Almost everyone developing Tor was or is funded by the US government (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://yashalevine.com/articles/tor-spooks <comment><USER2> This article is from 2014. I did a lot of research on this a few years ago, and found plenty of circumstantial evidence that either (a) TOR is a honeypot, or (b) a large % of users have bad OPSEC, or (c) both a and b are true.

Because of "parallel construction" (1) it will always be difficult to really get to the bottom of this issue. I'm not sure we're ever safe from the prying eyes of nation states. We should all assume we're never totally secure, and act accordingly.

But I get "burnt out" on the level of paranoia necessary for that kind of research. I'm also exhausted from trying to convince others to wake up from their apathy over privacy and security.

Security is a process that requires continuous improvement. New exploits, new information, and new technology will never stop affecting our security postures. I accept that I will miss things, get breached, and improve over time.

For whistle-blowers, spies, and criminals, breaches have much more severe consequences. But it's going to happen to them as part of the "job." Cat-and- mouse, I suppose.

Anyway, I assume Tor isn't secure, because no networks are secure.

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

<comment><USER3> Most people just simply dont care. Take Facebook for example. I heard from multiple people telling me they think FB listens to them and show them ads about what they talk about. I ask them, will they stop using FB because of it? No! All my friends use Facebook.

There is no hope for our world. Facebook Google can do whatever they want. Why would people care about government spying on them?

<comment><USER4> You need to remember that the data world we live in today is very new. And the understanding of data privacy and its implications are mostly only understood by those in the realm of technology.

For the average person knowing that Facebook listens to them and shows them ads about what they search and talk about, probably doesn't care because they don't know what the impact is to them, or perhaps they don't see an immediate impact. Realistically, in the world of surrounding problems and concerns that we each have in our daily lives, Facebook showing me ads based on what I search for is probably quite low on the list.

I work in IT & Cyber risk and one thing I have learnt is that just because something sounds bad doesn't mean it realistically is. Everyone of us lives in a world of risks that are individual to each of us each day, some risks we rate higher than others for various reasons based on their consequence and likelihood. Therefore for a risk to be large enough for people to take action or mitigate, it needs to have a tangible impact on people's lives first and foremost. People have different risk appetites and therefore I may choose to mitigate the risk by putting less information into my Facebook account, you may choose to completely stop using the service and delete your account.

I could talk all day about the potential reasons why its a bad idea for Facebook to provide advertisements based on search history. But I don't have enough time in the day to take into account everything that people say I should care about as much as each person thinks I should.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember hearing about this on a Security Now episode [1]. Just because the US government funds the project does not mean they dictate features. Here is a quote from Roger Dingledine (co-founder of Tor) found in [1]:

"I should take a brief moment to explain how funding proposals work, for those who worry that governments come to us wanting to pay us to do something bad. There is never any point where someone comes to us and says, 'I'll pay you X to do Y.' The way it works is that we try to find groups with funding for the general area that we want to work on, and then we go to them with a specific plan for what we'd like to do and how much it would cost for us to do that, and if we're lucky they say okay."

[1] [https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-693.txt](https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-693.txt)

</comment><comment><USER6> Old news, but I'm still not a big fan of TOR, primarily because they've conflated the difference between anonymity and privacy on a network. You can't have it both ways. Either I can provide guarantees about the integrity and authenticity of traffic happening between your machine and a destination, or I can provide an unprovable, probabilistic claim that it's "anonymous".

</comment><comment><USER7> This is old (2014) FUD about funding sources, which are obviously public like for any other 501c3.

<comment><USER8> Moreover it lazily conflates the exploits (javascript/http/websocket unmasking) and implies it was an intentional vulnerability in the protocol itself.

<comment><USER9> Indeed, a number of examples cited are not vulnerabilities in TOR.

The example of the bomb threat is one such, that person was unmasked by looking at the means, motive and opportunity of all suspects.

TOR wont help you if the initial suspect pool is already very small (people that took that exam at that time) (motive). And only one student connected to TOR on premise during the time of the threat (opportunity, means).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't tor and its protocol open source though? Can't anyone inspect the code that powers it, fork it, create their own network if they want to?

<comment><USER11> The easiest way is to just run a fuckton of exit nodes, and do traffic analysis. With a $20 million annual budget to buy commercial hosting services/colo from ISPs worldwide I could easily have >50% of all high bandwidth exit nodes in existence. That's chump change for a national intelligence agency of a five eyes nation.

<comment><USER12> Consider that the Tor Foundation itself may have been started by NSA agents and collaborators. Tor was originally invented for the US Navy, after all. There's a foundation that provides legal representation to "average people" who want to run Tor exit nodes. I read a study of Tor exit nodes in Germany and they are all financed and legally represented by a foundation that, to my eyes at least, is obviously a CIA front.

The CIA has been doing things like this since forever. Many of the "storied journalists" of the late 20th century were CIA propagandists. It would be trivially easy for the CIA to turn one of their own assets into a "privacy celebrity." They would go around giving conferences to "privacy advocates" and techies, spinning yarns about their "dedication to user privacy" and the average person would believe it. In fact, the CIA, in the 1950s, used a personality test heuristic that could identify narcissists and liars and would recruit these people to insert into various "movements."

