A 3700-year-old proof that the diagonal of a unit square has length √2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/Euclid/ybc/ybc.html

<comment><USER2> In the 6th century BC Pythagoras' followers knew that the square root of two was irrational (couldn't be expressed as the ratio of two integers). The story goes that this messed with a lot of their theories so it was ordered to be kept a secret, and anyone who dared reveal the fact was killed.

It seems kind of funny to me that they actually had a cult/religion based on math. Instead of just accepting the existence of irrationals and attempting to update their theories - they tried to suppress the new evidence that contradicted their teachings.

<comment><USER3> But what would "accepting the existence of the irrationals" mean? As far as the Greeks knew, a "number" _was_ a/b where a and b were integers.

"Accepting" that the length of a triangle was not a "number" could have all sorts of consequences, including rejection of their belief in validity of mathematical reasoning, so I'm not surprised they were scared of it.

<comment><USER2> The Greeks did know about irrational numbers. They could draw a right triangle whose legs were 1 and 1. They knew that the length of the hypotenuse (a number that we call the square root of two) couldn't be represented as the ratio between any two integers, yet it had a length.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not convinced that that's what it is. It's certainly a ~3700-year-old _statement_ that the diagonal has length sqrt(2), but there's no evidence that it is, or was intended to be, or demonstrates that anyone had, a _proof_.

The author of those pages says "It amounts to a dissection of the square on the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle into pieces which can be reassembled to make up the two squares on the sides, and I can't see why the figure is exactly what it is if it weren't understood to demonstrate this." but it seems to me that even if all you want to do is write down that the diagonal is sqrt(2) then you'll need at least the square and one diagonal, and adding the other could as well be motivated by love of symmetry as by having noticed that with it there you can dissect-and-reassemble into a 2x1 rectangle or whatever.

Remarkable, none the less.

<comment><USER5> If you know that 1/2 * base * height = the area, then the second diagonal can be seen as the height of the triangle cut by the first diagonal. Since b = 2 h,

1/2 b h = 1/2 ==> b h = 1 ==> 1/2 b b = 1 ==> b b = 2 ==> b = sqrt(2).

I can't read cuneiform so I don't know if it makes this argument.

<comment><USER6> You'd first have to prove that the diagonals bisect each other (so that you can say b = 2h). I'm not sure whether that result was known at the time, but it's not too hard to prove.

<comment><USER5> You're right. That's pushing it for those handful of scratches on the tablet. Who knows, maybe they had some lemma tablets lying around.

<comment><AUTHOR> From my own limited experience, ancient documents tended to be very elliptical; when everything had to be copied out by hand the reader was expected to do a little more work to understand what documents meant. So this tablet may have been the equivalent of notes accompanying a lecture: "As you can see from the triangles on this diagram..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could also be a failed attempt at drawing the "nikolaus hut" (not sure what it is called in english: [http://www.kreudenstein- online.de/AppletNikol/AppletNikol.ht...](http://www.kreudenstein- online.de/AppletNikol/AppletNikol.html)).

That, or their alphabet is REALLY expressive.

</comment><comment><USER8> Where is the proof?

<comment><USER9> There is no proof specifically this is really annoying about most of the Babylonian Texts, they never go into method very much.

However from the numbers they got (30, 1;24,51,10, and 30*1;24,51,10=42;25,35) it looks less like they used a proof as they did use an iterative approximation method as follows:

let a be some number

let a1 be an approximation of sqrt(a) such that a1 > sqrt(a)

then B1 = a/a1 is also an approximation of sqrt(a) but deviates in the other direction s B1 < sqrt(a).

we have now bracketed sqrt(a)

so a new better bracketing can now be made by

a2 = (a1 +B1)/2 and B2 = a/a2

and then

a3 = (a2 + B2)/2, B3 = a/a3

etc. the answer for sqrt(2) of 1;24,51,10 happens to equal a3 in this case.

note that the above is only speculation, but the method DOES produce the Babylonian numbers so and it uses only arithmetic that we know they had, so it seems pretty likely

(All this information and more can be found in Mathematical Cuneiform Texts by Otto Neugebauer)</comment></comment>


Can a blind person whose vision is restored understand what she sees? - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/11/can_a_blind_person_whose_visio.php

<comment><USER2> An important friend in my life has been blind since birth. She has done a great deal of research on the topic and believes that the risks of surgery far outweigh the gift of sight. She is most fearful of what the sensory overload would do to her other senses.</comment>


TX Highway: Bitcoin Cash vs. Bitcoin Core Live Transaction Visualizer - <AUTHOR> http://txhighway.com/ <comment><USER2> Pretty obvious what agenda this is trying to push, but I found it entertaining nonetheless.</comment>


Lavabit's founder: 'If You Knew What I Know About Email, You Might Not Use It' - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/08/09/lavabits-ladar-levison-if-you-knew-what-i-know-about-email-you-might-not-use-it/ <comment><USER2> For those without showdead on, there's an insightful comment from beedogs:

My guess (and he intimates this in his comment about backdoors in Chinese products) is that the US government asked him to basically break his entire system so they could do MitM attacks.

The conversation probably went something like this:

        USG: Install this machine in your datacenter.  Route all traffic through it.
        Accept installation of this new fiber demarc and allow us access to
        configure this new router.  You do not need to know where this
        traffic is going.  If you refuse, we'll slap you with a contempt order
        and throw you in federal prison.  If you tell anyone about this, we will
        slap you with a contempt order and throw you in federal prison.

        LL: Get fucked.  I'll shut everything down instead.

\-----

Why beedogs is shadowbanned is beyond me. A quick glance through his comment history doesn't indicate he's done anything to deserve it.

\----

Hey beedogs: I can't reply to you directly because you're hellbanned. Send an email to PG. I'm not usually a fan of posting people's contact information, but in this case it's everywhere anyway - pg [at] ycombinator.com

<comment><USER3> replying to beedogs because I can't directly:

You made this post [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6183189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6183189) and one of the admins arbitrarily decided that you needed silent punishment. nice eh?

<comment><USER4> That trademark HN moderation at work.

beedogs, you can probably send an e-mail to the powers that be to restore your account. If they won't, then at least you've got a new story worth sharing.

<comment><USER5> There is a fair bit of irony at play huh? All content being observed. Punishment dishes out arbitrarily and without explanation. Liberty (speech) curtailed. And this is one of the favorite platforms for pro Snowden discussions!

<comment><USER6> And all because of a legitimate policy goal of preventing the destruction of an insightful commenting community due to the chaos that would ensue if unrestrained posting were always allowed.

Ironic indeed.

<comment><USER5> Right. To those who support the policies they make total sense. Without them there'd be unknown chaos. Good add.

<comment><USER7> For the umpteenth time, moderation is not censorship. HN is akin to a private club not a country that you are born into forced to live in. And furthermore, the chaos is anything but unknown. It is mob/troll rule ala slashdot/reddit/4chan and every other online community that grows beyond a critical mass.

<comment><USER5> To Censor: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.

So this is censoring speech. They have the _right_ to do it as they're a private entity. But don't confuse their right to censor with the definition of censorship. I see that happen a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My guess (and he intimates this in his comment about backdoors in Chinese products) is that the US government asked him to basically break his entire system so they could do MitM attacks and ship unencrypted communications directly to the NSA.

The conversation probably went something like this:

        USG: Install this machine in your datacenter.  Route all traffic through it.
        Accept installation of this new fiber demarc and allow us access to
        configure this new router.  You do not need to know where this
        traffic is going.  If you refuse, we'll slap you with a contempt order
        and throw you in federal prison.  If you tell anyone about this, we will
        slap you with a contempt order and throw you in federal prison.

        LL: Get fucked.  I'll shut everything down instead.

The truly terrifying thing about this scenario is that they're likely already doing this elsewhere on a huge scale.

<comment><USER9> It's called PRISM.

<comment><USER10> For the umpteenth time, PRISM is just a database, it's not the program that siphons data from all the telcos. PRISM only contains data that is retrieved via NSLs, Subpoenas, warrants, cooperating parties and possibly data siphoning if it's found useful and has been tagged/organized.

If we want to fight the government on this, we'd better know what we're fighting against.

<comment><USER11> Really? The first thing that pops into your head is to argue _terminology_?

<comment><USER12> It's not terminology, it's basic ignorance about what the government is doing and how. You can't fight NSA snooping on any level if you think that they're sticking a vacuum hose into your server and siphoning out all the bits. These details are important.

<comment><USER11> No one in this thread suggested that the NSA is copying data out of servers except you. It has been reported that they are wholesale tapping communications lines, and trying to collect SSL private keys, so Sneak's sentiment is not wrong. To argue terminology is to play their game, which they are good at and we will lose. If you disagree with something on a factual level, say that instead.

<comment><USER12> Here's an example of why understanding the NSA's terminology is important:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/guide-deceptions- word-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/guide-deceptions-word-games- obfuscations-officials-use-mislead-public-about-nsa)

If a reporter asks a government stooge if the NSA engages in bulk collection of Americans' data, the stooge can say no with a straight face because the NSA has officially defined "bulk collection" to mean something other than "collecting in bulk." In order to carve through their lies, we _need_ to be able to understand and navigate their twisted terminology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Zimmermann on the shut-down and elimination of Silent Circle email: "It's not obstruction of justice if you do it before justice comes calling."

