Be Happier - <AUTHOR> http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/ <comment><USER2> Like most happiness articles, this didn't mention issues such as:

1\. Having personal space

2\. Privacy

3\. Freedom to take naps whenever you like

4\. Freedom to set your work hours

5\. Whether you are near windows or not, ceiling height

6\. Noise pollution.

7\. Default alive or default dead. If you don't work, are you going to die from running out of resources, or still live to old age?

<comment><USER2> Also forgot to mention - the amount of sleep you get can greatly affect your perceived happiness.</comment></comment>


Microsoft's Calibri font is at the center of a political scandal in Pakistan - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/12/microsoft-calibri-pakistan-fontgate/ <comment><USER3> MS Calibri font was also part of a debate in Turkey: A CD, claimed to be produced in 2003 and used as an evidence (about a coup) in a court case in Turkey, contained MS Doc files written with Calibri font.

The case neverthless went ahead (i.e., the file used as an evidence), people got sentenced but later all claims were dismissed and judges either left the country or in jail now.

Full detail in following post from Dani Rodrik - a professor at Harvard Kennedy School:

[http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2012/10/did- mi...](http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2012/10/did-microsoft- steal-its-fonts-from-the-turkish-army.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me very much of the kerfuffle over the alleged George W. Bush Air National Guard memos that ultimately got Dan Rather canned.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controvers...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy)

<comment><USER5> And deservedly so. Years later, he still defended their use despite all the evidence to the contrary: [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/dan- rather-stands...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/dan-rather- stands-by-bush-report-cbs-news-317993)

<comment><USER6> Well I tried to find that evidence... got tired of chasing references, never did get to the slam-dunk evidence that it couldn't have been typed on a selectric, if it exists.

<comment><USER7> This was one of those (rather common) cases where no one could really get to slam-dunk evidence that it _couldn 't_ have been typed on a selectric (especially given they weren't original copies) but any reasonable interpretation of the evidence suggested that it was far more likely to have come out of Microsoft Word on default settings. (Per many forensic document experts.)

Other aspects of the documents looked sketchy as well upon further examination.

A lot of other news organizations were really pissed because there were some questionable aspects to GWB's National Guard Service but those were pretty much off the table for discussion when the apparently forged documents were discredited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _creator Lucas De Groot, who seemed skeptical of the font 's use before its > public release. "Why would anyone use a completely unknown font for an > official document in 2006?"_

> _Microsoft 's website states that version 1.0 of the font was available to > download separately as far back as 2005. And, according to font consultant > Thomas Phinney, Calibri was also available as part of a Windows pre-release > in 2004._

Back then many people were using beta-versions of Windows 2003 Server (or other server products) . Server edition was great desktop (compared to XP and Vista), but also very expensive. Prerelease version had 90 days trial period, which could be easily reset.

MS Office format is basically a memory dump. So forged documents should leave much more evidence with timestamps, office patches versions, error handling etc...

<comment><USER7> It seems as if the bottom line is that someone _could_ have gotten their hands on Calibri for Windows at an earlier date than 2007. However, given this case, it seems rather more likely that they used the default font on the released product at a later date. Like most evidence, you can come up with alternate theories, but usually the obvious conclusion is the right one.

<comment><USER9> The fact that it was indeed publicly available before 2007 kind of throws the whole thing out of the window, though.

Even if it seems obvious, how are you going to prove that they didn't actually download the font or have the special Windows edition?

Although it might turn public perception, it shouldn't, I believe, be considered judicially.

<comment><USER10> This is what standards of proof are for. "Beyond reasonable doubt," "preponderance of the evidence," etc. You use different standards for different types of trials. In one trial you may ask, "is it more likely that this is a forged document using the default font, or that the user went out of their way to download an obscure font before its public release and specifically chose to use it?" In another trial with a different standard you may ask, "is there any possible way that this document was not forged?" The answer to each question is different, which is why we declare the standard of proof before the trial begins.

Of course, I do not know the standard in use in this country's court system.

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

<comment><USER11> Well, in politics as opposed to a criminal trial there's no such thing as burdens of proof, just whether a scandal has legs.

Among American (and British, Canadian etc) lawyers who advocate quantifying the concept of "reasonable doubt,"[1] the consensus figure seems to be that proof beyond a reasonable doubt means greater than 95% certainty (or, stated negatively, a less than 5% level of uncertainty). Judge Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York[2] puts the 95% number in his jury instructions, for example.

If we assume the Bayesian prior that it's at least 19x more likely that Pakistani politicians at the highest level of influence are secretly corrupt and/or evading taxes, than it is that they're secretly tech nerds who eagerly download the latest Microsoft betas and try out all the new fonts, then we have met that 95% standard. If the accused were a Microsoft executive instead of an official of one of the world's most corrupt states,[3] the equation would be different.

Of course, there might be other arguments for doubt besides "the font was available in obscure beta software." One potential argument is that it's a newer version of an older document that was typeset in a different font, which was changed to Calibri at some later point (recent MS Words might default to displaying the document in Calibri if it were sent to a computer that didn't have the original font installed, or the file type doesn't include font information in a way Word supports, or it was copied and pasted from the clipboard).

[1] Which IMO it should be; most of the clear miscarriages of justice in either direction that I know of seem like they could have been prevented or at least been mistrials if, as much as possible, we'd nudged the jury to carefully quantify the strength of both sides' evidence instead of voting emotionally.

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

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

<comment><USER6> I begin to realize the extent to which mere eccentricity (say in choosing fonts) is already deeply illegal (once you factor in how many decisions we all make that put us in a 5% box.) No wonder people herd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The deduction that some document must be a forgery because it's dated to 2006 and the font it is written in wasn't available until 2007, sounds like something out of a Sherlock Holmes story.

<comment><USER13> Sounds reasonably quick to observe. Lawyers work with documents everyday.

On the basic training I've had in spotting fake documentation, "check the font seems right" is near the top of the list e.g. in regarding fake company letter-heads.

<comment><USER12> I believe you. I just thought that some quick deduction like that would be well placed in the Sherlock universe.

<comment><USER13> Oh yes, absolutely. Would fit in perfectly. Pure deduction ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is not the first time folks get in trouble because of pc fonts. A high profile case is that of Dan Rather, who had to resign from CBS News after the Killian documents controvery: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy)

</comment><comment><USER15> Would be interesting if the document also has the "tracking dots" printer companies use.

</comment><comment><USER16> All word processors should change their default font every at major version so we can have #fontgates more often.

<comment><USER17> Apple is already doing so. :]

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nawaz Sharif and family are clearly lying, people (specially deed writing Govt sectors) wait few years after stable release. The font shipped in 2007 and I can bet nobody installed vista right away.

</comment><comment><USER17> They should have stuck with Comic Sans.

<comment><USER19> For sensitive documents, nothing beats Wingdings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> That's cyberpunk with vaporwave flavor again.

<comment><USER21> Best comment ever posted on this site hands down. Not even being sarcastic. Stay cyber, stay punk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> For those who are interested, this is the text of the full report:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6leBB47NfItbHQwa3c4d3E0QmM...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6leBB47NfItbHQwa3c4d3E0QmM/view)

(for those wondering why it is in English, that is one of the official languages in Pakistan).

</comment><comment><USER23> Pakistan holds promise as a country and an emerging economy.

Their biggest problem: the country fails to attract foreign capitals, and the local noveaux riche never keep their money in the country.

To many it is a mystery why a country that holds an incomparably less protectionistic stance than its neighbors, has retained much of British legal system, and is more welcoming to foreign capital policy-wise fails so hard at that.

One explanation that I believe explains more than just saying "it is because of crazy mountain people surrounding the country," is that the perpetual uncertainty over power succession, forces rich people to move their capitals abroad affecting trade balance, and creating an illusion of very low capital appreciation in the country, this in turn tell foreign investors that the country is lost cause for conventional investments.

<comment><USER24> Are you serious? The biggest problem of Pakistan is failure to attract foreign capital? What about harboring terrorist groups like LeT, JeM, and AlQ? Or, the fact that religious strife is killing innocents - sunnis killing shias, muslims killing hindus. Or, that the army is not under the control of civilian goverment, leading to multiple coups. I can provide hundreds of references to back these claims. Lack of foreign capital is probably the last problem for Pakistan.

<comment><USER23> >Are you serious

I'm totally serious Virtuabhi

In total, the amount of lives lost to fighting in the north, and with internal oppositionary movements amounts to around 4300 people over 10 years - <USER2> digit is from Hina Rabbani Khar. This is not much for such a populous country.

