Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/exclusive-computer-virus-hits-drone-fleet.ars <comment><USER2> Like hugh says, this doesn't add up at all.

 _"We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back," says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. "We think it's benign. But we just don't know."_

C'mon. You're the _military._ "It just keeps coming back?" So you decide to do a press release about it? Please.

I wouldn't have whined like that when I was de-malwareing neighbourhood PCs at age 13, I would have _fixed it_. If I can successfully keep malware off the PCs of middle aged parents with teenaged children, then the government capable of developing and operating fleets of _unmanned military drones_ can certainly isolate a network and disable the USB bus.

There is definitely some high level shit going on right here. I doubt we'll know about it for many years, if ever.

<comment><USER3> I don't know how I can be any more clear here:

If they are not smart enough to keep malware off of what should be the most secure systems around, perhaps they shouldn't be building the fricking FLYING REMOTE-CONTROL DEATH MACHINES for a while, until they can figure out the basics.

Capisce, guys?

<comment><USER4> I am totally with you. If software is going to operate deadly weapons, it sure as hell better be secure.

But you are glossing over a LOT of detail here. The military doesn't work like Apple: they don't design, oversee, or directly control the construction of the hardware they use. And they shouldn't - the government is woefully inefficient at building products, that's what corporations are good at.

Here's the situation:

\- The Air Force contracts General Atomics Aeronautical Systems to build UAVs. You can bet your ass the contract covers things like "protected from malware"

\- General Atomics contracts out the different components of the UAV. No device worth $150M gets built by one company alone. The radar, the metal shell, the inside components, and each component of the software are all made by _different companies_.

\- Each component is meticulously specified and rigorously tested. The makers of a component is contractually liable if they fuck up, giving them an incentive to do it slow & right. That's why it's so damn expensive.

\- General Atomics puts the pieces together into the final product and delivers it to the Air Force after another round of rigorous testing.

\- A team of guys in the Air Force are trained on operating the UAVs to deploy on missions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>===

So to say something like "Ugh, military, don't deploy UAVs if you can't keep it virus free!" is an oversimplification. These are extremely complex machines, with highly specialized embedded software, meant to deliver explodey things with extreme precision, while being operated from very far away. You can't just slap Norton on these things and call it a day.

<comment><USER3> teej, I assure you, I am under no illusion that they can "slap Norton on these things and call it a day". I am at least somewhat conversant with the realities of designing complex military systems. But if the systems really are so highly specialized, and I assume they are, that's still no excuse. At all. If they can't keep malware off them, they have no business flying them, at least for the time being. Which is all I was saying. I know it's not easy.

<comment><USER5> The systems are less specialized than we all would hope. Even with our massive budget the military is still 'forced' to use existing tech, which opens them up to situations like this.

And if you think this little press release means anything to actual national security, you have much to learn about our secret war against terrorism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems to me that a more interesting question than "how did the malware get there?" is "why are they telling us that they found it?"

Presumably the default thing to do under these circumstances would be to shut up about it, so the fact that they're broadcasting it to the whole world must mean something. In any case I wouldn't take any of the details at face value -- e.g. do they _really_ not have any idea where it came from, or are they feigning ignorance in the hopes of lulling their opponent into a false sense of security?

<comment><USER7> Because someone leaked it.

> "We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back," says a source familiar > with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the > virus. "We think it's benign. But we just don't know."

The end of the article says they asked for an official response and were stonewalled.

> The Air Force declined to comment directly on the virus. "We generally do > not discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats, or responses to our computer > networks, since that helps people looking to exploit or attack our systems > to refine their approach," says Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for Air > Combat Command, which oversees the drones and all other Air Force tactical > aircraft. "We invest a lot in protecting and monitoring our systems to > counter threats and ensure security, which includes a comprehensive response > to viruses, worms, and other malware we discover."

'The military' doesn't want anyone to know; some individuals inside do.

<comment><USER8> Or the military staff is leaking this to motivate the higher-up who green-lit the contract to exert some pressure, because they have unfortunately-little direct power themselves.

<comment><USER7> I don't think that is really an 'or' case. Either someone with authority to disclose makes an official statement or someone lacking that authority leaks it.

<comment><USER8> I was speaking to the possible motivation for the leak.

I certainly didn't intend my reply as a counterpoint to the "if it's not official it's a leak" point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anybody know what operating system the infected machines run? If it's a Unix variant, ouch--I guess they have some really bad luck. But if this is just an everyday virus, as opposed to cyber warfare targeting the drones specifically, I can't help but think they might be running Windows. Air gap or not, that seems risky to me.

<comment><USER10> That's funny.

It's Windows. Very little Unix anywhere in the DoD over the past few years on new systems; it's mainly legacy, or embedded in products they purchase. There are definitely some Unix server deployments within DoD even now, but they're few and far between.

Blue Screen of Death and all.

<comment><USER11> Wow can anyone confirm this? I'm surprised that the drones themselves are running windows. If so, I presume it's win CE or a custom variant of?

<comment><USER12> The way it works is some AF guy in Nevada remotely controls the drones flying half way across the world.

My guess is it's not the drones themselves running Windows, but the consoles used to communicate with the drones. It makes sense. AF guy gets to work, plugs in his USB drive filled with music and pulls up the drone control program...

Though, now that I think about it, I would be disappointed, but not entirely surprised, if the drones ran Windows also. Sigh.

<comment><USER13> No modern UAV has hardware capable of running an entire Windows installation. Think of arduino boards; those things can control huge robotics systems and they are very simple (and thus simple to debug). If you're designing a robot from the ground-up, why would you scale all the way to Windows? No one is going to be playing minesweeper inside the plane

<comment><USER14> _No modern UAV has hardware capable of running an entire Windows installation._

I highly, highly doubt that you're right about this. If you happen to be right, you won't be for long. It might be that nobody wants to run _Windows_ , but there is clear motivation, as well as hardware and software technology, to have a full-scale OS on an advanced UAV.