I'm sure he and his lawyers aware, but we've got this cool new thing called Anticipatory Obstruction. It'd probably be a pretty far reach, but stranger things have happened. See [http://www.perkinscoie.com/files/upload/LIT_11_06FunkFeature...](http://www.perkinscoie.com/files/upload/LIT_11_06FunkFeatureMay.pdf).

<comment><USER14> From the URL that ibejoeb posted above (italics are mine):

Unceremoniously titled "Destruction, Alteration, or Falsification of Records in Federal Investigations and Bankruptcy," and part of § 802 of the Sarbanes- Oxley Act of 2002, § 1519 provides:

Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under Title 11, or _in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case_ , shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

<comment><USER13> That's absolutely the best part, and that's why Zimmermann's comment almost seems naive. "...before justice comes calling" is exactly what they're talking about here. What is contemplation, and when does it begin?

I learned from Hanni Fakhoury of EFF that a proposed defense in this kind of action is to have had in place a strict data retention policy. For example, prior to beginning operations, the policy would state something like "we will retain all data aged 6 weeks or less; older data will be destroyed." Now, you adhere to that policy, perhaps with some activity record around the procedure itself, and your argument is something like, "it is not obstruction and not anticipatory obstruction because we defined and abided by the policy before anything happened, before any event warranting an investigation could occur, and, therefor, before _contemplation_ of an investigation could occur."

<comment><USER15> I could swear I read an article a couple of years ago about a wall street bank losing an obstruction charge specifically because of an email retention policy just like you described.

Bigger picture, we all know that the reason companies implement email retention policies is to minimize the risk of the discovery process in any potential lawsuit - practically the cost of storage is nil so any savings there is a drop in the bucket. The policies are huge productivity killers for all employees -- everyone I know who has worked under such conditions has had at least one case where they needed information from an expired email that they had not personally archived. The only reason for a company to shoot itself in the foot with a policy like that is because it is easy to imagine a one-shot potential million dollar liability loss compared to the essentially unmeasurable productivity loss spread across the entire company on a daily basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Once you've been contacted the first time under an NSL letter, what stops you from choosing to broadcast the entire duration of the ordeal.

government: "Here's an NSL." recipient: "Cool deal. I will respect it and not mention it to anyone, but be aware that from this point forward I will always have a device that will broadcast every interaction verbal or electronic that anyone has to me publicly live in real-time to the Internet. You have the right to remain silent. Do you understand? Anything you say may be used against you in the court of public opinion. Do you understand? If you wish to continue to communicate with me, be aware that any statement that you or anyone from your office makes to me will instantly and irreversibly become part of the public record."

On top of that you can hand them a special email address for their use only and you can delete your own personal email. You can also wear a shirt with friends and family that informs them in big bold letters that everything is a matter of the public record.

This would essentially serve to shield you entirely from secret communication by placing a "force field" of publicity around you. There might be some law somewhere that prohibits this tactic, I cannot imagine how they would counteract this tactic legally so long as you always greet them with disclosure that your are recording everything. I imagine that they could try to force you somehow to interact with them in a location that prohibits recording devices.

<comment><USER17> Courts are made of people, not computers; and they care about the bottom line, not the reasoning behind the loophole. What you describe -- and every other thought experiment, like warrant canaries -- is a good way to spend the rest of your life in jail for contempt of court.

If you get an NSL, shut down your business and leave the country.

<comment><USER18> > If you get an NSL, shut down your business and leave the country.

This sentence (and the fact it is so hard to argue with) is one of the most chilling things I've read this year. Great work! (I guess?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He should contest the NSL gag orders. They've already been declared unconstitutional at least 3 times, but they managed to trick the justice system by changing a few random words in the law (with the help of Congress), in effect creating a "new" law that was wiped clean of any "unconstitutionality" ruling.

The NSL is still unconstitutional in principle, it's just that it needs to be contested every time they change the law to escape the ruling. Hopefully this time Congress will stop playing along and creating new laws for them.

Watch this and you'll get it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT2fQu50sMs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT2fQu50sMs)

<comment><USER20> Kind of like how pharma companies change a tiny little thing about a drug at the end of its patent term, and then have an entirely "new" patented drug to sell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe it's time for a new type of email service. Something along the lines of two way auth, private key on cell phone, public on server. Cell phones have cameras now, so you could generate a QR code or something which your auth app could look at and generate a response in order to generate a unique token to gain access to your message(s). On the server side guys could have a deadman switch which would purge all data if not heard from administrators for 12 hours. That way they could delete data and not be in jeopardy of obstructing any government or whomever is seeking to gain access. Bonus points could be had for not hosting in US too.

<comment><USER22> The whole problem with email is the asynchronous thing.

You want to be secure, then it needs to be in such a way that there's minimum reliance on a central server. But in that case, what happens if your local machine (which is both _your_ mailserver and an end client) is offline? Should the email bounce around in the network (like bitmessage does)? Or should you notify the sender with the standard "Mail Subsystem Delivery failure" that we all know and love.

Actually after reading this, I want to seriously sit down and write a spec but if I include the assumption that there is a chance for the end- server/recipient to be offline, it throws everything into chaos.

<comment><USER23> How about a client that does the following, but still uses email: A secure attachement creation client.

You type your email into the app, which is just a word processor. When you send it - it saves an encrypted attachment, attaches it to the message and sends via email.

The other party will need the client to read the attachment, and their client will need to connect to a secure central ID entity to confirm they are the recipient client which can open the message.

<comment><USER22> This is something which I did not think. It's basically like sending truecrypted packets between people. But this doesn't solve one problem - metadata. I still know you sent an email at time X to person P2. Tor's method of onion routing looks quite nice though.

<comment><USER24> Ok, what about a new email spec. That as a part of it sends random noise at random intervals. This makes it hard to determine if you actually sent a mail, or if it was just the noise part of the spec. ...

Wait, that's so wrong. Why don't we just fix our laws. ...

Wait, we will always have bad actors or regimes, do we just design for that?

<comment><USER25> When you're worried about things at this level, laws are just an external dependency not under your control, i.e. a security hole waiting to be exploited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There are already some existing Bitmessage gateways such as [http://bitmsg.cc/](http://bitmsg.cc/). Looks like using something like this would be a better solution for a Lavabit-successor: Use a secure messaging protocol and then only use gateways to send messages between the traditional email world and your own secure protocol.

Of course, the gateway could still log your messages, but the same security issue applied to Lavabit. The main advantage is that once the gateway has forwarded your message, no one can force the operator to retroactively decrypt the message.

Bitmessage sounds like one potential solution for this, but it has some scalability issues. Using RetroShare would be another approach.

</comment><comment><USER27> So why doesn't he share with everyone? If he's willing to shut down his service in the spirit of security, why not expose details in the spirit of transparency? I can't imagine all of it would be subject to a lawsuit.

<comment><USER28> Well, presumably because he doesn't want to end up in jail or Russia.

I very appreciate his actions, what he has felt able to say publicly and his dilemma in general. Part of me wants to call him a coward, but I can not say I would do better. I can't criticize. What this does show is how brave and "heroic" people like Snowden, Bradley, and the like really are.

What would be interesting is to see if he tries to get his story heard via routes acceptable to government, and if so, what happens.

<comment><USER29> Right. Snowden's path was a brave one, but that kind of martyrdom can't reasonably be _expected_ of anyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What is problematic with mail ? It's because it's in clear text most of the time and easy to tap with MITM attack?

What about an alternate messaging system addressIng these issues ?

<comment><USER2> Email is more or less sent in clear text for a significant portion of its journey in most cases.

        Sender ----> SMTP ---*unencrypted*---> SMTP ----> Recipient

I'm leaving out a lot of transport detail for brevity, but that's the essence.

Also, email is generally stored unencrypted at rest. Even if you take precautions to secure your own mailbox, the recipient might just have it floating around in plain text in their Gmail account, just waiting for it to be nabbed by whoever can get a court order, or whatever.

Also, even if your email is encrypted, the metadata isn't. So you can figure out who is talking to whom, when, and usually from where (by the IP address). Also, there are a lot of headers indicating details about your computer (if you used a fat client rather than webmail), such as the user-agent header which indicates what software you're running (e.g. Thunderbird, version x, on Linux/Windows/OS X for x architecture, etc) which can give clues about how to attack that client with some 0day exploit.

<comment><USER31> Actually the MTA can use opportunistic TLS to transfer the mail. And in a lot of cases my mail server actually does.

So it's only not encrypted in 20% of the time (depending on who you communicate with).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> email is a tool. you can use it for what it works for.

it doesn't have to be used for all communication.

assume a world where all your emails are archived in publicly accessible databases. you've lost privacy, but could it still be a useful tool?

send birthday emails. send your friends funny cat videos.

you don't have to use email for everything you used it for before -- you can just use it in different ways. i would still like to be able to near-instantly communicate with relatives across the world.

i know bacon clogs my arteries and making bacon has a terrible environmental footprint relative to eating only grains, but i love it.

<comment><USER23> OK cool - bdays and cats.... now where do I do anything serious where I need/desire privacy?

<comment><USER32> you're missing the point: maybe email is not good for privacy.

the article is about not using email.

no tool is perfect. you know what would be great? if hammers cured cancer. they don't though, so we just use them to hammer nails into wood.

speaking to people in public places is also a way to communicate, though equally bad for privacy. if there's nothing you can do to change the privacy attribute of "speaking to people in public places", does that mean you should never do it again?

or: use codes that only you and the other person know, hold hands and tap morse code into each others palms, find secure rooms.

people get upset when one tool doesn't do all the things they want, but its a weirdly tech centric thing.