Armed struggle rarely reach big cities where the majority of business activity take place. On my observation, something big only happens in big cities once a year or less.

I do not believe that OBL, AQ and co. count for more than a small nuisance.

No armed group ever came close to trampling the central government, nor will they ever be in the foreseable future.

India is a genuine issue for the country. Not solely because of its military ambitions. The constant economic and diplomatic pressure from India is the reason for much of international isolation of the country.

The army, and previously regular army coups could've been seen as an issue in the past. In my own observation, I see that army's freedom of action was already on the downward trajectory during Musharaf's reign, and that was partially responsible for him falling out of power so fast (other being that Zia's era generals simply died of old age). The civil society (Pakistani oligarchate), is in antagonistic relations with the army. They are squeezing them out of power, preventing them from gaining any momentum. Generals are not coming back to power in our generation. Big buck has won over the military.

<comment><USER25> Is it totally irrealistic to expect better relations between India and Pakistan in the future?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I specifically remember using Calibri quite a while before it became the default in MS Office. It looked nice, and it was different from all the Arial and Times New Roman out there.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wasn't there an article that says some printers were printing small marks on the document that provides some info on when it was printed, model, etc.? I suppose the printer during those times may not have the capability yet.

Found the HN discussion[1] related.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14501894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14501894)

<comment><USER28> Color laser printers. Most places using laser printers, especially for printing documents, would usually use B&W printers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> While I believe there was probably fraud involved, they could have been using the volume licensed version released in 2016 or the beta (2015) of MS Office.

Piracy of both is rampant in Asia.

<comment><USER30> The document in question is of property bought in London and all documents prepared there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > The report charges the PM with perjury, hiding his wealth, forging > documents, and living beyond his means.

You can be charged for living beyond your means?

<comment><USER32> I don't know the details of Pakistani law, but it seems like it could be a clever judicial technique for fighting corruption or tax evasion in cases where it cannot be directly proven. If you spend more money than you lawfully earn, then presumably the rest have to come from illegal activities (assuming no fortune)?

<comment><USER33> Or are in debt?

<comment><USER34> The debt should also be verifiably documented. Otherwise one can claim any money as a loan from friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I guess the government will soon be... Sans-Sharif

(sorry)

<comment><USER36> Reddit one-liners is why I hate HN threads lately

<comment><USER37> I can understand your frustration but a downvote would have sufficed. If you hadn't seen the HN guidelines, take a gander when you get a spare moment. [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Most notably this:

> If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying > that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a common semi-noob illusion, as old as > the hills.

<comment><USER38> My account is a several years old. HN is turning into Reddit. These one-liners really are a lot more common than they were even 2-3 years ago.

<comment><USER39> I agree. If I wanted r/technology, I'd go to r/technology. Please, fellow users of HN, downvote jokes.

<comment><USER40> You sound like you wouldn't be much fun to hang out with at parties.

<comment><USER41> Personal attacks aren't ok here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm glad we're talking about fonts because I have a question that I want to ask this audience-

How many of you insist on choosing your own fonts in your websites, rather than just specifying families? I can understand if the fonts you choose are fancy. But otherwise, as a power user who has set default fonts for various families carefuly, I dislike having to read stuff in any font except my own carefuly chosen ones.

I hope websites defered to users somehow on this.

<comment><USER43> I think things like Google Fonts have lead to an overuse of stylistic fonts and that should be addressed. But not for the reasons you're stating. 99.9% of all users don't care about setting their own fonts for websites or even know that that's possible. I'd rather let the company/website that paid for a designer to come up with a solid typography dictate how the site should look than trust my programmer's eye for design (which is to say I'm blind as a bat in that regard).

The real reason over use of fonts is dangerous is because it's a huge hit to site performance if not done properly. I've seen way too many sites that are yanking in Google Fonts all willy-nilly with zero regard for typography or performance. That's bad, but it's almost always the result of an inexperienced "nephew that knows HTML" or someone with access to a really shitty WordPress template.

And since the vast majority of people have zero interest in tweaking fonts themselves (myself included), why _not_ use fonts other than the handful of (imo) boring system fonts?

<comment><USER44> _> why not use fonts other than the handful of (imo) boring system fonts?_

Ayup. I use Oxygen on pretty much everything because I really like how it looks and it's part of the distinctive style I impart to the stuff that I'm building. The number of users who have _really strong opinions about fonts_ versus the number of users who either consciously or unconsciously appreciate a good-looking design is not a ratio in favor of caring about the former.

(Also agreed on performance; that's why I use one font family and use it from Google Fonts--because it caches.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Pakistani political establishment is hilarious

</comment><comment><USER45> I guess today 2017 "font" now equals "typeface."

<comment><USER46> > I guess today 2017 "font" now equals "typeface."

As a non-native English speaker I really don't understand the subtle difference between these words.

<comment><USER47> [https://www.fastcodesign.com/3028971/whats-the-difference- be...](https://www.fastcodesign.com/3028971/whats-the-difference-between-a- font-and-a-typeface)

> Even among type professionals, there's a growing acceptance that for most > people, the terms font and typeface can be used interchangeably. Only > experts really need to worry about it.

> "For most people in most situations, those terms can swap around without any > trouble," Tobias Frere-Jones tells Co.Design. "The distinction would matter > in type design, obviously, but also contexts which involve engineering, like > app development or web design."

I'd agree with that. To save you reading the entire article, here's the rough definition presented in it:

 _Typeface_ refers to the set of all the distinct shapes. It's what most people mean when they say "font" in everyday life.

 _Font_ refers to a specific weight at a specific size.

Even as a web developer I find that distinction confusing because a single "font" file will usually support any number of sizes and can be rendered in different weights or even as oblique, although of course the result will be less sophisticated than using the "hand-crafted" weight variants or italics. And of course there are file formats that can actually contain more than one such "font" (even from different typefaces).

So outside of actual type design or technical specifications I would say that the terms should be treated as interchangeable because nobody can be bothered using them correctly.

I'd actually argue even type designers don't care much what you call them. Or at least that seems to go for the kind of type designers that actually design types rather than correcting people on the Internet.

<comment><USER48> > Typeface refers to the set of all the distinct shapes. It's what most people > mean when they say "font" in everyday life.

> Font refers to a specific weight at a specific size.

That's a _much_ better summary than the article's "In brief:" sentence.

<comment><USER49> UK: a font was originally a fount of type (from fountain).

[http://britishletterpress.co.uk/type-and-typography/type- syn...](http://britishletterpress.co.uk/type-and-typography/type- synopses/typefounders-proportions/)

Above dates from the days when letterpress was still around (my local letterpress based jobbing printer closed his shop in the late 80s/early 90s because of repeated break-ins after his lead). Article tends to suggest a fount would be a given weight/style of a typeface.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Monkey Controls Robot Using Brain Signals - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031013082812.htm

<comment><USER2> I for one welcome our new robo-simian overlords.</comment>


Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/two-las-vegas-men-plead-guilty-in-u-s-criminal-streaming-piracy-case-191214/ <comment><USER2> Services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video would be a lot more successful if only their catalogs in regions outside of the US would be comparable to their home turf.

If US clients would have the tiny tiny catalogs they offer e.g. in most of Europe, you would also be scratching your head how this could ever justify the subscription cost.

<comment><USER3> Could you imagine how great these services would be if copyrighted works fell into the public domain after 28 years instead of the nearly 100 years they are now?

<comment><USER4> Sure, but in that case most current films would never have been made... or at least I got that distinct impression from MPAA.

<comment><USER5> Which films exactly took 28 years to turn a profit?

<comment><USER6> That's not the point.

Valve turned a huge profit on Portal 2. Yet they refuse to make Portal 3. Why? Because compared to Steam, Portal 2 generates a tiny ROI by comparison.

Option A: invest $1 in Steam and get $10 back

Option B: invest $1 in Portal 3 and get $2 back

which do you do?

Same goes for movie industry. A movie promises returns for decades as it is milked and re-released in various formats. If the movie can only make money for 20-ish years, ROI goes down significantly. Read: "The Disney Vault" [1]

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

<comment><USER5> May I offer an alternative reason why Valve did not make Portal 3? It's because when you rehash the same game, people get sick of it. Sometimes a product needs to stand on it's own. Why harm the Portal franchise by being to quick to release, release, release?

