have some grounds to have removed.

It was a mistake for them to use a DMCA request here, because the code was MIT-licensed and thus even the author can no longer ask for it to be taken down. But nobody paid legal fees here, nobody was sued, and the code is back online, so, no, I am not amenable to the idea that Dropbox is being abusive.

Continuing to file DMCA requests would be abusive.

<comment><USER3> We didn't file a takedown to github -- the author voluntarily took the code down

<comment><USER11> Someone complained that their fork on Github had been summarily deleted: [http://razorfast.com/2011/04/25/dropbox-attempts-to-kill- ope...](http://razorfast.com/2011/04/25/dropbox-attempts-to-kill-open-source- project/#comment-145)

<comment><USER12> Have you read the replies? No context, but insults. Plus the original forked repo on github is still available. Someone complaining means nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is Arash from Dropbox. We removed the ability to share the project source code because it enables communications with our servers in a manner that is a violation of our Terms of Service. By our TOS, we reserve the right to terminate the account of users in this case. However, we chose to remove access to the file instead of terminating the account of the user.

We recently built a tool that allows us to ban links across the sytem (as of a few weeks ago) and I wasn't aware that a DMCA takedown email would be auto- generated and sent. This was a tool built for our support team and I'd never personally used it. That said, we feel strongly that the code is a violation of our TOS and don't believe the removal of the content from our site is censorship.

I'd also like to clarify that nobody's accounts were threatened: in every case my phrasing was as follows: 'I hope you can understand our position and can agree to remove the Dropship code'.

<comment><USER14> Would you mind highlighting what part of the ToS this sort of thing violates?

<comment><USER15> yeah, one thing is to _use_ the code on drop box servers... I could understand the ToS violation in that case.... but having the code is a violation?

<comment><USER16> This is my point in a comment in the post, before reading the comments here in HN. Burning books because they have forbidden knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Most interesting comment to that article:

        Thankfully all DMCA requests are filed under penalty of
        perjury. If he claims that he owns the copyright to
        material he doesn't own, he has now opened himself up
        to civil litigation.

Really. Seems so: [http://www.aaronkellylaw.com/Internet-Law-and- Intellectual-P...](http://www.aaronkellylaw.com/Internet-Law-and-Intellectual- Property-Articles/Consequences-of-filing-a-false-DMCA-Takedown-Request.shtml)

<comment><USER18> Not an invalid DMCA request, even assuming one was sent out.

Copyright applies to original _and derivative_ works, though multiple parties may own copyrights to a derivative work.

In America, derivative works include software programs which are inseparably reliant on code or features (including APIs) of another program. It's basically the same argument that WordPress and Drupal make in regard to themes, plugins, etc., falling under the same open source licenses (i.e., copyrights) as the platforms themselves.

In this case, dropship is entirely reliant on unique features of Dropbox. This makes it a derivative work, and would mean that Dropbox has copy rights over dropship. The programmer of dropship _also_ has copyrights over dropship to the extent that the code is an original work, but Dropbox's rights trump his b/c they own the rights to the original underlying work.

<comment><USER19> > _In America, derivative works include software programs which are > inseparably reliant on code or features (including APIs) of another program. > ... In this case, dropship is entirely reliant on unique features of > Dropbox. This makes it a derivative work, and would mean that Dropbox has > copy rights over dropship._

I don't think that's true; if you've got any case authority, I'd certainly like to remedy my ignorance of it.

"Derivative work" is defined in the Copyright Act: [1]

 _"A 'derivative work' is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be_ recast, transformed, or adapted _. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a 'derivative work'."_ [Emphasis added]

I don't recall ever having seen any kind of ruling that sending API-compliant messages to another computer via the Internet, for processing by code already running on the other computer, somehow constitutes creating a derivative work of that code.

And I don't see how, in any normal case, the owner of the code on the other computer could claim that the API message sender had caused an infringing copy of the code to be made. If I were representing the API message sender, I'd likely argue that the owner of the code -- by (putatively) licensing the computer operator to configure the code to listen for and process API messages -- had consented to whatever copying might have occurred.

[1] [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_0...](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000101 ----000-.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can see why Dropbox would be upset about the existence of such a thing, but trying to force people to take it down seems incredibly foolish. The whole issue will garner them negative publicity and people will see it anyways thanks to the Streisand effect.

I had actually missed the original post, but now thanks to their takedown attempts I've downloaded a copy for myself as its very interesting.

<comment><USER21> > trying to force people to take it down seems incredibly foolish

As does the fake DMCA takedown. If Arash Ferdowsi wants people to think he's dishonest, he's going the right way about it.

<comment><USER22> There was no DMCA takedown notice.

<comment><USER23> That's not what Dropbox say:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2482803>

(admittedly, several hours after you posted)

<comment><USER24> There was no takedown notice. Those emails (erroneously) informed the recipient that a third party had sent a takedown request.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25>
      Dan DeFilippi: "In my unhumble opinion censorship is never an option."

Dan DeFilippi would certainly not like it if all his documents and code from his personal hard drive were splashed across the internet.

What he considers "censorship", another person would call "not pushing someone in front of a train". He knows full well that (a) Dropbox is a pretty friendly company with reasonable people solving a real problem and (b) the RIAA and MPAA are NOT friendly and NOT reasonable.

This linkbait title ("kill open source project") is the equivalent of police going after students for bike tickets while avoiding the dangerous parts of town. Dan DeFilippi is going after the good citizen (Dropbox) for the minor philosophical crime of not supporting everything that calls itself "open source", while completely lacking the balls to actually take on the _real_ bad guys here, namely the RIAA and MPAA's _real_ lawsuits.

Indeed, even if he did set up his own torrent server, they'd ignore him for a while. Dropbox has financial resources, so they'd actually be the target. So DeFilippi is getting behind them and trying to push them in a fight that is certainly NOT one they want to engage in, without taking any personal risk himself. Not particularly ethical, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER26> And now they see the Streisand Effect in action.

This was an unfortunate reaction by them that will damage their social capital (a little at least) among one of their core markets. I doubt it'll drive them into bankruptcy, but it's irritating for me to see this sort of behavior.

</comment><comment><USER27> However justified you think piracy is, resisting efforts to turn a product you created for legitimate personal file sharing into a better BitTorrent is a valid business decision.

That's a really incendiary headline. Yes, they tried to kill an open source product, _whose purpose was to facillitate illegal file sharing over DropBox_.

The PR fallout from this among the tech community is probably nowhere near the fallout it would experience if it became the next Kazaa.

<comment><USER28> > Yes, they tried to kill an open source product, whose purpose was to > facillitate illegal file sharing over DropBox.

Where are you getting that information? My understanding it that its purpose was explicitly to facilitate _legal_ file sharing over DropBox - Linux ISOs, for example.

<comment><USER29> Linux ISOs are always the example people come up with when they're defending protocols and methods which are primarily used for illegal purposes.

The original post for DropShip gave, as an example, the trailer for a movie. Not the movie itself, but the trailer. That's the equivalent of saying "I've developed this great way to share files, such as videos, but am not going to explicitly say that it could be used for piracy even though everyone knows that that's the only thing it will be used for."

<comment><USER30> The trailer is from the free video that was released by the Blender foundation ...

<comment><USER29> Yeah, I know. I feel that my point still stands, though it is somewhat weakened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The journalist A.J. Liebling said, "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."

I guess the corollary here is, "If you don't own the server, you don't own the file."

Maybe this is why Richard Stallman calls cloud computing "careless computing."

<comment><USER32> Something Eric Raymond agrees with him about - <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=932>

Eric also had another post _Three Systemic Problems with Open-Source Hosting Sites_ a few months later (October 2009) - <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1282>

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wow, did not expect this from a savvy company like Dropbox. Filing a fake DMCA complaint? I think I'll take my files elsewhere.

<comment><USER34> Well that makes one of us who can live without Dropbox.

Drew would have to kill a baby panda with an elephant tusk for me to even begin thinking about switching.

<comment><USER35> Do you need Dropbox or just something like it? Dropbox doesn't seem to have very strong network effects so it seems like it would be easy to replace with a similar product. If you're willing to give up features that require hashes to be shared across accounts you could even have a secure replacement with client side encryption.

<comment><USER36> Your comment would've been much more helpful had you provided said alternatives.

<comment><USER37> Four seconds on duckduckgo: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_onlin...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_online_backup_services)

<comment><USER36> Thanks for the sarcastic response, but I'm already familiar with that page.

What I'm more interested in is what HN users like and dislike and recommend, as opposed to a bunch of features charted into a table with nothing valuable in terms of reliability, usability and actual security.