"your startup doesn't do X so i'll criticize it". you can play the "need more features" game ad infinitum -- but nobody criticizes cast cups for their failure to keep drinks cold indefinitely or couches for failing to give them back massages.

Because a feature makes a tool better doesn't make it a requirement for its usage.

<comment><USER23> > __ _or: use codes that only you and the other person know, hold hands and > tap morse code into each others palms, find secure rooms._ __

What? What am I some sort of criminal on the run?

 __ _You 're missing the point_ __!!! -- This whole damn thing is completely unacceptable.

I don't give a shit about "legal" the government is an institution made by men, and these actions and programs are wrong. The term "legal" holds absolutely zero meaning to me any longer.

<comment><USER25> THE WORLD ISN'T EXACTLY THE WAY I WANT IT AND I'M GOING TO KICK AND SCREAM AS A RESULT RATHER THAN DOING ANYTHING MATURE TO ADDRESS IT.

<comment><USER23> What is more mature: calling out bullshit as it is or acquiescence to something that is completely wrong due to lack of testicular fortitude?

I am in no way "kicking and screaming" in an immature manner, I am instead saying "fuck you" to a system with which I will acknowledge no further authority over me.

I am no longer interested in the opinions or doctrines of the agents of all systems in this world which are not singularly for the advancement of Humanity as a singular species.

I am not american, Jewish, atheist, ethnic, sexually-preferential or any other wedge label.

I am a conscious being who is, from this point forward, only accepting of an advancement of the Human Race without any profit motive (money, ego, power, resource) outside of that which benefits the entire planet.

<comment><USER25> But what about the puppies? :(

<comment><USER23> You're a douchebag

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm not a programmer so this might be a stupid question and I apologize in advance but, why not open source the service?

<comment><USER34> It's not a stupid question, but often times open sourcing something involves one or more of the following:

1\. Documenting everything so it's actually usable. At a minimum, "here is how to install the dumb thing" should probably be documented.

2\. Often times there are hard-coded values that would need to be extracted out for security reasons or to simply allow someone to install it on a system not quite like yours.

3\. Often times there are other dependences that would also have to be open sources such as modifications to libraries, internal libraries released, shell scrips, cron jobs, messaging queues, delayed job worker tasks, etc that the system may rely on. These all need to be packaged up, documented and/or released.

In short it is a ton of work to take something that is running in our way on our hardware and generalize it enough that anyone else can run it.

On the other hand, you wouldn't need their service to give you the protections they offered. Essentially, encrypted email storage. You can get that mostly off the shelf using any linux distro if you run your own mail service.

<comment><USER33> I see. Obviously it's easier said than done.

I didn't use Lavabit because I mostly don't use email, but I'm guessing Lavabit was an easier service to use rather than setting up your own email service. I think @ssimpson has a point though. I don't think he [Ladar Levison] would be turned off by the difficulty of the task of open sourcing his project, but he may be waiting to see how the case works out first.

Thanks for your explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > He doesn't have the technological capability to decrypt his customer's data > but if someone could intercept the communication between the Lavabit's > Dallas-based servers and a user, they could get the user's password and then > use that to decrypt their data.

Is it really what I understand from this or LL is trying to say something else.

<comment><USER36> Does not make sense to me. Lavabit claims that it cannot decrypt customer's data, but if someone else could read what goes through Lavabit server and a client it could decrypt the data?? So, how come Lavabit can't do tha same thing?

<comment><USER37> I don't know a lot about Lavabit's arch.

But my guess is he's referring to replacing the login page's Javascript code with a malicious one that phones back the plaintext password. Kinda like a keylogger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> "In America, we're not supposed to have to worry about watching our words like this when we're talking to the press," Binnall said. (from article)

I am a new immigrant to America. I came with my wife from Australia 8 months ago. All my life I heard about how the US supported the freedom and rights of its people, and now that I'm here, I find that that was a sick joke. This place is a KGB state on the brink of happening.

<comment><USER39> Many Americans (and recent immigrants) are so spoiled, they don't _even_ know what a lack of freedom looks like.

<comment><USER40> My great grandmother spent 15 years staying up late at night to watch which buildings the KGB agents went into and who they black bagged every single night. My great grandfather's brother was black bagged and dragged away in the middle of the night. My family found out where he was buried decades later through an government inquiry after the attitude towards these inquiries had changed (before, if you sent one in, they instead dragged you away).

The moral of the story is that the US is not nearly as bad as people might think/say, but governments watching people's every move is the first rung in the 1000 step ladder down to hell.

<comment><USER41> Yes. Because we know they already black bag American Citizens, but only the _bad ones_ , right?

<comment><USER40> Somewhat, I think. I think a good way to judge a society is by how it treats its worst citizens. Holding someone without a fair trial is bad if you say your core value is that all people deserve a fair trial. Arresting someone without a warrant is bad if you say that the police is not the judge, jury, and executioner.

However, there is a difference here in frequency/intensity. My great grandfather's brother was innocent as far as I can tell. He held a fairly high city-level position as a factory manager, so when he spent enough years in his job someone decided that he got a little too comfortable and might nt fall in line if push came to shove (remember this was Stalin, the paranoid maniac bank robber who killed tens of millions of people for fear of being replaced). This kind of stuff does not happen in the US. You have to piss someone off at the Federal level to get on a kill list. Bad mouthing the government is still fine so long as you do not leak actual facts.

<comment><USER41> While I agree we've seen worse regimes in history, I'm not sure we've seen much worse "democracies" in recent memory.

Circumstantial evidence is apparently now enough to both be disappeared and assassinated (never mind the collateral damage). No judge, no jury. This isn't the rule of law any more.

Add to all this the fact that we can now assume the NSA possess comprehensive evidence that could be used to indite major financial institutions in the wake of 2008 -- and yet that is seemingly impossible. The fact that "it's not quite as bad as Iraq was under Saddam Hussein, only with less government health care" \-- isn't a very strong argument.

        "So the poor and the ignorant go to jail
         while the rich go to San Clemente"
         -- We Beg your Pardon America
            Gil Scott-Heron, 1975

<comment><USER42> >Circumstantial evidence...

Circumstantial evidence is perfectly legal and does get many people convicted every day. One piece may not be enough, but you get supporting evidence and you have your case --it's a very basic tool.

Indicting savvy bad bankers is very very hard. That and when the investigative ranks (those who understand the intricacies of finance law, etc.) are reduced to a fraction of what they were makes it even more difficult.

<comment><USER41> I should've made an effort to make two distinct points:

      1) killing someone over circumstantial evidence alone is questionable

      2) killing someone based on unilateral interpretation of any evidence (as opposed to the result of a verdict from a court) is questionable

Other than that: Are you seriously arguing that it is harder to verify if someone conspired to defraud, assuming the NSA could provide rich evidence of both communication and content, than it is to prove that someone is conspiring to do harm?

That is: in the latter case you (would/should) have to prove _intent_ before any crime is committed (and that a crime is _likely_ to be committed) -- while in the latter case you would only have to be able to document the most likely path that led to _recorded_ events taking place? You're even able to document profit, in the case of the banks.

<comment><USER42> I agree with your points 1 & 2\. It's questionable.

to the other point, yes. Securities laws, from what I can tell, are very convoluted. Even experts find it hard to tell when one enters or exits the grey areas. In addition, in 2008, there were other considerations to take. Until, I know better, I don't think the NSA is allowed to use whatever information they have, to prosecute domestic crimes. They may 'tip off' the SEC, etc. but the SEc must gather their own info and evidence. Also, it's not as if the NSA are experts in Securities. They look for physical threats rather than soft threats to the economy/population.

See some review of this in this NPR piece: [http://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137789065/why-prosecutors- dont...](http://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137789065/why-prosecutors-dont-go- after-wall-street)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why don't all these tech companies form a coalition and release the details together ? The government would never dare going after a dozen companies at once, that would in essence spell doom for Silicon valley (and Obama's liberal rhetoric, such as it is). Surely there are times when breaking the law is the right thing ?

</comment><comment><USER44> One the companies closed and deleted all their paying customers emails? That's bad imo.

<comment><USER3> better to delete it than hand it over if privacy was your selling point in the first place. if i were a customer, i'd be ok with this.

<comment><USER45> Also, if I understand this correctly, his customers most probably had a copy of the emails on their computers so their loss was only the email address (and emails eventually received after the closedown).

<comment><USER46> _his customers most probably had a copy of the emails on their computers_

Based on the fact that a number of them are talking about having lost data, I suspect that at least a significant number of customers only used webmail to access their accounts, so they never had a local copy of their data.

<comment><USER45> I was thinking that using webmail would defeat the purpose of really private email.

<comment><USER46> Not if you access it via https.

<comment><USER45> It's still showing not encrypted on the screen which allows all sort of possibilities when done on a browser. For example, let's say you're using Chrome, hard to make sure page contents are not being used somehow.

<comment><USER46> The same applies to any other email client; it has your data unencrypted, so if you can't trust it, you're screwed.

<comment><USER45> That's why I assumed people that actually care about privacy use a desktop software, open source and with IMAP, so there wouldn't be no huge loss.