I actually do find it rather amusing when I read comments from seemingly well meaning techies praising some celebrity "privacy activist" that travels around the country giving TED talks and the like, promoting various privacy technology initiatives, never once even considering that it's quite likely that celebrity is working for the NSA and simply mouths all the "progressive" and "cyber-libertarian" talking points that sell the idea to idealists. Idealists are easily manipulated because they "want to believe."

The Three Letter Agencies are "people hackers" more than "technology hackers" and the average techie-type doesn't have a clue.

tl;dr the entire "electronic privacy movement" is likely astroturf run by the intelligence community.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very true. I'd recommend Yasha Levine's (the post author's) book Surveillance Valley for anyone interested in this topic.

You'll notice any web posts about "how to get on the dark web" suggest Tor. Uh, huh.

<comment><USER13> .onion addresses point to hidden services, and I was under the impression that the "dark web" usually just refers to these hidden services. So what other alternatives exist besides "Tor" and associated .onion addresses to access the dark web if its not hidden services?

<comment><USER14> There are other 'dark webs'. Most prominent afaik are i2p and freenet (although both of those do something slightly different than tor).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Both FBI & Tor are on Honeypots. I remember this article, [https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk- road-1/](https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/) which confirms the FBI tactics of setting up exit nodes.

</comment><comment><USER16> Dumb question - is the supposition then that HTTPS is completely broken as well? Or is it merely that the NSA will be able to see who tor users are talking to, if not what they say?

</comment><comment><USER17> The initial iteration of the internet was also funded by the US government via DARPA. DARPA was also partially responsible for the US Interstate Highway System.

</comment><comment><USER18> for anyone who isn't already familiar with yasha levine -- suffice to say that he is not qualified to discuss the technical capabilities of tor

<comment><USER15> Can you elaborate? I'm not familiar.

<comment><AUTHOR> He wrote Surveillance Valley. I think he's quite qualified to comment on it.

<comment><USER19> Dan Brown wrote Da Vinci Code, but I don't think he's qualified to talk about the history.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Da Vinci Code is a fictional novel. Levine's book is well researched and he cites his sources. Is he despised on HN because he's Russian? That would be xenophobic. Is there something else about him that I'm missing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here... Any guesses why this was flagged? Yasha Levine is the author of Surveillance Valley, a well-reviewed book that covers this topic extensively.

<comment><USER2> I've seen this information discussed here before (1) and the response was pretty hostile. I'm not sure why the article was flagged but I find this topic extremely relevant to our community.

No use throwing the baby out with the bath water. Makes me wonder - who would benefit from not having this conversation?

1.[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12826863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12826863)

<comment><USER12> >the response was pretty hostile.

>who would benefit from not having this conversation?

The companies that have a vested financial interest in mass surveillance, their technical employees, the public communication platform for the investment funds that fund startups in this space (cough) and the intelligence agencies that work directly with, and are sometimes embedded in, those technology companies.

Imagine if someone did find some exploit in Tor code, it would go over the head of 99% of coders anyway, and the accusations of "Russian hacking" would drown out most sensible discussion anyway.

<comment><USER20> It would really advance your viewpoint more, if you waited for someone else to bring up "Russian hacking" and then accused them of "whataboutism".

I don't know anything about the conspiracy that runs everything, but it is hard to believe that it involves the CIA, NSA, or the Russian equivalents, because they are demonized so much. The real rulers of the world must hate those entities. Anyone that is scapegoated by millions must be a diversion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The whole point are to have a lot of traffic not belong to military but military can use. Also everyone will try to break it as it is a much high value network. And there are ways to do so eg in exit and enter where you are not protected.

Seems nothing wrong.

No one guarantee anything.

</comment><comment><USER22> So, do i need to change the tor client configuration to not favor fast (exit) nodes as much?

</comment><comment><USER23> Right to privacy and freedom from surveillance is a dream.

<comment><USER24> It's attainable if you are in a recognized higher social class, which often correlates with having much wealth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Relatively undergeneralized as the entirety of the internet's traffic is collected by various agencies, and singling out the NSA seems rather hamfisted.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are three points here: First, Tor was and continues to be funded by the NSA, among other government agencies. Second, the NSA created Tor for themselves to protect their own agents. Third, by operating Tor exit nodes, they are able to spy on other people's traffic, hence a honeypot.

<comment><USER25> >among other government agencies.

That's my point. And I'm suggesting going a step further to non-domestic agencies.

Nowhere do I suggest the point in the article is false. I merely suggest it is closer to cherrypicking as others are obviously neglected. Does the FBI come to mind at all, for instance?

<comment><AUTHOR> The thrust of this is not to name which agencies use Tor to spy on you, but to point out the fact that the entire Tor system was developed by the government and is probably a big honeypot. Who cares what TLA-named agency is using it this week? The point is that it's not the security panacea it's made out to be by tech libertarians.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Case-Mate leaks iPhone 5 images, confirms iPhone 4S - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/case-mate-leaks-iphone-5-images-confirms-iphone-4s/27501

<comment><USER2> This is such crap, if ZDNET looked at the site they'd see it's blatantly just Casemate pandering for press attention. If it slipped out early why would it have a Question Mark or not name the phone but refer to rumours saying that we all know it's coming.

