Homeless Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://www.nevblog.com/homeless-experiment/ <comment><USER3> Unfortunately, no one can be told what homelessness is. You have to feel it for yourself.

It's like putting on heavy weights and thick glasses because you want to know how it is to be old.

The worst part is the psychological one, imho. He can go home. All bills paid, cosy warm room, roof over his head. But to know that you "failed in life", can't provide for yourself like so many others, have nowhere to go... I _guess_ that's the real homelessness.

I recently experienced not getting paid for several months. It's quite interesting what this does to your head.

<comment><USER4> "But still you'll never get it right, cos when you're laid in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if you call your Dad he could stop it all."

However, I guess it's not either or but a spectrum - although never completely homeless, I'm sure he felt more homeless than usual.

<comment><USER5> > more homeless than usual.

This is what going on vacation is, or camping out.

Pulp got it spot on, a very fine choice of lyric there... it hit the mark and hit it hard.

I've been homeless. It's an integral part of my identity that during my youth my life led me onto the streets for almost 2 years (inc 2 winters).

When I put myself on the street I had options. It was an escape route from a family environment I wish on no-one. But I had options. I could've still called people up, I could've still gone to another family member somewhere else.

Over time though, the options narrow. You've already lost possessions, wealth, means, but then you lose even the view that you could reach out to anyone.

There really is a trip-wire beyond which hopelessness exists.

If you think you're experiencing homelessness just by sleeping in a cheap sleeping bag and not carrying your debit card, think again.

Get rid of the phone, burn your bridges, discard your possessions... dig a hole so cavernous that getting out is to climb a mountain, and don't leave yourself with an escape ladder or means to call for help.

Only when your options are so few and so tenuous that they barely exist, only when you are so focused on your next meal and where you'll be warm and safe that night, only then with nothing at all to help you will you feel what the homeless feel.

And as for Pulp, Common People captured something that exists in that desolate state. The fact that with everything gone, so too are the cares and caution. It is possible to be happy on the street, it is possible for it to be liberating to not have any options... in my view options were also constraints, things that prevent you from doing something else. You don't get the courage to attack new things if there's an easier option, without options attacking the hard things is all that is left.

<comment><USER6> So if you lost the idea that you could reach out to someone, what got you out of homelessness?

<comment><USER5> Tenacity and creating opportunities out of little and slowly growing self- belief. The latter part is really important and isn't really something anyone gives you.

I don't want to repeat myself so you can check the longer post I made on it through the link here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1201098>

<comment><USER6> Great post. I appreciate your honesty in how the fear of ending up back there dominates your thinking. I don't think there is such a thing as security; we all could end up there, given the right situation, no matter how much money, property, etc. we have. And not taking risks isn't so bad; if one is content to not be I-don't-have-to-work wealthy, it reduces the amount of risks one needs to take. And if it's any encouragement, you sound mighty resourceful, so I think you'll thrive in any environment.

I did want to ask a followup about being homeless. You clearly did not want to be homeless. In my (U.S.) city, there are a lot of options for people who don't want to be homeless, and most of them are not out on the streets. The ones who are, are mostly there because they are happy with the lifestyle and have no desire to stop being homeless. At least, that's my understanding, based on articles like this one and people I've talked to. Would you say this is a correct view based on your experiences?

<comment><USER5> Of the people I met on the streets, only the very long-term homeless who did not have major mental health problems preferred to stay homeless.

For those, they appreciated the simplicity of life and had acclimatised to it and also understood that to get out of it is several mountains of effort (1 to get off the street, 1 to get to the same standard as the average person in poverty, and finally another to have a good life in a lower-income bracket). Those people were able to consider all of this and actually would choose to have a good life with nothing at all and just to be at peace with their situation.

Those people are rare.

The short-term homeless (< 6 months - seasonal variation means that there are vastly more of them in the summer) I felt made up a greater proportion of those currently homeless certainly would not ever choose to stay on the streets. They had real difficulty surviving. They're also a lot less visible, the short-term homeless are very fearful and will hide away from everyone and not interact with the long-term homeless and would mostly refuse services to help them as they lived in a state of denial. These are the people most likely to end up in the most horrific circumstances, they are the most vulnerable.

The other significant tribe is the one I disclaimed in the first paragraph... those with mental health problems. You cannot underestimate the effect of being alone all the time, living in some degree of fear and being hungry and unkempt. It rots your sanity slowly, it leaves you unable to do what seem externally to be simple things. You could not give these people homes, they couldn't cope with them, but likewise they're not coping with being homeless either and their hygiene reflects this.

So to the original question, are the homeless made up of mostly people who have no desire to stop being homeless? No, not at all. It's certainly true of some, but others simply do not have the ability to make those choices, nor the courage to accept help or the mental wit to comprehend and then deal with it. Whilst there are some that will never leave the streets through choice, there are far more who will never leave the streets through lack of choice, and then a large mass who will leave and for whom being homeless is the darkest part of their life.

It's just really important to not judge the whole by those who have the confidence to engage with others, that they are doing so probably means that they are already an exception and not the norm. I clearly don't reflect the vast majority as I never let go of the smallest sliver of hope, but most have and cannot imagine tomorrow being different from today. They really need hope given to them, and the support to help them help themselves.

As much as this does dominate part of my past, I actually don't think it's one of the biggest social issues. I once met an ex-drug dealer on the street who had been in jail and raped in there. He told me of the great respect he had for real victims (of which he didn't include himself), and that he respected those able to deal with childhood sexual abuse far more than anyone else he ever encountered and found their ability to respect themselves to be overwhelming.

Me, I find the homelessness in my past a source of motivation and some shame, yet the people I have the greatest respect for aren't those who are in that situation still or break free from it, but those a notch higher. I have the greatest empathy for those not living on the streets but who instead are confined to live in poverty. Poverty is a far more widespread problem that deeply affects far more of society. Homelessness is such a small extreme, and there are outs... but there are few outs to poverty for the vast majority. If homelessness is the frying pan (small), then poverty is the bush/forest fire (enormous) and it's effects on the people goes very deep and gets passed from generation to generation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only person deeply shocked by this guy's significant level of ignorance? The first 70 to 80% of his article could essentially be surmised as 'Hey, homelessness is easy as long as you put some thought into it.'

There is a reason homelessness is a vicious cycle and he didn't even come close to discovering that. Fine, he met some truly decent, capable people living on the streets but the vast majority are there purely because they are stuck in said cycle. Be it alcohol, drugs, criminal convictions or a combination of the aforementioned, most people on the streets are there for a reason beyond their immediate control and not because they were simply the victim of bad luck.

 _Most "real" homeless people who have temporarily fallen on hard times rarely ask for money in any of these ways._

This summed it up for me. 'real' homeless people…that attitude actually hurts my brain.

I'll give the guy credit for giving it a go but he has seriously missed the point.

SOURCE: 1st hand experience for just under a year of my life. Unquestionably the hardest year of my life.

<comment><USER8> So "bad luck" would be a reason _within_ their immediate control?

It sounds like you and the blogger are both saying that most people asking for money on the street need a lot more than money to change their situation. I often think about this myself when I pass one; what if I gave them $100? $1000? Would it get them off the street?

What's your take on this?

<comment><USER7> The fact is, money won't get the majority of people off the street. That being said, when I give money to homeless people I don't give it with the hope that they may take the first step towards assimilating with regular society, I give it with the hope that it may pay for their next meal or even help towards putting a roof over their head for the night.

I can personally guarantee you that if someone handed me £100k it would change my life exponentially and allow me to turn things around because I have the drive and determination to do so. If the same person handed me £1k it wouldn't change my life but it would relieve a lot of pressure when it comes to bills and so on.

Be it £100,000 or £1,000, either donation would be hugely appreciated and help me enormously. For someone who has no money & doesn't know where their next meal is coming from then I guarantee they will have the same attitude if you took a couple of zero's off those amounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> george orwell (who also wrote 1984) conducted a similar experiment in the late 1920s and wrote a book about it:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_Londo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_London)

<comment><USER10> If you want to get a sense of Orwell's writings about poverty, but you're not sure you want a whole book, try his essay "The Spike." It's available in _Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays_ , as well as in many other collections or selections of his essays. You can also find it online:

[http://books.google.com/books?id=WREtVBBT9lEC&lpg=PA1...](http://books.google.com/books?id=WREtVBBT9lEC&lpg=PA1&dq=george%20orwell%20%22the%20spike%22&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=george%20orwell%20%22the%20spike%22&f=false) (changed link to Google books; removed short link)

<comment><USER11> Don't use URL shorteners here. [http://books.google.com/books?id=WREtVBBT9lEC&lpg=PA1...](http://books.google.com/books?id=WREtVBBT9lEC&lpg=PA1&dq=george%20orwell%20%22the%20spike%22&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=george%20orwell%20%22the%20spike%22&f=false)

<comment><USER10> I'm curious: is that a personal preference or a convention of the site? I don't think I've noticed it one way or the other.