<comment><USER46> _a desktop software, open source and with IMAP_

Which will still see your data unencrypted. And there are open-source browsers too.

In any case, as I said several posts ago, a number of Lavabit customers were complaining about having lost their stored emails; if they were using a desktop email client with IMAP, that wouldn't be the case.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are Programming Salaries Inaccurate? - <AUTHOR> We've all seen the big salaries job sites seem to tout around, but just how accurate are they? I've been talking with people who are full-time developers who barely made 20k a year at their job. In specific, I know a guy who works on huge projects with React and Redux etc who makes 15k a year. On the contrary, sites claim just knowing html, css, and some jquery can land you a job with $60k in the States. The guy I know is in Russia if that changes anything. Perhaps commenters could post what they do and how much they make? I believe we're being largely misrepresented in terms of pay. <comment><USER2> After I came back from teaching English overseas, I was desperate for a job and applied across the boards of Craigslist. I got a bite on a programming job making $10 an hour. I was thrilled because someone actually considered me, a person with very little programming experience, for the job. I was just happy to take the job and get experience. Even with the $40,000 student loan debt I had. After my training period was over, my boss increased my pay to $12 an hour working in Visual Basic on auto-shop software.

I did this for a year and a half before I realized: I was being taken advantage of. And I get it: He took a chance on me, trained me, etc. I fixed tons of bugs in his system and improved his customer base by thousands. Aside from fixing bugs, they told me my job was to improve the user experience and user interface to make it more user-friendly. I did just that.

But at $12 an hour with $40k debt and bills to pay, where exactly was I going? It was corporate slavery -- which is all too common for most programmers. Coding monkeys. He was also an arrogant asshole.. one of those bosses who was a micromanager and would even make me email him our conversation that we had in meeting, and then he would critique our own meeting and my words as he wanted them. More time was wasted doing this than actually programming.

As much as I loved programming, I couldn't live on that salary, nor do anything or go anywhere with my life. He ended up offering me double my salary only when I had put in my 2 weeks. I really just had checked out and didn't want to be there, so trying to negotiate a salary would have come with too many strings. "I'm paying you do a job... why didn't you do it this way" etc. etc. Yeah, he was that type of person.

Luckily, I eventually got out of it... if you are interested in reading more about that: [http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the- opportunity/](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the-opportunity/)

Unless you work on the coasts, like Silicon Valley area or New York, I think programming jobs around the country are much less. When the market is saturated though and people are desperate for work, companies can take advantage of that.

<comment><USER3> I know it doesn't feel like it, but wins all around. You had little experience and you got a job and experience. Your ex-boss needed to take advantage of someone at $12 an hour. Your new company needed someone experienced. You needed more pay and respect.

A more principled person might not have hired you at all and instead looked to hire someone with good experience at good rates, because they "want to do the right thing" and then you might not have gotten the experience you needed.

And good work getting out of there. I think in secret your ex-boss respects you for doing it. You say he says good things in front of people and bad things behind them, and at the end he said bad things in front of you, perhaps now behind your back he tells your ex-coworkers good things. :-)

<comment><USER2> Ha. Part of what you say is true... he helped me to be a better programmer. I would just jump right into and start coding. Now I actually write all the logic and functions out before starting which saves me so much time.

His greatest lesson to me: You can't really code for the customer if you don't understand what your program is supposed to do for the customer.

Though we did part ways and he did say some words to me that I was not fond of. That was just the type of person he was. I actually parted ways with him more nicely writing an email thanking him for giving me exposure to the programming world once again. He was mad about it, but hey, I was being courteous and trying my best not to burn bridges.

To let you know the type of person he is/was: I received a nice paycheck from the IRS a few years later out of no where from his business. He must've been audited.

But he did take a chance on me and I am grateful for that. It pushed me back into the world of programming and development. Without this job, I wouldn't have gotten the experience for the companies that came afterwards to take me seriously as a professional coder/programmer/developer.

And Visual Basic 6.0 was quite outdated... he was probably the last company to even still be using it. Had I stayed, I was working on a web version of the program. But choosing another job, going forward, moving on... I actually got hired and moved across the country by another company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Canada you can expect C40k-75k unless you work for some unicorn startup in Toronto recruiting top talent or specialize in something and contract yourself out. The vast majority of salaries are C$35/hr for senior developer which is what a unionized janitor makes after you account for their benefits the developer doesn't receive. Almost everybody I know here is a contractor, working remotely at US companies these days or to large outfits that do city bids for websites/dbms work and sub-contract to them.

Russia, @homakov writes that he made $3/hr as a php dev there before specializing in appsec and contracting himself out. [https://medium.com/@homakov/how-i-started-in-web- security-40...](https://medium.com/@homakov/how-i-started-in-web- security-400b80824e86#.98oj82ecr)

</comment><comment><USER5> To be honest i dont live there, i just quickchecked some sites and 20k$ seems very good for russia:

[http://www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat_main/rosstat/en/fi...](http://www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat_main/rosstat/en/figures/living/)

[http://rbth.com/business/2016/05/20/the-average-salary-in- ru...](http://rbth.com/business/2016/05/20/the-average-salary-in-russia-is- now-lower-than-in-china-and-poland_594893)

[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/wages](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/wages)

I think the best option for you/your friend is to get contract work outside of russia.

</comment><comment><USER6> So salaries in the most job offers are real. That is obvious that you are making less in Russia than in US. Even on the same position. Only working remotelty for western clients may give similar earnings. Check out some offers [https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=SALARY_DESC;qu...](https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=SALARY_DESC;query=remote;location=)

</comment><comment><USER7> > We've all seen the big salaries job sites seem to tout around, but just how > accurate are they?

Judging from the BLS salary statistics [0] (which are based on more comprehensive data than those gathered by any job site), they are, while probably _accurate_ for the subset of jobs they are derived from, not generally representative of overall salaries.

[0] [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrci.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrci.htm)

</comment><comment><USER8> Lets look at a neighbor that is on friendlier terms with the US: Romania.

This would be ridiculously low salary there.

In the past (over 10 years ago), when dealing with Russian contractors rates were much higher (think $20 US an HOUR as a floor, so 40k a year).

However this is pre Ukranine issues. The market for programers there may have dried up over night as everyone is dealing with sanctions and money moving issues.

</comment><comment> a-saleh 20k a year sounds about right. I am in former ost block EU country, median pay would be ~10k, monthly rent ~300$.

I might know a few people around here that might make more than 100k as programmers but, they are either project leads with a lot of responsibility, or they own the business and have a few large US clients.

Of course, all of my US colleagues earn much more.

</comment><comment> UK-AL Location is the big difference.

<comment><USER9> Very true. Early in my career I made the mistake of viewing a salary in terms of what it would be like in my rural area to earn that amount, which was a big mistake. It turned out I should have demanded at least double due to the significant increase in the cost of living in the city I relocated to.

For instance, for 20k a year you're homeless in NYC vs. having a house, a car, some land, and pretty good dining in rural Georgia.

I'd recommend the OP look up cost of living, as well as just applying around in his area for jobs to see if he's getting underpaid or not. If other firms are willing to pay more for his or his friends skills, its a good sign he's getting underpaid otherwise probably not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> $20k seems really low for most full time jobs in the United States. The average (median) job in the US pays around $30k. And software development jobs are above average jobs, so those numbers that you posted seem off.</comment>


Are Conferences a Waste of Time? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.earbits.com/online_radio/are-conferences-a-waste-of-time/

<comment><USER2> Summary:

PG said during YC to not waste time on conferences and trade shows, but he went to two and got a lot of value out of them, so how to reconcile the advice?

* they're a waste of time if you don't have a finished product yet. " _A year ago, before we even launched our site, we though it would be a great idea to attend the NAB conference in Las Vegas. 4 hours into the conference we realized we would be more productive sipping White Russians and playing Black Jack._ "

* they're beneficial if your product's shipped. " _A conference, or a trade show, is beneficial only if your business is mature enough_ "

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends on why you go.

If you expect to learn really high-level stuff, you're going to be disappointed.

If you expect to learn the basics for something you never thought about or heard of, it's a gold mine.

If you expect to meet lots of people who are interesting, well, you'll get out of it what you put into it. You have to put yourself forward, or you won't meet anyone. But if you do, there are some awesome people there.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the only thing I learned from a conference was that if you try and carry your own stuff from your van to your stand in the Moscone Center then interesting gentlemen appear and suggest that this really _isn't_ a good idea.

[Edit: this was during one of the first JavaOne conferences - don't know what it is like now]

</comment><comment><USER5> 90% of time spent at conferences is wasted, but you never know which 90%.

<comment><USER6> Not sure about the percentage, but I agree, a good portion of it feels like a waste of time, which is similar to how I felt about time spent at school and college.

<comment><USER5> _which is similar to how I felt about time spent at school and collage_

I agree, collages are a big waste of time.

srsly though, at least conferences are fun, if you do them right. Rule one: I don't go to any conferences which aren't in a fun location.</comment></comment></comment>


How you can use Facebook to track your friends' sleeping habits (Open Sourced) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sqrendk/how-you-can-use-facebook-to-track-your-friends-sleeping-habits-505ace7fffb6 <comment><AUTHOR> I have open source all necessary code, and it is available here: [https://github.com/sqren/fb-sleep-stats](https://github.com/sqren/fb-sleep- stats)</comment>


Ever wondered what the inside of a water heater tank looked like? [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DW - anything from a little bit of mineral scale, to a 2-3 inch thick coating of solid scale on all the tank surfaces!</comment>


500 Interns - 30 Internships at 30 Hot Startups:  No Cover Letters Allowed - <AUTHOR> http://www.internmatch.com/500-interns-competition#education

<comment><USER2> "No cover letters allowed" but you can "write a blog" about why you want a position? Guess what, that's a cover letter.