They basically just acknowledged rumours.</comment>


10 Useful Frameworks To Develop HTML-Based Webapps for Touch Devices - <AUTHOR> http://woorkup.com/2010/08/25/10-useful-frameworks-to-develop-html-based-webapps-for-touch-devices/

<comment><USER2> Will Dojo Toolkit work for touch devices?</comment>


John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAK0KXEpF8U <comment><USER2> Assuming the majority of hn is US-based, you folks have to understand that PC culture is often seen as a joke at best and an extension of typical American hypocrisy at worst (i.e. the usual double-speak and fake politeness that covers actual opinions and motivations). Sure, the PC/SJW wave is gaining momentum outside of the US as well, as the cultural influence is significant but it still remains an odd thing for most. Having to work with Americans used to be a chore because of how indirect they can be (not to mention the widespread tendency for workaholism) but now it's becoming insufferable. Taking this "philosophy" to its logical conclusion, I cannot see how anyone can rationally deny we're destined to a nightmare where you need to learn how to speak and act "the right way", just like what happens in China. At least over there they have no pretenses about what they're doing, and are not hiding behind supposedly noble ideas of equality and tolerance.

Make no mistake, American society is to a large extent Machiavellian in nature, especially the urbanite population and even more so the technocratic elite. Political Correctness is merely a tool of oppression and cynical exploitation at this point (just look at the Gillette ads if you still are unconvinced).

<comment><USER3> > just look at the Gillette ads

Decrying political correctness and then complaining _Gilette ran an ad with a message you didn 't like_, to the point of calling it _oppression_ , is just... amazing. Is this satire?

<comment><USER2> It is an amusing example of cynical exploitation on behalf of advertising agencies, leveraging the expected controversy on social media fueled by PC culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Most folks are in favor of _some_ form of "political correctness", in the form of polite manners.

The threshold should be different in comedy versus, say, the boardroom. It's not surprising Cleese, as a comedian, is focused on that aspect of things, but you can get equally Orwellian with fervent _opposition_ to vaguely defined "PC" stuff too. People who lose their shit over "Happy Holidays", as an example.

<comment> trey-jones Manners and tolerance are key. There are very few issues that cause me to "lose my shit", but as an observer, it seems to me that "Happy Holidays" is a response to people losing their shit over being wished Happiness in regards to a Holiday that they choose not to participate in.

I mostly try to stay out of the discussion because I think it's pretty much all ridiculous and a giant waste of time. Don't we he have more important things to be getting on with?

If somebody wished me Happy Hannukah, I would say "Thank You", even though I'm not Jewish. I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch over something like that.

Since I mostly fall into the WASP category (non-practicing I guess), perhaps I'm not qualified to talk about it since I've never actually been in the shoes of the minority, but I do have what I believe is evidence that I can bear careless words without "losing my shit":

My oldest daughter was born with Spina Bifida. Her legs are different, and not very strong. She can walk, but normally she uses crutches or a wheelchair. She is prone to falling without the crutches, and also with them. She's a great kid. It might happen sometimes that a person who has never been in our particular situation will compare her to "normal" kids. While I notice these things, I generally just let it slide. I know the intent is not malicious.

Even if someone says something like "Has she always been crippled?" (Yes it happens), I might politely mention that we don't really think of it that way, but I will certainly maintain composure, and I don't think I would lose a friend over it. Again, the person who says this most likely doesn't hate me, or despise her - they just don't relate to the particular issues that we are dealing with, and I can recognize this and accept it.

As you say, politeness and manners seem like a reasonable solution to most social problems from my perspective, but I guess a lot of folks disagree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love John Cleese but he's gotten a bit "Old man yells at cloud" in his dotage IMO.

(Odd trivia: John Cleese is into Gurdjieff, or was.)

Look, I'm a left-leaning SJW type, but I'll stand by the idea that when "PC" goes beyond common courtesy and starts becoming an OOC mob-power thing, that's bad.

There's a point to be made about historical context: women weren't allowed to wear pants until about twenty minutes ago; Black folks in America have had a bit of a rough time, and many still do; everybody everywhere reverts to savage form when pushed outside their comfort zone.

Things are a bit rough here. Let's all keep calm and be nice to each other, we're all in this together.

In re: PC in comedy, specifically, I have what I call the "Lenny Bruce test". When you feel the urge to tell an off-color joke to a mixed audience stop and ask yourself first, "Am I Lenny Bruce?" Check carefully and be sure. If you're Lenny Bruce, go ahead with the joke, it will probably land, and if it doesn't, who cares? You're Lenny Bruce. However, if you check and find that you're not Lenny Bruce, carefully put the joke down and back away. It's probably not worth it.

(In case it's not clear, that was [an attempt at] a joke. Comedians should say wtf they want. Only the worst sort of person kicks a Fool.)