<comment><USER11> Ah, sorry for being brusque. It's a convention here. <http://searchyc.com/comments/use+URL+shorteners>

<comment><USER10> No worries about the tone, which was fine. I just wanted to know. Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > So should you give money to bums on the street? > In short, my answer is: > NO.

Ignoring the tacky epithet "bums on the street" I disagree with this conclusion. Giving someone money demonstrates respect for them as a fellow human being: "I trust you to use this as you see fit."

How would you feel if instead of getting paid for your work, you were told where to live, what and how much to eat, and so on? And now you want a beer? Sorry!

Nev wonders why Black Mike isn't more grateful for his gifts. Maybe instead of deciding for him, "Here's what you can do, and here's the tools to do it," he could give him the money and take him on a shopping spree, advising but not dictating.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting point about homelessness especially for people around this site, if you can use your skills to make money online without relying on any single source you are at a much lower risk of becoming homeless through a set of bad circumstances than someone who can only really convert their skills to a decent income through a more permanent employer.

</comment><comment><USER14> I up voted this article because it is a constant reminder of the difference between acting and doing.

Also, i loved the part where he was "planning to be homeless" and mentioned that in the case of an emergency, he carried instructions in his wallet to take him to a private hospital, not a public one. Classy.

</comment><comment><USER15> The sad thing about homelessness is that some of them are mentally ill - <USER2> is why there are homeless. My friend tells me about the regular homeless men and woman who camp out near the Hospital ER where she works...hoping to be admitted, but never being taken in for treatment.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Agree or disagree with the author's methods, I like anyone who pushes the boundaries of their current existence.

Call it "Getting out of your comfort zone", "Thinking outside the box", or any other bullshit buzzphrase - Pushing beyond previous experience is the only thing that matters in life.

</comment><comment><USER16> This reminds me of the book "Scratch Beginnings" except that the guy in the book was gone for a year and had the goal of getting a stable job, car etc. It's a good read.

</comment><comment><USER17> mainly i feel sorry for this guy because of how out of touch he is. he packs more to be homeless than i pack to go camping and basically tries to emulate whatever he finds to be a stereotypical homeless person. maybe he never worked in food service and thus didn't know american dumpsters are goldmines of safe, edible food?

more than anything, this seems like a feeble attempt at a rich person to do something they consider "crazy" so they can have a cool story to tell their friends over caviar. "oh wow, look how dirty i was! ha ha!" this guy needs to get over himself.

there's lots of reasons why people become homeless ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Contributing_cause...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Contributing_causes_of_homelessness)) and most well-off people simply don't think about the kind of problems people have to deal with just to survive. homelessness is a multi-faceted and complex issue which encompasses millions of people in different situations. there is no way to "see how they live", unless maybe you got some head trauma, a broken leg, asthma and were dumped somewhere you didn't know with no support system and no job skills (compounded perhaps by a self-medicating drug or alcohol habit).

do you want to help the homeless? tell your congressmen to pass laws that help them with their _real life_ problems they need to overcome ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Problems_faced_by_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Problems_faced_by_people_who_are_homeless)) before they can try to sustain themselves with a job and housing. donate to organizations which provide food and shelter to many instead of handing out money to individuals. give old clothes and supplies (like the backpack & sleeping bag he tossed) to goodwill or a local shelter. mainly the way people can help the homeless is by putting forth resources to help people learn how to elevate themselves above simply surviving, which most people eventually settle for compared to what seems like the immense difficulty of getting a stable job.

<comment><USER18> According to the article, most of the homeless he encountered didn't have the problems you describe. Black Mike, for instance, was fit enough to defeat Nev in a slap-boxing match. The author also never called upon his support system or job skills, so I'm not sure how they are relevant.

Also, according to his experience at various shelters, he seems to have a backpack full of stuff comparable to other homeless people. Some of the items (e.g., toothbrush) were given out free at the homeless shelter. According to you, various organizations will give out other items "like the backpack & sleeping bag he tossed".

The only item that seems out of place is the laptop/phone, but according to the article: "There are two guys openly playing on their laptops here [a shelter] and one guy with a portable DVD player watching a movie. Many people have cell phones and MP3 players. "

Why do you feel his attempt is "feeble"?

<comment><USER17> most of the homeless he encountered isn't most of the homeless. it's a small subsection of homeless in two parts of his town. different parts of different towns have different kinds of homeless. the wikipedia article i linked to explains how a surge of homeless came about, many of them having mental or medical issues. many times those coming back from war have both and end up homeless. and sure, eating what little you can, living outside and a stay in prison may give you better reflexes than a rich computer geek who blogs about being homeless for a week.

i don't think many people anticipate being homeless and then go and buy homeless gear. they aren't going to pack themselves a homeless kit. i imagine one would acquire things as they wander, pick up other people's junk, get what they can in handouts, etc. by just buying this stuff you're giving yourself an advantage over the penniless. perhaps it was his interest in only doing this for a week that prompted this "self-donation", i dunno. i refer to this same point regarding phone/laptop/etc.

it's feeble because he didn't really appear homeless. he only did it for a week. he just tried to get into places that were more comfortable vs living like the people who were unfortunate enough not to win the lottery. in other words, he was basically trying to game the system and see how good life could be as a homeless person vs how life really is. he's intelligent, well prepared, aware of his surroundings. he doesn't have any particular handicap which could prevent him from eventually just finding stable work. he makes a good point that there are good resources for people who fall on hard times temporarily, but this doesn't account for the majority of homeless who stay homeless for an extended time (or indefinitely). and i found it feeble because he spent more time taking pictures of himself than getting to understand "the freaks" or anyone else but black mike.

<comment><USER18> _i don't think many people anticipate being homeless and then go and buy homeless gear._

Neither did he. The items he packed into the backpack he had since middle school were a $5 sleeping bag he happened to have in the closet, a few clothes, eyeglasses, a toothbrush, toilet paper and brown sign paper. (I'm ignoring the laptop, phone, camera and notebook, which didn't seem to help him much and were there mainly for documentation purposes).

If I were facing a surprise eviction in 10 minutes, I'd be able to pack far more than that. And as you say, even if I didn't, such things would be available from "help the homeless" organizations.

 _he just tried to get into places that were more comfortable vs living like the people who were unfortunate enough not to win the lottery._

I missed the part of the story where winning a lottery was necessary to in the park and under a bridge.

I will grant you that his experience is not statistically representative of homelessness as a whole. It's also a poor simulation of mental illness (did he claim to be simulating mental illness?).

But I don't see why you conclude he didn't reasonably experience _homelessness_.

<comment><USER17> he experienced homelessness. but through a crystal glass, behind a pompous facade, with the armor of reserves of cash and helpful, resourceful friends. based on the conclusions of his blog, i don't think he learned anything.

mainly i don't think you can compare one homeless situation to another and so this kind of "see what its like" scenario is not useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This guy needs to watch Preston Sturges's "Sullivan's Travels."

</comment><comment><USER20> If you rub coffee grounds on your face, it will look like dirt.

There was an experiment like this in the City paper in DC, many years ago.

<comment><USER21> That's good advice for when you can't find any dirt and there are a bunch of coffee grounds lying around.

<comment><USER22> Quick, you're trapped in a Starbucks, you need to look homeless, _what do you do_?.</comment></comment></comment>


How do you handle claims of neglect from your significant other(s)? - <AUTHOR>

You work on that computer too much, etc? <comment><USER2> Find an understanding significant other (preferably before this problem arises). My girlfriend moved to the other side of the continent less than a month after we started dating, with my encouragement, because it was the right thing for her to do at the current point in her career. Obviously there's a certain amount of reciprocity involved -- she'll equally understand if I need to do what's right for my career, even if it makes our relationship a bit more difficult at some point.

<comment><USER3> 'A bit more difficult' ?!?

What kind of relationship do you have? An asexual one?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just lost my SO a little over a month ago. In retrospect, I made a lot of mistakes during the time I was working on my little project.

I have no advice, but my opinion, for what it's worth, is that if this is THE person for you, I truly doubt you would even be capable of neglecting them anymore than absolutely necessary. Sounds a bit off, but I believe it.