Honestly, what I'd be looking for in someone to work with, after raw programming ability, is the ability to use traditional media to communicate well. One of the biggest problems I see at work is the inability to communicate in writing. Being unable or unwilling to write means that every time something needs to be discussed, it involves a conference call. Conference calls suck because they can go on forever, and each participant has to invest the same amount of time. If you have an idea and spend a few hours writing it up, I can read and understand what you're thinking in just a few minutes. Send the writing to a few people, and your 1 hour x 6 people conference call is now 2 hours + 5 minutes * 5 people, saving tons of time.

Making a video and posting it to Facebook and Twitter? Not so much. Everyone that wants to watch it has to focus on that task for the entire length of the video. And that is wasteful and disrespectful of my time.

<comment><USER3> I agree that communication skills are a great skill to have as a programmer. I'd probably even rank it higher than raw programming ability, personally. (BTW, not all of these startups are only looking to hire developers--a student looking for a marketing internship would probably do very well posting a video.)

I don't think, though, that a cover letter is a great test of these skills. Cover letter templates are abundant and it's very easy for someone to basically copy and paste one in their application. Our team has read every cover letter sent through our site and we noticed some interesting patterns with them. Initially, most students didn't really know what to put in a cover letter and they basically looked like form letters. We created a few resources to educate students on what to write and placed links to them in the application flow. This helped immensely (a lot more than I expected, honestly) and the quality improved.

Still, though, as an employer looking at the resumés and cover letters of students, it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between candidates before doing a phone screen. They have limited experience and skills to highlight. We're trying the blog post / think-of-something-creative application process basically as an experiment to see what students come up with. It's possible that by removing the constraints that students normally perceive on cover letters that something interesting will shake out. You may think it a waste of your time, but you also aren't on the list of companies looking at these candidates :-) Companies participating can opt-in with this expectation in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We're really excited about helping startups find interns and helping students think outside of the box when applying for a job.

Shoot me an email if you'd like to be included in this: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER4> I have to say, I think this is really unfortunately timed. Just about everyone I know has already selected where they're going to be for the summer. I'll be curious to know if this works out for any of the companies involved.

<comment><USER3> I actually thought the same thing about the internship cycle last year. At the school I went to, almost every engineer I knew had accepted an internship by December and many had by October. I was actually really surprised to see that many great students from schools that don't have a heavy GOOG/MSFT/AMZN, etc. recruiting presence were looking for internships up through the end of April. Also, we saw a lot of sophomores applying around this time as well.

Startups tend to be less picky about year of graduation and more interested in the capabilities of the student. The best intern I've had was a sophomore who within a month was contributing like a regular member of the team. We had him stay on part-time through the next school year.

I'm pretty confident we'll find good students again this year even in April. If this experiment goes well, we'll probably try another push in the fall to help startups edge in on big company recruiting territory.

<comment><USER5> I agree, there are plenty of great intern candidates out there even in mid- April, but the cycle is definitely winding down. I'd suspect that the students interviewing now are, on average, not as competitive as the ones who received offers weeks or months ago.

I'd hesitate to stereotype startups' hiring preferences, but encourage students to apply to any company that's remotely interesting. Just like the bigger corporations, there's a huge variance: I've approached some startups about internships only to realize that their singular focus was to bring on full-time engineers ASAP, and worked for others that hired and mentored younger students with great success. It's often impossible to tell without starting a conversation.</comment></comment></comment>


Frameri: One Lens, Many Frames - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/frameri-one-lens-many-frames

<comment><USER2> I'm still shocked every time I see my bill for prescription eyeglasses -- that you always need to buy a new frame for every prescription lens upgrade, and that they mark up the frames like crazy.

This looks pretty interesting, even aside from the ability to change up the style. It also makes prescription sunglasses within reach for people who don't want to shell out hundreds of dollars.

<comment><USER3> I agree, I have always shied away from moving to contacts and Lasik because I actually enjoy having glasses. The biggest inconvenience is needing prescription sunglasses. I see this solving a big problem here.</comment></comment>


UI / UX Design Interviews, Zane David  - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@frankiefreesbie/zane-david-354daaaa2eec

<comment><AUTHOR> Frank : When your friends or parents ask to you what job do you do, how do you answer?

Zane : I always start by telling them that I'm an interaction designer, but I always received a bewildered look, so I go on to explain that I design apps and websites. That usually goes down well, people seem to appreciate that I work in a creative industry.</comment>


The Ongoing Accomplishment of the Big Five - barry-cotter https://carcinisation.com/2020/07/04/the-ongoing-accomplishment-of-the-big-five/ <comment> barry-cotter > As a novice to the study of the Big Five, I found that I had many > misconceptions. For example, I thought that the Big Five were considered to > be universal, in some sense, and not just descriptive of WEIRD college > students. But in fact, it is not simply that the Big Five factors fail to > fall out of the analysis of large surveys in other languages and cultures. > They don't even fall out of Big Five-specific questions administered in non- > WEIRD populations (Gurven et al., 2013). Many of the concepts mentioned in > the Big Five survey instruments do not even exist in non-WEIRD languages as > such, particularly abstract nouns (Gurven et al., 2013). Of course a concept > that does not exist across cultures could not form the basis for a > universally important personality trait, as measured by language.

> Second, I imagined that the Big Five were based on large and extremely > inclusive sets of survey items. I admit that I hadn't really thought about > the abstract noun "personality." What counts as personality, and what > doesn't? Apparently, the exact nature of the questions in the survey seem to > matter a great deal. Saucier & Srivastava (2015) say that the appearance of > the Big Five factors "is clearly contingent on one's variable-selection > procedure," noting that multiple particularly broad question databases have > failed to produce the Big Five as the top five traits. The Big Five are not > a property that emerges from all sets of questions describing humans, as the > strong claim would have it, but rather from a subset of questions whose > nature and selection procedure is not always clear. The consequences of this > are unknown.

> Third, I'd thought that the Big Five were relatively stable across the life > course; however, longitudinal studies of several cohorts of adults, born > between 1914 and 1960, revealed that most traits changed over the life > course in distinct patterns (Roberts et al., 2006), with social dominance > (an aspect of extraversion), agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional > stability increasing in adulthood and/or later life. One interpretation is > that the positive traits identified by the Big Five are traits of adulthood, > or reflections of having control over one's environment, or something like > that.

> Finally, I'd thought that the traits themselves were orthogonal, in that > they were genuinely separate traits that didn't covary much. I'd thought > that this was a major focus of the factoring process, and an aspect of the > traits' specialness and validity. However, the traits covary a great deal. > Lukaszewski et al. (2017) found positive mean inter-factor correlations for > every country in a large international sample, and an especially high value > for Tanzania, the outlier apparently driving their result (that complex > societies decrease trait covariance through specialization). Nor is it > unusual to find big correlations between the factors; in a large sample of > twins, Shane et al. (2010) found correlations of .39 between Extraversion > and Openness to Experience, and .30 between Emotional Stability and > Agreeableness. Chang et al. (2012) address the problem of the non- > orthogonality of the Big Five, and report that even with a methodological > correction to eliminate "methods bias," they could not eliminate > correlations between many factors, suggesting some may be "redundant."</comment>


B-Sides: Graham Greene's "Stamboul Train" - <AUTHOR> https://www.publicbooks.org/b-sides-graham-greenes-stamboul-train/ <comment><USER2> Greene is brilliant as always, but I found it to be a very bleak novel. You feel sorry for all the characters, because they have low self-esteem and are powerless to control their own destinies.

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I going crazy? I could swear this was posted yesterday, not "2 hours ago".

<comment><USER4> No, you're not. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380) for more details of how this works.</comment></comment>


Show HN: ChessCoach: Find mistakes in your chess games, and improve - <AUTHOR> https://chesscoach.network/# <comment><USER2> This is very neat. I'm glad someone figured this problem out.</comment>


Uber Taps Eric Holder to Investigate Discrimination Claims - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-21/uber-taps-eric-holder-to-look-into-gender-discrimination-claims?utm_content=markets&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-markets <comment><USER2> I wish we take from this not that uber has a toxic culture (it may well have that) - but rather see if there are lessons here to help improve their own company cultures. The cost of a good culture is constant vigilance and such blogposts raise important questions. We should introspect and ask - does this happen at my company? What can I do to change this?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm reticent about sharing thoughts on sexual harassment in the workplace, given the emotionally charged nature of the issue. I've seen men get away with completely inappropriate behavior toward women at work, and I've also seen women make absolutely false claims against male coworkers and get rewarded with unearned benefits. I see how hard it can be for a neutral third party to judge the difference when all there is to go on is he-said-she-said.

In this case however, the accuser claims to have verifiable evidence that her direct supervisor propositioned her for sex and then punished her for declining. And not only did Uber not remove him for it, it covered for him. If her accusation is true, and it probably is if Uber isn't denying it at this point, then Uber is causing incredible self-inflicted damage by allowing some employees bully over 1/7 of its technical/product workforce with impunity. Uber has taken over 8 billion dollars from investors. To those investors, how much has Uber represented that 1/7 of its workforce is worth?