<comment><USER5> Maybe I am wrong but since he is a comedian I get the impression that his issue is with the taboo nature of criticizing other cultures when criticizing western cultures has been allowed and applauded for his whole career. Think about all the self criticism of western culture that has happened in the past century from colonialism, religion, Woman's rights etc. and for the most part we are better for it. If you are to look at other cultures with the same lens, there is a lot to criticize, but if you do so you are accused of racism and xenophobia. Of course good comedy should be critical and should not be bound by taboos and must be more than "isn't it funny/weird how these people are different". Nevertheless I do feel it is very difficult to criticize outside ones own culture these days without unfair accusations even though these other cultures are now a part of your own country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just clicked to make sure someone flagged it already. We regresssed and are no longer able to have a civilized discussion even about trifles such as the usage of words like "dummy" in IT, so how on Earth could we be ready to discuss more fundamental isses John is talking about?

</comment><comment><USER7> Political correctness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. For all the right likes to bitch about cancel culture, they are always the ones who go: "you just lost a fan/customer!"

<comment><USER8> There is a significant difference between a person deciding to not buy a product or listen to a show than an outrage mob trying to get amazon to not sell a product at all or a network to cancel a show.

<comment><USER9> Right, one is ineffectual and the other is a successful boycott. I'm surprised to learn in this thread and a previous one on cancel culture that the anti-pc crowd really doesn't have a leg to stand on. These complaints are meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> People need to realize that there's as much political correctness on the right as there is on the left.

<comment><USER11> Not only political correctness, but the fascination with erecting cultural walls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Perhaps worth noting: This is the same John Cleese that has decried London becoming a multicultural city that is "no longer English."

[https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/john-cleese-is- cancel...](https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/john-cleese-is-cancelled- after-he-claims-london-is-no-longer-english/29/05/)

<comment><USER13> This is a little bit QED.

If 'who said it' and 'what views do they hold' is more important than what they're actually saying, then we've become post-rational, and well on our way back to less open and enlightened culture.

<comment><USER14> Who said it and what views they hold is important for distinguishing between what they technically said and what they actually said.

<comment><USER15> > Who said it and what views they hold is important for distinguishing between > what they technically said and what they actually said.

Would you mind clarifying the difference between the two for me? It sounds an awful lot like we're talking about thought crimes.

<comment><USER16> (not the person you were replying to, but)

"What they technically said" are the words that were actually used. "What they actually said" are the likely intended meaning, since (as I'm sure you would agree) any given moderately-complex sentence could have a number of interpretations, especially in different contexts.

"We must protect our people" is a sentence of five simple words, but has a radically different meaning when spoken by: * A warlord invading another country * A fighter resisting an invasion * A doctor speaking about medical treatment

In this case, the OP is probably making the (reasonable) point that a speaker who has previously made overblown claims about the racial composition of a country, and has demonstrated xenophobia, can be reasonably assumed to also be on sketchy evidential grounds in his claims about political correctness

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is like a bingo chart of right-wing fearmongering rhetoric. Because it's hard to sympathize with a rich comedian who can't make some jokes without criticism anymore, you have to spin it up into this grand narrative of how this is actually the end of civilized society itself. Unless, of course, we[1] start "fighting back". Whatever horrible thing "fighting back" actually entails in the current context is completely obscured by that point.

[1] meaning "rich white male people like me"

</comment><comment><USER18> "If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior."

Prophetic

</comment><comment><USER19> I can understand how some people see complete validity in Cleese's argument that those hurt by someone's words/behavior should "control their own emotions" rather than demand that the offending party be more considerate of their emotions, but I do not.

Black people should not have to "control their own emotions" when a non-Black person uses the N-word to get a cheap laugh, like, etc. at their expense.

Muslims should not have to "control their own emotions" when bullies taunt someone with the name Osama.

Women should not have to "control their own emotions" when they see evenly qualified, hard-working, and valuable (and often less qualified, hard-working, and valuable) male colleagues getting most of the kudos, visibility, raises, and promotions within their organizations and industries.

(Disclosure: I am a non-Black Muslim male who does not have the name Osama)

Emotions are things you feel deep down, and when those emotions are justified, they matter more to me than an inconsiderate asshole's ability to open their trap with no filter, or behave badly with no fear of consequences. I'm not saying offensive words/behavior should land people in jail, but I have no problem with corporations, journalists, social media, and private individuals imposing their own consequences.

<comment><USER20> You have correctly pointed out a few scenarios where Cleese's "control their own emotions" argument would not be valid. Are you also able to think of any scenarios where his point _would_ be valid, or do you believe that in all instances of human behavior on the planet across time, emotional reactions are accurate, and the subsequent actions taken justified? "I do not" implies you do not, but I feel I may be misinterpreting that phrase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _From one perspective, the rise of Politically Correct English evinces a kind of Lenin-to-Stalinesque irony. That is, the same ideological principles that informed the original Descriptivist revolution---namely, the rejections of traditional authority (born of Vietnam) and of traditional inequality (born of the civil rights movement)---have now actually produced a far more inflexible Prescriptivism, one largely unencumbered by tradition or complexity and backed by the threat of real-world sanctions (termination, litigation) for those who fail to conform.