If you are with THE one, you guys ought to be magical. That doesn't mean there won't be ups and downs (PG will tell you startup life is all-consuming, and personal experience says he's right).

I lost my SO, but it didn't really phase me too much. She wasn't the one for me. If you're asking this question because you're going through this problem right now, maybe it is best to free yourself of unnecessary entanglements. But if you feel the person you're with is the one for you, do your best to keep your startup worries to the computer screen.

Oh, during the "good times" with my SO, I used to be a pretty spontaneous person. Once the startup life began, I got pretty boring. Look out for that one. I hear women don't like boring.

</comment><comment><USER5> Take them seriously. If your relationship was healthy before, the fact that you have to be told you're neglecting your SO means you should have noticed a long time ago.

<comment><USER6> Or it means that you're actually doing your job.

<comment><USER7> Probably, but you should decide which is more important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Life is about balance. It's not easy to do, but you need to pay special attention to giving the proper amount of attention, time and prioritization to all aspects of your life. It's easy to get caught up in only focusing on your startup, but it's not a good long-term choice if you want to maintain a happy relationship with your SO as well.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ironically, I'm building a web application to address this problem... you can check it out: <http://muchcloser.com>

Right now it's still at an early alpha. For now it just has some features from highrise, but this will change in a few months.

It's public so if you're interested, you (or anyone else) can let me know what you feel needs to be changed or added to meet your needs

<comment><USER10> When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

<comment><USER9> so what do you suggest I (and people like aswanson) do then?

<comment><USER10> I do not have any suggestions for you; I'm not especially good at relationships and don't have much experience with startups. Looking at your screenshot, it looks like your app is essentially a to-do list and messaging tool. Most of us already have those. I don't see how yours will help people balance their work and personal lives any better. Sorry to be negative, but this doesn't look like it does much to address the problem you want to solve.

<comment><USER9> I have no problem with constructive criticism. I just really hate it when people say vague things without any logic or details attached. From my point of view, you're not helping me either realize it's a dead end or how to fix it; you're just saying it sucks

On the other hand what you just wrote is a valid constructive criticism which I really truly appreciate...

yeah I am aware of it and we're working to fix it... like I said, there's a lot more coming in the near future; whether it's useful or not I'll let other people decide once it's done

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Listen to them, they are right.

Now get off the computer. :-)

</comment><comment><USER11> By not having one. ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> "How do you handle claims of neglect from your significant other(s)? "

Tell them you don't have time right now to talk to them about it?

</comment><comment><USER13> What is this mythical beast of which you speak?

<comment><USER14> Interesting comments.. I suppose I am an 'SO' (girlfriend/partner/lover etc etc...) But for me the boot is on the other foot.. I have managed to get a new job teaching cybercultures/new media stuff at a University in the UK, and also work on a media streaming project. It is keeping my boyfriend enthusiastic that adds spice to our relationship... I have also done a lot of new media work with the British Association of Sex and Relationship Therapists.. and they are having lots of difficulties with their clients complaining that SOs are spending too long online or are disinterested. It's also revealing to see that the problem of the disapearing SO has manifest itself as a piece of software too. And yes.. I guess we are mythical beasts but the best way to solve this is being honest with your situation in the first place, and don't take for granted that your SO will understand or appreciate your devotion to your project. The best thing is to try and get them involved in some way.. .or end/put on hold the relationship. This works for me!

Happy days!</comment></comment>


Rajat Gupta Convicted of Insider Trading - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/rajat-gupta-convicted-of-insider-trading/ <comment><USER2> Personally, I think this is more about a sense of power, rather than simply 'billionaire envy'. I've seen that people at a certain level think that normal rules don't apply to them. This operates quite insidiously too, it's not always a chest thumping, fist pumping, 'I rule the world' kind of behaviour. I imagine Mr Gupta thinks of himself as a regular law abiding citizen, but didn't think there was anything wrong about him helping out a friend with his contacts.

Also, I'm quite astonished by the fact that that 60 of the 66 charges have been resolved by guilty pleas or verdict. In many of these high profile cases, detractors claim 'witch hunt', and a quite often win on appeal. However, with these statistics, anyone who claims that there isn't something rotten going on is on doesn't have much to stand on.

All in all however, a 63 year old man who was something of a personal icon is going to jail. Sad, particularly for his family, but count me impressed by Preet Bharara.

</comment><comment><USER3> What a joke. I guess some of the old white people on Wall Street didn't like him taking away from their profits. Anyone who has worked on wall street knows that insider trading is common place. They may call it analysis, but the bottom line is that they trade on information that others (you and I) do not (yet) have. Even milliseconds matter.

PS FTR: I'm old, and white.

<comment><USER4> I keep telling folks that invest in the stock market that they're playing a game...their game.

I find that gambling in stocks is more dangerous than playing the lottery once a week.

Some will argue with me and tell me that 'if you work hard and study the market, you will know how to play stocks' but my question to them is why are they reading this post?

<comment><USER5> The expected return from a stock, even if you're a crappy stock picker, is greater than the expected return of a lottery ticket.

<comment><USER6> How about all the stress that comes from dealing with the stock market on a periodic basis?

<comment><USER5> If you're investing according to general guidelines, like investing a fixed amount each month, keeping it in, not trying to time the market, and so forth, there's very little stress. The more your investing strategy resembles gambling, the more stressful it will be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On Bloomberg News, Gupta's time with Goldman Sachs was emphasized over his time at McKinsey. On NPR, they didn't even mention his role at McKinsey. On NYT (this article), they stress Gupta's time at McKinsey over his time at GS.

I wonder what kind of biases or vested interests (perhaps) we can infer from this. (Or perhaps I'm overthinking this)

<comment><USER8> Gupta retired from McKinsey in 2007 and then leaked secrets from Goldman's board in 2008... and that's what he was prosecuted for. So it does make sense that his association with Goldman would get primary billing. As the NYT article states, "Mr. Gupta's illegal conduct started after he retired from McKinsey."

At the same time, it's definitely of note that Gupta not only headed up McKinsey but that he violated its core principle of client confidentiality:

<< "McKinsey's core business principle is to guard the confidential and private information of its clients," said a former McKinsey executive who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. "It is mind-blowing that the guy who ran the firm for so many years could be going to jail for violating that principle." >>

So I can see why both associations would be worth noting. I don't think there's a major bias or vested interest here.

<comment><USER9> If you think a consulting company protects the confidentiality and privacy of its clients, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you.

<comment><USER10> Having worked there - yes the culture of keeping confidentiality was incredibly strong. We shared learnings but not details, and everything shared would be disguised. Even today, 11 years later, you won't catch me saying former client names.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's likely that the verdict is right and Mr.Gupta is guilty. However, I get the sense that he is caught because he is an outsider playing an insider game. The "old boys" club of White hedge fund guys who do this on a regular basis are protected enough to evade this fate.

Preet Bahrara (being Brown himself) finds it easier to go after the Indian guys than high powered White financiers. Will be great to see this proven wrong and White (All) crooks paying the price. Right now these guys are the white collar criminal equivalent of Blacks for lower level criminal activity – over represented due to race bias.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think you'd find the conversations of every board member right after a board meeting at a high profile bank very very interesting.

I think Rajat just had the friend who got caught or he might not have realized (unlikely) what Ratnam was doing with the information or he thought he'd never get caught because its pretty normal behavior on wall street.

I'd bet its the latter. Insider trading is much more prevalent than people think.

</comment><comment><USER13> _Mr. Gupta's friends adamantly dispute the notion that he was driven by material gain. At the trial, his private banker at JPMorgan Chase pegged his family's net worth at $130 million, in addition to his home in Westport, Conn., a waterfront mansion once owned by the retail executive J. C. Penney.

"I don't know who came up with this business that Rajat had billionaire envy," said Anil Sood, a childhood friend from India who now lives in Virginia. "He has always been quite content with his wealth."_

Net worth of only $130,000,000? No, clearly this man has never been driven by material gain!

</comment><comment><USER14> The New Yorker had a (to me) fascinating article about this case a while ago: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/06/27/110627fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/06/27/110627fa_fact_packer?currentPage=all)

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe I'm a skeptic but I figured he'd manage to get out of it somehow...

<comment><USER16> Well it dents the accusation that the justice system doesn't punish the 'rich.' But we'll hear further rationalizations, like "Well if he was _white_ and rich, then he would have gotten off." but those are just rationalizations of course.