Yeah, not surprising they're getting some famous names to help explain this.

</comment><comment><USER4> They are shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in this casino.

<comment><USER5> "We investigated ourselves and found ourselves not guilty"

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Users of the tech employee chat app Blind won't be surprised to see this is happening at Uber, it seems like that forum is full of nothing but complaints about their toxic work environment. I remember in particular seeing this thread and being horrified:

[http://m.imgur.com/22JWxGQ](http://m.imgur.com/22JWxGQ)

</comment><comment><USER7> Asking Holder and Huffington to get involved is grandiose. I imagine isn't difficult to avoid being grandiose when you have a multi-billion dollar valuation. The thing is, what's needed is a culture change, and these people aren't going to change the culture. It'll just be another distraction.

</comment><comment><USER8> Uber is treating this like it's a situation that they just stumbled upon, rather than the way that their own company, which they painstakingly created from scratch, works.

The goal of this sort of investigation is to try to reset the clock--to try to get people to say "well let's see what the investigation finds," like the situation is a complete mystery, like it's a dead guy in a locked cabin with nothing but a puddle of water. "What a mystery we have stumbled upon! Let us investigate."

The reality is, this should never have happened in the first place, and it was 100% in Uber's control to prevent it.

The very best you can possibly say right now is that executive management at Uber placed zero emphasis on preventing harassment. If they had, their HR team would not have acted so stupidly.

<comment><USER9> It is actually seems that Ubber executive management and CEO not only place 0 emphasis on preventing harassment, but also supports and promotes harassment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm going to say I believe in Ms. Flower's statement. It can't just be some make up story if so many people echo on the culture at Uber (it would be big conspiracy to organize).

I'd look forward a criminal case opened on this, but it's up to Ms. Flowers. I am very aggressive person, I don't let people get away easily if they offend me like this.

Anyway, when the investigation is concluded, and when the investigation result matches the victim's statement, I expect no less from the CEO but a public meeting with reporters, bow to the TV audience like how one does in Japan. I expect no less. Leader who is "misled" and "misinformed" by his or her workers should feel scared. Think about the whole national adviser talking to Russia scandal.

Uber recruiter, you can take my name off your recruitment list.

</comment><comment><USER11> What happened to being normal, getting to know people and then once having some sort of familiarity, maybe mildly flirting with them? IF they reciprocate, then go from there -- if not, forget about it?

Of course, if you're in a position of power over someone, you shouldn't do this or at least be aware of the consequences. But this culture of texting girls that are co-workers direct sexual or relationship stuff without even knowing them is just crazy. It's never appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER12> They certainly appear to be taking their _own liability_ in the matter very seriously.

</comment><comment><USER13> What's Uber trying to message with this? Why Holder? Isn't he the guy behind the "fast and furious" debacle [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal)?

<comment><USER14> Could be nothing more than having the description "former U.S. attorney general" next to a finding that Uber did nothing wrong. That would pretty much close the case for the average news skimmer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The real test is how Uber specifically addresses Susan Fowler's comments. If they recognize issues, create programs, wave hands, weep openly, hire someone to yell "shame", etc. then it's all about correcting how they are perceived. It's understandable.

If they pay Susan something larger than an annual salary and request that other female employees who suffered similar mistreatment come forward for similar compensation then they're serious about resolving the issue permanently and addressing their mistakes (I'm imagining Uber running ads like a personal injury lawyer 'are you a woman, have you worked at Uber corporate, were you sexually harassed and mistreated, please call Uber for $150k or more in compensation for the wrongs you were forced to endure).

No company actively prosecutes themselves. No lawyer seeks outcomes that aren't aligned with their client's best possible outcomes. Eric Holder, despite his name recognition and alignment w/ President Obama, is not there to help women who work at or have worked at Uber. He's there to help Uber look better.

<comment><USER16> >If they pay Susan something larger than an annual salary and request that other female employees who suffered similar mistreatment come forward for similar compensation then they're serious about resolving the issue permanently and addressing their mistakes

How paying off victims has anything to do with _resolving the issue permanently_?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just read the blog post and it's a really terrible story. Just awful.

Assuming it's true.. You can take the Nixon position - didn't know what subordinates were doing - and probably didn't - but this goes to _culture_ and that means - the very top management levels. Like it or not, the very top management is responsible for culture. Could be no one in the world more horrified reading about this, than the CEO. I would be.

However, I wouldn't be too harsh on bringing in people somewhat friendly to the company (doesn't mean they can't be impartial or follow the leads where ever they lead) - there is an interest in protecting (call it, saving) the company from people who did know about it and perpetrated it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Or, you know, we could wait to see if Eric Holder and Ariana Huffington actually do nothing about this before we assume they're merely paid shills for Uber.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm curious whether Holder's "investigation" will also look at Uber's historical attitude and pattern of behavior towards _women_ as a whole, not just their female employees.

For example, there's Uber's refusal to background-check their drivers using a system that includes fingerprints, which is something that most traditional taxi companies are required to do. The SF District Attorney has publicly called a background check without fingerprints "worthless."

Journalist Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily linked Uber's fingerprinting refusal to the number of cases of women kidnapped and/or raped by their Uber drivers, and how Uber seemed to think that this was either not happening or wasn't their fault. Lacy claimed in one article that that Uber PR would even smear the passengers as having been drunk and dressed inappropriately. In one case, a woman was choked by her Uber driver and police were called to the scene, but CEO Kalanick claimed in an interview in "GQ" that it didn't happen. (We're talking about _hundreds_ of incidents of assault; a partial list is here: [http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare- incidents](http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents) )

Lacy also pointed out Uber's collaboration with escort services in Lyon, France -- which objectified _Uber 's female drivers_ as lingerie-clad escorts, and offered passengers free 20-minute rides with them...

And there was BuzzFeed News reporter Johana Bhuiyan, who had her trip information accessed on two occasions without her consent...

And then there was the report from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is non-partisan and non-profit, that found in a two-year study covering 1500 rides and published last October that female Uber passengers were taken on longer and therefore more expensive rides than male Uber passengers...

<comment><USER19> I have seen that list of incidents that you shared ([http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare- incidents](http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents)). That list includes regular driving accidents too which could happen to anybody.

After seeing that website, I think the first few questions I had were: (i) During a given time period, how many rideshare trips were taken? (ii) How many rideshare riders were affected (killed, assaulted etc.)? (iii) During that same period, how many taxi trips were taken? (iv) How many taxi riders were affected?

That website only answers (ii), and not the rest of the three questions which makes the presented data meaningless (and also misleading, IMO).

<comment><USER4> How about data like "how many Uber drivers had glaring criminal records (sex offenders, murderers, etc.) _and_ were still hired by Uber, because Uber doesn't do decent background checks with fingerprints, whereas those drivers would not have been hired by traditional taxi companies, and therefore this policy recklessly put female Uber passengers at risk?"

Because _just in Los Angeles alone_ , that number is at least twenty-five identified drivers, according to a lawsuit that Uber settled last year: [https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/04/07/uber-settles-lawsuit- wi...](https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/04/07/uber-settles-lawsuit-with-s-f-and- l-a-district-attorneys/)

<comment><USER20> If Uber is hiring drivers with criminal records, and nonetheless has fewer incidents per number of rides than traditional taxis, _GREAT_! People who have committed crimes and served their time need a way to make a living, and obviously the risk to passengers is not substantial as we accept more from taxis.

On the other hand, if ... and has substantially more incidents than traditional taxis, this is an important criticism! But you're not actually making the comparison that matters (and neither has any media that I've seen), so we don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Keep in mind this isn't an independent investigation from the perspective of Uber. Holder has ties to Uber and it's only independent in the sense that he was not involved with the parties in question.

In order to get a truly independent investigation, there will likely have to be a lawsuit, because companies very rarely want actual independent investigations.

</comment><comment><USER22> On one hand, he has reputation to risk. On the other, he has reputation to burn.

</comment><comment><USER23> All this does is further reduce my opinion of Holder.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hiring Eric Holder to me means that they aren't going to handle this "internally". So this could be very interesting. But likely this is Eric Holder as big PR bandaid, and that's all we're likely to see unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why doesn't she sue Uber. By law, emails under litigation are required to be retained, so the evidence must exist.

<comment><USER26> To what end? It's unlikely she'd get enough money from the lawsuit to justify the expense and difficulty. And it would consume her life for perhaps a year or several years. On a pure cost/benefit analysis it makes no sense.

If she couldn't find other work in the tech field it might make sense, but if you're pulling down a silicon valley average 6 figure salary at another job you just move on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Personally, I don't dislike sexual harassment laws as much as employment anti- discrimination laws, but I do question whether they are really needed.

</comment><comment><USER28> Isn't this the "fast and the furious scandal" guy? Yuck. Another strike against Uber for me...

</comment><comment><USER29> If they hired me, I'd be talking to all the _ground workers_ personally about company culture in general, any abusive behavior at all, any sexism on top of that, and effects on business achieving its goals. I'd probably visit or survey them a few times to re-question based on extra information I got over time. I'd anonymize the source material in final report to executives and investors. I'd highlight any damage to business objectives that I found along with changes that amount to new top-down agenda plus house cleaning at middle & lower management levels. If no response, I'd give the report and anonymized data to the media instead.