This is funny in a dark way, maybe, and it's true that most criticisms of PCE seem to consist in making fun of its trendiness or vapidity.

This reviewer's own opinion is that prescriptive PCE is not just silly but ideologically confused and harmful to its own cause.

...

Forget Stalinization or Logic 101-level equivocations, though. There's a grosser irony about Politically Correct English. This is that PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact---in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself ---of vastly more help to conservatives and the US status quo than traditional SNOOT prescriptions ever were.

Were I, for instance,a political conservative who opposed using taxation as a means of redistributing national wealth, I would be delighted to watch PC progressives spend their time and energy arguing over whether a poor person should be described as "low-income" or "economically disadvantaged" or "pre- prosperous" rather than constructing effective public arguments for redistributive legislation or higher marginal tax rates.

(Not to mention that strict codes of egalitarian euphemism serve to burke the sorts of painful,unpretty, and sometimes offensive discourse that in a pluralistic democracy lead to actual political change rather than symbolic political change. In other words, PCE acts as a form of censorship, and censorship always serves the status quo.) _

"Authority and American Usage", 1999

<comment><USER22> This is an amazing DFW essay and probably one of the only places that notes American Black English as an actual entity and a tricky issue to deal with, especially as an educator.

<comment><USER21> It is exceptionally well written.

Cultivating a Democratic Spirit is very hard to do, and harder still 20 years on since he wrote it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ur-whale He said "can lead to" in 2016.

I think he would say "has landed us in" today.

<comment><USER12> It's hard for me to take seriously claims that we're in an Orwellian world when there is so much open controversy on so many topics.

If anything, I think we're in a Huxleyan dystopia, not an Orwellian one; so much distraction, there's no way for an average person to gain enough footing to expend energy with practical utility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behaviour."

</comment><comment><USER24> "If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behaviour."

Watching the current state of the western world, apparently only very few people have the ability to reflect on themself enough to realize this. Hopefully this is only a loud minorty.

I maybe the wrong person to judge, but imho, we need to resolutely oppose the PC- and cancel culture.

<comment><USER16> (disclaimer - I haven't watched the video, because a. it's a video, come on, and b. John Cleese's attitudes are already well-known to me from many other sources, interviews, etc.)

> If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying > to control other people's behaviour.

Yes, this statement is exactly true - but not in the way that John, and you, seem to think.

One interpretation - yours, if I may be forgiven for assuming - is "PC-culture only exists because people do not have a thick-enough skin to simply regulate their own emotional well-being. If they would only toughen up, then there would be no need for all this nonsense - we could finally express ourselves freely once again".

The alternative interpretation - and one that I really hope you can find your way to understanding - is "some people are subjected to so much pain, aggression, discrimination, and hatred - or, some other people witness so much of that pain in others - that, no matter how hard they try, they simply _cannot_ suppress their responses to it - nor should they. Rather, they speak up about the injustices they see, and try to change them."

The classic anti-PC attitude of "toughen up and stop complaining" is so monumentally selfish and short-sighted that it feels like parody. If someone is stepping on your foot, the appropriate response is not to "control your response" \- it's to ask them to stop stepping on your foot. If their response is "I'm not" \- then you either need to educate them that they are, in fact, doing so (and you would know better than them), or take the initiative to physically prevent them from continuing to do so.

<comment> trey-jones I think there is probably a balance somewhere in between. Surely you can also agree that there are people at large currently yelling at people that they only imagine are standing on their foot. And the tone of response is important: see my previous comment about tact and manners. If everyone escalates the issue at the first opportunity, things get scary fast.</comment></comment></comment>


The Terminal Jockey's Toolbelt - <AUTHOR> https://packetlost.dev/the-terminal-jockeys-toolbelt <comment><USER2> entr actually looks super useful, thanks!

<comment><USER3> Great tool. I heard about it from Julia Evans a few weeks ago, and it replaced my janky half-baked script that used inotifywait

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author of the post here, let me know if there's any feedback or suggestions for new tools!

<comment><USER4> Since you mentioned fd, you should check out ripgrep as an alternative to ag

<comment><AUTHOR> the_silver_searcher (`ag(1)`) is covered and is pretty similar to ripgrep in functionality.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I was highlighting it as an ag alternative that I commonly see recommended alongside fd</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Float Exposed - <AUTHOR> http://float.exposed <comment><USER2> Very cool tool! A couple of comments/suggestions:

It doesn't handle very large or small floating-point numbers. I'm not sure where the cutoff is, but it's around 1e40 and 1e-46. It would be cool to be able to explore the whole range of 64-bit floats, including subnormals like 5.0e-324.

It would be interesting to leave the input as-is and show two related decimal representations:

1\. The precise decimal representation (what is printed now). 2\. The shortest decimal representation as determined by algorithms like Grisu [1] and Ryu [2].

It would also be cool to allow jumping to the next/previous representable floating-point number. Showing eps(x) would also be handy—i.e. the difference between the current value and the next closest representable floating-point value.