I feel sorry that the guy didn't get better advice from his peers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Jail? Really? Aren't there better alternatives for cases like this?

<comment><USER18> An alternative in which direction? Like, a nice hotel ... or hanging?

Insider trading is basically theft, only with no specific victim, and no broken windows; a very clean crime. Insider trading is stealing from other shareholders, which might include pension funds of HN readers.

Some discussion of impacts of insider trading here - <http://money.howstuffworks.com/insider-trading3.htm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Legalize insider trading. With the proliferation of internet/cellphones/print/electronic media it's impossible to prevent insider trading.

</comment><comment><USER20> > _Several jurors were crying as they left the courtroom._

What's up with this?

<comment><USER21> If I were sending a 60+ year old man to jail for what could potentially be the rest of his life, maybe I would cry to. A thing to keep in mind is that Mr. Gupta does not come of as an 'evil' person. He has done quite a lot of good in the world too and was and probably still is one of the sharpest minds in the corporate world. Obviously he lost all respect by doing this, but that doesn't mean one does not feel bad seeing a man's reputation and life so thoroughly destroyed by his own greed.

<comment><USER22> Seriously now? You must be living in some sort of a comic book where people are only good or bad, never inbetween.

Its a common thing for people doing evil to feel bad and doing good things to make themselves feel better. Vito Corleone was named "godfather" with a good reason.

And following your thinking, one can cry for Adolph Hitler, because:

\- he overcame chaos in Germany, restored order and enormously raised production in all fields of national economy

\- he politically united the German nation

\- he rearmed it militarily

\- he tried to liquidate the Treaty

\- he have restored the Reich and the provinces grabbed from Germany in 1919

\- he had led millions of deeply unhappy Germans back into the Fatherland

.. and so on. Now, would you cry for him?

edit: obviously looking back in time, he turned out to be a monster, but at some point he had over 90% approval in ratings.

<comment><USER21> Your argument is weird. The fact that people are not just good or bad but in between is exactly why I said the jurors felt bad giving this verdict. They saw Gupta as someone who has been close to good most of his life (he was at McKinsey for 40 years without a single blemish on his record!). And then you somehow invert the your own point and say that you should not feel sorry for Gupta because he is apparently evil like Hitler? And none of your points make me personally feel anything good about Hitler. Compare that with Gupta's life and tell me seriously if that is a fair comparison:

\- orphaned at 18 with very little money \- studied hard and ranked 15th in the entire country and got admitted to IIT \- Got an MBA from Harvard \- Worked at McKinsey till 2011 making to the the post of Managing Director (the first MD of McKinsey from outside US) \- [<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajat_Gupta#Philanthropy>]

See this Bloomberg article which pretty much says something similar - [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-15/in-gupta-jurors- saw...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-15/in-gupta-jurors-saw-american- dream-and-convicted-anyway.html).

But I sense that we are different people, so arguing further with you will be moot.

<comment><USER22> Too bad you giving up on arguing so quick.

Juror can say whatever they want to but the bottom line is is that when you in front of jury, they need to judge you based on your case merits, not whether you did or did not do something good or bad in your life. This is simple irrelevant to case in front of the judge.

Check the case of Casey Anthony, for example. She has been giving sleeping pills to her daughter while partying carelessly in the town. She is a bad person and was terrible mother, but yet importunately there was not enough evidence to sentence her. The jury judged based on evidence presented, not because whether she was a good or bad person. And I believe its a fair system. Otherwise one could have a spat with another and become a priest, teach and help people for 50 years, then blew his opponent head and be found not guilty because he did so many good things in his life. It doesnt work like that.

Whether he was orphan or not, studied to rank 15th or not is truly irrelevant. There is hundred million people throughout the modern world history in similar position than you never heard of (orphan, no parents, brilliant, good grades, etc). But the big different is that Gupta is a sentenced and convicted _criminal_ and they are not!

Further, I cannot compare Gupta's life to Hitler's, because the latter is dead, and Gupta is "not done yet", so its like comparing apples to oranges. But let's play this game. If we would jump into Time Machine and went back in time before September 1939, having the same conversation you would be beaten down by 90% of voters that were with Hitler. I don't know about you, but surely I wouldn't like to stand against 90% of population of a country like Germany. Probably by the end of day number 2, arguing with 90% of population you would be hanging on the pole with hands tighten behind your back. But I agree what happened next, that's a different story.

> But I sense that we are different people, so arguing further with you will > be moot.

We all not that different, my friend. We all had the same grand-grand-parents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One more scam to be added to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_in_India_%28s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_in_India_%28state_wise%29)

</comment><comment><USER23> Am I the only one that thinks that "insider trading" is pretty much how most of Wall Street & Washington DC works, period? Lots of "tips" passed around, favoritism, loose talk, secret undocumented deals and promises, shell games, front running, nepotism, kickbacks, non-monetary compensation & bribes, etc. This is probably just one particular cockroach that happened to get seen when the lights in the kitchen were turned on one night. But there's hundreds more back under the appliances and in the walls you didn't see.

<comment><USER24> Insider trading in Washington has been so accepted that it wasn't even illegal until a couple of months ago: [http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/04/11018553-o...](http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/04/11018553-obama- signs-insider-trading-ban-into-law?lite)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Good to see scum-bags like Rajat are being put behind bars where they belong.

<comment><USER26> come on... this doesn't belong here.

<comment><USER27> Not that I'd be so aggressive, but why does that not belong here? Is it wrong to suggest that a criminal is a "scum-bag"?</comment></comment></comment>


Take your royalty checks, SoundExchange begs  - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-music13-2010mar13,0,203655,print.story <comment><USER2> Surely if it's a government agency they should be part of the Copyright office (same phone network, same web address) and called something like the United States Copyright Collection Agency.

Responding to an email @soundexchange.com looks like a scam. Responding to an email @copyright.gov appears far more legit and you've a pretty good idea that if you're being scammed the USCO will let you know.</comment>


Tom Perkins has died - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/technology/tom-perkins-dies.html?_r=0 <comment><USER3> I warmly recommend the book on Tom Perkins' yachting life: [https://www.amazon.com/Mines-Bigger-Extraordinary- Greatest-S...](https://www.amazon.com/Mines-Bigger-Extraordinary-Greatest- Sailboat/dp/0061374024?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0)

It was a fantastic read. Taught me much about the man, early SV life and, of course, yachts.

<comment><USER4> I enjoyed _Valley Boy_ : [https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Boy-Education-Tom- Perkins/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Boy-Education-Tom- Perkins/dp/1592404030)

<comment><USER5> I read this as well. It's great history. He wasn't perfect, and wasn't afraid to share his imperfections.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's a great 2011 documentary that features the old guard (Gordon Moore, Tom Perkins, Arthur Rock, etc). It's called "Something Ventured".

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1737747/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1737747/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq7JVThjHEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq7JVThjHEA)

<comment><USER7> I quite enjoyed this documentary. It was on Netflix for a time, might still be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Weird. Read the New Yorker article about HBO's Silicon Valley with this bit about Tom Perkins. Then googled him to find out who he is and learned he'd just died...

>In 2014, the Wall Street Journal published a letter by Tom Perkins, a billionaire venture capitalist: "Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent,' namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the 'rich.'"

</comment><comment><USER5> Very sad. He's an icon, who helped define VC as it's practiced today.

</comment><comment><USER9> Just learned about Tom Perkins. Definitely was not perfect but Gosh those guys had some guts to try what they tried at a time when everybody was so big on traditional corporate finance and so fearful on new tech companies. RIP

</comment><comment><USER10> Slightly OT, but I hate it when an article on someone's death shows a fairly recent photo of them healthy and charismatic. It always brings the eventuality of the end of life so close to home. That someone can go from healthy and happy to dead in a few short years is unnerving.

RIP.

<comment><USER11> Being aware of your own mortality on a regular basis can spur you on to take more risks and do something positive with your life. In the midst of life we are in death.

<comment><USER12> etc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Saw this video link on Twitter about Perkins and the early years

[https://vimeo.com/105745528](https://vimeo.com/105745528)

</comment><comment><USER14> He gave talks at Stanford now and then. He was very energetic and usually on target about current business trends.

</comment><comment><USER15> I can't recall the context, but super yachts, of which Tom Perkins is known for, was a big thing in the 90s. James Clark (Netscape founder, alongside the students) was big into his yachts at the time as well.

</comment><comment><USER16> wouldn't mind seeing "Tom Perkins (description of who he is) " as a headline here. I have no idea who he is.