<comment><USER13> The google car is an exception where there is a lot of sophisticated software. UAV's like Boeing's and even the ones you buy online (with the open source software) are running on boards, not full-scale PC's with the ability to play a DVD.

UAVs are very complicated in terms of technology and engineering, but the hardware is simple because it's basically just running control loops on some board.

<comment><USER14> You're wrong to associate "UAV" with small "remote-controlled" airplanes. There are much more sophisticated things out there, and also in the works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Terrorism is primarily a problem of technology, imho. As things become more automated, they have a capacity to be used for both intended and unintended purposes. If our military relies on drones, it should make sure they can't be used against us :)

But to illustrate my main point, 1000 years ago it was impossible for one man to destroy a lot of people. 500 years ago a man Guy Fawkes could use gunpowder to blow up part of a building. SInce then we invented dynamite, planes, rockets... a society in which technology enables a small group of people to wreak havoc on a large group of people must necessarily have more surveillance/intelligence than one where this is not possible, if it is to ensure the security of its citizens. I mean what is to prevent a person from releasing a contagious virus in the NYC subway or something similar, and the effects to show up only days later? I hate to say it but we don't know where we're going with all this technology's potential for bad things.

<comment><USER16> I've heard the modern version of this called "Moore's Law of Mad Science" - every year, the IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point. In practice it's probably exponential rather than linear, but that's not really better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Okay! Here's what the sysadmins should be doing: Each GCS should be recording the identity & timestamp of each removable drive that is attached to it. Then we'll have a graph of all the connections between the machines. If any GCSes aren't infected (or if we have any information about which machines first showed evidence of the virus) then we might be able to trace out the path of infection. Hopefully it'll lead to patient zero, and they can figure out whether it was intentional (charge w/ treason!) or accidental (500 push-ups).

<comment><USER8> Or they could just fill all the usb ports with glue and remove the optical disk drives, if any.

I thought the whole point of an air gap network is that nothing crosses the gap. Having those ports/devices available is just asking for it.

<comment><USER18> "usb ports with glue" Keyboards, Mice, Joysticks for these systems were probably designed with the idea that a USB bus would be available.

It will take a while to replace all of these systems with their non-USB configurations.

Given that BlueTooth is probably a no-no as well, how would one build a system these days that needs to support Mice, Joysticks, and Keyboards without using USB?

<comment><USER8> How about an over-cage for the physical machine?

A literal chicken-wire-style cage that encloses the PC case, with openings too small to pass the head of a USB device.

The cage would be locked to prevent removal of the machine and have a locked backpanel which allows certified staff to install the various usb devices -- with some sort of cage mount inside to loop the cables around, so that a tug from the user wouldn't pull the usb connector from the machine and cause an obnoxious number of calls to 'the guy with the key' to plug a mouse back in.

The cage would neatly deny access to any and every port or drive that may or may not be present in one fell swoop, which would likely simplify OEM contracts and final installation as well as increase security.

You could build the cage physically larger than the general range of whichever flavor(s) of ATX cases are being used, so that the cages could be manufactured in bulk without too much worry about a switch between PC OEMs causing problems.

You could even add a screw-style bracket or two to hold the PC case firm within the cage and put some acoustic foam pads here and there to cut down on any extra noise.

<comment><USER10> People do this for kiosks (unattended, public use) all the time. It's a good solution for some things.

It's easier to enforce a security policy on well-managed PCs which turn off various ports in software (AND DISABLE AUTORUN!), vs. trying to physically disable them, but DoD also had people go around and epoxy USB ports, or at the very least put foil seals on them. There are problems with this, like the usb cd-rom token things, and the attack mouse.

One of the few areas of IT security the DoD gets right is physical protection of infrastructure (relatively). Unfortunately, it's usually basically a strong shell with a gooey inside of software/networks, and with big pipes bringing lots of stuff in and out of the shell constantly. Once something bad gets in, it's kind of too late.

There's a lot of awesome new Intel stuff to make PC hardware potentially more secure -- secure boot, CPU features, memory protection, etc. Combined with the right OS, you could go a long way. Unfortunately a lot of people are also against this technology because it has been used for Digital Rights Management (DRM) anti-piracy, other privacy violations, etc. I was really against it for those reasons, but have come to think it would on the whole be a net win for society to have more secure IT, even if not being able to break it so easily means some people can use computers for bad things.

<comment><USER19> _(AND DISABLE AUTORUN!)_

on the topic of disabling autorun, there was a patch earlier this year to disable autorun on non-shiny media by default in XP and Vista (it's already turned off in 7.)

[http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2011/06/14/autorun-a...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2011/06/14/autorun- abusing-malware-where-are-they-now.aspx)

infections by autorun-abusing malware families dropped by over 60% as everything got patched, and total infection rate dropped by almost half.

<comment><USER10> Never underestimate the power of defaults.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "We think it's benign, but we just don't know."

Whoever this is is obviously so far out of the loop and technical domain that everything they say should be taken with a heaping pile of salt.

I don't doubt that a virus exists, but the scope of it is likely wildly overblown. At least, there's no reason to actually think it's some military grade virus that is impossible to eradicate that intercepts all communications with the drones.

</comment><comment><USER21> Perhaps the fact that our computer systems are now of military importance and the fact that a security hole can mean deaths and international relations disasters will finally lead to people taking a good look at verified computing. Where a virus doesn't mean outsmarting some forgetful C programmer but is mathematically impossible.

Or not, it was just a bug, we'll fix it this one time and pretend it will never happen again. Worse is better, as they say!