Lately, I've been leaning towards Jungle Disk for file syncing & some S3 solution for cloud backups.

<comment><USER35> I've used SpiderOak and I was happy with it. I only used it to synchronize files across my laptops and desktops so I don't have any experience with mobile clients for it. I now use cron, rsync, and ZFS snapshots for versioning of all of my home directories. Both solutions worked well for me and which one, if either, is best depends on your situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> You know, I really don't understand the rage around this case, or more specifically that it's supposedly all coming from people who otherwise love Dropbox.

So let's examine what you're (potentially) doing by forcing this issue and so on:

(1) Calling down a streisand effect on Dropbox. Perhaps you believe that code is meant to be free to such an extent that this is part of your goal, so, sure.

(2) They clearly have no intention of allowing DropShip to become a common use case. If your Streisand effect results in wide adoption by people who just latch onto your censorship angle, they will have to take rushed action to prevent further spread.

(3) This rushed action could be a technical solution (maybe challenge- response, as mentioned) or a banhammer once they have narrowed down the use signature for dropship.

\--

(3a-technical) If it's the technical solution, as it was produced under rapid duress, is buggy. Suddenly, your beloved dropbox starts corrupting your files, or refusing to sync some in edge cases. Oops. Some [paying] users who never even heard about this 'censorship' issue notice this issue and take their business elsewhere, and of course it's less useful to you too as a tool until they fix it.

(3a-technical alternative) It's not a buggy fix because they're supercoders. Still, their team had to put in an ungodly week to make and stress-test the fix; congratulations on ruining their quality of life for a week while still losing dropship.

(3b-banhammer) Well, they figure out how to track people using dropship, and maybe institute a 3 strikes policy (2 emails, 1 ban.) So you stop using dropship after the first email, with a bit of simmering resentment at dropbox; still no dropship. Meanwhile, there are false positives because of course there are; this generates a second, far louder streisand effect, and dropbox again loses some paying customers.

-

In summary: sure, open-source code is meant to be free. But your actions don't exist in a vacuum. At the end of the day, Dropbox is clearly not going to tolerate dropship on its network. Consider whether you would rather keep using dropbox as it is, or shoehorn yourself into basically open war on dropbox unless you can dropship on it.

(Tangentially: it was a neat enough hack, but it still doesn't seem any functionally different than sharing public URLs for the file, with the only differences being that you circumvent the bandwidth limits - again, congrats on fighting the TOS of a service you supposedly love.)

<comment><USER39> Well laid out. The worst crime here is taking up the invaluable time of Dropbox developers who could and should be focused elsewhere.

<comment><USER23> Or from a slightly different perspective, "strongly encouraging the developers at Dropbox to focus _now_ on security/privacy issues that ought to have been dealt with before pushing their existing code live". Doesn't seem to deserve the label "worst crime" when described like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Dropbox has a simple technical recourse to prevent de-duplication from being used for file sharing - issue a random challenge (a slightly more sophisticated version of "ok, what is the 100th word in the file?") before acknowledging a collision as a true duplicate.

Edit: Thinking about this a bit more, the primary expense of this scheme would probably be accessing the file to verify the challenge results. Here's a question: is there a cryptographic scheme which would allow responses to some form of challenge to be verified using a relatively small key (32 or 64 bytes would be nice), but for which it isn't feasible to rebuild the key given a few thousand sample challenges?

<comment><USER41> AIM used to ask for a cryptographic checksum of a randomly chosen byte range of the AIM executable. The Gaim (now Pidgin) developers had to set up a server that would return checksums on demand. This doesn't meet your requirement of the verifier needing a small key.

Given that Dropbox apparently has no qualms about perjuring themselves in order to stop Dropship (or, as discussed in an earlier thread, lying about their security measures in order to defraud their customers), they could probably also take retaliatory action beyond just denying service to the user. Here are some possible retaliatory actions they could take:

* they could publish the user's private files, or simply look through them for the user's credit card numbers.

* they could sell the above data to the highest bidder.

* they could use it to attempt to impersonate the user to their bank in order to empty their bank account.

* they could randomly corrupt the user's data. (This might require a backdoor in the client software.)

* they could wait for an unusual volume of requests from the user (perhaps indicating that the user was trying to restore from backup) before terminating the user's account without warning.

* they could carefully comb through the user's files looking for evidence of any crime (illegal drug use, underage drinking, copyright infringement, possessing seditious literature, importing obscene material, defaming Islam, apostasy, embezzlement, tax evasion, whatever is the biggest no-no in their locale) and anonymously tip off the appropriate authorities.

* they could insert faked evidence of such crimes into the user's files, and then tip off the appropriate authorities.

Perhaps potential Dropbox users ought to be wary. This is a second data point in the company's history of seriously unethical behavior; one hopes they wouldn't engage in any tactics like the above in a dispute with a former user, if their extremely polite requests failed, but my experience is that people who behave unethically in medium-large ways often behave unethically in larger ways as well.

 _Caveat utilitor_.

<comment><USER42> caveat utilitor.

<comment><USER41> Thanks, fixed. My acquaintance with Latin is mostly by way of Spanish, where it _is_ utilisador (well, in normal speech, usuario.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Tip: If something is on the web and has been linked to via a site like HN, don't ask them to remove it no matter how bad it hurts you. It will _never_ result in a good thing for you and will definitely hurt more afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER44> What a PR disaster. There is something really wrong at Dropbox if this kind of dishonest and abusive behavior is coming from a co-founder.

</comment><comment><USER45> The author of the software stated very clearly that he was approached by the CTO of Dropbox, who asked civilly that the repo be taken down.

This seems an intentional exaggeration of the issue to drive traffic.

>wladimir: Arash (the CTO) asked me to, in a really civil way. So I decided to respect his wish and take down the repository.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2478688>

<comment><USER46> This is not about the Github repository of the original developer. Someone managed to download a tar archive of the repository from github (after the repository was removed from github) and uploaded it to his public dropbox folder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I spent a few minutes going over the Dropbox Terms of Service.

The section I believe that they are referring to when they removed the public link is:

General Prohibitions You agree not to do any of the following while using the Site, Content, Files or Services:

Post, publish or transmit any text, graphics, or material that: (i) is false or misleading; (ii) is defamatory; (iii) invades another's privacy; (iv) is obscene, pornographic, or offensive; (v) promotes bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any individual or group; (vi) infringes another's rights, including any intellectual property rights; or (vii) violates, or encourages any conduct that would violate, any applicable law or regulation or would give rise to civil liability;

...

Attempt to decipher, decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer any of the software used to provide the Site, Content, Files or Services;

(Excerpted in whole for clarity. Full Terms at: <https://www.dropbox.com/terms#terms>)

Seemingly not only is posting the code for DropShip a violation, but just by me putting up this file ( <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1498040/2plus2equals5.txt> ) in my public folder, I'm also violating the Terms, as I am publishing text that is false and possibly misleading.

</comment><comment><USER48> The DMCA notice came as a result of an automated support system. The CTO's understanding was the system blocked access to individual files, but the real purpose is blocking access as part of DMCA requests, so it automatically sends the DMCA notices out.

This wasn't somebody trying to strong-arm somebody else. It was an understandable mistake.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with your assessment. It seems that the DMCA notice was a mistake, there was no real takedown issued to Dropbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Just in case here are a few other mirrors:

<https://github.com/apperoid/dropship>

<http://min.us/mvjl61c>

<http://www.mediafire.com/?6gplpdpib6zg5dm>

[https://rapidshare.com/files/459187624/driverdan- dropship-56...](https://rapidshare.com/files/459187624/driverdan- dropship-56b4296.tar.gz)

</comment><comment><USER50> > and reverted the lockdown on my public files

Is this line terrifying to anyone else? Between this and the published security problems, I am steering clear of this service.

</comment><comment><USER51> Here's another mirror, just in case: <http://ompldr.org/vOGY0dg/laanwj- dropship-464e1c4.tar.gz>

</comment><comment><USER52> What a completely unedifying spectacle:

\- Overblown "geek rage" over a non-existent DMCA takedown notice and bizarre "legal" arguments

\- A company mishandling a security flaw by asking a developer to remove code that exposes the problem rather than simply fixing the problem and leaving the code in wild to demonstrate that the flaw doesn't exist anymore

I use DropBox, although I wouldn't say I depend on it. What this episode did make me appreciate is the degree to which DropBox is a closed product - <USER2> may be good commercial reasons for this but as a consumer I'd rather use a service that has at least an open and documented interface (even if the implementations are still proprietary).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've seen a lot of comments that misunderstand the DMCA. Many people seem fixated on this issue. Had I realized this would be the case I wouldn't have emphasized it as much.