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks like this scene in Silicon Valley was based off of him: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC9D-paXcHU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC9D-paXcHU)

<comment><USER18> SV never stops cracking me up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hero.

</comment><comment><USER20> First, I should say I am sorry to hear he has passed away. Without a doubt he played a big role in growing SV.

I recall the incident below, and I'd like to reflect on it (in positive light, I refuse to speak ill of the dead).

"...he compared the "progressive war on the 1 percent" to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany."

There is without a doubt a problem with the growing divide. But still, the wealthy are humans too, many who have struggled to obtain their position. Many wealthy people are trying to fix the problem of the divide. A growing problem I see is desire to persecute the wealthy, or lump them all into one "evil" class. That is really throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because I think the majority of wealthy people are honest and trying to do good, as opposed to the few dishonest and corrupt individuals among them.

Edit: A lot of people will see the comparison to Jews as ridiculous, but IMO it is not entirely far-fetched. The Jews were an easy target for persecution because they were successful when most others were not (which many attribute to the Jewish work ethic). See: [http://writing.uncc.edu/student-writing/nazi- propaganda-effe...](http://writing.uncc.edu/student-writing/nazi-propaganda- effective-two-ways)

Obviously, I don't think his comparison was referencing genocide, but instead the growing attitude that hates success rather than celebrates it.

<comment><USER21> I agree with you. This was clearly an over-the-top comparison, and in our politically correct universe that didn't go over well. The "rich" face nothing remotely close to the persecution that Jews faced in Nazi Germany.

That said, as someone who has inadvertently made over-the-top comparisons myself when something bothers me greatly, I don't think he deserved the backlash he received. The problem with the PC movement is that _context_ is completely lost. If you interpret everything you see and hear literally, as the PC crowd does, you will find yourself outraged several times per day over nothing.

He was trying to say that there is a mob mentality when it comes to the richest people in the US. The public seems hate them but have no real justification for it. In that sense, hatred of the rich is no different than the hatred displayed by racists, anti-Semites, and other such closed-minded groups. The results of that hatred aren't as extreme - at least not yet - <USER2> the hatred itself is based in the same ignorance and flawed thinking.

<comment><USER22> I find the dismissal as "PC" of all valid criticism against the privileged offensive.

In what context would his comparison of the rich 1% and the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany make sense? The 1% rule. The Jews were historically persecuted and derided and faced discrimination... real discrimination, not mean words.

The "mob mentality against the rich" is inconsequential. The rich and privileged by definition hold all the cards. You can say mean things against them -- well, as much as the mass media in their power will allow you, anyway -- and what does it matter? They are still rich and you're not. This is like saying that it's mean the slaves are saying bad things about their masters; or that it's mean that the peasants are insulting their king, who after all takes care of them. It's ridiculous. Not only do the rich have everything, we also have to be careful not to offend them? We also have to admire them as heroes?

The public has "no real justification"? Really? Besides this being a tiny group of people who hold the vast majority of wealth and power?

<comment><USER21> _In what context would his comparison of the rich 1% and the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany make sense?_

You're making my point for me. If you take that statement literally, it is clearly over-the-top. There are other over-the-top statements in common use today that when taken literally would evoke extremely emotional reactions. Example: "I just went in there to talk to her and she bit my head off". If you took that literally, you might respond with horror or outrage that someone had bitten your friend's head off, and confusion over how they had their head bitten off just moments ago and yet somehow had it sewed back on in time to relay their horrific experience to you. When it came to light that your friend was referring to being yelled at and did not actually have their head bitten off, family members of individuals that have died from decapitation might organize protests against your friend for comparing being yelled at to the terrible deaths that their loved ones experienced. There would be calls for him to be fired from whatever job he had. How far should we carry this?

Tom Perkins didn't literally mean that rich people are being rounded up and killed. The PC crowd, however, apparently had nothing else to be outraged about that week, and jumped all over it, saying that he somehow considered his plight to be similar to that of Jews in Nazi Germany. His point was that the general public has an irrational hatred of the rich, just as the Nazi hatred of Jews was irrational.

<comment><USER22> I'm not making a point for anyone, I'm asking a question (and please, stop it with "the PC crowd". It's simply a way of dismissing criticism).

I get he didn't mean the rich 1% are being rounded up and gassed, I'm not that literal. This is not an emotional reaction. What I'm asking is _in which context does the comparison make sense_? Forget about the holocaust... in what sense is persecution of a powerless class comparable to being angry at the rich and powerful? In what sense is criticism of the marginalized comparable to criticism of the entitled?

If the only ground for comparison is "well, they were both about people being angry at other people" I'd say the comparison is so weak as to be stupid. People were right to find it offensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone have a link to his "progressive kristallnact coming"?

<comment><USER24> I promise that this is not intended to be snide. But clicking the top result will allow you to view the WSJ article even w/o a subscription:

      - https://www.google.com/search?q=progressive+kristallnact+coming&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

<comment><USER25> Strange, when I hit that link before there was a paywall. Must've hit it indirectly or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> One of the popular self-help advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to read obituaries and decide for yourself how your's should be. This guy deserves a great one. Nytimes, don't F this up.</comment>


HTC Says Willing to Negotiate With Apple on Patent Dispute - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-26/htc-says-it-s-willing-to-negotiate-with-apple-over-patent-fight.html

<comment><USER2> And so the Clone War drags on and on. These days, who knows what "willing to negotiate" means anymore? Hint: It's not limited to patent licensing.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you even read any articles on web with all those advertisements? - <AUTHOR> I find it highly frustrating to read content on net with all the ads coming in between, I am a web dev and I get it that revenue to run your sites and to keep your company afloat is important, but why do they want to do it to the extent that people get annoyed, I stopped using multiple social networks just because of ads coming in between. Why can't these sites show ads like not blocking the content (for eg: reddit).
Let me know your views on this and how do you avoid ads.
P.S: I use ad-blocker and many a times just grab the content from devtools or firebug. <comment><USER2> I use ublock origin on most sites, so the only problem I have is autoplaying videos</comment>


In Search of Proofs from "The Book" - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/gunter-ziegler-and-martin-aigner-seek-gods-perfect-math-proofs-20180319/ <comment><USER2> As a working mathematician, I'm uncomfortable with this apotheosis of 'the proof'. While there's always room for aesthetics, this might support the rather misleading premise that mathematics is about digging up chiseled beauties, when it is really about hours, days and months of flailing around, trying to understand one thing, or even what it means to understand that thing. And it's rarely pretty.

<comment><USER3> I think Davis and Hersh say this. Ruben Hersh "what is mathematics really" felt like it was opening the door to the sausage factory.

<comment><USER4> Brilliant book that. The way he explains how a polished rigorous proof hides the process(compared with frontend and kitchen views of a restaurant) by which a mathematician has arrived at it changed my perception of how mathematics is done.

I notice the same phenomena in programming too. The final piece of code that works doesn't reflect all the failed attempts at solving a problem. This is why I tend to not delete/clear cells at all from my jupyter notebooks. :) It is always informative/fun to refer to them at a later point in time to relive that problem solving experience.

PS: In case you haven't, you should try Proofs and Refutations by Lakatos.

Edit: Fixed name of the book mentioned and added some text.

<comment><USER3> Do you mean "proof and refutations" ?

<comment><USER4> Ah yes, thanks for correcting me :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a mathematician and a believer in God, I get uncomfortable when people start attributing math to God. I see math as being very much a construct of the human psyche and as astounding as it is, there are enormous gaps between mathematical models and physical observations. So in my mind math is to reality as human is to Divine.

<comment><USER6> It logically follows that any faith that believes God to be a unitary creator is going to attribute math to Him.

Your absolutely correct observation about gaps notwithstanding, the driving question for me here is this: why does math work so well? I personally exclude any explanation that doesn't involve the Logos in some form as incoherent, but I don't have a specific answer and probably never will.

<comment><USER7> Math works so well because we consistently abandon any math that doesn't work well.

<comment><USER8> And where the math of reality seems ugly or awkward or contrived, we invent notation to make it look neat and simple.

The reason why math education takes so many years is to learn all the complexity, conventions and abuse of notation. As in speech and image interpretation, the adept cannot see the complexity.

You can make anything simple by inventing a language to state it in. Use custom entities instead of multiplying them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a feeling they really mean Spinoza's God (like Einstein), but this use of 'God' causes confusion for a lot of readers. Some readers might think they are referring to the God of the Bible or Koran.

<comment><USER10> Spinoza's God couldn't have a book of anything.