<comment><USER22> How can a virus be mathematically impossible? And what if there's a bug in your math?

<comment><USER21> To answer your two questions, it is possible to mathematically prove, using certain tools that are admittedly rather academic (my argument is that we should consider using them more), that certain behaviors are impossible in a program. For example, a buffer overflow, or some form of data leak. This has been done, though admittedly not to programs anywhere near as complex as, say, the Windows kernel.

And, if there's a bug in your math, you will, of course, have some bug. Garbage in, garbage out. But! You can write your mathematical proof in such a way that the computer checks it for you (for example, static typing is a weak form of this). So all you need to have faith in is that program. Now we've exchanged faith in all programs to faith in one program. Which is an advance. But then we can formulate a proof that that program is correct in its own proof language. We hand-check this proof once, and then from then on the program can check later iterations of itself.

That's the dream, anyways. Some of the machinery to do this is available today, but some not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This seems about as random and undirected as Stuxnet magically appearing at five Iranian nuclear plants.

</comment><comment><USER24> next up: "Virus ridden US attack drones strafe US cities" "Iran strikes back for virus that temporarily crippled nuclear infrastructure"

Though really the drones probably live in middle east so it'd be more like drones would go berserk in a US military bases in middle east and kill troops or attack innocent foreign civilians drumming up more anti American sentiment

"Americans use drone to assassinate Afgan president"

<comment><USER25> No, the headline would be "Americans use drone to murder hundreds of civillians". It would make us look even worse, and judging by the history of suicide bombers, the Taliban or whoever would not hesitate.

Edit: This may be a bit of a cynical view, but if you believe I'm actually _wrong_ , I'd like to hear why

<comment><USER26> Eh, guys. I may be off here but isn't the problem that the US use of drones _is_ killing civilians ("collateral damage"). And that is what is currently making people living there very sad and angry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Clarification: It's infecting the control station computers (which I believe are still Windows XP), not the UAVs themselves.

<comment><USER8> Those computers have access to every bit of data coming from the UAVs and every bit of control data going _to_ the UAVs. So the fact that the compromised machine is in Nevada and not over Pakistan is pretty close to irrelevant.

Unless you want to make the argument that it's far _worse_ for the ground control systems to be continually reinfected, as they have access to the rest of the air-gapped private network as well.

<comment><USER27> You don't need to tell me about the systems. I worked on them.

It's far less worse that the control stations are infected as opposed to the aircraft themselves. It's pretty easy to shift control stations for a UAV. It's not so easy to regain control of a malfunctioning UAV. So, far from irrelevant.

That said, I was merely clarifying a common misinterpretation people were getting from the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hang on a minute... (a) You have malware on a computer on a secret network and you try to _remove_ it? Shouldn't that be an automatic "shred the entire machine and start over" situation? (b) Flight suits? Really?

</comment><comment><USER29> the quote used from the source seems to mean they don't know anything. a keylogger is benign? by what definition of benign are we operating under here?

downside of things being "off the record" is this could be someone who oveheard two guys talking about something unrelated in the cafeteria, put "two and two" together, and picked up the phone. and since you can't get an official line ... you just run with the rumors and BS

<comment><USER30> Well if the keylogger is on an airgapped network it would be relatively hard for it to get data off of the network, so some might call it "benign".

<comment><USER31> unless, of course, it's designed to leak data out of the airgapped network when the next USB stick is connected...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> wait wait this is my fav part, "At first, they followed removal instructions posted on the website of the Kaspersky security firm. "But the virus kept coming back,"" They have access to the same information my mom does? Don't they have their own people for stuff like that. Seriously Kaspersky isn't exactly the best antivirus program in the world and from their own website "The company's headquarters are located in Moscow, Russia" US military uses a Russian antivirus company for help with military security.

</comment><comment><USER33> It would be great if Ars had used its security and technical staff to tell us if this is a problem or the minor annoyance that the military says it is. The article amounts to little more than a summary of the drone program and a bit of "he said she said" <http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/04/12/hesaid_shesaid.html> reportage.

<comment> brown9-2 How could they do that analysis without having the virus or other data firsthand? They can only report what they have.

<comment><USER33> Analyse what they know: 1\. It's a keylogger 2\. They've been aware of it for weeks 3\. They admit that they can't seem to beat it 4\. These are isolated systems and it's likely that the attack was via USB drives

Based on those facts, is it likely that this is benign? Are there known viruses that fit this pattern? Who's in charge of this project, and what do they say about it? Is it SOP for viruses to be able to completely beat military security for weeks? What are the possible security breaches? Why attack this part of the system?

There's a lot of questions that could and should be asked. Instead, Ars just repeated history and summarized the press release.

<comment><USER34> 1\. As reported upthread, there was no press release to summarize. This was a story built on leaks from anonymous sources.

2\. This is a Wired story republished on Ars, not actual Ars reportage.

I certainly agree that additional commentary from security researchers would be welcome, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Im not worried. Its the military. They'll soon come up with a "Feynman can open our safe locks ? Don't allow Feynman near the safe locks!" kind of solution.

<comment><USER36> the worst part about this mentality is that whatever process/documentation they come up to "solve" the problem will make life 10x more difficult for everybody and cost a lot of time and money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> _in what has become the US military's most important weapons system._

Seriously? Already?

<comment><USER38> People in this thread would enjoy reading the following excellent short review of what drones are doing and their implications:

[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/sep/29/predato...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/sep/29/predators- and-robots-war/)

The statement you quote is impossible to rate as true or false. But here's a fuller quote from the article above:

"But there are also quite a few things about drones that you might not have heard yet. Most Americans are probably unaware, for example, that the US Air Force now trains more UAV operators each year than traditional pilots. [...] As I write this, the US aerospace industry has for all practical purposes ceased research and development work on manned aircraft. "

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> "Eventually, the technicians had to use a software tool called BCWipe to completely erase the GCS' internal hard drives."