It was an automatic email sent by mistake and was retracted by when discovered. It's certainly an issue worth mentioning and discussing but don't fixate on it.

Don't get me wrong, I was completely enraged when I received it but I think Dropbox has done well in addressing it.

</comment><comment><USER53> Am I the only one who finds it refreshing to see a business trying to protect itself with a friendly email rather than legal threats? Kudos to the Dropbox guys for walking that fine line with such finesse.

<comment><USER54> Yes. I think that's the only thing that's deserved to be said here.

People here should just relax, I'm sure there are many companies that deserve your rage but Dropbox is not one of them.

They simply asked me to take down the repository while they could work on blocking Dropship technically on the server side. No threats involved. This should be very good PR and many companies can learn from this.

Sure, trying to prevent people from writing/distributing programs that use a service in unexpected ways is pointless in the long run. If something is technically possible it _will_ be done.

Hence, as some more validation is added, Dropbox will overall be a more secure service. In my opinion it was a feature instead of an exploit :) but hey, it's their service.

All the meanness flunged in this thread at either me or Dropbox is completely uncalled for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Understandable. Dropbox doesn't want to become a piracy website. Using a DMCA takedown request was a stupid way of dealing with the issue, though.

<comment><USER55> Why does everyone make the assumption that torrents and services like Dropship must be used for piracy? Major video game companies use torrents all the time to distribute patches and betas.

A knife can be used to commit murder, but most often it is simply used to cut food. The problem with the way DMCA works is that it bars the development of new technologies because one of many uses _could_ be harmful. The law stifles innovation when used this way.

<comment><USER56> "A knife can be used to commit murder, but most often it is simply used to cut food."

Most of the time, a knife is used for cutting food and it can be used for murder.

Most of the time, torrents are used for piracy and they can be used for legitimate and legal files.

Search for "torrent" on Google. The majority of the results are search engines for pirated material (and in many cases, direct links to the torrents).

See the difference?

<comment><USER57> I would tentatively disagree.

You are indeed correct that most Torrent Sites are mainly piracy distribution hubs. However, torrent sites are not indicative of torrent traffic by _Clients_. *

From what I understand, Blizzard uses torrents to spread patches for World of Warcraft. It is also used, I believe, in Steam as well.

* I would also argue that, although copyright violations, transfers of TV shows are already done via the main distributors' websites. Other than where the source is from, I do not see much a difference.

I would also argue that piracy itself is a response to market failure. When it's easier to get working media (notably cracked programs and music/movies/shows) via a 3rd party distribution than from the source, there is _something_ wrong. Many times, it is because of "We wont sell to that country until $later", or "Our antipiracy software wont run on your computer", or it just is infeasible to find it. But essays have been done on this topic alone.

<comment><USER24> My guess is that Dropbox cares about its image and wants everything piracy related to be kept at arms length. It's not their business model. They want to be a trustworthy service everyone – from nerds to their moms and dads – wants to use.

I would argue that the prevalence of piracy harms, for example, Rapidshare's image as a serious filesharing service. That's not an issue for Rapidshare because piracy is their business, but it isn't the business of Dropbox.

This is consequently not so much about the nature of piracy and much more about the image of Dropbox.

Whether or not Dropship would actually be a good tool for piracy is very much an open question (and one you can certainly argue about), Dropbox seems to think it is.

(I also want to note that even if only one percent of all torrent traffic is piracy related, it's still wrong to compare it to knives. There are so many knives in the world, the fraction of knives which are used to harm people must be infinitesimal. And, to clarify something else: I would be vigorously against any legislative attempts at banning torrents. Legislatively, that's just not the right way to go. But that's the law and Dropbox is no government.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> As much as I'd like to see companies busted for abusing the DMCA to take down things they object to, I would rather it had been one of the traditional Big Media Thugs who was on the wrong end of a lawsuit for fraudulent DMCA claims rather than Dropbox... who I otherwise like.

</comment><comment><USER59> Isn't the so called DMCA take down notice in this example not just a notification for the user that Dropbox received such a take down notice and not a DMCA takedown notice?

<comment><USER60> Shhh. You're spoiling everyone's fun. How can you expect me to get all worked up about a notice about a non-existent notice?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> This behavior is unconscionable when there is such an obviously trivial technical solution to this problem.

Here is my quick and dirty technical solution.

(1) Place a restriction: only allow users who have uploaded a given file to download that file. In essence, keep an "uploaded" flag for each file/user.

(2) Challenge-response to validate local copy of a globally-known file: To continue receiving the benefits of de-dup, don't actually upload an already globally-known file, but perform a challenge-response with the client on the contents of the actual file. This will still leverage most of the benefits of de-dup w.r.t bandwidth savings.

<comment><USER62> I gues they're already at a point in their business where they feel like it's easier for them to try to silence their fanbase-hackers-modders-addon developers instead of just quietly fixing the issue.

At least Twitter had the sense to phase-in client auth for apps before shutting down 3rd party developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> The title of the post +HN post should be changed after the author updated his entry and clarified Dropbox' position.

</comment><comment><USER64> Dropbox can decide what its servers/resources are used for, and allowing 'Dropship' to be used to transfer copyrighted files sounds like a problem they don't want - and neither would I, as a company owner.

Legitimate users are not impacted at all from this recent change; people who were wanting to share copyrighted files to the masses are impacted but they aren't customers Dropbox would want in the first place.

I think its disingenuous to say Dropbox shouldn't have tried to stop the project from being used; if I ran Dropbox and something came up that threatened my company and its customers I would try and stop it being used in an instant.

The people Dropbox contacted voluntarily took down the project, so they must have agreed with Dropbox's logic in some form that yes perhaps the project would better off not be available.

I'm not sure I like the title, "... attempts to kill open source project" as if to say open source is some how an endangered species and Dropbox is some horrible elephant killer? :)

I suppose its disappointing to me when I read some comments that are immediately on the attack when it may not be warranted or fair, or put up arguments like 'torrents can be used to distribute linux ISOs' (not a real quote!) when everyone knows thats not what Dropship would be used for at all.

</comment><comment><USER65> _Second, dealing with piracy is the responsibility of Dropbox. It's not the problem of an innocent hacker who wrote some useful code that could benefit legitimate users and advocates the use of his software for "sharing photos, videos, public datasets, git-like source control, or even as building block for wiki-like distributed databases."_

Could someone give me 1 example of a use case here? The only reason I can think of to share the hash of a file instead of a direct link, is because it's an illegal file, and you don't want to link straight to it. Why else would you go through the effort of hashing all 4mb blocks of the file, and sharing those elsewhere?

Of course, this is a dangerous gray legal area, but I think it's fair to say that the only reason to use this is because of illegal files. Also, they didn't take legal action (which wouldn't be right, as no one has been proven of doing illegal stuff), they just asked nicely, so it seems. Dropbox is right to act on this, as it could potentially ruin their platform.

<comment><USER65> Could someone elaborate on why I was downvoted here?

<comment> St-Clock I don't know because I thought your comment was insightful. But since this is one of the worst threads I have read since I joined HN, in terms of FUD and signal-to-noise ratio, it is not impossible that someone who misunderstood the situation downvoted you.

The fact that comments like "Man you guys are dumb." (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2482925>) wasn't voted down is indicative of the health of this thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Is there anything Dropbox can do to prevent this de-dupe hack?

<comment><USER67> Sure: When the client has created a hashsum of the file and sent it to the server, the server can respond with a challenge: "What's the SHA1 of the bytes between X and Y" (where X and Y are random numbers). This is something both parts can easily compute and the client _must_ have the whole file in order to answer the challenge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> OTOH, wouldn't it be neat if a distributed Tahoe-LAFS supported dropship-like functionality as a feature?

</comment><comment><USER69> If you spend so much time, passion and money building a product like Dropbox you will try to defend it from every kind of threat: today the "piracy" topic is a hot one, sounds like its worse than killing someone, and Dropbox is hit by this "piracy" threat. I fully understand and respect Dropbox founders positions, and the DMCA issue is clearly a bug in my opinion (i wouldn't automatically send those kind of communications upon a system-forced file deletion, however).

</comment><comment><USER70> Anyone saying that Dropship has legal uses is wrong -- you're stealing from Dropbox by using it whether you're sharing your academic, public-domain dataset or your pirated movie.

Dropship sidesteps the TOS of Dropbox by letting users get unlimited sharing bandwidth. Dropbox itself has a share feature which uses the exact technical mechanism by which Dropship works, except it also puts rate limits and caps on sharing.