Then again, the Abrahamic God (being omniscient) wouldn't need a book either, but would simply _know_ the perfect proof (and every imperfect proof) for every theorem.

<comment><USER11> Well, God _is_ the word (i.e. the proof).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > It's a powerful feeling. I remember these moments of beauty and excitement. > And there's a very powerful type of happiness that comes from it.

I always try to explain to people this is the reason I love math so much. There is no feeling like getting to the bottom of something and it makes sense in such a perfect way, you can hardly believe the universe works like that. I am no believer but I think it's the closest I can feel to God.

<comment><USER13> > I am no believer but I think it's the closest I can feel to God.

It's a shared sentiment:

"Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe." \-- Galileo

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This fine article was flagged; I'm betting because of the word "God" in the title. That word has triggering effects independently of what it is used to refer to.

To assuage the sensitive, we've degodded the title and replaced it with the usual Erdős reference.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is an interesting point:

"To do these short and surprising proofs, you need a lot of confidence. And one way to get the confidence is if you know the thing is true. If you know that something is true because so-and-so proved it, then you might also dare to say, "What would be the really nice and short and elegant way to establish this?" So, I think, in that sense, the ugly proofs have their role."

</comment><comment><USER4> This book is a must have for anyone who loves Mathematics or problem solving in general. You'll find many celebrated problems attacked using concepts from seemingly disparate domains.

</comment><comment><USER16> Paul Graham explored why different fields --- like math, art, and engineering --- all use the word "beautiful," [http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> The book talked about in the article is on Springer Link. Luckily my University is subscribed to Springer Link, so I just had to login to my University's VPN and I was able to download this book for free; score!

</comment><comment><USER18> > The sixth edition will be the final one.

And so will the seventh.</comment>


Introducing Free SpaceBase Lite for Location Apps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.paralleluniverse.co/post/37274996917/introducing-spacebase-lite-for-location-apps

<comment><USER2> This seems like a very nice idea, but the API seems a little cumbersome. The first few lines of the example Ruby script:

        socket = Thrift::Socket.new('localhost', 9071)
        transport = Thrift::FramedTransport.new(socket) # Thrift::BufferedTransport.new(socket)
        protocol = Thrift::BinaryProtocol.new(transport)
        spacebase = SpaceBase::Client.new(protocol)

It seems like an awful lot to have to load, just to do some basic insertion/querying.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. Yeah, well, that's Thrift. We might add some wrappers to make the Thrift bootstrapping simpler.</comment></comment>


Google will begin testing password-free login to Android apps - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/24/google-passwords-android <comment><USER3> > Among the pieces of evidence that Google suggests the Trust API could use > are some obvious biometric indicators, such as your face shape and voice > pattern, as well as some less obvious ones: how you move, how you type and > how you swipe on the screen. > With the service continually running in the > background of the phone, it can keep track of whether those indicators match > how it knows you use your phone.

This is different from a password in my eyes. A password only proves that I know a secret. It can prove that I am the same person who signed up for a service or at least that I was trusted with the password by the person who signed up.

This Trust API on the other hand proves that I am a specific individual.

A password is like a pseudonym. The Trust API requires me to reveal my full identity.

I think this is big step back in privacy.

<comment><USER4> Thinking the same thing regarding privacy.

I'm all for getting rid of passwords, but the idea of Google (and other service providers) keeping that much information on me would definitely push me to getting rid of smartphone. Yes, I know that Google, Facebook, etc. already know a lot about me. But I still have some control over it. And a lot of it are things that I can and do change over time (what they knew about me 5 years ago doesn't necessarily reflect who I am now).

<comment><USER5> Not to mention that if this catches on, ever more parties (that you authenticate with) will be collecting these biometrics, which means there would be an ever greater chance of that data getting used to impersonate you.

To avoid this they would have to keep it on the device, in a secure enclave, in "hashed" form rather than the raw biometric, and only transmit the fact of authentication to Google, much as how Apple deals with Touch ID on the iPhone.

We all know Eric Schmidt's view on privacy:

 _" If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."_

 _" We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about."_

 _"Your digital identity will live forever… because there's no delete button."_

<comment><USER6> > Not to mention that if this catches on, ever more parties (that you > authenticate with) will be collecting these biometrics

... and then doing data science over them. It's like Phrenology all over again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Among the pieces of evidence that Google suggests the Trust API could use > are some obvious biometric indicators, such as your face shape and voice > pattern, as well as some less obvious ones: how you move, how you type and > how you swipe on the screen. With the service continually running in the > background of the phone, it can keep track of whether those indicators match > how it knows you use your phone.

I wonder how this would deal with changes in your behaviour, lets say, due to illness or disability.

If I'm ill and high on painkillers, will the system lock me out? If I lose my right arm in an accident, (or even if my right arm is pinned under something and I desperately need to use the phone), will I be blocked from using the phone?

I think this stuff sounds like a good idea in a vacuum, a vacuum in which you can presume you'll always be in the same state of mind and body as what Google consider 'normal'.

<comment><USER8> > if my right arm is pinned under something and I desperately need to use the > phone

I have pattern locking today, and "emergency call" button on the lock screen is already a thing.

I would imagine this would be option #7 or so for the lock screen. Depending on your phone's hardware, etc.

I used to treat my phone like my wallet, aka no lock at all beyond anti-butt dialing swipe, but some obscure corner of VPN setup required more extreme measures.

I assume that any lock technology on my phone is on the level of a kids diary book lock, and act accordingly. Anyone with physical access to my phone owns all of it, so I'm pretty happy with "swipe to unlock" and not happy about big brother authoritarianism WRT vpn configs and lock screen choices. I don't find a bunch of security theater about "wiggle analysis" or facial recognition to be interesting or useful and mostly want to know about it so as to avoid it.

<comment><USER9> Anyone with physical access and lots of money to pay for a bespoke exploit (assuming you're using a phone where that's possible), sure they have can have access if they're willing to put in the time and considerable money it would take.

If you're ok with the risk posture of not locking your phone that's your decision, but you're quite wrong about the level of access granted merely by possession of a modern smartphone.

<comment><USER10> What would be the amount of users who use a proper password on the lock screen, instead of the pattern or a PIN? I bet the actual pattern space is very little for these and these are very guessable. How hard would it be to brute force these or even analyse the human fat on the screen to figure sth out?

I unlock and lock the phone very often, unlike a computer where I unlock once and lock when my session is done. Thus I opt for sth quick and convenient instead of a proper password. I'd like to have a little chip like a yubikey that I'd use with an ordinary pattern or pin, guess that'd be the best approach that's both convenient and secure.

<comment><USER9> 1 - patterns and pins are not as insecure as you apparently believe (consider that length isn't mandated and watch the search space explode). Enable the "10 tries and it's wiped" setting and get on with your life 2 - I wasn't talking about Joe public, I'm talking about the type of person who posts in smartphone security articles on HN. They'll pick a good enough PIN/Pattern 3 - we're not trying to secure against an advanced adversary, by far the most likely bad actor is the thief who pulled it out of your bag at Starbucks. A PIN/Pattern is fort Knox to them.

Security is all about risk mitigation, you have to consider against whom you want the system to be secured.

<comment><USER10> 3\. You can't know.

2\. No they won't. I don't. If I'll type a password once, twice a day, that's okay. But I draw that pattern or pin tens of times a day.

1\. See VLM's post on this thread.

0\. You can't ever know who you'll deal with. All you'll know will be "somebody has it".

<comment><USER9> You're totally missing my point. It's not that I can't know, it's that I don't care. You can't secure a phone against nation-state actors, so don't try. Do enough security so that the random person who steals your phone to sell it doesn't also steal your personal photos and bank info, order stuff from Amazon, use your phone to call their Uber, etc. They're more likely to be who has your phone anyway.

Re-read the bottom of my other post, security is about balancing cost of mitigation against predicted impact of threat. State actors are very unlikely and very expensive to mitigate. Petty theft is more likely and cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Biometric authentication is a decrease in security for users, not an increase.

Biometric authentication can, as an additional factor, with proper management (which is non-trivial) be a benefit to security fire institutions that need to safeguard against sharing of credentials, but replacing other authors mechanisms with biometrics rather than augmenting them makes biometrics a net negative.

For some consumer uses they are an increase in convenience and may be a better security vs convenience balance, but that's undermines if they are misrepresented as increased security, because then users will be choosing them on faulty premises.

<comment><USER12> Correct.

They should spend more time to develop better management of passwords.

I would like to have a poem generator that generates unique and easy to remember poems, that can be used as master passwords.