Seems like hollywood is already on board with this. What do they need Ghostbusters to have a 100 year copyright on when they could just release a new Ghostbusters every 30-40 years like they're pretty much already doing.

<comment><USER6> If you don't plan on making Portal 3, don't tease Portal 3 with easter eggs like the Borealis.

<comment><USER5> Like I made mention before, just because they don't want to release it now doesn't mean they won't want to do another one in 20-30 years after technologies and ideas have had enough time to mature to put a new twist on things.

<comment><USER6> Half their fanbase will be dead in 30 years

<comment><USER5> So you're saying we'll get a reboot ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So two programmers ran a streaming website bigger than Netflix from their garage?

<comment><USER8> Something is fishy about this. Netflix's infrastructure is massive, and their bandwidth usage is a big chunk of the entire internet. How could this possibly go unnoticed for any amount of time?

<comment><USER9> I think it is in an error in the reporting. The press release from the FBI only mentions content, not subscribers.

I actually remember JetFlix and wondering how they had so much content. They were acting like a real company, IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This might be a naive question but, why is the FBI the office in charge of enforcing copyright? Especially when it comes to entertainment. Why do we get an FBI warning on a cartoon's dvd?

<comment><USER11> Copyright and patent authority is explicitly granted to the Federal government by Art. I, Sec. 8 of the US constitution:

The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

As such, state courts and police forces have no jurisdiction over copyright issues; they must be handled by the federal courts and police force (the FBI).

(Text from [https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution- transcri...](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript) )

<comment><USER12> Why didn't FBI get involved against Napster?

<comment><USER13> I assume it's because Napster was the first to really take file-sharing global and at such an accessible scale. And maybe the laws and enforcement procedures hadn't really caught up. But keep in mind, that Napsters defense was that they were just acting as an intermediary, they never actively distributed and held the content unlike our heroes at JetFlix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Its like in the beginning of torrenting. Nobody willing to offer a service for everyone, for a fair price. Everybody gatekeeping selling only their stuff. And if you want everything pay this atrocious sum of money.

I tell you this will happen more often and people are willing to pay. But not pay for everything. Good thing they had going. Well it was still illegal, but hey it will happen again i tell you.

<comment><USER15> Streaming is a service question. Netflix/D+/AMZN offers you a limited catalogue for 10$ or so a month. You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer.

Pirates offer you _everything_ for _free_. You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer.

Why would any customer pick the more expensive product? Netflix and Friends need to offer a better service and experience at a low price. Notably that will have to include one subscription for everything.

Steam from Valve has been extremely successfull because they offer a very good service for fairly good prices. Now that EGS is trying to bleed customers, video game piracy is going up again because nobody likes exclusives except those that get money for them.

<comment><USER16> Why would any customer pick the more expensive product? 1) they don't want to be criminals 2) they want to support the art that they enjoy so that more of it can be made

<comment><USER15> Since piracy isn't quite the most uncommon criminal activity, I supposed people only care weak about those two and I would bet most people care more about 2 than 1 because people don't see it as criminal activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why would you do this from within the US? The mind boggles.

<comment><USER18> Well, TFA says:

> "Specifically, Polo used sophisticated computer programming to [get pirated > stuff] and then make the shows and movies available on servers in Canada," > officials said.

So the fact that they were in the US is irrelevant.

But I'm sure that they got caught because they didn't know how to stay anonymous. Or were too lazy. Or got too greedy.

I mean, there are far better hosting alternatives than Canada. I guess that they wanted low latency for US customers. But still, they should have isolated themselves from the damn servers.

I'm guessing that it was their payment setup that got them pwned.

<comment><USER17> I disagree on irrelevant. The fact that they stayed in the US definitely makes it harder to be anonymous (friends, relatives, language, police presence, etc)... it also makes it easier to be caught.

<comment><USER18> There's no way to know what happened in their case.

But I suspect that it was a "loose lips" thing. Exacerbated, probably, by developing the project gradually. Being sloppy at first, because it was just playing around. Also bragging, and living large. That's a common set of fails. It played a major role in DPR's takedown. Also Sabu, who had been indiscreet on IRC, years before. And Artem Vaulin of KickassTorrents, who registered a key domain in his own name.

There's also the difficulty of accepting and accessing money anonymously. The Sheep Marketplace founder pwned himself when he cashed out. It's very hard to route around KYC law. The safest bet is collecting payments as Bitcon, Monero, etc And leaving everything except operating expenses in cryptocurrency, until it's time to expatriate to a safe jurisdiction, and cash out some of that good wealth.

<comment><USER13> It also seems like when you start working with money, you cross into a whole different level of having a bad day by the Feds. If they had run something that had been ad based, they might have been able to stay off the FBI's shitlist. But when you have subscribers, and bank accounts and money transfers you are raising the governments ire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's cable TV all over again. The current streaming scene is not any better at all.

<comment><USER20> My mind is blown that these sites were actually getting paid subscribers. I thought the beauty of piracy is the whole "not paying for it" thing.

I refuse to pay for more than one subscription service, I'm not going to end up paying more than I did for cable tv. Hulu still wins for me because it has the live/local tv, and I'm not giving Disney anymore money.

<comment><USER3> The beauty of piracy is that you can watch/listen to what you want to, how you want to, when you want to. People are more than happy to pay reasonable prices for content, so long as they can use it how they want; see: Spotify.

I'd pay $50/mo for a streaming service that had a significant number of movies and television shows that I want to watch. As it stands, I still need to pirate movies because they are not available on stream services, or they are only available for "purchase" at like $14-17 when I know for a fact that the same movies are sitting in the Walmart DVD bin for $5.

<comment><USER20> You're correct of course, because I have consistently paid for services when they have stuff I wanted at reasonable prices. It's worth it just to relieve myself from the hassle of downloading and filling up my hard drive with stuff. The entire King of the Hill can fill up a HD.

It's just been my experience that these 'popcorn time' services are janky and law enforcement magnets, it's surprising anyone would pay for it. But I suppose I live somewhere that doesn't have as many roadblocks as some places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> No doubt they weren't cryptography and security nerds. I wonder how a team with great operational security would have done.

I bet that it's possible with a dedicated team with good clean opsec and intelligently placed servers it'd be possible to fly under the radar for decades.

<comment><USER22> I'm surprised some foreign power hasn't done this just for the sole reason of messing with the US movie industry, which is one of America's more significant export industries, and thereby harming the American economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Article should be replaced with this one[1], which is much more informative.

Most notably, the headline of the linked article is ridiculously incorrect. The statement of facts states that they only processed 0.018M credit/debit card transactions over roughly the 2014-2016 period[2]. I would be extremely surprised if it reached Netflix's _152M of worldwide paid memberships_ for streaming in 2019[3][4].

[1] [https://torrentfreak.com/two-las-vegas-men-plead-guilty- in-u...](https://torrentfreak.com/two-las-vegas-men-plead-guilty-in-u-s- criminal-streaming-piracy-case-191214/)

[2] [https://torrentfreak.com/images/polosof.pdf#page=1&search=%2...](https://torrentfreak.com/images/polosof.pdf#page=1&search=%2218,551%20successful%20credit%22%22)

[3] [https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarter...](https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarterly_reports/2019/q2/Q2-19-Shareholder- Letter-FINAL.pdf#page=1)

[4] [https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarter...](https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarterly_reports/2019/q2/Q2-19-Shareholder- Letter-FINAL.pdf#page=11&search=%22memberships%22)

</comment><comment><USER24> There is no way they had more paying subscribers than Netflix. Netflix has 160 million paying customers. These two guys had "more" and made only 1 million dollars total. What?

Probably their total pageviews vs Netflix's total paying customers or something dumb like that.

<comment><USER25> The DOJ presser said the site was "larger" than Netflix, Hulu and Amazon combined in terms of available content - some media reports have misreported it as larger by subscriber count

<comment><USER26> That goes without saying, content providers are shooting themselves in the foot with an atomic shotgun with the current fragmentation and lots of content is not legally available anywhere.

<comment><USER27> A tragedy of the commons among the content providers -- exclusive content is an edge that they can't resist individually, but damages them collectively.

<comment><USER22> I don't think "tragedy of the commons" is the appropriate term for what's going on here. These movies aren't a "commons", they're all privately owned by a bunch of different private entities. They used to license them to Netflix to be streamed, but now they've pulled back from that a lot so they can operate their own streaming services.