Scheming politicians talking to scheming executives and management rarely results in good things. Hopefully this does but I'm not optimistic.

<comment><USER30> Well I'm not defending Uber, nor the status quo of doing a political facade of investigation to cover your ass but I think you're making it out to be a little too simple.

Uber has over 6,000 employees, so let's say you send a survey to all of them that's confidential asking about harassing behavior. Let's say you get a number like 6% [360] feel they've been harassed. Let's say you talk to the 6%, but half of those seem ambiguous (i.e. nothing in writing, this individual has complaints about a number of people and past jobs, individual's account seems inconsistent). Perhaps other employees don't even fill out your survey because they don't trust it's anonymous, or that when investigating their claims HR will be able to know who the "troublemakers" are.

Nonetheless you take the 3% that seem solid and to find common threads (the same person being complained about, HR people failing to record/raise complaints, etc) but without everything in writing it's so hard to prove who raised a concern about what last year. Maybe many of those people already have left (voluntarily or not).

I think if we want to solve these types of problems truly, we need to think about developing auditable _systems_ (e.g. HR gives you a signed and written copy of every complaint, which their supervisor sees, and that lying on such a complaint be a legal offense on both the individual and corporate level).

<comment><USER29> I'm describing a method already implemented by many large companies and one- man shops that do "efficiency engineering" by basically listening to ground workers. One of my employers got better survey results than you're describing despite being over 10x bigger than Uber.

Getting the info out of workers hasn't been the hard part in industry. It's getting management to act on it that's hard. Things have to get bad enough, esp in media, that executives are forced to respond and handle policy change top down. Uber is halfway in that position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am not aware of how the system works, but shouldn't authorities voluntarily (don't know the legal term) investigate this case even though there is no official complaint? There is victim's statement out in the open right?

<comment><USER32> I'm not a lawyer, but sexual harassment is usually a civil offense, not a criminal offense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> One thing to remember that those so-called "independent" investigators are almost never independent. They are hired by the company, provided with biased information, and will definitely serve the company's benefits in the end. This is more like for show. Look, we have hired the former U.S. Attorney General to do the investigation. We are taking it very seriously. That said, let's wait and see the result.

<comment><USER4> Yup. In the case of GitHub several years ago, the "independent" investigation never even talked to the woman who made the accusations! That's common.

<comment><USER34> Not quite as common as you think. For instance, Github:

 _" Rhoma identified the employees she wanted to talk to based on an initial list we provided, the evidence she gathered, employees who asked to speak with her, people Julie asked her to speak with, and anyone else she determined was relevant, including Julie herself."_

Sounds like she spoke to 'Julie' (i.e. the woman who made the accusations). As for independence:

 _" When the allegations against GitHub were raised publicly we took them seriously and within days launched an investigation into what happened. We hired Rhoma Young, an independent, third-party investigator that GitHub had never worked with before. Rhoma has a long history of conducting fair and impartial investigations, with 30+ years of HR experience. She has worked with every type of organization, from Fortune 50 companies to local governments, and frequently testifies as an expert witness for both plaintiffs and defendants in depositions, arbitrations, and in litigation involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation, disability, and mitigation of damages.

Most importantly, Rhoma does not have a history of siding with companies or otherwise being a partisan, industry spokesperson. Half of her litigation witness work is on the side of employees, half for companies. Her job is to investigate situations and figure out what actually happened, even when the people who hired her don't want to hear it."_

The full report is available here if you want to read it: [https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the- investigation-...](https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the- investigation-results)

<comment><USER35> > Sounds like she spoke to 'Julie' (i.e. the woman who made the accusations)

Horvath herself says that she never received an email from Rhoma, and (iirc) Rhoma says that she only reached out a few days before the end of the investigation.

Melissa Severini (who made similar claims against the same founder _two years earlier_ ) also said that she never heard from Rhoma, which is a glaring omission if you're an investigator looking to identify a potential pattern of behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Frankly, seems like Uber and any large workspace should have regular company wide training on appropriate workplace behavior, before it's an issue for anyone. You get the culture you create.

<comment><USER37> Training isn't entirely useless, but it's a pretty small part of preventing problems like this. It's not like her manager didn't know that hitting on his employees was wrong. He didn't do it out of ignorance. He did it because he could get away with it.

<comment><USER38> The point of the training is to stop the employee saying I didn't know it was wrong

<comment><USER37> Did somebody say that here?

And don't most companies cover this stuff during orientation and in the staff manual?

Even if they don't, so what if employees claim ignorance? There are a whole host of firing offenses that professionals are expected to know without being told. "Nobody told me I couldn't punch my boss," is not a reasonable excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Q: What are the ethical implications of an engineer taking on employment with Uber given what we know as factual regarding Uber's behavior and given the high demand for software engineers in today's economy?

Q: If you do not have family, and are reasonably healthy, what are the ethical implications of retaining a position at Uber and not resigning?

<comment><USER40> A: If the engineer has any reasonable alternatives (which they should have, as you're pointing out) it's somewhat indefensible on moral terms. Maybe, possibly, you could count this news as indication that the process is working as expected and defer judgement for a while.

More importantly, though: it's completely stupid to join Uber now. It's pretty clear that the work environment has always been the sort of thing that kills any humanity people may have had. With this investigation, the backstabbing will only get worse. You'll get there (without any knowledge of the internal structure) and have to navigate a maze while it's on fire.

Somewhere above, I'm also making the case of an upcoming Uber->Under transformation. They were burning cash as if Elon Musk was trying to escape from the Federal Mint. Now, their revenue is taking a hit and investors won't touch them with a 10-foot pole in an open relationship.

Apart from engineers, their management may at the verge of collapse: If your vesting is nowhere in sight (and I believe Uber's vesting is tied to exit scenarios, so good luck with that), it's time to cut your losses before Holder's successor starts the actual investigation. If there's anything suspicious with their finances (which people have long been speculating about, considering they stopped publishing them), you don't want to be an innocent guy/gal in a guilty org.

<comment><USER41> I joined Uber as an engineer last year. Professionally this is the best thing to happen to me. I work with great engineers, i learnt a lot from them. There are people from diverse backgrounds, people for top CS universities to people without any formal CS education but who are 2-3x better than most engineers i have seen. That said, it is not the place for everyone, things move really really fast. Lots of engineers are from Google & FB. Some tooling is inadequate but that is normal for any young company

I like TK, he is honest & anti-burecracy (which is very important for engineers). We have weekly town hall & he answers all sort of questions from employees with honesty that i haven't seen in my previous companies. I feel Uber is going through growing pains since they grew too fast. They have hired/hiring managers from bigger companies who will help them transitioning into a mature company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So they chose an Uber lobbyist, an Uber director, and the head of the department under investigation to lead their "independent investigation"? This company really has some audacity.

<comment><USER42> He's a high performer. And if he makes a mistake, I'm sure it'll only be his first offense.

<comment><USER43> High performer meaning he lost hundreds of thousands of assault rifles in the "Fast and Furious" scam that sent small arms into Mexico. Which were immediately lost and use against US Citizens abroad and in our own country.

That Holder?

<comment><USER32> > _That Holder?_

Right, the Holder who cut his teeth representing banks, became U.S. attorney general and refused to prosecute banks, and then went back to work representing banks. The Holder who has advocated on Uber's behalf in the past, and whose firm, Covington & Burling, has counseled Uber. I'm sure he's a real bastion of impartiality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So... not very independent.

Holder has advocated for Uber in the past, we know he has a relationship with upper management already, which suggests it may not be a very impartial investigation.

He's been in an advisory position to Uber since at least mid 2016. From July:

> _In one of the widest national efforts that Eric Holder Jr. has undertaken > for a client since rejoining Covington & Burling last year, the former U.S. > attorney general has written to lawmakers in three states on behalf of Uber > Technologies Inc., urging them not to mandate fingerprinting for driver > background checks._ [1]

> _Holder 's firm advises the company on safety matters and Uber asked him to > write the letter, according to company spokesman Craig Ewer._ [2]

I hate to be negative and rude but I don't think this is going to generate the best outcome. What if Holder is just their go-to big name to get... political problems solved, and they just consider this to be just another _pesky political problem?_

The article mentions Holder's firm, and they mention that the firm did an investigation into Airbnb, but they don't mention the previous relationship of that firm to Uber. This seems like relevant info for such a story and makes me wonder if the omission is intentional.

[1] [http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2016/06/16/eric-holder- adv...](http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2016/06/16/eric-holder-advocating- for-uber-questions-regulatory-mandates/?slreturn=20170120215653)

[2] [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/01685274cc944196af9016ad0a875...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/01685274cc944196af9016ad0a875b72/eric- holder-weighs-uber-against-fingerprint-checks)

<comment><USER39> Eric couldn't find a single bankster guilty of anything in the 2008 meltdown, and he wasn't able to find anything wrong with Fast & Furious, so I have to disagree with you, his appointment will certainly provide the best outcome for Uber.

<comment><USER45> One was found guilty, but point taken.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/only-one-top- ban...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/only-one-top-banker-jail- financial-crisis.html)

None were found guilty in Britain as well. Nor did Congress enact any meaningful reform. Hell, Arizona has re-elected John McCain and he was a bag man for Charles Keating.