OT: This is probably the worst comments thread I've ever read on HN. It's like an echo-chamber telephone game. Jeez.

</comment><comment><USER71> Forked so that I can hopefully get one of those cool friendly emails!

</comment><comment><USER72> Strike 2, dropbox

<comment><USER73> What was strike 1?

I can understand them not wanting the files to be public, but as tptacek said this is probably fluffed up quite a bit.

As far as I'm concerned the only issue with how they handled it is the DMCA takedown request, and if the CTO acted as said but that is less of a factor.

If the files were never removed from the persons dropbox and only public urls disabled I'm okay with that. However if the files were removed I would probably count that as all three strikes and jump ship.

<comment><USER41> Strike 1 was when they got caught lying about whether their employees could decrypt your files or not.

<comment><USER73> I suppose so, I always took that statement to be that employees didn't have easy access to your files (such as without decrypting from the servers).

It should have been obvious to anyone else remotely familiar with security that dropbox had/has access to your files from the simple fact that you could reset your password, as well as the web interface.

<comment><USER72> wewyar, like kragen & iamjustlooking pointed out I considered that whole episode as strike1. I agree I am being extremely critical and have to agree in spirit that this is their real goof up. Poor security is not a reason to abandon the ship if they show an intent to fix it ASAP. What I felt a bit let down by this whole take down thing was, their initial approach was to surpress the hackers rather than fix their problem. I see in another post they seem to addressed it the loophole (?), which is the way to go. Embrace ppl tinkering this way but make your platform robust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Just lost all my respect for them.

</comment><comment><USER75> Way to alienate customers, Dropbox. I gonna cancel our teams account and refrain from using dropbox alltogether.

</comment><comment><USER76> Forget about DMCA and other excuses. Dropship-like hacks could have huge negative impact on Dropbox business model. I can't fault them for taking actions to protect their business.

</comment><comment><USER77> It's a shame that Dropbox has resorted to attacking its users and threatening them with loss of data. Looks like it's time to clone Dropbox and offer some respectable service to users.

<comment><USER78> I can't see that they've done any of this. They've been pretty polite about the whole thing. At least that's what the article says. The fact they mention that their terms give them the right to deny users access to their service at any time doesn't mean they're threatening. It's just a reminder.

They're said the DMCA was a mistake and they hold their hands up to that. Aside from that, I can't see how they've done anything wrong. OK so asking the author to remove it from 3rd party sites is a bit cheeky, but that's all they did.. ask. I would have asked too, the author didn't have to. He clearly didn't want any trouble.

Imo Dropbox should have just fixed then, and sat there and laughed when people tried to use Dropship and it not work. It would have saved 'Dropbox attempts to kill open source project' and may have even caused for 'Dropbox fixes file hashing issue x days after open source project built to exploit it'. That way, both win. But that's just my 2 cents</comment></comment>


CSShake: Some CSS Classes to shake your DOM - <AUTHOR> http://elrumordelaluz.github.io/csshake/ <comment><USER2> That's the most beautifully presented, worst idea I've ever seen.

<comment><USER3> Worse than the idea, the page removes the scroll bar, and activates some custom-made, super-slow smooth-scroll. (Which is the first thing I deactivate on a fresh Firefox install. I've never understood the appeal of smooth scroll on a desktop, where it makes scrolling with the mouse wheel a huge PITA...)

Edit: I just realized, it's a vertical carrousel, in its full glory with almost invisible next and prev buttons, and its 8x8 pixel navigation buttons. This summarizes pretty much everything that's wrong with modern web design.

<comment><USER4> > Which is the first thing I deactivate on a fresh Firefox install. I've never > understood the appeal of smooth scroll on a desktop, where it makes > scrolling with the mouse wheel a huge PITA

No it does not. It's MUCH better experience. Maybe firefox has a crappy implementation of it? I've been using smooth scroll for as long as I can remember (except on linux where it was slow) and it is really that much better. Jumping randomly and trying to figure out where you were? Better than naturally move the view? Really?

That being said, I agree with you that this site is broken. I can't use pg- up/down or home/end, yet the site acts as if it were a regular vertical page.

<comment><USER5> It's probably a subjective thing, like with font rendering using antialising/subpixel antialiasing. I personally can't stand "smooth" scrolling either, I'd describe it more as sluggish and blurry instead of snappy and sharp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Everyone seems to agree this is bad -- and in the wrong hands, it definitely could be.

However, I can think of some great uses for it:

\- Very similar to iPhone's "delete", which most people are familiar with. It means "Hey, I can be dragged"

\- Could be good for refusing to do an action. Apple shakes the login box when you use the wrong password.

\- A tiny notification icon could shake every few seconds to get someone's attention.

\- Some logos (a car?) could look cool shaking for a second or two (either right away, or on hover).

\- In tutorials, to show a button/element that the tutorial is talking about

<comment><USER7> I agree, some of these effects are appropriator for negative ore attention seeking reactions.

A checkbox must be checked before submitting the form? Shake the ckeckbox when the user clicks submit.

Log-in failed? shake the log-in form.

<comment><USER8> In fact Wordpress shake the form on /wp-admin/ if the login failed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. Someone creates something and open sources it as it might be useful for others as well.

And instead of keeping our mouths shut, or better yet, say thanks, we go on about this being a bad idea. Talk of ungrateful.

Open source projects don't need a higher, mightier directive. He/she has put his work out there. Show some respect.

<comment><USER10> My reading of the comments here are that most people are saying "Looks great, but why?"

We can't just venerate something because it's been "given to the people" \- we need to give OS just as much critical treatment as closed source. Otherwise, the community becomes a sycophantic collection of yes men, and those outside of it can't treat the products in the movement seriously in comparison to commercial offerings.

Criticism in its constructive form is vital for improvement, regardless of the intentions of someone putting something out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> DOM element intensifies!

Are there any use cases where this might be practical? iOS has the app icons quaking in fear when you tap-hold on them, although the effect is somewhat different...

<comment><USER12> [http://cssdesk.com/29aJb](http://cssdesk.com/29aJb)

(It appears to work only in Firefox.)

<comment><USER4> Works in Opera as well (the normal one, not the webkit crap).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Come on people. This provides a way to provide an animation effect. There are many cases where animation can be used to provide feedback to help reinforce the result of an action. This could be used to provide such feedback .. there is far too much negativity on this page.

<comment><USER14> Its because we're seeing them all at once, and all in their shaking state. Normally these would be used sparsely and would only be shaking on certain actions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like it, even though I may be in the minority. I think this could be great for wizards/tutorials where you want to let the user explore but give them a little hint after some time. I really like UIs that explain themselves.

Of course, there is potential for abuse. But the same could be said for most of jQuery's animations or any other such library.

</comment><comment><USER16> To the author, great job.

It shows attention to detail and finesse, you took one simple idea and went above and beyond making multiple implementations for different use cases, presented in the most exquisite and pleasant way.

Code and beauty. Great skills to have.

</comment><comment><USER17> I could see this being put to good use in interface tutorials, to subtly hint at what new users should be interacting with to progress, without resorting to lightboxes, tooltips and buttons.

</comment><comment><USER18> Did anyone feel sick after looking at this? I get motion sickness quite easily and this affected me a lot.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is great for when you pop up a pay wall. You can shake all the content behind the pay wall message to enhance the focus.

When someone makes a mistake, I like to pick it up and shake it in their face. This has a soothing effect.

</comment><comment><USER5> When the first thought that came into my head was "DO NOT WANT!", I can guarantee some advertiser somewhere is going to find a way to make this even more irritating than it currently is.

And everyone wonders why I'm still using as my main browser one that doesn't support CSS animations... and I do have blink and marquee filtered out.

</comment><comment><USER20> The magic ball says:

\- It will be abused by ads, and annoying "CLICK HERE AND SUBSCRIBE TO MY SHITTY BLOG!" messages.

\- If it ever gains popularity, all major pop-up/ad-block/no-script applications will add a couple lines to remove it.

</comment><comment><USER21> This genuinely gave me anxiety

</comment><comment><USER22> Lets captchalogue some fruit. [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002709](http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002709)

</comment><comment><USER23> Just a linguistic tip:

«mucho more information» sounds really bad. Information in Spanish is Información, which has female gender. Thus, you should better write «mucha more information».

<comment><USER24> > Just a linguistic tip: «mucho more information» sounds really bad. > Information in Spanish is Información, which has female genre.

Just a linguistic tip: you mean gender, not genre. :)

<comment><USER23> Thanks, English is not my native language, as you may have noticed :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The best thing ever!!!. Could be useful to make a alarm app.

</comment><comment><USER26> For some reason I can't stop laughing at this...