"Tragedy of the commons" is when a bunch of private interests use a publicly- owned resource in a greedy way and end up ruining it for everyone. I don't think this quite applies here, but I don't know of any other term to call it because I can't think of any non-internet analogies.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


'===' faster than '=='? - <AUTHOR> http://jsperf.com/triple-equals-vs-twice-equals

<comment><AUTHOR> '===' performs better than '==' because no type conversion is need. Are there any reasons you would use '==' instead of '==='?

<comment><USER2> When you know ahead of time that the types don't need to be coerced:

<http://jsperf.com/triple-equals-vs-twice-equals/4>

There's even a negligible performance improvement, at least for me (iPad WebKit Safari).

<comment><AUTHOR> For me the "3-equals-true-non-coerced" is the fastest in Chrome 16.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Shouldn't this be obvious?

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't get it, both on my iPad 2 (iOS 5.0.1) and my MacBook (Firefox 8.0.1) == is several times faster than === which is completely the opposite of what I would be expecting. Perhaps someone who's familiar with the internals of JavaScript JIT compilers could shed some light on it?</comment>


Show HN: Postmake – A directory of tools and resources for your projects - <AUTHOR> https://postmake.io <comment><USER2> I like this a lot. Even though there are probably others similar out there, this one looks more straight to the point. It doesn't hide the actual link for the website and has a very good one line description for each product in a clean design.

I did hate the fact that I can only sign up with Twitter (or I missed a normal signup?). I also would love a way to bookmark and/or create lists for myself.

There's so much content that having a simple "check out later" button would be a big time saver for me.

<comment><USER3> What all similar sites are you aware of ? Would love to check them out. there should be a Directory of "Directory of tools and resources". One-stop solution.

<comment><USER4> "Awesome" lists are kind of like this. [https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice! I would like the feature to be able to comment on projects. But it's an amazing tool!

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually you can, but to prevent abuse you'll need an account to do that. I'll try making this more obvious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice, here are a few others:

[https://geekflare.com/nexus/](https://geekflare.com/nexus/)

[https://www.evernote.design/](https://www.evernote.design/)

<comment><USER7> Their business model is that submissions cost $100 each, so it's probably not worth posting link suggestions here.

<comment><USER6> Ohh... I didn't see that at all.

What an interesting concept. I wonder how the site generates traffic outside this one-time HN submission, and maybe some traffic from Product Hunt. There are a million sites competing for these same keywords (based on what's said in the Submit section), so I can't imagine Postmake getting anywhere far any time soon. Further, makes me wonder how much of that $100 goes towards marketing the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here!

This is an idea I've been toying with for the past year, and only recently decided to take it a little more seriously. Like you said there are a ton of similar lists, and it seems that every week a new comes along.

My issue with most of these is that they seem to be one time flings. Someone gathers all these great resources, compiles into a site, submits them to a couple of websites to drive some traffic, and that's the end of that.

The thing is, lists like these usually get huge amounts of love because they're really helpful, and it's a shame they just die after a little amount of fame. So I decided I would focus on monetizing this from the get-go – if I'm going to build something that's sustainable, it'll need to be self- sustaining at least. I tried to keep the directory's presentation simple, only listing the important stuff (pricing, category, an overview, and outbound links), and categorizing them by tags. I think the homepage's timeline turned out to be a nice way of presenting the tools.

As for marketing, outside of submitting the list to HN / etc, so far I've focused on reaching out to the businesses I list in the directory with help in spreading the word. The idea is if they can promote the directory/sponsor the website, they'd be driving traffic to their businesses. Getting them to agree from the get-go with nothing to show for in terms of traffic is stuff, which is I seeded the directory with most of the tools you see.

I talk a lot more about this on the website: [https://postmake.io/faq](https://postmake.io/faq). I hope that made sense!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You forgot the last step "#Spend-your-money" with links to Lamborghini- and Ferrari-Shoping-Sites.

</comment><comment><USER9> Brilliant! Thank you for putting this together

</comment><comment><USER10> Fantastic! Well done!

</comment><comment><USER11> Freakin awesome!

<comment><USER12> Why?</comment></comment>


How Close.io (YC W11) built per-recipient email tracking - <AUTHOR> http://hack.close.io/posts/building_better_email_integrations_pt_1

<comment><USER2> > _we can send unique message content to each recipient of an email while > still having recipients believe they are receiving the same message_

So you _know_ that people don't like receiving personalized messages that are tracked and yet you are proud that you have devised a way to shovel them down their throats anyways. Good stuff.

(edit) I would've not minded if this were purely technical post on how you set things up, but the way its edited at the moment just reeks of disrespect towards those on a receiving end of your emails.

<comment><USER3> The emails would be personalized and tracked regardless, all that this does is improve the tracking by identifying which recipient opened the message instead of a more general "email was opened" tracking event. It's not exactly trickery, just creative use of SMTP commands. Also, it still relies on a tracking pixel, which as usual won't work if the recipient has images disabled in their email client.

<comment> mike-cardwell "which recipient opened the message" and: The times they opened it, where they were when they opened it, and what operating system and user agents they were using when they opened it.

<comment><USER4> All of those things are possible with any simple tracking pixel anyway. The only difference here is being able to distinguish specific recipients from a multi-recipient email.

<comment> mike-cardwell If you visit a website and that website gleans this information about you, that is one thing.

If you simply receive an email and read it, and the sender can glean the same information, that is something entirely different.

<comment><USER4> Tracking pixels in _emails_ have been around for many years and are used by almost everybody. That's why many email clients block images by default.

<comment> mike-cardwell That is not an argument for doing it. As I wrote sarcastically in the other thread on this page:

      "Oh, but everyone does it, so it's ok right?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really in poor taste. Can you imagine if the email to Bob said "hey lets meet at the pub at 6" and the email to Alice said "hey lets meet at the pub at 4".

I know this is unlikely, but sending an email that looks like each party is getting the same thing but in fact are getting different emails just is bad.

The tracking thing is not a big deal, seems like everyone does it. Just block images and you are golden.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

You're entirely correct that this part of the SMTP spec does potentially allow for dubious behavior -- and that's one of the reasons I wanted to publish this article. I have a feeling this is one of the little-known secrets of email sending which we should all be aware of.

EDIT: Also, I'd like to point one that the real textual content of a message can't differ when sending through Close.io so the scenario you explained above isn't possible within our app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ignoring the terminology errors, and the fact that this is a pretty scummy and uninteresting business model (it's kind of like blogging about the awesome architecture you built to predict when people will be at home eating dinner so you can robocall them with telemarketing crap right then), this kind of system is also inherently unreliable.

None of my email clients, on OS X, Windows, or Linux, will show that pixel unless I press a button or take some action.

And I believe that is increasingly the default behavior of email clients, isn't it? Which means this technique will increasingly not work, and there is nothing close.io can do about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The internet is fun, so I'll bite.

> _scummy and uninteresting business model_

We make a sales communicate platform that integrates CRM + calling + email. <sarcasm> You're right, it is a pretty uninteresting business model in that we don't use some new-fangled financial instruments to cook our books -- it's just boring ole' monthly recurring revenue at a SaaS company. </sarcasm>

Scummy? Don't even know where to begin on that one -- but if you're in the Bay Area ping me. I'd be happy to sit down and entertain any ideas you may have that we run a scummy outfit. Seriously. I really would like to understand the context behind that statement. It's not something I take lightly as a founder.

> _None of my email clients, on OS X, Windows, or Linux, will show that pixel > unless I press a button or take some action._

Yes and no. You can set most clients to load images by default -- I haven't tested the default settings on all clients so I can't speak about what percentage that accounts for. I'd assume someone like Mailchimp/Marketo/Pardot/etc. may have published some interesting findings about this.

You're entirely right, however -- we can't do anything if a client blocks images. And that's OK. Tracking is a feature our customers love being able to utilize when they can, but they also understand that it's not entirely accurate.

<comment><USER6> By "scummy" I am talking about the same thing as the other people in this thread talking about "poor taste", "ethics", and "morality".

Surreptitiously tracking users without their knowledge or consent (and I mean the _end users_ , not _your_ users who are paying you to do it) just isn't something cool to brag about, any more than robocalling people at dinner, or a thousand other things that are nevertheless legal and make monthly recurring revenue for those who do them.

Not saying you shouldn't be able to do it; a lot of unseemly and faintly repulsive things happen in the name of marketing. I'm just saying it's kind of a lame thing to do in general, and it is pretty off-putting to read a blog post that basically says, "Look how rad we are for tricking all these people and tracking them without their knowledge!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell "How Close.io (YC W11) exploited a technical loop hole in the way email and the web works in order to mine data about users without their knowledge or permission"

Oh, but everyone does it, so it's ok right?