<comment><USER9> ...Which, because of all the rules associated with a poem, would have shockingly low entropy and therefore not be good passwords in addition to being a pain to type in.

<comment><USER13> I've been thinking about a project along these lines, on and off for a long time. The basic premise is that we need passphrases - that is strong passwords that are usable to derive symmetric keys from (and can be used to, among other things protect the private half of asymmetric keys, and/or unlock databases that manage user/site/password tuples). And they need to be random, and easy to remember.

Ideally we'd want such pass-phrases to have 128 bits of entropy, although I suspect just getting to 64 bits would be a big improvement on most general password/pass-phrase schemes (Does anyone know of research into how stretching a 64 bit key to 128 bits affect real-world crypto-systems? Assuming a "slow"/"good" stretching/key derivation scheme, and the use of a salt, I suspect it might be "good enough").

Now, some napkin math: The English alphabet consists of 5 vowels and 21 non- vowels; we can generally start words with a combination of the two, and some words (like "two") start with a sequence of two non-vowels. 5 * 21 = 105, with another 23 combinations we can reach 128. That's 7 bits for a single word out of a list of 128, identified by it's first two letters. To reach a minimum of 64 bits, we need 10 such words, or perhaps two sentences of 5 words each (Note that there is little help in captilaization here, that single bit doesn't really move the needle on the number of words we end up needing -- considering the difficulty of remember which of a set of random letters are capitalized).

Creating word lists of 128 words is quite easy - we could have some lists of substantives, verbs, adverbs etc - it might even be possible to find words that rhyme. So we could probably construct pass-phrases like: "[The] small red car drives quickly", "huge scary horse hides sadly" \-- which we can input/verify/use in their "short form" encoding 70 bits: "smrecadrquhuschohisa". To get through password "security" tests, we might say that the first letter is capitalized, and a period added on the end (possibly we should throw a number in there as well, but hopefully three letter classes are enough for most "checks"): "Smrecadrquhuschohisa." or "1Smrecadrquhuschohisa."

Note that the point here is that the words can be generated just as we generate symmetric cipher keys - from a random 70 bit number -- and are just as secure (or insecure) as such keys are. The rule-based capitalization and punctuation doesn't add any entropy -- it's just there in case we need to get accepted by legacy systems.

Also note that, even this simple scheme, requires a lot of typing for just 70 bits. At 7 bits per word, we'd need 19 words to go beyond 128 bits - <USER2> probably means it would be just as well to go for four five-word sentences.

Now, the point of all this, is that if you want a poem that lets you remember 128 bits of random data, you have some work cut out for you, if you want this system to be based around simple generating rules, that are obviously without any bias (no more bias than what you find in generating symmetric (session) keys).

I've been playing with this idea for a while, but so far it seems ~64 bits is a likely "wall" for easy to implement correctly, in a way that's easy to use.

Other options is to use a graphical input - with emoji or images in a grid, possibly with the added factor of colour (eg: red/white, blue/white, black/white etc) - but 128 bits of information turns out to be a lot to encode!

<comment><USER14> To start with, never abbreviate passwords. You're making it more ambiguous, creating more possible sentences that could match the same output.

The better solution when length is capped is hashing and something like base64 encoding.

Regarding KDF:s, they only add as much difficulty as you put work in. If you put in 256x the work, you get log2(256) = effectively 8 extra "bits" of entropy worth of bruteforce resistance. You want 80-100 bits in the long term.

<comment><USER13> > You're making it more ambiguous, creating more possible sentences that could > match the same output.

Yes, but can you quantify how much entropy is in those letters and spaces that are chopped off? In an obvious way? I agree that there is (probably) no harm in and of itself of including them in the password, but as mentioned in the sibling comment, the main point is to have it _obvious_ what level of entropy is encoded. As the word tables and system is designed to be _public_ , the don't encode more secret information, except in the case where the attacker isn't attacking you/this system specifically. But an attacker could, so I'd rather avoid the false sense of security that the handful of extra bits full English words would add. And as mentioned, it adds to the difficulty of typing in the password correctly, from memory.

> The better solution when length is capped (...)

While systems might cap length when storing/validating passwords, the capping here is for the human part of the system. How and what to remember, how and what to type. It's a user interface/interaction improvement over other password schemes, not strictly a technical scheme.

Basically the problem it tries to solve, is how can we easily remember n numbers of random data, and communicate it to our various systems, both new, and legacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A better title for the article: "Google wants to replace your password with the analysis of your private life".

Of course, since it's always running in the background, you can be sure it will be (ab)used for way more than passwords.

And I know a lot of people that will let them do it.

And that depresses me.

<comment><USER9> s/better/more click-baity

Please let's don't encourage the buzzfeedification of everything, maybe?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> [https://twitter.com/f_u_e_n_t_e/status/706462603401412608](https://twitter.com/f_u_e_n_t_e/status/706462603401412608)

"A... fingerprint... is... a... username... not.. a.. password... There. I can't say it any slower."

Biometrics should not replace passwords. Ever. They serve different purposes.

</comment><comment><USER17> The problem with biometrics is its a password you cant change. What happens if theres a leak? Unfortunately we can't update our facial structure.

This kind of API might be useful as a 2fa, but never as a standalone authentication mechanism.

Edit: I mispoke. The main problem isn't with leaks, its with other apps collect the same data google uses as biometrics. For example, a video chat app that grabs the same biometric data (facial structure/typing pattern) that google uses for authentication. That chat app then would have everything needed to emulate you.

<comment><USER18> > What happens if theres a leak?

I didn't even think of this. That's a very scary thought. Not only is it leaking your password replacement, but a good part of your identity.

<comment><USER19> [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/philippines-55m-voters-exposed- fing...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/philippines-55m-voters-exposed-fingerprint- passport-data-stolen-1553720)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Google always seems to betting on several horses — for authentication, Google is also backing the FIDO U2F standard. This is basically a standard that allows you to authenticate with a physical security token, connected to your computing device via USB, NFS, or Bluetooth LTE, and reusable for as many U2F-enabled services as you like, without those services being able to correlate that device across services (so if you authenticate as user Alice at GMail, and later on authenticate as user Bob at Youtube, Google won't know you used the same U2F device due to the way keys are generated).

No need to type in some generated value (as with OTP), just press the button on the key, or swipe it past your NFC/Bluetooth LTE-enabled device to authenticate. Logins can be optionally strengthened with a weak knowledge- factor such as a PIN.

It already works in Chrome, it will be supported in Firefox and probable Edge at some point, and you can choose which manufacturer you want (e.g., Yubico).

I really hope U2F gains traction, because biometrics really creep me out (in addition to the many arguments against its use mentioned in this thread).

</comment><comment><USER21> The goal is great, yeah! But the solution is very, very wrong. You don't want to authenticate with a key that you can't change.

E.g. someone copies your face with a 3D printer and you find out. You want to be able to stop him from accessing your secrets. But you don't want to apply plastic surgery for that.

Second e.g. someone captures you and wants to open something you can only access with a part of your body (like a finger, or a face or an eye). In that case you want to be able to give it to him without him cutting off parts of your body. The security is broken, but at least your body doesn't have to be. So yeah, this solution is very very wrong. (It's weird that the physical key has the attribute that someone can steal it is in some cases a feature not a bug, but if you think about it it's true.)

</comment><comment><USER22> Google can't kill passwords, they can simply make it more convenient to login for users like TouchID. Biometrics should simply be an additional part of 2 factor authentication. Finger prints are something we have, passwords are something we know. Police or criminal or a partner could simply put your thumb on your phone to login into it without your consent (or knowledge if you are asleep). Where is people without arms, hands or lose or damage them later in life wouldn't work. Passwords are compromised all the time but you can simply change it. If your fingerprint is stolen eventually you have no realistic option to change it. Biometrics should simply be an additional layer of security as it is today.

</comment><comment><USER23>
      '...average of over 100 passwords in Europe'

I'm truly fascinated at this number; if I understood it correctly that means you are registered to at least 100 services that you semi-actively use, AND have different passwords for all.

Not even the people I know who generate randomised passwords have more than 20 they use regularly.

Is it an exaggeration or a realistic figure?

<comment><USER24> My password manager has 500 entries. Around 75% of them are website passwords.