You mean they paid $40 a license for _dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/sda_?

(I know BCWipe is a secure delete tool. But a computer virus can't perform forensic analysis of your hard drive.)

</comment><comment><USER40> From _Rule 34_ [1]:

 _Ever since Filipino Jemaah Islamiyah hackers pwned an MQ-9 Reaper and zapped the governor of Palawan with USAF-owned Hellfire missiles, the Americans have gone back to keeping a human finger on the trigger: not because a state governor from a foreign country was killed, but because of who was in the armoured limousine right behind him. (The prospect of having to utter the term_ collateral damage _in the same sentence as_ President of the United States _before a congressional enquiry had focussed a few minds.)_

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Rule-34-Charles- Stross/dp/0441020348/c...](http://www.amazon.com/Rule-34-Charles- Stross/dp/0441020348/charlieswebsi-20) (his referral tag, not mine)

</comment><comment><USER41> Disinformation at work.

Either that or gross incompetence but my money is on the former.

</comment><comment><USER42> One solution could be to keep machine images stored, like AMIs, and use a tool like Chef or Puppet to re-deploy a known good configuration. This strategy lends itself to the case where everything is virtualized.

Of course, the source of the infection could be really nefarious. For example, imagine if someone replaced a keyboard with one that delivered a payload (trojan, keylogger, etc) when it is plugged into a computer's USB port? Then reformatting the hard drive does nothing because it will immediately infected again.

<comment><USER43> > One solution could be to keep machine images stored, like AMIs, and use a > tool like Chef or Puppet to re-deploy a known good configuration.

It's probably Norton Ghost, and I'd put $5 on the Ghost image being cooked bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The article says that USB keys are used to move data on to the system from other networks. If this is true it would be better to assume that all data from that other network is bad, and require it to be serialized in a none executable format. The software then needs to validate the data against a schema. This is something websites have done for years and is very basic.

The mistake that is made here is to assume that a network can ever be secure. It is like assuming that no one will ever pee in a swimming pool.

</comment><comment><USER45> I suppose the virus is one of the 18 keyloggers that the virus encyclopedia of Kaspersky has...

[http://www.kaspersky.co.uk/find?objs=virus&words=keylogg...](http://www.kaspersky.co.uk/find?objs=virus&words=keyloggers)

</comment><comment><USER46> How difficult would t be for the DoD to make an OS just for themselves with no public distribution or documentation? That seems like the permanent solution here.

<comment><USER47> Well they'd also have to port Microsoft Office, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> So all that terrorists have to do is commandeer a drone (thanks to this virus) and then they can rain terror anywhere they want? This is scary.

<comment> brown9-2 That's a bit like saying all a terrorist would need to do to seize control of an ICBM is to infect the missile base with a virus. It's not _that_ easy.

<comment><USER48> They have infected the control computers, and the keylogger (and mouselogger?) is logging all the commands being given. If they can come this far, how difficult is it to, say, insert spurious "fire" commands? Or redirect the drone to some other place?

<comment> brown9-2 My point was that there isn't any indication from this report that the drones were purposefully infected. Random infections are probably inevitable due to probabilities, but deliberate ones seem quite a bit harder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> How to turn your enemy's weapons against him.

</comment><comment><USER50> Try disabling autorun for USB drives. These guys don't sound qualified to fly a paper plane let alone drones...

</comment><comment><USER51> Oh please tell me they aren't running windows.

Just wait until the cops start using these in the USA for "crowd control" ugh.

<comment><USER52> probably are... mission control at spacex has many windows terminals.

<comment><USER53> What does this have to do with SpaceX? They're not DoD and they don't fly drones.

<comment><USER52> They obviously fly satellites into low-orbit on contract for the govt. My point was control of expensive/dangerous things - by (or for) the govt with potentially dangerous sw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> If this was true, the last thing they would do is put out a press release about it.

</comment><comment><USER55> So they wipe it off without actually patching the exploit which the virus uses...

</comment><comment><USER56> It scares me thinking that mortal drones are running on Windows.

</comment><comment><USER57> BULLSHIT, this is covering ass for future liability.

</comment><comment><USER58> Attack of the drones.

</comment><comment><USER59> "We think it's benign. But we just don't know." Lol. Yes, when all else fails, just assume that the military-grade, impossible-to-erase virus is harmless. Hasn't done any damage yet, right?

This is the problem with rigid hierarchies. Everyone just passes the problem to someone else until the whole thing blows up. In this case, literally.

</comment><comment><USER60> So why does a secret operation want it known that is open to computer viruses?

I submit this a Black Flag operation story.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is going to be fun when somebody figures out how shoot somebody with a virus based predator.

Next time think twice before antagonizing your local geek :)</comment>


Show HN: TouchBase (re-imagining the iPhone calendar) - <AUTHOR> http://www.touchbasecal.com/

<comment><USER2> Cool app. Am I the only one that's overwhelmed by the home page, though?

The "get TouchBase" button is clear enough, but after a minute my eyes have been redirected everywhere and I still don't know if TouchBase has a decent day/week/month view.

EDIT. Okay, here we go: "You might want to keep your iPhone calendar around if you really like/use the month view a lot, as TouchBase doesn't offer that."

<comment><AUTHOR> Yaw, I think you're right-- the home page is pretty dense. Any ideas on a big/simple headline that conveys the value prop better? We struggled with that.

FWIW, I've largely stopped using the normal calendar app in favor of this one. If we see a lot of demand for a month/week view, we might well add it in.

Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER3> Theres just too much stuff going on, on the homepage.

It makes any comprehension difficult. Two recommendations:

1) add more white space

2) try to communicate the value proposition in as little words as possible. This book is a good starting point on how to do that: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400064287/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_0dBNob...](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400064287/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_0dBNob10HMXJK)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey all-- We built this at <http://www.startupworkaway.com> (15 geeks in a beachhouse!). It's our first foray into the mobile market but we're pretty excited by the beta feedback/love we've gotten. Would appreciate your thoughts!

(edited to fix link, thx)

<comment><USER4> I thought this looked familiar :) Looks wonderful dude! Can you make Siri play nice with this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh-- What do you think the odds are that Apple will let 3rd party devs play with Siri? Fingers crossed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the icon, but the first time I launched it, it crashed after the "Crunching Calendar..." screen. I check the logs and it says:

"Application Specific Information: com.tomoapps.touchbase failed to launch in time".

Spin a thread or dispatch in -application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:launchOptions: as soon as you can. Don't do heavy work there.

The app started successfully after that. First impression feedback:

The Edit/Done animation looks a little strange, maybe too fast or maybe because you are shrinking the height of the hidden view during the animation

Good luck with the launch!

<comment><AUTHOR> Durnit-- hopefully that's rare. We did a private beta with 60ish diverse folks and didn't run into that bug. (aside: we used TestFlight for this and it was amazing for over-the-air beta testing).

If you're willing, would love help in tracking down what's happening. email@example.com ... Thanks for the info, regardless!

<comment><USER5> Sent. (in case it went to junk).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems like a reasonable place to ask, so I'll do it here: anybody here found a really good integrated calendar/todo app?

All the ones I've found are very coarse-grained. Really meant for someone with a couple of appointments a day at specific times. I need to do that, but I also need something to manage tasks and assignments. I.e. I'm in a meeting and I get 3 tasks X, Y, and Z. X needs to be done monday at 3 pm, Y needs to be done this week, and Z needs to be done at some point. I want something where I can quickly and easily add all three tasks, then come back later and decide I'm going to work on Y on Wednesday and tentatively decide to work on Z on Friday.

For me allocating a big list of tasks to limited time, and being able to fluidly move them around as circumstances change is just as important as remembering that I have a lunch appointment 3 pm on Friday.

<https://www.producteev.com/> does this decently well. I love that it has a box that just lets you type in "lunch meeting noon monday" instead of having to click around on a date picker. When you're getting an assignment while talking to someone it's crucial not to have to click around. iCal is infuriating in how many clicks it takes to add a task and schedule it. I also love that you can leave a task unassigned then drag & drop it when you decide to allocate it to a certain day. But it's a web app and it's not snappy enough. The UI can slow down at random moments which sucks when you're trying to jot down an appointment while talking to someone.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wanted to buy the app, but I'm not allowed to since it's US-only.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that-- there are a few things we do with language (parsing for the word "at" for example, to guess location). We also wanted to launch gently. Can you tell me what country you're in?

If you email me (webwright @ gmail), I can get you a free beta invite for your trouble.

<comment><USER8> There are a lot more places than just the US that use "at" to refer to a location. Why not just release to anyone who wants to use the English-only app?

<comment><AUTHOR> We did release it in all of the english speaking countries that we could pick out of the list. The app actually has canned messages as part of the functionality, so I think it'd be pretty rough to use in any country where you'd likely meet with non-english-speaking folks. So question 1) Is there an english speaking country we missed? 2) Are there enough ex-pats-who-meet-with- mostly-english-speakers that you think it'd make sense to launch without native language support?

<comment><USER9> Luxembourg is tiny, multilingual and anglophone enough to make a great beta country. Oh, and I live there.

My calendar uses more than one language, how will you decide how to parse it?

Some of my contacts would find it weird if I message them in english, others wouldn't even notice, a few wouldn't even understand the message.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks awesome, but after purchasing it, all it does is crash:( It says Crunching Calendar, and then dies, ever time. I've tried rebooting the phone, resyncing the app, etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you drop me a note if you have a few minutes to help troubleshoot? This didn't crop up in our beta and we'd love to track it down. firstname.lastname@example.com - thanks, regardless!

<comment><USER11> Me too. Asks me "Who are you? We need a contact for you.". I fill in the contact form, press done and it crashes. Start it up again and it's the same story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This looks fantastic, and I can't wait to use it.

I can't seem to get it to work because it can't detect my contact, and it won't let me select my existing record. It only lets me create a new one. But when I do that, it crashes once I click done. I went in and added every email to my contact through 'contacts,' but it still won't recognize it.

Any thoughts? I hope this is something you can work out - because this app looks _fantastic_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hrm-- can you drop me a note? webwright@gmail - we did a pretty large beta test and thought this was solid-- would love to get to the bottom of it. There SHOULD be an "add to existing contact" option on that screen. Thanks and apologies for the rough bits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I installed it but it never seems to know who I am. I have entered contact information 3 times now but it keeps saying "Who are you?".

It also Crunches my calendar for about 30seconds every time I launch it. If that is the expected behaviour I will not be using it long term.

Other than that - I want to play with it, it looks really nice.

</comment><comment><USER14> "If you're event doesn't have a location" - typo for "your".

Looks good. Perhaps a bit weak in the face of Siri's launch?

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed the typo-- thanks!

Siri is interesting-- and may (someday) kill us, but I think it remains to be seen how practical it is for communicating/mapping around your calendar. I get plenty of stalls and "I don't understand you" on the Siri front-- especially with people or cafe names.

Of course, even if Siri PERFECT, there's still a huge swath of people with older iPhones, a hatred for voice controls, accents, etc.