<comment><USER3> I don't get the "without their knowledge or permission" part. That could go for anyone who puts a tracking pixel into an email. It doesn't apply specifically to the "technical loophole" discussed in this article. I'm not a fan of tracking pixels either, but this isn't really the point of the article.

<comment> mike-cardwell Yes, that can and does go for anyone who puts a tracking pixel into an email.

And to address the: 'I don't get the "without their knowledge or permission" part.' \- What don't you get about this? The recipient doesn't realise the tracking is taking place, and the sender never asked permission to perform the tracking, nor to store the data...

<comment><USER3> I'm saying that the question of (lack of) permission is a different topic from the specific SMTP technique described in the article. The SMTP technique doesn't change anything with respect to privacy compared to standard tracking pixels. The assumption going into the article was that tracking pixels are already being used.

> the sender never asked permission to perform the tracking, nor to store the > data

Well, in this case the sender would be someone using Close.io as their CRM. So they actually almost certainly do want this tracking to be performed.

<comment> mike-cardwell The authors use of SMTP and IMAP is confusing. This is a standard tracking pixel, performed in the same way that everybody else does it. There is nothing new here.

SMTP and IMAP are transport protocols. For transporting text around:

"By utilizing SMTPs RCPT TO command" \- He's not utilising anything special. This is exactly how every other email that employs tracking pixels is sent. A separate recipient and message body for each recipient.

"Remove any messages stored by the SMTP server" ... "Google's SMTP servers store a copy of every message"

Nope. SMTP is used for mail servers to pass email about. An SMTP server doesn't store mail, apart from in it's temporary queue before forwarding it on.

"Store sent mail in IMAP" ... "If using a service like Gmail which stores all sent messages automatically in IMAP" \- Again, you don't store email in a message transfer protocol.

This article reads particularly badly because of the repeated incorrect use of terminology.

[edit] And to address your comment, "they actually almost certainly do want this tracking to be performed" \- "want" is an interesting word to use there. If there was a tick box in the top right corner of peoples email clients which said:

      Allow senders to track when you open a message,
      where you were when you opened it, and various
      pieces of information about your system

99% of people would untick that box.

<comment><USER3> When you send an email with Gmail's SMTP servers, Gmail automatically stores a copy of that message in your "sent" IMAP folder. This is what the author was talking about.

<comment> mike-cardwell Not "in your sent IMAP folder" ... "in your sent folder, which can be accessed via IMAP"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, if I understand correctly, I can test if someone received a specific email just by testing the tracking link with known email addresses? Fun!</comment>


Ask HN: What Does a Customer Success Manager Do? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> This depends heavily on the size of the customer success team. I used to work at a place with only one customer success person who managed and tracked content on an external facing community site (basically the combination of a FAQ and Forum). For questions that were unanswered, they would request somebody from the appropriate team (e.g. PreSales, Services, Tech Support, Education, etc) to answer the question.

The plan was for that team to grow so they were also doing the following 1) Developing tutorials and videos for frequently asked questions 2) Tips & Tricks - blogs, tutorials, videos 3) Better Routing of customers to the right group (e.g. tech support). Basically a second layer of defense after the account executive. This was really important for new customers who didn't understand the correct channel to reach out to for help. 4) Have scheduled public sessions (e.g. 2 hour chat sessions) where customers could get tech help, demos, etc. Typically this would involve one person from the customer success team and one from some other team with more expertise in the product(s).

On the one person team, the "manager" didn't manage any people. The managed the customer questions and site. As the team grew, there was a plan to have somebody who actually managed the team.

</comment><comment><USER3> They handle clients requests such as onboarding and customer support.</comment>


Introducing Google Earth for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/introducing-google-earth-for-iphone.html

<comment><USER2> Anyone know if this includes the flight sim easter egg?

<comment><USER3> I highly doubt it but I can recommend X-Plane. It runs fantastically on the phone and you can even do ILS approaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ok. So it's fancy, 3d and all that.

I'm still not sure I see the benefits over the built in Maps application though.</comment>


Is Apple playing catch up? - <AUTHOR>

Yes Apple is to be credited with many design firsts and has clearly brought about great inventions, but isnt it true that Apple mostly makes things better rather than producing a first? <comment><USER2> Catch up to who? Intel, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Sun, IBM? None of these were the prime inventor of their products either. There were semiconductors before Intel, search engines before Yahoo and Google, OSes before Microsoft, and computer hardware before Sun or IBM. So no product companies don't need to catchup to anyone in the invent new stuff space. They need to design, develop, and sell products that people are willing to buy.</comment>


Bank of America questions customer's citizenship, freezes accounts - <AUTHOR> http://www.kctv5.com/story/38753295/bank-of-america-questioning-customers-citizenship-freezing-accounts <comment><USER2> KYC applies everywhere that wants to stop, or even to appear to care about, corruption.

I live in the UK. I have been with my main bank since I was a teenager, last century. A couple of years back they wrote to me, saying the KYC regulations mean they need to check who I actually am, they need proof I'm a citizen or my visa status and proof of my address. If I do nothing for six months they'll just cut a cheque for the money in the account and close it. I sent them a photocopy of my passport and driving license.

It seems fair to me, the biggest problem with KYC isn't that it's annoying, but that the crooks it's intended to catch are able to get away without. So if anything we need more, rather than less.

More annoying to me was the time my mobile phone provider, who I'd been with for about 18 years at the time, insisted on government ID as proof I was over 18 before they'd switch off their stupid censorship system for my mobile Internet. (I wanted to read Oglaf). By definition anyone who has been a customer for 18 years is over 18 years old. Duh.

<comment><USER3> The problem with KYC is the same as the problem with many laws: it's an inconvenience for the good guys, and only stops the dumbest of the bad guys.

There are lots of ways around KYC laws for the criminally inclined. The most straight forward would be simple identity fraud with stolen documents. Ironically, the more accustomed people become to uploading photos of their passport online, the easier it becomes for criminals to phish for the exact information they need for identity fraud.

With more banks closing branches and allowing opening of accounts online, and an increasing number of online "KYC compliance solutions" with dubious security, this problem will only get worse IMO.

<comment><USER4> _The problem with KYC is the same as the problem with many laws: it's an inconvenience for the good guys, and only stops the dumbest of the bad guys._

It's not just an inconvenience for the good guys. For community banks, the penalties for messing up are a much bigger deal than for an HSBC or a Bank of America. The problem isn't the stupidest of the bad guys. The problem are the still-stupid bad guys who have a modicum of ability. For smaller banks, who have to pick from borrowers who can't get a loan from the big banks, there are also marginal good guys who can get themselves into trouble, financial and/or legal.

 _With more banks closing branches and allowing opening of accounts online, and an increasing number of online "KYC compliance solutions" with dubious security, this problem will only get worse IMO._

Agreed. It's very difficult to solve and will be very important. Therefore, this is a possible opportunity?

<comment><USER5> Here's a company that's trying to approach it with blockchain: [https://tradle.io/](https://tradle.io/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We're in a period where the public polity is pretty amenable to regulating industries. A lot of this is down to "I don't trust the fuckers" which is.. fair, I would say.

But..., I don't think people really understand what this means. One thing it means is larger corporations. The first thing that happens when a market regulates is usually "consolidation." Capital markets reward larger companies, when regulation starts. The larger, older companies tend to be preferred by regulators.

The large companies are then "safe" as the regulation slows disruptive forces.

A second thing that happens is bureaucracy. The bank replies to this guys with a generic _" not our fault, regulators made us do it."_ This can be random, as "compliance" people gain power internally and start making decisions on a purely bureaucratic basis, without thinking about outcomes. Sometimes it's strategic. Smart lawyers interpret some parts in a dumb-literal way, because it allows them to do something they want to do while blaming the regulator. The same lawyers can creatively interpret some other clauses, allowing them to bypass/ignore some major part of the regulation, sometimes the whole point of the regulation. It's almost impossible to know which is happening.

David Graeber (provocateur and anarchist anthropologist) had a good bit on this. Basically the bank explains their own inexplicable bureaucracy by saying it's the regulator's bureaucracy, avoiding responsibility.

I'm not suggesting that banks should be a unregulated, just that quality matters. Quality is inadequate, currently. So much so that it's hard to predict what effects the introduction of a regulatory authority will have. Its a crapshoot.