</comment><comment><USER27> great solution, now all I need is the problem.

</comment><comment><USER28> Alas, all that fanciness presented in a website that is completely unusable below around 1024x768.

<comment><USER29> It's frustrating to use on mobile. Hard to move through each section. It kept jumping back to the top for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why I couldn't stop laughing..

</comment><comment><USER31> This is great. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER32> Great, we can now have Miley Cyrus twerking in pure CSS. See: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcg1ot1iWs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcg1ot1iWs)

</comment><comment><USER33> Will this be the new <marquee>?

</comment><comment><USER34> you never know when you will need this. i can see people trying to remember that silly css library's name.

</comment><comment><USER35> Does not work quite right on iPad Safari.

</comment><comment><USER36> I suggest the Harlem Shake be added.

</comment><comment><USER37> I fear for the future

</comment><comment><USER38> BLINK 2014

</comment><comment><USER39> just because it's possible, doesn't mean it's a good idea!</comment>


Why C Function Macros Are Bad - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/patrickbucher/50e5b8e7b0e95f981bc4f700109342c3 <comment><USER2> Bad macros are bad. In case the arguments appear twice, you must create an intermediate variable to hold the result. This is also important to ensure that all the arguments are evaluated in the correct order.

With a Google Search I found this example that is more clear and has working code (using a GNU C extension): [https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/cpp/Duplication-of-Side- Effec...](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/cpp/Duplication-of-Side-Effects.html)</comment>


Ask HN: Offline video call via HDMI cables - <AUTHOR> Our conditions force us to make video call between 2 rooms almost every day for learning and teaching.
We don't have a good Internet connection here.
However, we do have 2 long HDMI cables, 2 HDMI TV, 2 laptops.
So we are trying a very simple approach that is just connecting them like the following illustration.
Room A Computer ]-- HDMI Cable --> Room B TV
Room A TV <-- HDMI Cable --[ Room B computer
Then on the 2 laptops, we just use a simple WebRTC like this one:
https://webrtc.github.io/samples/src/content/devices/input-output/
to stream the video & voice call to each other.
The WebRTC does have echo problems with computer built in microphone.
So my question is:
Does any free/open source offline software that can handle this streaming task better then WebRTC, or do you have any suggestions?
(PS: We have Ubuntu OS computers. Just in case, we can also borrow Mac computers).
Thanks HN. <comment><USER2> Since you already have an HDMI connection, just extend the display of Room A computer, use OBS or whichever software to fill the screen with the webcam's image, and then monitor your microphone on the HDMI audio output (in Windows this is the "listen to" option), causing the microphone to be output by the TV.

</comment><comment><USER3> I fail to see why you need a computer for this; you can just connect a camera and microphone directly to the TV set (or VCR, if you want to record it, I suppose) in the other room, and then just do that both ways.

<comment><AUTHOR> Dear ZZo38computer, Yes, this is a very good solution. We thought about this too. However, we could not do here because we do not have all such things. Thanks ZZo38computer

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> @Thanks Derane, but the device you suggested is only voice call. Not video call. And we wish to make use of our current devices.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks all,

So for this time being, I may just use a simple WebRTC with an external microphone.

</comment><comment><USER4> by the way

and with which program you wanted to make the calls skype zoom and so on will not work offline

</comment><comment><USER4> or a 30m ethernet cabel from PC1/room1 to floor to PC2/room2

keep it simpel

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Derane, Most of the tutorials I found only show how to share data between 2 computers via Ethernet cable. Like this one:

[https://www.wikihow.com/Connect-Two-Computers-Together- with-...](https://www.wikihow.com/Connect-Two-Computers-Together-with-an- Ethernet-Cable)

For real time video call (Offline), it is not easy. I tried Linphone etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> take a wifi router

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://images.app.goo.gl/NcQ24pywJN5yH9F56](https://images.app.goo.gl/NcQ24pywJN5yH9F56)</comment>


I have well over 10 customers. I want to take my startup to the next level - <AUTHOR> http://www.greengar.com/2010/08/10-customers/

<comment><USER4> _Even though most of them have only used my free apps, I technically have millions of customers_

No, you don't. Really.

You have millions of users. "Customers" are the people who have paid for your apps.

Keep this distinction in mind.

<comment><USER5> I'm not so sure the line is that hard. A customer is someone that you are making money of, or maybe even someone that you intend to make money of.

Not someone that pays for your apps, and where would that leave services, goods and other things that people pay for?

If you're in a long term relationship with a large number of people and they don't pay you but you are making money off them in a different (for instance indirect) way they are as critical to your bottom line as paying people would be.

Free does not always mean you have no customers, free can mean you have customers but the price is $0.

So, technically the guy has a sales funnel with 1 million people in it that need to be converted to _paying_ customers.

If that distinction did not exist we'd never have to use the word 'paying' attached to customers in that context.

<comment><USER6> I can sort of understand why you would say that in a fremium situation every person who signed up is a customer, but if you make money via ads, your customer is whomever pay you for the ad space - not your users.

<comment><USER5> As soon as you stop treating your users as though they are your customers though you'll find out that the users view is a different one. Calling them (or their data) a 'product' as I've seen some people do is really not the proper way to treat people.

If people pay you for ad space then they're your customers _too_ , and will need to be treated as such. But that does not change the other side much. And plenty of companies have a freemium product _and_ ads at the same time.

<comment><USER4> I don't think there's anything wrong with viewing the non-paying, ad-consuming users of your product as "users" or "clients"-- it doesn't mean you need to treat them poorly. But, you should remember who your customers are, and what your business model is.

The original poster seemed to think he had "millions of customers". He didn't, and doesn't, and that kind of fuzzy thinking isn't going to bring him any closer to the day when he actually _does_ have millions of customers.

<comment><USER5> Here's my view of the pipeline or the funnel, whichever term you prefer, for a membership / freemium site:

      - the world
      - <USER2>
      - recurring visitors
      - <USER3>
      - paying members

The transition from being a transient to being a customer to me happens somewhere between the visitors and the recurring visitors stage, the point where people start to invest in the site, maybe store some content there or make some changes to the state.

All the people from 'visitors' (inclusive) down I'd label as users, and the visitors themselves I'd label prospects.

Fuzzy thinking isn't going to bring him closer, but rigidly defining terms in a way that is not suited to the current model (freemium services), but for instance more suited to selling cars or shoes is also not going to help.

The lines are there, but the transition points are not quite as hard as they are in retail.

Especially not in a subscription environment, users will deserve and demand to be treated as customers long before they fork over their cash or it isn't going to happen.

<comment><USER4> _All the people from 'visitors' (inclusive) down I'd label as users, and the visitors themselves I'd label prospects._

I'd agree. And I'd label the "paying members" as "customers".

 _users will deserve and demand to be treated as customers long before they fork over their cash or it isn't going to happen_

That's a key point. If you have to treat subscribers as if they were customers when they are not paying (i.e., put significant resources into support, etc.), your CAC is going to be high. That's not necessarily a problem in and of itself, but it's worth paying attention to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I believe the concept of 10 customers, as used (invented?) by Jason Cohen, refers to willingly-paying users for some type of premium/freemium service.

That said, you seem awesomely successful, and I love the idea of taking your venture to the 'next level' by recruiting and training others to join you.

</comment><comment><USER8> This post makes me wonder what question the author is posing. Yes, you want to take your startup to the next level. Do you want help? Do you just want to tell us? Do you want recommendations?

Sounds like some really successful apps. Add some ads or start charging, and you are set.

<comment><AUTHOR> Help and recommendations are appreciated :)

My apps already contain some ads, and I have some paid apps as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What exactly do you mean when you say "I make what customers want, not what they say they want."

If what they say they want isn't actually what they want,, then how do you know what they want?

<comment><AUTHOR> I learn what they want by observing them and considering their desires. I look at what they do and how they behave. Add in some intuition and luck, and that's pretty close to what I've done so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Since it looks like that all your apps are free, do you use iAds somewhere? If you plan to build new paid apps, what about promoting them to your existing user base?

<comment><USER11> There is at least one premium app there, brain tuner premium. That has 87,000 'new customers' (whatever it means by new?) so around $87,000 revenue.