While we're committed to the app, it's definitely in the "revenue generating project" category (versus the "I hope I'm doing this 10 years from now" category! :-) ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Minor UX feedback: The image for CTA buttons you are using look weird on hover. See this <http://www.touchbasecal.com/images/btn_cta1.png> The top image which appears on hover doesn't have the correct n and p letter in "Our normal price is $3.99".

<comment><AUTHOR> Yikes-- good catch. There was an 11th hour edit on that button (from me). Fixed and thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very nice. Back in the day my company made a similar product for the Palm OS called "Today". Good luck with it!

One feature request: can you also use the "nickname" field when looking for matches? I call my wife "J" so I added that as her nickname in "Address Book.app" but TouchBase still can't manage to match it up.

<comment><USER17> That's a great idea. I've just submitted a new version including nickname matching to the app store for approval, so look for it within the next week or two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think this is a brilliant idea. Not sure if the feature set is large enough for me to buy it quite yet. I'm probably not the target market for this app, though.

</comment><comment><USER19> I was lucky enough to be in the beta -- this is basically the missing calendar app for iOS. Apple really should have included these features from the get go.

</comment><comment><USER20> Fado Pub is a great place for lunch! I hate the default iPhone calendar application. I'll be purchasing ASAP.

</comment><comment><USER21> I was in the beta. TouchBase is cool, very handy if you're running around from meeting to meeting all day.

</comment><comment><USER22> This looks fantastic, all the best with your launch! It makes me wish I had a smart phone.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great UI, simple design a must for tech folks on the go!

</comment><comment><USER24> This looks great!

</comment><comment><USER25> Only for USA WTF

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, it's we do some title stuff that is language dependent (the app still works in other languages, it just loses a small part of the magic). We are currently limited to countries that speak english (not just the US, but still limited, sadly). If you email me at webwright@gmail, I'll happily give you a free beta account. We'll attack other languages soon.

<comment><USER26> Does it support multiple timezones?

<comment><AUTHOR> It should-- it actually uses the data from your native calendar and should behave the same with regard to timezones.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google's Discrimination against my 1-month Old App - <AUTHOR> http://www.build2master.com/technology/googles-discrimination-against-my-1-month-old-app <comment><USER2> The email is pretty clear that the app is against the content guidelines because it contains "Pokemon Go".

> Maybe Google discriminate against new Android developer? Or maybe they > discriminate me because I have a Chinese name? Or maybe someone is trying to > cut off competition?

Sorry, I believe you're just making up excuses here.</comment>


Apollo 11 50th Anniversary - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11 <comment><USER4> Just a reminder that in 40mins time the real time simulation will take off:

[https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/](https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/)

<comment><USER5> I'd seen the site before, but thanks for the timely reminder. I'm too young to have seen the real launch, but there's something special about being able to watch the launch on this site, time-shifted by 50 years. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you missed the documentary "Apollo 11" in cinemas, you can watch "Moonwalk One" (1970) on youtube in its entirety at [https://youtu.be/9GVpoSrqMMg](https://youtu.be/9GVpoSrqMMg)

It features quite a few of the same scenes, alas in lower visual fidelity.

Description:

 _This film details the comprehensive coverage surrounding the July 1969 launch of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon. The film details activities of both the astronauts and mission control during pre-launch and launch sequences, daily activities aboard the spacecraft and the moonwalk, and provides a view of the historical and cultural events of the time. The footage includes clips from science fiction television shows such as "Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers," as well as a lengthy segment on American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. The film also explores some of the critical preliminary stages of the Apollo program, including medical testing of the human body in space conditions, as well as the assembly and testing of space suits as worn by the astronauts._

ARC Identifier 1257628 / Local Identifier 255-HQ-199 National Archives and Records Administration Moonwalk One, ca. 1970

<comment><USER7> "Apollo 11" is available for purchase, both digitally and physically. It's one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, as it creates a _narrative_ out of the footage without using any interviews or actual narration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not so much an article about the 50th anniversary, but just the main article about Apollo 11.

If you are into space stuff, and haven't seen it yet, there were some pretty cool projects going on on Youtube in preparation for the 50th anniversary:

\- CuriousMarc's restoration series of an actual ACG [0]

\- Applied Science made a replica DSKY electroluminescent glass panel display [1]

\- Project Egress: A maker collaboration on building a replica of the Apollo 11 door (Adam Savage, Jimmy Diresta, This old tony, Blondihacks, etc) [2]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb59FWrLZfdlisi_x7-Ut_-w7) [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o_Sp2-aBo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o_Sp2-aBo) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23projectegres...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23projectegress)

</comment><comment><USER9> As a citizen of the United States (who came of age well after this event took place), I've only ever been told that this was an act of heroic success, something to be proud of, something that _America_ should be proud of. I'm curious what the reception to this was outside of the U.S. Especially, e.g., to someone living in the USSR, what was it like hear that someone else had put a man on the moon?

<comment><USER10> As a little boy, I went through the usual astronaut phase. There was this brilliant TIME magazine photo book of the space program up to and including the then new space shuttle that I kept renewing from the library every time. I remember at the time, that those events of 10-15 years earlier felt like ancient history.

I didn't know or care about wars, cold or hot, or any dark side. To me America was that place where they had a meteor crater and they put men on the moon.

Decades later when I got to visit Kennedy Space Center, seeing the rocket garden, the actual vehicle assembly building, a real Saturn V rocket, the actual Apollo 14 command module (!!!) in real life was an emotional experience, like that 10 year old boy teleported back into me. I felt like running around, crying, laughing, I can't describe it.

We dumped the kids with their grand parents at that Disney thing that trip. I thought they would be bored, but I'm definitely taking them next time.