[1] [https://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/cs257/archive/florian- loitsch/p...](https://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/cs257/archive/florian- loitsch/printf.pdf)

[2] [https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3192369](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3192369)

<comment><USER3> They're 32-bit IEEE floats (i.e. a typical "C float"), so the subnormal range is below 2e-38. Also, it isn't printing exact values, since for any non- integer value, the last digit should always be 5, though I agree it would be nice to have.

<comment><USER2> Hah, I should have realized that there weren't enough bits for Float64. I also realized that the little `+` and `-` signs on the integer representations have the effect of next/previous float values. Showing eps(x) would still be handy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really nice! It'll come in very handy for my next training class -- students are always asking why they shouldn't use floating point for money and I always explain it, but having a tool where they can play around with it is _much_ better.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is really cool!

I believe this uses IEEE [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_754](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_754)? An additional cool feature would be the ability to toggle between this, and other standards such as DEC64 and UNUM.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very cool to quickly estimate the errors in certain number regions.</comment>


Whoishiring Most Popular Programming Languages (April 2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ryan-williams.net/hacker-news-hiring-trends/2014/april.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The top 5 (JavaScript, Python, iOS, Android, Ruby) is unchanged from March. More highlights are covered under the chart.</comment>


Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It's time to switch - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/21/google-chrome-has-become-surveillance-software-its-time-to-switch/ <comment><USER2> Isn't this just a copy from Washington Post or something?

Not that bashing Chrome or Googme bothers me, I made my own attempt at that recently, but no need to discuss the same article twice?

<comment><USER3> Yep. Was posted yesterday[0] which was marked a dupe from the original washpo article[1] also posted a day ago.

0: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20247077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20247077)

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20243473](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20243473)

<comment><USER4> Article behind paywall. Please stop doing this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When Chrome blocks ad-blockers as Google intends to do soon, I will entirely drop Chrome. And likely all of their services, as well: in for a penny, in for a pound.

<comment><USER6> I still can't find an alternative to Chrome's Dev console, especially for responsive design testing.

Firefox's version is alright at the moment, but not nearly as polished.

<comment><USER7> Which part of 'responsive design testing' in particular do you mean? I use devtools pretty religiously to check elements, but put responsivetester.net together a few years back for rapidly testing across multiple breakpoints. Then I'll use lambdatest.com (because it's wonderfully cheap) to actually device test prior to launch...

<comment><USER8> Well, as responsivetester.net uses iframes it will not work if the site is properly protected from click-jacking using the X-Frame-Options or CSP headers, and it will also not emulate touch scrolling/events. The devtools basically bring you a little bit closer to the real thing, although you still need to test with real devices in the end either way. As for how to use it see here: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Tools/Responsive_De...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Tools/Responsive_Design_Mode)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And if you don't want to switch, there are things like privacy badger[1] and ghostery[2]? Although, strangely Privacy Badger does not seem to mention their chrome extension[3].

[1] [https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

[2] [https://www.ghostery.com/](https://www.ghostery.com/)

[3] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy- badger/pke...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy- badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp)

<comment><USER10> These aren't really a replacement when the browser itself is compromised and the corporation behind it is leveraging it to try to take control of the web standards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> >Our latest privacy experiment found Chrome ushered more than 11,000 tracker cookies into our browser — in a single week.

Firefox doesn't support cookies or what?

>Firefox isn't perfect – it still defaults searches to Google and permits some other tracking. But it doesn't share browsing data with Mozilla, which isn't in the data-collection business.

Much worse, it shares browsing data, including full URL history, with third parties. [https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing- cliqz-i...](https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-in- firefox/)

<comment><USER12> > Support for Cliqz integrated functions in Firefox is ending.

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/cliqz- recommendations-f...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/cliqz- recommendations-firefox)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The irony of being prevented from reading this article because the site "sees you're using an ad blocker"....

<comment><USER14> Good to see them squirm I guess, that's how you know adblocking is sound tool for fighting back

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Of course a browser made by the biggest tracking company in the world is surveillance software, what else would it be?

</comment><comment><USER16> It sounds like the author doesn't quite know how cookies work. It's great that Firefox does cookie blocking by default, but it's not like not doing that is chrome-only -- and it's not chrome that's setting all these cookies, it's the internet advertising business.

It'd be more honest to write an article about Firefox breaking bad internet standards in the interest of the user, and another one about internet tracking being out of control.

Chrome has issues, and it'd be good if it blocked more cookies by default, but the headline here is way overblown.

The headline might even be apt with a different article! But it seems we all want to be believe the headline so much that we didn't read past it.

Edit: the article this was duped into has a much better headline.

</comment><comment><USER17> Dear Firefox implement tab to search already. Yes you can do 'similar' things with ! but it's really not the same. So many Chrome users staying for this feature. Solve it already.

<comment><USER18> Doesn't Firefox show you relevant open tabs when you type in keywords in the address bar?

<comment><USER19> They're probably talking about the other feature: choose/write the domain name in the search bar, press Tab, and if you have previously visited the site, and it implements the OpenSearch "standard", the search bar sends your input to the chosen site instead of the default search engine (Google or whatever).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Isn't this trope getting a bit redundant? It's like Gmail ca 2012 all over again.

Chrome is free software, you're not being forced to use it, there are alternatives, the most relevant ones are even using the same engine.