<comment><USER10> That's _definitely_ not bad considering that from what i read is not so easy anymore to sell apps in the store. But considering that the app is on the store since '09 it isn't one of those big instant AppStore hits, so i guess that the OP is aiming at seriously start building an app that has some potential to become one of those. Additional info would be appreciated.</comment></comment></comment>


I'm running Windows 10 S as my main OS, and I kind of like it - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2017/07/14/im-running-windows-10-s-main-os-kind-like/ <comment><USER2> > _I'm not bothered by the Windows Store limitation very much, but not being > able to set another browser by default is ridiculous. If Chrome or a > newcomer ever arrives in the Windows Store, I should be free to set those as > my default._

It's worse than that. Windows 10 S is like iOS in that it forbids any other browser or JavaScript engine on the platform. So you'll never be able to run true Firefox or Chrome or any other alternative browser engine on Windows 10 S.

For my purposes this makes Windows 10 S unusable. I don't want to use EdgeHTML, I want to use real Firefox:

[https://mspoweruser.com/google-chrome-may-not-able-come- wind...](https://mspoweruser.com/google-chrome-may-not-able-come- windows-10-s-even-google-wanted/)</comment>


Zip gun - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm <comment><USER2> Probably the most effective of these if you have 12ga ammo available is a "bang stick". It's basically a 12ga shell in a tube, with a spring that will force it into a firing pin when it's pressed against something and trips a small lever holding back the spring. They're used in shark hunting and for self-defense by divers against sharks.

Here's a commercial one, which has a safety pin that must be removed before it will fire: [http://www.billsbangsticks.com/12-Gauge- Powerhead_p_17.html](http://www.billsbangsticks.com/12-Gauge- Powerhead_p_17.html)

In an insurgency situation, devices like this are best used to obtain something better. Only being usable for a single shot isn't necessarily a huge disadvantage, especially if there are multiple people using them at the same time. Pressed against heavy clothing, they also make surprising little noise. The "Liberator" .45 pistol was made by the US with the intention of airdropping the, to the French Resistance in WW2. In reality, almost all of them ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic. The Sten 9mm SMG didn't cost much more to make and was much more effective.

<comment><USER3> I remember one employed by the protagonist in one of Clancey's books, Without Remorse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> As a side note - it's more difficult in the US to make a legal zip gun than an illegal one. Smoothbores must have a 16" barrel or longer (18" for shotguns), and an overall length of 26".

If you're making a semi-auto, it must be a closed bolt design, and the sear must be designed to not reset until the trigger travels forward. It's much easier to make an open-bolt SMG than a semi-auto pistol.

<comment><USER4> Can't remember the name of it but apparently there's a short-barrel shotgun on the market that's legal simply because they asked the ATF if their interpretation of the law meant it wasn't technically a short-barrel shotgun but merely a firearm and they were like "yep". Think the thing has a 14" barrel.

Also out here in the Wild, Wild West (aka Arizona) one can make pretty much any firearm they wish as long as it isn't full-auto or has (IIRC) a barrel over a 1/2" thanks to the last governor.

Anyhoo, the point is it varies on the gun laws depending on where you live.

<comment><USER2> I bet you're thinking of the Mossberg Shockwave. It's considered a "firearm" under the National Firearms Act of 1934. There's also the Franklin Armory "Reformation", that exploits a similar legal loophole by being smoothbore, and therefore has a barrel under the legal limit for rifles. It's silly :)

> Also out here in the Wild, Wild West (aka Arizona) one can make pretty much > any firearm they wish as long as it isn't full-auto or has (IIRC) a barrel > over a 1/2" thanks to the last governor.

Federal laws still apply, and the NFA in particular is what makes DIY firearms complicated. I'm in Arkansas, and it's about the same here as Arizona.

<comment><USER5> _exploits a similar legal loophole by being smoothbore, and therefore has a barrel under the legal limit for rifles. It 's silly_

Funny. I live in FL where a carry permit is relatively easy to obtain. (Interesting that many local MDs in SW FL have one) But the Mossberg Shockwave loophole is hilarious. Take for example New Jersey's supposedly highly restrictive gun laws. An _assault weapon_ includes _A semi-automatic shotgun with either a magazine capacity exceeding six rounds, a folding stock or a pistol grip_ in their NJ Administrative Code Title 13. Yet a _Mossberg 590 Shockwave 12ga 14 inch 6-shot_ with a handle grip resembling an old flintlock pistol is legal.

<comment><USER2> The original intention of the NFA, back in 1934, was to restrict handguns. The "short-barreled rifle" and "short-barreled shotgun" provisions were designed to limit how well a long arm could be concealed.

The handgun portion didn't survive, but the minimal length requirements did.

Also, interestingly, it wasn't a ban but a tax. Congress at the time believed they didn't have the Constitutional authority to ban any class of firearms, so they instituted a prohibitive tax ($200) on short-barreled rifles and shotguns, "destructive devices", and automatics. There's a $5 tax on "any other weapons", which these days mostly applies to guns that don't look like guns.

Bear in mind that $200 in 1934 is about $3,700 today. At the time, you could mail order a .45 Thompson submachine gun for about $200, so the law effectively doubled the price. They were advertised as self-defense weapons for property owners: [https://gastatic.com/digest/wp- content/uploads/2016/04/tumbl...](https://gastatic.com/digest/wp- content/uploads/2016/04/tumblr_n0ycbpNDiA1s57vgxo3_1280.jpg)

Automatics weren't banned until 1986, and even then, they weren't technically banned - they just require that $200 tax, and it's not possible to pay the tax for one made after May of 1986.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not to be confused with a zip tie gun, a device indispensable to anyone doing major cable routing work. It tightens the zip tie the perfect amount and then cuts off the excess tail.

[https://www.ebay.com/bhp/zip-tie-gun](https://www.ebay.com/bhp/zip-tie-gun)

</comment><comment><USER7> The whole 3d printed gun scare boggled my mind. Making a single fire weapon with some pipe is so easy nearly anyone could do it. Getting the ammunition would be the hardest part were I live. Using a 3d printer take a lot more skill and effort.

<comment><USER8> I think a lot of the scare comes from assuming you can easily 3D-print something functionally identical to a handgun you'd buy at a store. There's also the legitimate concern that 3D printing will one day be much easier.

<comment><USER9> Of course, the plastic guns are practically useless:

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/oh_no_its_the_plast...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/oh_no_its_the_plastic_3d_gun/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A bit unrelated but it made me surprisingly happy to see that my very small hometown Vänersborg was mentioned in the article. Now I feel like going to our local museum to get some more information about the mentioned gun.

</comment><comment><USER11> Some of these are really impressive, but a lot look like overly involved ways to lose a hand.

<comment> village-idiot The pressures produced by even a .22lr are a bit intense. I wouldn't fire any of these

<comment><USER2> There are ways to reinforce the chamber and barrel to make them much safer, and low powered .22 rounds that make testing a lot easier. I've built a few smoothbore .22 rifles for fun, and have had no issues with them. They're accurate enough for small game out to 25 feet or so.

<comment> village-idiot Oh yeah, it's possible. At certain levels of skill you basically are just gunsmithing a new firearm.

That being said, I'd bet that most Zipguns are made by the desperate who lack proper materials and relevant experience.

<comment><USER2> There are "traditional" designs that have been handed down through the generations in both poorer areas of the US and in cities like NYC where legal guns have been hard to obtain for a long time.

Someday I plan to collect some of them and publish a book :)

<comment> village-idiot I'd be interested in seeing that. Maybe make a table top book full of beautiful photographs?

<comment><USER11> I'd love to see that too, and it would definitely be unique!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The weapon of choice for the GLA

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks It would be nice to rename this to "Improvised Firearms" (the article's actual title), as the current title contains an ethnic slur

<comment><USER2> The term "zip gun" predates the slur. "Zip" means "fast". As in, "I need a gun now, and can't wait until I can buy one".

<comment><USER13> I believe it may also be related to the sound the bullets make too. Usually you'd be using lower powered ammo and get less of a bang.

See noun form of zip, first definition [https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/zip#English](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/zip#English)

<comment><USER14> That's interesting! I assumed the name was because they tend to be held together with zip-ties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Who would win - zip gun or zip bomb?</comment>


Ask HN: I'm confused, bigger or smaller resumes? - <AUTHOR>

I was browsing HN and I found one of the biggest complaints I see is the tremendous amount of time and effort it takes to interview prospective job candidates.  There's only so much interview time and a bad hire can destroy a team.
One obvious solution to this is send more information about what kind of person I am beforehand.  Basically, a bigger resume package.  A package which shows off what kind of person I am.
Then another thread appeared where a lot of people were complaining about these long resumes candidates were sending them.  They mentioned how much time it took to read them.
I'm confused, what are we suppose to do as candidates to give the hiring company a better idea of what we are so we don't waste time during the interviewing process?  What are we suppose to send? <comment><USER3> Go with a Short one. A Resume is a way of giving a basic idea about who you are and where possibly could you fit within their company/environment. Longer Resumes are hard to read. Employers do not want to sit through pages of a Resume that you might think is worth reading. They want "instant gratification" which means "is this candidate good enough to call for an interview" and nothing more than that. A long Resume would be great if it could decide whether you should be hired or not but that is not the case (barring some exceptions). So keep it short and simple. The bigger (read bloated) your Resume is, the more chance of the employer passing on it because they cannot find the bottomline.