<comment><USER11> If you ever find yourself in Kansas for some reason, there's an _excellent_ space exploration & rocketry museum in Hutchinson, Kansas, of all places, called the Kansas Cosmosphere. It is _very_ good, doubly so considering where it is. Nice collection, and very well presented. Not exactly close to other places anyone's likely to visit, but a great detour destination if you happen to be driving through.

[https://cosmo.org/](https://cosmo.org/)

<comment><USER12> I actually like the cosmosphere better than the Smithsonian or the rocket center in Hunstville. They have a good collection of Russian stuff, and it's the most adult oriented, with good annotations on the displays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My main gripe against my otherwise entirely loving parents was that they didn't get me up in the middle of the night to watch the landings on TV when I was little!

</comment><comment><USER14> So one of my friends is like "Moon landing is fake, here's a bunch of reasons". One of them was the shadows in the photos not acting like the come from a single distanct lightsource. Since this popped up here today, and I'm sure there are many more knowledgeable than I, I'd like to ask:

What's up with the shadows in this picture? (it's one from wikipedia page) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#/media/File:Buzz_sal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#/media/File:Buzz_salutes_the_U.S._Flag.jpg)

They seem odd. Thanks in advance for any insights.

<comment><USER15> Instead of always trying to debunk conspiracy theories we can also talk about some of the proof that astronauts went to the moon. See if they can debunk that. For example, every mission with Extravehicular activity brought back samples of moon rock (some collecting over 100kg). I find that to be pretty conclusive.

<comment><USER16> Devil's advocate: how can we verify these rocks originated from the moon, and not somebody's back yard?

<comment><USER15> It's a valid question. The environment required to form these rocks is not found on Earth.[0] The chemistry and mineral composition of Moon rocks is different from Earth rocks. Some of the rocks are older than almost all rocks on Earth (Earth's crust is more active than the Moon's because of plate tectonics). One of the more famous rocks collected is the Genesis Rock.[1] Recently a few channels on YouTube did videos about where the Moon rocks are currently stored [2][3][4] (It's a lot of work and money to keep backyard rocks from getting contaminated if it really is a hoax.)

[0] [http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/howdoweknow.htm](http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/howdoweknow.htm)

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

[2] Where does NASA keep the Moon Rocks? - Smarter Every Day 220 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxZ_iPldGtI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxZ_iPldGtI)

[3] Apollo's Most Important Discovery (Inside NASA's Moon Rock Vault!) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr28zMXQ3bU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr28zMXQ3bU)

[4] The Genesis Rock - Objectivity #208 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhLBzsDwSQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhLBzsDwSQ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have been meditating on Neil Armstrong's spirit. Project Apollo and his legacy in the long lens of history. At the start of Apollo, no one ever expected it to be _this_ impactful. They knew that they were making history, but they simultaneously overestimated the short-term enthusiasm for their project and underestimated its long-term impact. Most people at the time misunderstood the program and thought that it would be just one note in a longer symphony. But then we didn't go back to the moon. We prioritized the F-35s of the world before achievements like Apollo, and that note became the one and only note most people had ever heard.

The astronauts themselves didn't attempt to be this famous or be this defined by this achievement. This misunderstanding became much clearer when the program ended and all of the Apollo astronauts faced an existential crisis and a deep depression following their crowning achievement. Their lives - <USER2> lives of some of the smartest and most driven people to ever live - peaked in their 40's and that was it.

It's hard to imagine a different perception of Apollo than the one we have right now, but again hindsight is different than foresight. The agency didn't seem to grasp the magnitude of their achievement - look at how they treated the original video tapes that had been transformed for live TV video. It was a thing, it happened and that was that. The rockets, science etc were more valuable and no one was focused on the mission itself from our current hagiographic perspective.

Their oversight came with a cost. No one - not even NASA - realized the obvious at the time; the astronauts were never going to be human beings after their moon walks. They were going to be such and such who walked on the moon. And in a way - in the eyes of history - every act following that point was essentially a footnote. After all, how the heck do you top walking on the moon?

This burden was further magnified for Armstrong. Most of us forget the depth of his fame. Carl Sagan wrote about an anecdote where an anthropologist told him that a previously uncontacted tribe (or rather assumed to be uncontacted tribe) asked about Apollo 11 and if it was true if human beings had indeed walked on the moon. Try to put yourself in his shoes and lift the weight he carried. Try to imagine being Neil Armstrong and waking up every single day with the weight that every literate child in the world will learn your name until humanity itself ceases to be. He became The First Man - not a person who was allowed to make mistakes. No, that was too undignified for The First Man.

And he hated every second of it. He refused to sign autographs. He stopped going out into public. Stopped giving interviews. (IIRC, the last one he gave was to an accountant [https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/neil- ar...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/neil-armstrong- grants-rare-interview-accountant/327730/)) And chose to live his life as a recluse.

But perhaps, this tendency is why he was chosen in the first place. Deke Slayton and the other administrators, wisely, knew that he would be a better First Man than someone like Aldrin, who can be described in the most charitable of terms as a fame whore. [http://www.americaspace.com/?p=24709](http://www.americaspace.com/?p=24709) And so one of the most shy and cerebral men of his generation was chosen to be a "living monument." And perhaps a monument to the American era as a whole. As of writing, Armstrong is already more famous than Alexander the Great - <USER3> whom at least three major languages have literally defined the word "great." (even now his name isn't Alexander of Macedonia, but Alexander the Great.) And Alexander himself will be forgotten before Armstrong is. He is without a doubt, the most famous human to ever exist. And long after the American empire ceases to be, he will still be remembered as an example of what we achieved. Barring a calamity, he will be remembered for all time as long as human beings are alive.

It was a very heavy burden, but Armstrong bore it with grace. Perhaps with greater grace than Washington himself, who exemplified the ideal of doing your service and saying goodbye to retire to a farm.