It's like everyone is trying to capture some unique visitors because they know it works: $service is spying on you.

<comment><USER21> > Chrome is free software,

Chrome might be provided without cost but it is certainly not free software. It is proprietary.

<comment><USER22> The word "free" has two meanings, he/she obviously meant it free as in free beer.

<comment><USER21> "Free software" has a very distinct meaning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This weekend I started my degoogling. Gmail and Chrome are gone. Let's see if I can survive for a week.

<comment><USER24> What's your gmail migration strategy? My primary email is hosted @gmail.com -- and I need a reliable way to transition this to my own domain on a trusted (and 3rd world priced) provider.

<comment><USER25> Forward your emails, while sending an automatic reply that your email address has changed.

<comment><USER26> I don't recommend the automated reply, that lets anyone who happens to come across your gmail address, find your new address, friend or foe.

If you are forwarding it, you will know who to reply to and let them know to update their address book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if the same applies to "Brave" ? (the browser built on top of chrome).

I stopped using chrome for a while and have been using Brave.

<comment><USER28> Brave is built upon Electron, which is built upon Chromium (not Chrome). Electron and Chromium are both open source, unlike Chrome, although development is still concentrated in Google and GitHub/Microsoft. So I imagine it's fine unless something egregious happens with those projects and there isn't a strong enough community to maintain a clean fork.

<comment><USER29> > Brave is built upon Electron, which is built upon Chromium (not Chrome).

Brave has been built directly upon Chromium since December 2018[1].

[1] [https://www.computerworld.com/article/3328781/brave- browser-...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3328781/brave-browser-goes- full-chromium-by-adopting-google-ui.html)

<comment><USER28> Oops! I actually thought about double-checking that before writing it, but I vaguely remember reading some list of reasons why they had initially gone with Electron instead of Chromium, so I assumed it was still true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wrote a little note on the same day about switching to Firefox [https://dev.to/dtroode/why-you-need-to-give-firefox-a- chance...](https://dev.to/dtroode/why-you-need-to-give-firefox-a-chance-5g5a) Hmm

</comment><comment><USER31> I saw one of the other posts go by and briefly scanned it.

On this occasion:

* I immediately closed Chrome I was using to read the post,

* unpinned Chrome from the dock leaving only Firefox, and reopened my page in FF.

For some reason, the third time something clicked.

</comment><comment><USER32> Best of the lot is Safari if you are on an Apple device.

<comment><USER13> I don't know why you're getting downvoted.

It's slow to adopt new standards and a pain to develop for, but as a bit of consumer software it's the best browser out there IMO.

<comment><USER33> And by far and away the most energy efficient, which is pretty relevant for most Apple devices. It's currently my main browser and has been for a while.

<comment><USER34> Source? That would be highly surprising.

<comment><USER33> Source: me. It's not a small difference, it's literally hours of battery life – or at least was last time I compared. Why would you be surprised? Note, though, that my browsing habits are very messy – I habitually have a number of windows open, some with many tabs. So if you're a neater sort you may not notice the difference as much. Also I haven't tried the most recent versions of Chrome, but I assume I would have heard something if they'd gotten that much better.

<comment><USER34> You're an interesting data point then. It's surprising because chromium has an order of magnitude more developers dedicated to optimizations. Webkit ~= 200K commits Blink ~= 800K commits

<comment><USER33> I wrote my original comment imprecisely and without caveat because I was under the strong impression that it was well-known and uncontroversial. I'm definitely not the only person that has observed this. This is the first result for me for "safari chrome battery life": [https://www.howtogeek.com/273606/the-best-web-browsers- for-s...](https://www.howtogeek.com/273606/the-best-web-browsers-for-speed- battery-life-and-customization/)

I don't see why number of commits would be anything but an extremely weak proxy for estimating power consumption, certainly not anything to cause surprise. A very strange thing to say by a self-described "rationalist". "Optimizations" is a very wide term you've used. Unless you are specifically targeting power consumption, it's quite possible to optimize for speed and markedly increase power consumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I stopped using chrome when it started to mess with RAM

</comment><comment><USER36> Is there an alternative to Chrome's profiles?

<comment><USER37> I am quite satisfied with Firefox's Multi-Account containers. As an added bonus, tabs associated with different containers can share the same Firefox window.

<comment><USER38> It's not exactly the same though... I have clients where we access a Google account, which has access to Google services... it's like synching a whole Google eco system. Everything is staked on the Chrome login - Gmail, Analytics, Tag manager, password synch...

It could be undone, but those frackers at Google make it so easy. And so much is built off of Gmail as the mail service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Are Google Chrome's practices allowed by EU/GDPR?</comment>


The New Deal – A Founding CEOs Value is Non Linear - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2010/07/19/the-new-deal-%E2%80%93-a-founders-value-is-non-linear/

<comment><USER2> It seems like it is worth the goodwill and ongoing non-CEO involvement of a founder to keep him on in a role other than CEO after being replaced (if necessary) in year 3-5.

There are still plenty of issues of ego, direction, etc. where a founder might be upset about being replaced in the CEO role, but an effective founding CEO who isn't a perfect late-stage startup CEO shouldn't be replaced just to claw back equity.