"There's only so much interview time and a bad hire can destroy a team."

You can write anything on a Resume to sell yourself initially. A bad hire is not due to resume filtering capability but it is due to bad interviewing in person and depends on the judgement of the interviewer(s) at the time.

</comment><comment><USER4> As you gain more experience, your prior experience becomes outdated, and doesn't show an accurate picture of your up to date skills. You want to be efficient in showing the employer the most relevant details of your experience, so they can make their decision faster. The stuff you did 10 years ago may just be a distraction, and may make you look worse than you are today. A page or two should be sufficient in painting a convincing picture of your expertise, even if it isn't comprehensive.

After you pass the resume screening, you may want to follow up with a full CV. The difference between a CV and a resume, at least in the US, is that the CV is the unabridged version of your resume, containing all your experience. The resume should be a condensed version of it showing just the most impressive and enticing parts.

</comment><comment><USER5> For starters, do not use online threads where people are complaining about annoyances as a guide to finding the best practices for a given area. :)

But when it comes to resumes (in America), 1-2 pages is the conventional wisdom, short and sweet as opposed to exhaustive. Highlight your big-win accomplishments and ability to get stuff done. Don't worry about tiny details that you're only putting there for completeness. Benefits, not features!

Treat it like a landing page: the goal of each header/paragraph is to keep the reviewer reading, and ultimately, to want to contact you because you are awesome.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's the bug, equating size with effectiveness: "a bigger resume package. A package which shows off what kind of person I am."

You have, by the way, deftly identified the fix: shorter yet better. Twas Pascal who said, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."

Take the time. Talk about your accomplishments clearly eschewing all buzzspeak. Make clear what _you_ did. Too often I find myself reading resumes desperately panning for actual contributions.

hth

</comment><comment><USER7> I went through the same thing recently. I have mine boiled down to a single page. When talking to a recruiter they said I should make it longer to match more keywords that HR people are looking for. My response was that I don't want to work for any company with that as a hiring practice. Tailor your resume to whatever company you are looking to work for.

When on the other side of the table I have always preferred a single page. The resume is just an indicator of if you get an interview or not.

</comment><comment><USER8> For a start-up or small company, I agree with the previous comment - <USER2> resume with links is the way to go. But for larger companies, especially those that use scanners for initial screening, it may be better - or at least okay - to go longer. The scanners will probably ignore the links. Or. . .I'm aware of a couple of companies that include certain links in their keyword counting/weighting algorithm, but I'm not aware of the extent.

</comment><comment><USER9> The goal should be to customize as per the company or person you are sending it it. Its after all a way of learning more about you, in the appropriate context.

I think a short resume that goes exactly in what experience they are looking for would be best. Saves time, and at least shows your focus.

</comment><comment><USER10> \- Personally, I think resumes should be shorter but links (whether Apps/GitHub-Code/Websites) should be longer. I tend to focus more on people's work than what they tend to brag about themselves.</comment>


Learn You The Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://jamescarl.us/blog/learn-you-the-node-js/

<comment><USER2> A far cleaner solution:

        console.log(process.argv.slice(2).reduce(function(a, x) {
          return a + parseFloat(x)
        }, 0));

<comment><USER3> Why is that cleaner? A for-loop is one of the basic programming constructs.

<comment><USER2> A for-loop might be a basic programming construct, but it shouldn't be. Mutation and a control flow construct makes for a much worse outlook to the problem than does recursive application of a function.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Least bytes?

      var a=process.argv,i=a.length,x=0;while(i>2)x-=-a[--i];console.log(x)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a neat approach! Thanks</comment></comment>


Acme: A User Interface for Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://cm.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/acme.html

<comment><USER2> This is the default plan9 editor. It's interesting but I hated the massive reliance on the mouse to do everything. The article even calls emacs "keyboard-intensive" like that's a bad thing

<comment><AUTHOR> Same here. I'm too much of a keyboard guy (and Dvorak, at that), so I've just been admiring it from a distance, but it has some great ideas.

Sam (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_%28text_editor%29>) is also interesting, the vi to Acme's emacs, so to speak. Same with the various window managers styled after rio & 8 1/2, the filesystem, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There is a clone for X-windows called "Wily" (<http://www.cse.yorku.ca/~oz/wily/>). I'm not sure if it is still actively developed -- the website hasn't changed much since the 90's. I used it for a while as my editor in the mid-90's. I liked the tiling window placement and the extensibility model: instead of building new functionality in an extension language (e.g. Emacs Lisp), you build it in external programs which interact via an RPC protocol. The biggest drawback is that you really need a 3-button mouse to effectively use Wily/Acme. Mouse-chords are to Acme/Wily as the control key is to Emacs.

</comment><comment><USER4> This UI seems to be solving problems I don't have, and in a way I don't want.

When I'm coding, I don't want mail. Mail -- unless I'm waiting for a specific mail message -- is a distraction. I don't want to see the source code control system. That's yet another a distraction. I just want my code.

I want to focus on the code.

That's a source code editor and a (good) debugger and an application dump analyzer that work in unison. I want to focus on the creation of the code, or on the run-time behavior of the program itself, or on the test suite. Not the tools.

If my tools can't help my focus, they're not helping me.

Now if the development suite can (upon request) analyze my source code and suggest a better way to code something or can find and point to questionable code, or can flag coding errors or to vulnerabilities, then I'm interested.

</comment><comment><USER5> looks great... gettin my hands on it for sure...</comment>


Things You Could Buy for $4B Instead of LinkedIn  - <AUTHOR> http://seekingalpha.com/article/270818-5-things-you-could-buy-for-4b-instead-of-linked-in

<comment><USER2> I remember reading about a teenager who was persecuted (I don't say "prosecuted," because I think he settled for a fraction of his profits) for buying stocks and making bullish comments about them on the Internet. He fully disclosed that he bought the stock and liked it.

Now I read this bearish comment and the author discloses he intends to buy puts. Given that the stock market is run on sentiment, is there a clear line drawn between legal and illegal manipulation? Or does it come down to whether you are in the club or out of the club?

<comment><USER3> A friend of mine lost nearly everything selling Yahoo! short in the bubble. He kept saying, this is riduculous, it can't go on. Eventually he was proven right but the window was longer than he imagined. By the time Google went public he got a second mortgage on his house and bought as much stock as he could at the IPO and held on to it. (I do thing he sold it in the high 600's).

On the apocryphal teenager story it would be helpful to have a citation since there were many stories of pump-n-dump artists in the dot com days, however most of them involved people doing actually sketchy, probably illegal things (like sending email spam to millions).

<comment><USER2> Jonathen Lebed:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/25/magazine/jonathan- lebed-s-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/25/magazine/jonathan-lebed-s- extracurricular-activities.html) [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004R96TSM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004R96TSM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?tag=raganwald001-20) [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/programmes/...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/programmes/2001/future/tv_series_1.stm) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Lebed>

<comment><USER3> Up top you wrote: "He fully disclosed that he bought the stock and liked it."

But the articles say: "... the kid had bought stock and then, ''using multiple fictitious names,'' posted hundreds of messages on Yahoo Finance message boards recommending that stock to others. "

That latter is "classic" pump-and-dump. Create a fake pattern of interest in a stock you bought and then sell into that interest that you created. He should have been prosecuted since it's illegal.

I'm guessing his current 'newsletter' has the disclaimer it does (at least according to Wikipedia) because now he knows if he doesn't include it he'll go to jail.

<comment><USER2> That isn't the whole story according to the book. In the book, he explains that he tried posting hundreds of messages under his own name, but there was some mysterious limit on multiple posts, so he created the extra accounts. Michael Lewis wrote that he didn't try to make them look like separate people, just separate accounts. Furthermore, he posted the exact same message, either through lack of guile or lack of intent to deceive.

In his emails he said he liked the stock and owned it. How is this deceit? He liked it and owned it. He said the price would go to such-and-such. It did. If I post here on HN as raganwald and again as regbraithwaite, is it deceit? How? There is no strong injunction against multiple accounts on HN.