<comment><USER7> I understand why people don't trust bankers.

I don't understand why they trust regulators.

They same asshole who would ruin your life at a bank can get a job as a regulator and ruin your life from there.

And while you can switch bank, you can't switch regulator.

<comment><USER8> >And while you can switch bank, you can't switch regulator

You get the chance to vote for your government every year or two.

<comment><USER9> The vast majority of staffers don't change when the leading party does in a number of countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "However, he has been a Bank of America customer for 20 years and was born a U.S. citizen, so he figured it could be a scam and that the bank would follow up if it was legitimate."

There is a lot of scamming going on. Just last week my mother got a recorded message with a computer generated voice saying they were from the IRS and they're filing a lawsuit and that she should call them back. I looked the number up online and just 30 minutes ago it seemed someone else got a similar phone call so I reported it to the government.

Companies and institutions who need information from people that could be used for identity theft really need to reach people in a way that they won't confuse it for a scam.

<comment><USER11> The IRS will never call. They will send you a letter via certified mail.

Any story that begins with "someone called claiming to be the IRS" can be cut off at that point and conclusively determined to be a scam.

<comment><USER12> The IRS will send a letter, but it may arrive by regular USPS, not certified mail.

I know this because regular USPS is how the IRS contacted me and my SO regarding filing errors.

EDIT: typo

<comment><USER13> Yeah a normal notice of error from the IRS is not certified mail. But it will be a letter, not a phone call.

Do keep forever copies of all correspondence with them, including (especially) documentation that the issue was resolved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting that they revised their statement.

The original statement (emphasis mine, because it took me a couple of reads to figure out what was changed)

> "Like all financial institutions, we're required by law to maintain complete > and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request > information, _such as country of citizenship and proof of US residency_. > This is not unique to Bank of America. This type of outreach is nothing new > and the information must be up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out > to customers, which is what we did in this case.

> Over time, we reach out to all customers to verify their information, not > only specific customers. If we don't hear from a customer in response to our > outreach, as a last resort, we may restrict the account until we can confirm > it is in compliance with regulatory requirements."

And the revised statement:

> "Like all financial institutions, we're required by law to maintain complete > and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request > information _as required by law and regulation_. This is not unique to Bank > of America. This type of outreach is nothing new and the information must be > up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out to customers, which is what > we did in this case.

> Over time, we reach out to all customers to verify their information, not > only specific customers. If we don't hear from a customer in response to our > outreach, as a last resort, we may restrict the account until we can confirm > it is in compliance with regulatory requirements."

edit: formatting, because no preview button.

</comment><comment><USER15> From an article with some actual information:

> A spokesperson for Bank of America said the bank has to collect that > information because they aren't legally allowed to provide services to > people from countries the U.S. has economic sanctions against.

> But the spokesperson said a person who has U.S. citizenship can still use > their account even if they are also citizens of a sanctioned country.

[http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2018/04/13/bank-asks- about-c...](http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2018/04/13/bank-asks-about- citizenship/73372)

See also: [https://www.quora.com/All-of-a-sudden-Bank-of-America-is- ask...](https://www.quora.com/All-of-a-sudden-Bank-of-America-is-asking-if-I- have-dual-citizenship-in-the-U-S-and-another-country-They-have-never-asked- that-before-Why-is-the-bank-doing-this)

<comment><USER16> This reminds me of the first bullet point here: [https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf](https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf)

In what is known as the most heartless plan imaginable for paying for "the wall."

> On day 2 Mexico will immediately protest. They receive approximately $24 > billion a year in remittances from Mexican nationals working in the United > States. The majority of that amount comes from illegal aliens. It serves as > de facto welfare for poor families in Mexico. There is no significant social > safety net provided by the state in Mexico.

<comment><USER17> I guess it depends on your definition of "significant" but there is a social welfare system in Mexico. There are several programmes, and it's helped millions of people - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Welfare_in_Mexico](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Welfare_in_Mexico)

<comment><USER16> Would you expect the author of the linked PDF to know that?

<comment><USER18> More importantly would the "build a wall" folks care about any facts or arguments against?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Started closing some of my higher value BoA accounts after they started charging people fees for having a low balance. This is predatory and targeting people who can't afford it.

[https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/smart-money/bank-of- america-...](https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/smart-money/bank-of-america- ebanking-fees/)

There are much better accounts elsewhere so even if you don't care about how BoA behaves you can get much better deals/service with fewer fees.

This news will push me to close my final credit cards with BoA. No need to rush, it took me 6 months to slowly open alternative accounts before closing the BoA ones. They will slowly loose my business that they could have easily kept for the next 50 years. It wasn't very hard to do, it just takes a little patience.

<comment><USER20> I have been with Wamu/Chase for a lot of years but want to switch now that they are implementing more fees. What are you switching to? The local credit unions seem pretty good but I know there are other options as well including fintech.

<comment><USER19> Ally is what I'm using. 1.75% saving account. 0.1% interest on checking account. No minimum balance. They pay all withdrawal fees. They don't have physical locations but I never used them anyway. Phone service is pretty good.

I have started getting in the mindset that I'll just open accounts wherever makes sense for different services. With internet banking there's no need to get everything from one provider, opening new accounts is easy and there is no need to stick with banks that behave like this.

Even if it's too much hassle to close the bad account right away it's pretty easy to take the first step and drain it to the minimum required balance.

<comment><USER21> doesn't opening and closing new accounts all the time impact your credit score, though?

<comment><USER3> Closing credit cards can affect your credit score because your credit line will decrease from the loss of cards, so your utilization ratio (balance / credit line) will increase. The usual advice is to try to consolidate your credit line before closing, but that might be harder when switching providers. Still, you can easily reduce the utilization by just paying the balance. So closing accounts does not have too much of a negative affect on your credit score. (My understanding is it does _not_ affect age of accounts, because closed accounts continue to "age." Not sure about that though.)

<comment><USER19> So is this only an issue if you don't pay off in full every month?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Don't blame Bank of America. For that matter, any bank. One day, we all realize that Stasi is better than the current regime of electronic surveillance.

Bank Secrecy Act, Patriot Act, etc are behind this. Now know the power of administrative state: when laws are passed, much of the content of these laws are filled up by regulatory bodies. In this case, FINCEN is responsible for filling up this content.

FINCEN assumes that every untraceable monetary instrument (cash, cashier checks, money orders, bank checks, etc) is DIRTY by default. If a bank doesn't know enough details (dob, citizenship, driver license number, ssn, passport number, etc) about controlling parties of any account (LLC, sol prop, C-corp, S-Corp, individual accounts), such accounts are seen as DIRTY. In other words, these are seen as potential sources of money laundering.

FINCEN makes banks responsible for spying and reporting any suspicious activity. Banks spend $100B a year on this compliance. There is a $2B software industry behind this (AML compliance software). These software companies hire ex-regulators from FINCEN etc.

<comment><USER23> "Don't blame Bank of America. For that matter, any bank. "

I absolutely can and will, because those banks are run by people. People who are capable of telling right from wrong.

"Bank Secrecy Act, Patriot Act, etc are behind this. Now know the power of administrative state: when laws are passed, much of the content of these laws are filled up by regulatory bodies. In this case, FINCEN is responsible for filling up this content."

No. Neither of those requires this course of action.

<comment><USER22> CDD (customer due diligence) became a rule on May 11, 2018 [1]. FINCEN forced banks to do it. Even though it is not in Bank's best interest to go through this exercise at all, they are forced by regulatory laws. There is a whole group at every bank dedicated to this: compliance teams, led by a chief compliance officer. Every bank is examined by internal auditors, external auditors, regulators to see whether a bank is in compliance.

Yes, banks run by people; laws are written by people; regulators are people. The issue is not people per se: which set of people has MORE discretion? In this case, compliance teams at banks don't have much discretion. FINCEN has discretion to fill up the content of laws in the name of new rules. Recently, Congress has started attacking this AML-regulation beast; there are a couple of bills in congress, which can ease AML compliance burden. By the time, any reforms are passed, KYC (know your customer, EDD (enhanced due diligence), and CDD (customer due diligence) become the status quo.

Of course, we could have expected Banks to push back, by sending lobbyists to rewrite laws. Banks are also helped by software tools to generate letters, file SAR(suspicious activity reports), CTR (currency transaction reports), etc. If there were no automated way of doing these, yes, they would have gone to Congress to push back. As long as there is some automation, expect more of this surveillance.