Seems like no one, Justice, Congress or the American people want to hold people accountable.

<comment><USER46> > None were found guilty in Britain as well.

Interested to know why you exclude Jay Merchant, Alex Pabon, Peter Johnson et al from your count.

<comment><USER45> Thanks. The article I read was from before those convictions. And given the relative sizes of our countries, y'all did a much better job of holding people accountable. We clearly didn't.

After Enron, many people (not enough) went to prison. Arthur Anderson was shut down with huge job losses. White collar jobs. Politicians and the Justice Department have no stomach for that.

Maybe they have a point. In the 30s, a lot of good banks went down as a contagion spread. In 2008, it was already bad and no one but no one wanted that. Lehman was more of a hit job favor for Goldman Sachs, but also a visible sacrifice. But no one wanted the 30s again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm not trying to defend Uber here but there are two sides of every story and I'm sure we'll find out more in the coming weeks and months one way or another.

I could see how many people could jump to conclusions about Uber after reading the original blog post. However, by headcount- it is a medium to large company at this point while at the same time has an uncertain future and still taking big bets. I could see how that could cause chaos in some or all areas of the company.

Maybe- the blog post provide one point of view into Silicon Valley culture/gender dynamics. Maybe- this culture often exists within engineering departments of elite companies (vs the business/marketing/sales side).

There are a lot of moving parts in the original post: HR department acting unprofessionally, manufactured performance reviews and awkward IM's.

I've encountered situations where new employees just didn't fit in well with their coworkers, for a variety of reasons. They typically don't last long as employees. Usually a year or less.

<comment><USER48> > I'm not trying to defend Uber here

Well, insofar as you present an alternative reality wherein Uber didn't do anything exceptional (by the standards of their peers), you're defending Uber.

And then "I've encountered situations where new employees just didn't fit in well with their coworkers".

If the engineer's claims are true, what happened to her and to others has nothing whatsoever to do with culture fit.

<comment><USER49> Right now all you know is that blog post. There's no denying that there _may_ be another side, which can only be known after they investigate. That's the basic principle of our legal system... why wouldn't it apply here, despite this still being handled privately within the company?

<comment><USER48> > Right now all you know is that blog post

It wasn't posted anonymously. It's a blog post from a well-regarded female engineer with a lot to lose (her career, and possible financial penalties) if her claims turn out to be made up. The basic atmosphere she describes has been corroborated by other former Uber engineers. And a number of prominent female engineers at other companies have reported near-identical experiences in their own careers.

If I was a betting man, I'd put a lot of money on her claims being born out by any even-handed investigation (though, as other people here have commented, Uber's investigation is unlikely to be particularly neutral).

Additionally, nobody on HN is under any obligation to assume that anyone is innocent until proven guilty — that's up to the (criminal) courts.

<comment><USER49> Of course, you can make any assumption and come to any conclusion you'd like.

But you still don't know.

<comment><USER48> No, and I never claimed I did.

But I suppose I do question the motivations of those who care deeply about presenting the "other side" when there are allegations of sexist practices in the workplace. In this particular scenario, the other side is a company with incredibly deep pockets and priority access to world leaders. They've dealt with far worse (e.g. threatening to stalk journalists), and they'll be fine.

In fact, an exec who threatened to "expose" a personal detail about a journalist who had written negatively about Uber is still employed there. Fancy that.

<comment><USER49> To be clear, you're questioning _my_ motivations (perhaps implying I condone sexual harassment)? Or you're questioning the original commenter?

<comment><USER48> Talking about the original commenter's "other side".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Yall, I'm down with Uber. I know there's a lot of mudslinging lately, but I am so damn excited about the future. A world where we can do pub transit + big data, freight + big data, air freight + big data, food delivery + big data et al.

Bad shit happens sometimes. There's a lot of shitty assholes in the world, but crucifying a worthy cause and successful business because a couple of morons work there just seems counter productive.

As other comments have noted, this smells like the github situation a while back, and I'm no fan AT ALL of github, but even I concede that they are making a real difference for open source. I think uber is making that difference for moving people/things.

I want to see some justice, I want to know exactly how it went down and how it was able to get to that point ie a dependency resolution as far as who shirked policy and who didn't, AND THEN I want business as usual. Shit happens, fix it, move on.

<comment><USER51> First off, how _cool_ and _futuristic_ you judge a company's tech to be should have _absolutely zero bearing_ on how an investigation like this is treated, and the fact that you even bring it up makes it hard to take the rest of your post seriously.

Secondly, Fowler did exactly the right things in response to these incidents, over and over: she kept evidence, and she talked to the people in the company who were ostensibly supposed to help her deal with them. For a year straight. The fact that things continued to steadily get worse for her throughout this process shows pretty clearly that this is not a couple of morons. This is an institutional problem at Uber that must be dealt with at an institutional level.

<comment><USER50> Fowler has submitted exactly zero proof that any of this even actually happened.

<comment><USER51> Obviously. She's presented her personal story in the form of a blog post - we're all well aware of that. And it seems you're perfectly willing to accept that story up to the point that it matches _your_ preferred narrative (ie. "bad shit happened, couple of morons"), but anything more and it's "where's the proof?!"

Why not just call her a liar and show your real true colors?

<comment><USER52> It's not good to conflate healthy skepticism with the belief that one is an outright liar. We know so much about the fallibility of memory and how bias affects recounts of events these days.

<comment><USER37> Are you seriously claiming that ultrahate is just demonstrating healthy skepticism?

<comment><USER52> I made no such claims, however dandelany was strongly suggesting the contrary.

> show your true colors

Is very close to a personal attack. This doesn't need to turn into the CCN or Fox news comment section...

<comment><USER37> If somebody with "hate" in their name responds to credible accusations of sexual malfeasance with false interjections of "but there's no proof", then we're already approaching Fox-News-comments levels of quality.

If you aren't claiming that ultrahate is displaying healthy skepticism, then what do you think he's doing? And why is that valuable enough that you took time to defend it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Eric Holder said that it met the constitutional bar of "due process" for a Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen living abroad, to be assassinated by the executive branch as long as they talked about it a bit beforehand. I am doubtful that his investigation will result in meaningful change at Uber.

<comment><USER54> It's not so clear cut as you make it out to be. In the phrase "due process," the word "due" literally means "what is warranted." I.e. "Due process" has always been understood as the idea that people are entitled to the amount of process warranted under the circumstances. It's about fact-specific inquiries, not bright-line rules.

How much process is "warranted" when a U.S. Citizen wages war against the U.S. abroad and actively tries to evade any attempts at accountability through other means? Is military action against a U.S. citizen abroad never warranted? Maybe, but maybe not. I wouldn't have made the same call as Holder, but that's just me opinion, not an inexorable legal conclusion.

<comment><USER42> Procedural Due Process [0]:

"Procedural due process is a legal doctrine in the United States that requires government officials to follow fair procedures before depriving a person of life, liberty, or property. When the government seeks to deprive a person of one of those interests, procedural due process minimally requires for the government to afford the person notice, an opportunity to be heard, and a decision made by a neutral decisionmaker. Procedural due process is required by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution."

They deprived him of his life and did not afford him notice, the opportunity to be heard, or a decision made by a neutral decisionmaker.

That's why people are skeptical when Holder said his death met the requirements for due process.

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

<comment><USER19> > They deprived him of his life and did not afford him notice, the opportunity > to be heard, or a decision made by a neutral decisionmaker.

How do we know that? Genuine question. May be they sent him a court notice to his last known address (in US or in foreign countries) asking him to appear in the court. What makes you believe that this did not happen? Are you implying that Anwar never knew that US law agencies were looking for him?

<comment><USER55> The Federal death penalty is only used for crimes involving death, and they don't use the post office for capital trial information, scheduling, and/or notifications.

<comment><USER54> The death penalty is a punishment in response to ordinary criminal acts. Even countries that have abolished the death penalty reserve the right to kill people in war.

There is a fundamental difference between policing and military action. Applying civilian legal standards to military situations is a bad idea because it inevitably results in watering down ordinary criminal protections to accommodate the needs of military situations.

<comment><USER55> You don't have to condescend to me. On what principle(s) was al-Awlaki subject to anything other than ordinary criminal due process?

<comment><USER54> How was I being condescending? I was simply explaining the important difference between the criminal justice system, which exists to maintain internal order and the security of individuals, and the military, which exists to protect the nation from foreign threats.

Al Awalki was in a foreign country--where U.S. criminal laws presumptively do not apply--organizing armed action by foreigners against the United States. It's an archetypal act of war, rather than a crime.

<comment><USER55> Are you really saying that whenever a US citizen is out of the country, the US government is de jure entitled to kill them?

<comment><USER54> Your question is disingenuous because it ignores the factual context. Due process is _inherently_ concerned with the particular factual circumstances. It has never meant that you get a full trial in every circumstance. So no, the U.S. government is not entitled to kill a U.S. citizen once he leaves U.S. soil as a categorical rule. But it can do so if it provides process commensurate with the circumstances. Which brings us back to the question: What process is "due" to someone who commits something that is not a crime, but rather is an archetypal act of war, from foreign soil?

<comment><USER55> What was the "archetypal" act of war, and in what way(s) was it more serious than actually taking up arms against the US?

But even so, why ask me? You're a lawyer, you know how to provide extraordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims relevant to what is by no means a settled question.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>