Given that the internet does allow you to create multiple email addresses and that Yahoo doesn't actually insist on one account per real person (unlike, say Facebook), Michael wrote that it is far from clear that he was breaking the law, which is why the SEC settled: They were desperately afraid of losing the case and having the emperor revealed to have no clothes:

There really isn't anything different between Jonathan Lebed and a brokerage leading an issue, except membership in a cozy little club. It's total clutching at straws to say he pumped and dumped but companied are allowed to hire PR firms to talk up their prospects.

Sure, the SEC will always try to find some trivial technical difference to justify closing the Jonathans down, it's just like a casino kicking a card counter out for "cheating."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a classical school of valuation that has difficulty dealing with Internet companies. Namely, a number of VCs, etc. have recognized that having a large number of passionate (or possibly addicted) users is the ticket to desirability and also valuation. It is better, in this sense, to have an indispensable product that is free or near free, than to have 5% of the population paying you $1K per year.

Does this make any sense? Well, given that the stock market largely runs on hype, it makes lots of sense if you are trying to make money (the stated aims of VCs). Large investment banks that underwrite IPOs know that money flows where there is hype and they stand to make a good deal more where there is hype. Not only that, hype is ultimately close to (although certainly not the same as) making a sale.

There is an additional wrinkle, social media, which no one knows what to do with, yet is so the subject of so much hype it is sure to attract lots of money. This system clearly is not broken when now big players like Facebook are able to attract money, expand, then once they've captured virtually the entire market and gotten them "addicted," they can capture advertising revenue and a percentage on Farmville-esque games. So social is weird, but the strange system in place, even if it doesn't make sense to the casual observer, seems to be working in some strange way. And it really is different. A good product can capture most of the viable US market in a year or two, which is virtually impossible in other arenas, but this is made possible by rapid growth, which is also made possible by the influx of capital.

Ironically, other examples like Lady Gaga are even more driven by the hype machine and can fade even more quite quickly, meaning that if you were investing in her you would be depending almost entirely on hype, while the hype for Linked-In is based on an indispensable product.

<comment><USER5> Most of what you wrote made some sense until I read the bit about linked-in being indispensable ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My own, and favorite, idea: you could buy one thousand early-stage startups valued $4M each.

<comment><USER7> Or give a hundred thousand startups 40K seed funding.

<comment><USER8> Or $1000 for every person sitting in a coffee shop in SF.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A large part of this is "The Greater Fool" syndrome. Doesn't matter what you pay for the shares, you can always find a greater fool to sell them to!

Oh and 4B$ will buy about 1/10 to 1/20 of Facebook

</comment><comment><USER10> "I bet DNB will be around in for another 50 years. Do you think LNKD will be?"

I'd like to go back a few years and ask the author whether Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns will be around in 50 years.

</comment><comment><USER11> while I agree with the guy, I was pretty amused by the edit to the opening line:

"Before you go and buy LinkedIn (LNKD) shares at the IPO price of $45 - a $4 billion valuation (Ed: Shares are now trading hands at $83)"

Oh man. ouch.

<comment><USER12> I want a version of this article based on the share price as I write this: not $45, but $108.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> While suggestions 3-5 are relatively facetious, the first suggestion, for NRGY, is kind of interesting. While a 7.9% dividend is not the highest out there, it's nothing to sneeze at.

</comment><comment><USER14> No mention of spaceships? Forget funding a bunch of small internet startups. Build a moon base!

Japan's got plans to do it for half of that $4 billion: <http://www.google.ca/search?q=robotic+moon+base+japan>

</comment><comment><USER15> "commercial airliner dogfights.". Sounds like my kind of thing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmmm...half of Skype.

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks like buying the puts was a bad idea

<comment><USER18> a. you can't yet short linkedin. b. how would you know? Its way to early to figure out what's going to happen there.

I don't like linkedin's current valuation - but I think shorting it in front of several very high profile tech IPOs would be foolhardy at this point.

<comment><USER19> It's a matter of differentiating between a) what we recognize as the real earnings potential (which some see as fairly limited), and b) what John Q. Sharebuyer and Joe C. Fundmanager will probably do (buy buy buy, it's the interwebs!). The reality of 'b' means that shorting is not wise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> 100 million in t-bond & index funds and take a vacation.</comment>


How Super Angel Chris Sacca Burned Bridges and Crafted the Best Seed Portfolio - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2015/03/25/how-venture-cowboy-chris-sacca-made-billions/ <comment><USER2> I can't help but see Survivorship Bias in any profile of a successful investor. You rarely see the profiles of the more numerous people whose investments lost them all their money. It's always "How XYZ became that 1 out of ~1 million who flipped heads 20 times in a row. The secret to coin flipping revealed!"

<comment><USER3> I don't mean to come off too critical, but I'm curious how we the HN community can move away from this sort of survivorship bias cynicism without discounting it entirely. I openly acknowledge that survivorship bias is a very real phenomenon that can be easily overlooked, but every time a story about a successful entrepreneur or angel/vc pops up, there's the tendency to discount every thing that is being said as survivorship bias, as if there's nothing else to be learned from the story. These comments tend to overwhelm the discussion in their prevalence. I think it puts a overall cynical attitude in the community that I've seen overtake other entire online communities of entrepreneurs. I really hope it doesn't do the same here.

<comment><USER4> I'm honestly not sure the cynicism is a bad thing.

I'd say the HN community has a higher than average grasp of statistics (the same could probably be said about many other entrepreneur communities) As such, when we see something which all broad statistics tell us is "one in a million" occams razor directs you to assume that it is in fact one in a million.

That "let's be extremely doubtful given a high bayesian prior suggesting that the doubt is legitimate" occurs strikes me as a wonderfully pragmatic viewpoint. If someone really wants to convince me there's some "trick" to being that one in a million they have to go against all of the evidence I've been presented thus far to say that simply doesn't happen. (evidence coupled with the fact that these sorts of news sources have a history and incentive aligned with the "how to strike it rich" style articles.)

<comment><USER5> > I'd say the HN community has a higher than average grasp of statistics

No, just no. From my experience as an engineer that's transitioned into finance, I assure you that engineers and developers have the WORST pre- conceptions about statistics as applied to investing. All of those have to be unlearned fast at the start of a finance career. Took me years to fully adjust.

<comment><USER6> Would you please share the examples as this would be useful to the engineers in HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know how a profile of Chris Sacca could omit how he was a math prodigy who hated math, never went to class for law school or lost $8 million dollars trading in the stock market and refused to declare bankruptcy, instead paying back creditors over many years.

<comment><USER8> Here is a video of him talking about it with Kevin Rose [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cWl9UTHZoE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cWl9UTHZoE)

<comment><USER9> Great interview with Sacca - highly recommended. Thanks for posting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you haven't heard it before then I'd definitely recommend listening to Sacca's critique of Blumberg pitch on TAL:

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/533/i...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/533/its-not-the-product-its-the-person?act=1#play)

I've heard a lot of people pitch but I'm not sure I've heard anyone pitch better than Sacca can do _while ad-libbing_.

<comment><USER11> I agree that he did a great job, but consider the power of circumstances: it's a lot easier to pitch when pitching is an intellectual exercise for you, instead of the full expression of what you are and hope to be in this world as a person, delivered to the gatekeeper of the capital you need to make that journey, who will not give you a second chance if you fuck up, and without whom you're destined to go back to living in your mother's basement, a broken and destitute man shunned by society. Or back to Yahoo or Stanford or wherever you came from.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps it's psychological. I've often found that if I build up stakes for a test/interview/application, I perform far worse than attempting it with a more frivolous attitude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Altruistic first-money angel investors, like Mark Markkula at Apple or YC with Airbnb, deserve a ton of credit for the success of their startups. People who glom on to hot startups launched by already-successful Silicon Valley insiders deserve less. Twitter and Uber did not need help to exist the way Apple or Airbnb did.

Angel investors should be judged by what they help bring into the world, the value they create, not how rich they get from doing backdoor deals with JP Morgan. That's how you judge lawyers.

<comment><USER13> The article talks about the work that Sacca did by tenaciously evangelizing Twitter in the early days. I don't think the article mentioned it, but he did the same for Instagram. He was all over it, posting non-stop!

You shouldn't assume he made no contributions simply because he was also clever enough to make himself mega-rich.

<comment><USER14> As if "clever enough" is all it takes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Would be really interested to see how big an effect the massive doubling down on Twitter and Uber had vs. if he had just been an a more normal super early investor. Did he generate the over the top amazing returns mainly by being first into great companies, or mainly by being crazy enough to make outsize allocations for the winners?

</comment><comment><USER16> tl;dr loudmouth with a penchant for social media and oddball cowboy shirts made a lot of money investing in startups

<comment><USER17> As Spock once said, "Colloquially expressed, but essentially correct."</comment></comment>