[1] [https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-reminds- fin...](https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-reminds-financial- institutions-cdd-rule-becomes-effective-today)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You don't need to be a U.S. citizen to have a U.S. Bank Account, you can open a U.S. bank account with a foreign passport and a second form of ID.

[https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060415/can- foreign-...](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060415/can-foreign- individual-open-savings-account-united-states.asp)

<comment><USER25> That isn't inconsistent with BoA's practice. The foreign passport is proof of citizenship. Presumably a French passport would be fine, a North Korean passport would be a problem.

<comment><USER26> I'm French, I went to open a BoA account, it took almost 2 hours. Best part is that the humiliating procedure was done by someone with a Spanish accent.

<comment><USER27> What does the employee's accent have to do with it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > "Like all financial institutions, we're required by law to maintain complete > and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request > information, such as country of citizenship and proof of US residency. This > is not unique to Bank of America. This type of outreach is nothing new and > the information must be up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out to > customers, which is what we did in this case.

It sounds like the process is mandated, but they screwed up the customer service piece.

<comment><USER29> Which seems like classic BoA. They could have sent additional warnings or called the customer.

I hope they move their account somewhere else.

<comment><USER30> pure scum, I couldn't think of a single worse company than these snakes. Stay far away from BoA

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I first wrote about this ten days ago, in connection with some other possibly related events:

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/07/three-ominous- development...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/07/three-ominous- developments.html)

It remains an unanswered question (AFAICT) why it is ONLY BofA that is asking about dual citizenship. It can't be a regulatory requirement, or all banks would be doing it.

<comment><USER32> Exactly. My wife has a US green card and Iranian citenship. B of A has already done this to her twice in the past two years and eventually relents. Fully expect it to happen again now. No other bank seems to be doing it.

<comment><USER33> Out of curiosity, why remain a customer of BoA?

They seem to be a terrible bank to do business with for any reason.

<comment><USER34> As a US expat I'm on the fence as to whether to close accounts when they mess up (or comply more than needed) with these processes imposed on them by a state that is a domestic abuser and considers me its property..

On the one hand, I would want to not do business with an institution that makes things even more unsavory, on the other hand, most foreign institutions don't actually want "US person" customers and benefit from less paperwork and risk if they convince US citizens to go to another one..

Ultimately, I think too much focus on the finance institutions is wrong. These laws are absurd invasions of everyone's rights under a bizarre premise that the US can make us all do it's foreign policy and enforce its bizarre law enforcement plans as unwilling deputies.

I don't really see a positive future while any one of the superpowers continues to exist. Personally, I don't think a reform eliminating their special status in the UN would be much, but it would be the first message in a new path.

<comment><USER33> I only ask because I used to do business with BoA after a series of banks that I did business with were acquired by them. They were a truly awful company, and seemed to systematically apply policy in such a way to maximize customer harm.

I now use a credit union, and the customer experience is dramatically better. Other than fee-free ATM access, there is literally no downside. I addressed the ATM issue by adding a checking account to my brokerage relationship strictly for cash purposes.

<comment><USER34> I avoided them when I was in the US since the bank that can extract the most value is clearly going to be a winner in buyouts and the worst option for consumers..

But I would assume this is another policy of maximizing customer harm that is in their best interest given the policies they are supposed to adhere to and expected costs and profits. The more accounts they frivolously close (or get closed by outrageous behavior) in the right demographics, the less likely and less severe any fine or get well plan is that is imposed for non-compliance for say an Iranian national that leaves and let's their US green card lapse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "...as a last resort.." obviously means, "we sent one dodgy letter and it wasn't replied to" to BoA!

</comment><comment><USER36> First the Chase thing, now this. I've taken to distribute my money across a number of bank accounts so I'm not completely FUBAR if one of them goes rogue. I should really just join a credit union, I guess...

<comment><USER37> It's a regulatory requirement. Banks don't do these things just to piss off their customers.

<comment><USER38> > It's a regulatory requirement.

Really? Do you have a citation to that regulation?

<comment><USER39> [https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/](https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/)

lists some of the various sources of sanctions. The regulatory parts are _e.g._ from the 2012 Executive Order (EO13599):

 _All property and interests in property of the Government of Iran, including the Central Bank of Iran, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person, including any foreign branch, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in._

<comment><USER38> Where in the OFAC regulations or any IEEPA type executive order is a requirement that a U.S. bank obtain proof of U.S. citizenship from an accountholder?

<comment><USER39> That's not covered. The OFAC just requires banks to have compliance programs and says that the degree and type of compliance will vary between banks, and to "ask your regulator" about it. As the other comment said, there are less urgent ways to check for US citizenship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Interesting. I used to live in the US some years ago and I still have my BoA account. It doesn't cost me anything and it is useful once in a while and who knows, I may need it some time in the future. Nonetheless I called them once to explain that I wasn't living in the US anymore and that I wanted to close my account but they advised me to keep it.

<comment><USER41> Why would they want you to close your account? They can't nickel and dime you on fees if it's closed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> If you have the means, it's helpful to have redundant bank accounts, especially for travelers, as this ratchet seems to only tighten. There's a couple sailing the world that had some snafus that required a flight back to the U.S. which they describe in detail: [https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/travel-money- international-...](https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/travel-money- international-banking)

</comment><comment><USER43> Same thing happened to me with Simple (the banking startup). After they got acquired by BBVA they moved their customer's checking accounts from The Bancorp to BBVA. As part of that process they re-verified their customers and closed accounts of non-citizen customers (they also closed accounts of permanent residents physically residing in the United States).

That migration pretty much happened in the worst way possible: While customers had several months to migrate once the migration started you only had something like 30 days to verify your documents and open the new account. Also once the migration was started there was no way to cancel or pause it. I'd at least have expected them to notify non-citizen customers in advance so that they have plenty of time to open another account. Instead, I didn't get any information about this issue until after I started the migration, and once I started it they told me that it's not possible to prevent/delay the closure of my account anymore.

Fun fact: According to Reddit/Twitter non-citizens who used a driver's license for KYC weren't affected (because Simple newer checked for their citizenship status). But if you used a Greencard for KYC they noticed that you aren't a citizen and closed your account. (So there's probably a large number of customers left whose accounts will be randomly closed at some future point.)

As a consequence (for non-citizens) I suggest using a bank or credit union which has a known track record of handling non-citizen accounts (especially with the current BofA news). The United Nations Credit Union ([https://www.unfcu.org/](https://www.unfcu.org/)) looks like a good choice, as they target UN workers and it appears that a large number of customers aren't US citizens (and don't even live in the United States). And don't forget to keep one or two backup checking accounts in case your main account gets closed down.

<comment><USER44> Yeah, for as online-friendly as they claim to be, they have some really wacky rules on kyc and long term travel. I asked them to close my account as I don't want to support those policies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> As an American residing abroad, and married to a non-American, I tend to get a lot of trouble from FATCHA and the like. These laws effectively force me to put all savings in my wife's name because that's the only way I can deal with banks in Europe.

Now we have these kinds of issues in the US. But proving citizenship isn't trivial. When we were in the US, my wife, to my knowledge didn't have to prove citizenship, only provide ID (such as a driver license) and a social security card (which also doesn't prove citizenship). Of course they can't just ask everyone for birth certificates or passports on short notice. So they just ask for verbal answers? Really?

But there is more. Why is there this focus on dual citizens? And why are banks being asked to effectively surveil people for dual citizenship?

</comment><comment><USER46> This happened after 9/11\. The U.S. eventually lobbied all banks throughout the world to require citizenship information especially from U.S. Citizens. And then report that information back to the U.S. This way they can track foreign accounts of U.S. taxpayers.

<comment><USER47> If that bank also has financial ties to the US, as it's through sanctioning the US side of the business that they enforce it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> They should just move to a much smaller bank. To Bank of America, he's just a number, they don't care about him. A much smaller bank would value his business and would take time to discuss with him before shutting down.

<comment><USER49> Even another large bank...

I moved away from BoA because they kept canceling my Visa and sending me a new one anytime I shopped somewhere that had fraudulent activity reported by another cardholder. I would go through a 3-5 cards a year. This eventually became a huge pain the in the ass because all of my autopay accounts had to constantly be updated and every website I shopped on had to constantly update my cards (which isn't as easy as it should be on some sites).

I switched to Chase a few years ago, still on the same card.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> And this is why you have 3 of everything.

Three copies. Three bank accounts. Etc.