<comment><USER25> What is the remaining 25%? 125 mail accounts? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Also a discussion from yesterday on Schneier's blog:

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/05/google_moving...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/05/google_moving_f.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> Biometrics like TouchID work fine for authentication, but they don't work for encryption. Encryption requires a _secret_ , and you can't really call your biometric features a secret (even besides that it probably won't be of high enough entropy and that you wouldn't be able to have more than one set). This is why iPhones always ask for your password when you restart your phone -- it's not just a security feature, it actually needs your password in order to decrypt the phone data.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd heard this was in the pipeline, but didn't believe it given how invasive (aka no privacy), problematic (you can't backup how you behave), and insecure (given a motivated attacker, I've yet to see a biometric control that can't be attacked).

Why's Google doing this?

It's not obvious to me, since I'm guessing they know all of this, likely already have they data on users, etc.

Why's Google doing this?

<comment><USER29> Because passwords are terrible.

Lots of users pick guessable ones unless you have extensive password rules to stop them, and those rules are a huge pain to your users.

Lots of users have terrible password hygiene, leaving them all sorts of places they shouldn't.

Enough users are going to forget their passwords that you need a recovery mechanism. Which means an attacker needs to break _either_ the password _or_ the recovery. The most common recovery method is email, but Google often _is_ the email provider.

<comment><USER28> My understanding is that this was deployed internally first, so the calm that "people" don't get passwords seems like a stretch.

(Meaning I assume that the average person working at Google is smart enough to know how to use passwords.)

<comment><USER30> Knowing how and putting it into practice are two different things.

I know I should eat better and exercise more, and yet here I am eating a scone and not having been on my bike in nearly a month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What about your ability to refuse to tell law enforcement a password? In the U.S. at least there is some precedent that giving a password could be a self- incriminating act, so you can be protected under the Fifth Amendment. I wonder if biometrics to unlock a device would count as an "act". If not, people could be forced by courts to hand over their passwords.

</comment><comment><USER32> I still think there's a need for passwords depending on the context. For example I would worry if Google employees didn't encrypt their work laptop with FDE as there are very motivated people who super want access (even a tiny slither will do) to Google's internal infra.

Google has enough dirt on people anyway to implement a passwordless system because they practice very rigorous fingerprinting of individuals regardless. You don't even need a Google account. Google knows who you are as you traverse the web in any meaningful way. They do this through fingerprinting captchas / supercookies, and subsidizing core internet infra like Blogger, any number of vanity URLs (goo.gl), and they have others at their disposal.

But do note: Google are not 'too big to fail' like a bank.

The great _Alphabet Leak of 2030_ is upon us and we better be ready.

</comment><comment><USER33> > Rather than giving a binary answer, as a password does, the API can hand > over a score to indicate how confident it is that you really are you

Helpful of them to give everybody trying to break this a measure of how well they are doing. Much easier to optimize against than a binary succeed/fail.

</comment><comment><USER34> "Consumers tell us that they are struggling to remember what is now an average of over 100 passwords in Europe."

This is what needs to be fixed; there is no reason for most people to remember more than two passwords for personal use, one or two more for work in some cases, and maybe a few more in special circumstances. Decades of encouraging (or legislating in some cases[1]) users to do the wrong thing makes people hate passwords.

[1] Apparently in the US medical patient portals are required to (attempt to) prevent you from storing your password in your web browser.

<comment><USER35> _> This is what needs to be fixed; there is no reason for most people to remember more than two passwords for personal use, one or two more for work in some cases, and maybe a few more in special circumstances. Decades of encouraging (or legislating in some cases[1]) users to do the wrong thing makes people hate passwords._

I'd argue there is no point for any person to remember more than 2 passwords. That is what password managers are for. One master password and you _don 't_ know your other passwords. Those are randomly generated for security (pick a password manager capable of generating pattern-matching passwords for places with terrible password policies).

 _> [1] Apparently in the US medical patient portals are required to (attempt to) prevent you from storing your password in your web browser._

HIPAA concern. If credentials are stored someone could login as the patient and view their details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Biometric authentication is a powerful enabler, allowing businesses smart > enough to deploy it to significantly increase rates of registration, gaining > data and insight about their customers, while also increasing customer > security. This is a win/win scenario which sounds the death-knell for > awkward and insecure passwords sooner than we may imagine.

More unwarranted data-gathering.

I really want to like this idea, because I so very hate passwords, but until there's a method that I have complete control over without the cost of my privacy, I'll be opting out.

</comment><comment><USER36> This sounds pretty good from a user experience perspective, as long as there's a fallback method (click "can't log in" to send a text to my phone etc.).

If I die or am otherwise incapacitated, and my wife needs to access my accounts, she'll want to get my passwords from the safe (she's not great at remembering them). Biometrics is useless for this case, though maybe she can use the phone text fallback. It all sounds a little iffy, but then, passwords are iffy as well.

</comment><comment><USER37> > If the institution needs more confidence, it can feed back and ask for > additional mechanisms: more biometric data, for instance, or an old-style > password.

I get the feeling that early adopters of this would end up erring on the side of more confidence and still ask for "old-style" passwords. So basically, 2fa on a more widespread/intrusive scale.

</comment><comment><USER38> "With the service continually running in the background of the phone, it can keep track of whether those indicators match how it knows you use your phone."

No thank you, no. I think now is the time to realise, that Google is really building the all-seeing eye - and by forcing this stuff, they will eventually get it.

</comment><comment><USER39> If the reason for this is too many passwords, the answer is a central auth service, not new auth factors. They should be working on a privacy-oriented protocol and network, not making yet another independent auth mechanism.

Not to mention this only works for smartphones! What happens when I need to log in at Kinko's?

</comment><comment><USER40> _> Google suggests the Trust API could use are some obvious biometric indicators, such as your face shape and voice pattern, as well as some less obvious ones: how you move, how you type_

So when I'm nervous I can't log in?

<comment><USER10> It'll probably know when you're nervous and maybe place an ad for a sedative in your Facebook or Twitter feed? Or maybe sth like a "who's nervous around" screen on someone's phone will show your name on it. It's really discomforting this thing, there's an infinite possibility of exploitation.

</comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash I think we are all looking at this as too much of a zero-sum between privacy and security and ease of use.

What if we did away with passwords in 90% of use cases but required validation to change account settings, like email addresses?

</comment><comment><USER41> I think the aim of this project is misguided. Next to the many excellent points that have been raised in response to this article, there's one that I think is a killer for its practicality, based on the article below (which was featured a few weeks back):

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/lego-driven-robot- programme...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/lego-driven-robot-programmed- to-hack-touch-screen-authentication-systems)

I think techniques such as used in the above article, that create "ultra- generic power-user" of the users of a device, will be quite difficult to protect against through measures such as announced by Google with Trust API.

The Lego robot from the above article could only be effective because it knew their user's swiping pattern, without this knowledge, the model would have failed miserably, in a very easy binary decision (is the pattern equal to the original pattern). Now that Google is effectively making everyone's "swiping pattern" uniform, these techniques will become a lot more effective. Not only in the test phase, but the training phase as well. The ultra-generic power user model was derived from 41 users who each had different swiping patterns. To me, it seems that this would be made a lot easier if every user had the same pattern.

A Biometric classifier for a person A tries to distinguish between behaviour that did come from person A, and behaviour that did not come from person A. This, in one way, can be seen as measuring the distance in some highly dimensional behavioural space between the average/nearest of all data points that DO belong to person A, and balancing that against the distance between the average/nearest of all points that DO NOT belong to Person A. Presumably, ultra-generic users are somewhere in the middle on this and muddle the water a lot. These ultra-generic users are likely much closer to A then a random person who is not A will be. Best of all, unless in the unlikely case that person A is a super special snowflake, the model can be trained offline, on persons who are not even A!

So in order for person A to be able to sufficiently distinguish itself from ultra-generic power user B, A needs to have a secret password again..

</comment><comment><USER42> This is great for the large numbers of people who don't understand the concept that any form of biometrics is a means of identification, not a password.

I could see this used as part of 2FA, if you don't mind giving away even more of your privacy, but I will never use it.

</comment><comment><USER43> As always biometrics are more secure usernames, not passwords.

</comment><comment><USER44> Does it work on twins?</comment>


Automated brute-force attack against iCloud PIN Lock with this Arduino sketch - <AUTHOR> http://orvtech.com/en/howto/ataque-fuerza-bruta-pin-icloud/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the same Arduino sketch I used to brute-force the EFI Lock but I have implemented a set of conditional loops to wait the 1, 5 and 15 minutes cycles that the iCloud Lock PIN implements. I still use the Teensy 3 for automate this attack which gets done with minimal intervention, just plug it and thats it.

This is specially useful for those who dont have an apple store nearby or those who just dont want to deal with "The Geniuses".</comment>