Beyond his technical mind. I am in awe of him as a human being. The more I learn about him, the more I admire him.

You should read more about him here; [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/national/longterm/space...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/national/longterm/space/armstrong1.htm)

<comment><USER18> The moon landing will look less fantastic once space travel becomes commonplace. People will largely forget his name, especially when the US hegemony has ended. Your assessment comes across as a tad hyperbolic.

<comment><USER17> Have you forgotten Alexander the Great given that there were empires like the British Empire on whom the sun never set? Or, Archimedes given that the screw is everywhere?

Did we forget the Illiad after Harry Potter came along?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> New Atlas had the best story about it (out of all the obligatory stories) this week: [https://newatlas.com/apollo-11-anniversary/59993/](https://newatlas.com/apollo-11-anniversary/59993/)

</comment><comment><USER20> We just sent out our 50th Anniversary special issue of The Orbital Index: [https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2019-07-16-Issue-21/](https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2019-07-16-Issue-21/)

</comment><comment><USER21> The BBC podcast "13 minutes to the moon" is very worth-while.

</comment><comment><USER22> And it's not even front page news.

</comment><comment><USER23> As we recall Apollo 11, let us not forget about the rocket. Funny XKCD strip: [https://xkcd.com/984/](https://xkcd.com/984/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow, didn't realize GraphQL ist THAT old!

</comment><comment><USER25> With increased progress in robotics there will be even less reasons to send people not just to the moon but even to low Earth orbit. If you downvote, please explain why you disagree.</comment>


Using neural networks to classify web pages with 91% accuracy - <AUTHOR> http://blog.datafiniti.net/?p=34

<comment><USER2> what FV do you actually feed the neural network?</comment>


Wealth Inequality in America [video]  - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM#!

<comment><USER2> It's amazing to me that anyone could argue that this income inequality is the "way it's meant to be".

Some people suggest that people won't be motivated to achieve if they can't have more than a billion dollars. I can't believe that it would make a noticeable difference.</comment>


When Wifi goes down: Transfer files from Air gapped machines using QR codes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leonjza/qrxfer <comment><USER2> This is cool.

I guess with high density QR codes, a decent display and a good cam you could transfer a megabyte or more in a minute :D If both devices have front facing cameras, such as smartphones, you could even have a real-time back channel (duplex), and the receiving device could signal the sending device that a certain "frame" got lost and needs to be retransmitted.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a beautiful idea. How much information does the QR code carry, and how much is transfer boilerplate?

<comment><USER4> The maximum storage capacity seems to be 2953 bytes ([1]). Although that's with error correction level L, so you can only read it as long as you have 93% of all codewords.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Storage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Storage)</comment></comment>


These Enormous Fans Suck CO2 Out of the Air and Turn It into Fuel - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/3051240/these-enormous-fans-suck-co2-out-of-the-air-and-turn-it-into-fuel <comment><AUTHOR> The company, Carbon Engineering, is funded by Bill Gates:

[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/4f66ff5c-1a47-11e5-a130-2e7db...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/4f66ff5c-1a47-11e5-a130-2e7db721f996.html#axzz3oEseHa6v)

</comment><comment><USER2> > The technology works by pulling air over a special carbon-absorbing liquid > that traps CO2 and turns it into a salt

How can CO2 be turned into a salt? There's obviously some chemistry here which the journalist doesn't understand. Anyone know what's actually going on?

<comment><USER3> According to the video, the CO2 reacts with the solution to form carbonate ions.</comment></comment>


Node.js v0.4.9 released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nodejs.org/2011/06/29/node-v0-4-9/

<comment><USER2> Sweet, they fixed a bug I reported: <https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/562>

</comment><comment><USER3> _#1087 Disabling SSL compression disabled with early OpenSSLs._

Why didn't they use no triple negatives neither?

<comment><USER4> If I understand right it means that SSL compression is disabled by early OpenSSL versions so they are disabling it in node (presumably for compatibility?)

I may have misunderstood. I can't actually think of a better way to word that.

<comment><USER3> If your interpretation is correct, how about "When trying to use compression with old versions of openssl, return/throw an error"? Or, if no error happens, maybe "Make trying to use compression with old versions of openssl a no-op" would do.

<comment><USER5> I will make the appropriate changes. We appreciate your feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Improved docs. Always a good feature. There are still some "still working on it" sections, but there is also new stuff there.

Good work guys...

</comment><comment><USER7> Are there plans to take advantage of multiple cores automatically? Couldn't it do something like Nginx and spread the workload to multiple cores?

<comment><USER2> Might want to check out Cluster - <http://learnboost.github.com/cluster/>

(won't belabor the point about node/v8's architecture and multi-cores/systems)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the link.

I guess I'm trying to figure out why there's so much excitement about a server that is not designed to spread the workload to multiple cores for you.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't do _everything_ , but it's exciting for a number of reasons.

1) Javascript is a nice, powerful language. It's easy to find JS programmers. Bonus: you can share code between the server and browser.

2) Node provides a clean slate for server-side web dev: fresh, largely asynchronous libraries delivered via a well-designed package manager (npm) that I don't cry when I have to use.

3) It's an accessible way to program asynchronous server-side TCP/IP applications. Socket.io (WebSocket sever with multiple transports to fallback to) is an example of why this is useful.

The lack of interprocess communication that would help parallelize tasks between cores is the one thing that's lacking. AFAIK there are plans to address this (although given Erlang's maturity it will likely still be superior for this use-case) but even without that Node is very, very useful to many people right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunately the fix for this bug: <https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/767> didn't seem make it in. It is in 0.5.0pre though, and I've found it quite useful.</comment>