</comment><comment><USER51> Happened to me. BoA is buying customer information from data brokers who get it from social media. Anyone with any foreign contacts at all gets flagged by their algorithm. Accounts are instantly frozen with no suspicious behavior whatsoever--unless pulling money from an ATM is supicious. Eventually this foolishness will cause the U.S. to lose its position as a banking center. In the meantime, enjoy your closed account.

</comment><comment><USER5> For reference of countries with sanctions:

[https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/](https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/)

</comment><comment><USER52> As someone who does have dual citizenship (UK and USA) and has been a BOA customer for over 20 years, my big question is what happens if you say "yes"? I didn't see this mentioned or discussed yet in the comments so far.

<comment><USER22> If you say "yes", nothing happens. Basically, the purpose behind this is to track "tax evaders", even though BSA, Patriot act, and FINCEN regulations sell this rule under the name of "anti-money laundering".

Think of this as NSA meta data gathering. NSA doesn't search metadata every day for some body. Instead, they use the meta data once suspicious person is located by other means.

IRS, FINCEN, FBI, etc want to have access this info on their fingertips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Yikes, does anybody have some advice for keeping accounts open while traveling long term without an ID card referring to a permanent address?

</comment><comment><USER53> Why anyone uses a big bank is beyond me. Credit unions all the way.

<comment><USER23> Credit unions are still subject to the same regulations.

<comment><USER54> I was asked that information by Bank of America but not from my other bank...

<comment><USER23> Because BofA decided how they were going to abide by those regulations.

<comment><USER54> but what is strange is that they let you avoid it (you can close the "popup" window and keep on doing whatever you were going to do in the first place)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I dont have a problem with this. Seems like a reasonable measure. People illegally here in our country should not be allowed to have a US bank account. It's as simple as that.

<comment><USER56> ... we can't take their tax dollars if we don't have their bank accounts tallied locally. it's as simple as that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> it's exactly why we need sovereign money

</comment><comment><USER58> what type of bank account can you have on a works visa?

<comment><USER59> You are not restricted in getting a bank account unless you are a citizen of a sanctioned country.

There is no law against foreigners having US bank accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> "'Oh yeah, we need to know if you're a citizen.' You know, I was born and raised in Kansas like Superman"

Superman was an undocumented alien.

<comment><USER61> Clark Kent was legally adopted by citizens as an infant, and is therefore legal.

<comment><USER62> After illegally gaining entry to the country. That said he might qualify for refugee status, depending on whether the state is willing to recognize Krypton.</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin price reaches a record high for the first time since April - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/05/bitcoin-price-reaches-a-record-high-for-the-first-time-since-april/ <comment><USER2> Everyone's quoting Mt. Gox eclipsing its previous high. However, it's pretty much impossible to cash out of Mt. Gox, and so it's trading at a premium to other exchanges. To this end, Mt. Gox beating its previous isn't an apples-to- apples comparison.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think there's something to this, and I say as much in my story. But with exchanges trading at different values, it's hard to know which price is the "real" one.

<comment><USER3> Dollars that you can actually access are real, and ones that you can't access (e.g. in a MtGox account) are fake. A price denominated in fake dollars is a fake price.

<comment><USER4> It's true that Gox$ aren't US$. But that doesn't mean they're entirely fake.

The matter of the fact is that, some people are doing arbitrage between Gox and other exchanges. And this arbitrage keeps prices somewhat in line. If the arbitrage would not exist, then the prices would be all over the place and not correlate at all.

The question then is, if the Gox$ are all fake and nobody can get any, how come the arbitrageurs can keep in business? And the answer is: they couldn't. Some people get to convert their Gox$ to US$ and then use them to buy bitcoin on other exchanges to sell them on Gox.

But, not all people, for whatever reason, get to do that. And the process might be lengthy, and there's a risk that it might fail for you.

So the spread between Gox and other exchanges is the arbitrageurs estimate of the risk of selling BTC to Gox$ and be able to convert them in a suitable timeframe to US$.

<comment><USER3> The last thing I heard is that you can get money out quickly by paying a 5% fee, so I think you're right that arbitrage is keeping the price difference around 5%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been in it since the first bubble in April and it's surprising how resilient Bitcoin has become to negative news such as the seizure of 5% of all Bitcoins recently. There was a drop of 20%, but it had recovered from that after a few days already. Since then it has been on the up and up.

I think it's pretty likely that 1 Bitcoin will be worth $1,000 within the next year and $10,000 within the next 3 years.

<comment><USER6> That's what people said before the crash in April. Not that I disagree--I don't really care one way or another--but I think it's impossible to predict its price in a year, let alone 3. Anything can happen at this rate.

<comment><USER7> The only way for Bitcoin to not go up is for a different cryptocurrency to come to fruition that has significant improvements over Bitcoin, like zerocoin, and subsequently can not be integrated into Bitcoin's blockchain.

<comment><USER8> Can bitcoins security algorithms become outdated due to Moore's law in any reasonable period of time? Is there a possible threat of algorithm compromise by cryptanalysis?

<comment><USER9> As for mining, there are enough bits in SHA256 to allow billion-fold increase in difficulty. And if there is a danger of breaking it much quicker, all people holding bitcoins have huge incentive to change the protocol to fix the problem.

As for ECDSA, it can only be broken by quantum computers, but still most balances are protected by sha256*ripemd160 hash, so they are safe in the face of sudden QC attack or a weakness in ECC. People will want to protect their wealth and thus will change the protocol for other algorithms.

<comment><USER8> Cool info, thx!

But do you think it would actually be viable to make a protocol algorithm transition?

<comment><USER9> When everyone's money is at stake, it'll be very quick. This March, when the network forked, miners with newer version 0.8 agreed to forego mining rewards and abandon their own branch (incompatible with v0.7) just to resolve the issue quickly to not shake the confidence in Bitcoin.

<comment><USER10> They got their money back anyway. A user paid every single missed bounty from blocks on the abandoned fork.

<comment><USER9> v0.7 miners got those rewards, not v0.8 ones.

<comment><USER10> v0.8 miners were paid back for the lost funds from a private fund, leftover from the original Bitcoin Faucet.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but this was not planned ahead. Miners did abandon their rewards even being on a longer chain just to maintain trust in the system. They did not know if they will ever get their money recovered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In April, I got in @ $220 / BTC.

Yesterday, I got out @ $220 / BTC.

I suck at this.

<comment><USER12> At least you didn't lose money :) At this stage it wouldn't hurt too much to hold onto it for a little longer. It's not increasing at exponential speed at this stage, so I'd say it is likely to go up a bit more before we see another crash. Difficult to predict, though.

<comment><USER13> It's a market. Half of all predictions are wrong, all the time. Only question is: Do you belong to the smarter half?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's the best Bitcoin exchange to buy with? In the early days I stayed away because a lot of the exchanges seemed to have really poor security, but it looks like it may be time to invest somewhere.

<comment><USER15> Coinbase is really easy if you're in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm happy about the rise, but I'm not fully counting this as a record yet. The Bitcoin exchange ecosystem has changed since April. MtGox started massively delaying dollar withdrawals, so the price there diverged from other exchanges. I'll be watching Bitstamp (now at $254) for the real thing.

<comment> w-ll [http://markets.blockchain.info/](http://markets.blockchain.info/) is a great resource. While its not unanimous, the peak they are quoting is Mt.Gox and comparing it to... Mt.Gox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think its due for another crash and I'll wait until that happens. Plus with this Senate hearing who knows what could happen to the price after that.

<comment><USER9> Previous "crashes" were pretty profitable:

2011: From $1 to $30 and then down to $5. 500% total gain. [http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg5zigDailyzczsg201...](http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg5zigDailyzczsg2011-03-02zeg2011-11-07ztgSzm1g10zm2g25) (Slow decrease in price was probably due to huge mining inflation rate at that time: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130619.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130619.0))

Summer 2012: From $5 to $15 to $11. [http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg5zigDailyzczsg201...](http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg5zigDailyzczsg2012-05-02zeg2012-09-07ztgSzm1g10zm2g25)

Spring 2013: From $14 to $266 to around $100-120. [http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg5zigDailyzczsg201...](http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg5zigDailyzczsg2013-01-02zeg2013-05-07ztgSzm1g10zm2g25)

If this time it crashes from $2000 to $1000, it'd be pretty spectacular and profitable. Those traders who will have bought too high will have to patiently wait another year or two for their profits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It seems that Bitstamp has been much more stable than Mt. Gox lately, and interestingly hasn't hit its all time high just yet.</comment>