Issuing one set of stock to the founders for "being founders", and another set for initial roles, might be a good solution. I'd be happy with 20-25% as a founder, plus 5-10% more (market rate at the next stage of financing, equivalent) as founding CEO. Both sets would vest, but if replaced as CEO before the CEO grant fully vests, it wouldn't affect the founder grant.

For additional control, you could issue some or most or all of the "founder" shares as Series FF, with the role shares as standard employee shares.</comment>


Third-wave antiracism makes sense, but it's a dead end - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/why-third-wave-anti-racism-dead-end/578764/ <comment><USER2> " In fact, however, third-wave antiracism is a profoundly religious movement in everything but terminology. The idea that whites are permanently stained by their white privilege, gaining moral absolution only by eternally attesting to it, is the third wave's version of original sin. The idea of a someday when America will "come to terms with race" is as vaguely specified a guidepost as Judgment Day. Explorations as to whether an opinion is "problematic" are equivalent to explorations of that which may be blasphemous. The social mauling of the person with "problematic" thoughts parallels the excommunication of the heretic. What is called "virtue signaling," then, channels the impulse that might lead a Christian to an aggressive display of her faith in Jesus. There is even a certain Church Lady air to much of the patrolling on race these days, an almost performative joy in dog-piling on the transgressor, which under a religious analysis is perfectly predictable."

Very accurate analysis imho.

Growing up around fundamentalist Christians, I'm pretty tuned into people who use moral posturing to gain status within their social group. The resemblance with the virtue signalling is uncanny.

<comment><USER3> Shunning of heretics was designed to centralize power in the church and affiliated groups.

Modern social progressives do perform analogous shunnings, yes, but these acts are for the explicit purpose of decentralizing power _away_ from groups who have it.

<comment><USER4> Shunning of heretics was ostensibly done to defend the honor of God. The fact that it increased the power of the people doing the shunning was surely viewed as a means to a noble and right end, just as today.

<comment><AUTHOR> Shunning was almost certainly also a matter of not wanting to be tainted by association, which also can find parallels here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Postmodernists had it right. It's all socially constructed. Where the modern left gets it wrong is that they've destroyed the foundations of the house that we lived in without building a new one. Truly, black and white (and yellow, ugh) don't describe the world so much anymore. We're already in a post-racial society, and so few people realize it. The new language to describe our 21st century America will be lords (the .01%) and peasants (not pejoratively either, peasants historically enjoyed nice things in life).

We're for sure in a multi-ethnic society. There's no question about this. But when a 'black' man is elected to the highest office, when 'black' people continue to hold institutional power, both in government and universities, the actual practice of racism becomes hard to prove. It becomes ethnocentrism.

The irony of this fact is how so many 'whites' (mostly uneducated) know it to be true, and so many 'blacks' refuse to believe it, instead calling on the European-American burgousie to feel guilt and dole out pity. There's this belief that to be 'black' means to be cursed. Fuck that, African-Americans have reason to be proud of their accomplishments in this country.

If anything, white guilt is racism. You can't look someone in the eye when you're looking down on them.

</comment><comment><USER6> What bothers me most about the discussion today is how tightly bound sins and virtues - even traumas suffers by one's ancestors - are to genetics.

So we now have not just a racism / sexism morality based on actions and statements, but a religious viewpoint (good / evil), eugenics (because it's all baked into our genes), and caste (separating and ranking various human phenotypes.)

History may not repeat itself, but it sometimes has a similar chord progression.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Feminist history is typically described in three waves:

No, even when using the (profoundly flawed, but not entirely useless) "waves" framework, it's usually described in at least four waves now.

> The struggle to secure voting rights, then workplace rights, and > third—roughly—to upend stereotypes.

This is not an accurate summary of the usual description of the first three waves of feminism; first wave feminism is typically associated with the early struggle for legal rights in terms of access to basic political and economic institutions (suffrage, independent property rights, access to work, access to education).

Second-wave feminism is typically associated with a fight for equality within institutions to which women already had access as a result of successes of first-wave feminism (especially education and employment) and recognition of rights addressing areas where women were uniquely situated either inherently or by traditional gender roles (reproductive rights including contraception and abortion, protection against domestic violence and marital rape, etc.) Third-wave feminism is associated not merely with upending stereotypes (that's part of it, but more in the context of recognizing a diversity in the female experience and the challenges of women that feminism should be addressing; intersectionality is probably a better short summary than upending stereotypes.)

> The battle against racism and its effects is often described in a similar > three-part timeline, with movements against slavery and segregation, and > then—vaguely—the post-civil-rights era.

No, it's not often described that way especially by people in the activist community, who describe themselves as civil rights activists, not add part of some vague post-civil-rights antiracism wave. To the extent that multiple waves are identified in racial justice activism in the US, they tend to be abolition, the immediate post-abolition civil rights movement, and the modern civil rights movement.

> third-wave antiracism may seem parallel to third-wave feminism in moving on > to a different form of abuse, psychological rather than institutional.

Third-wave feminism doesn't focus on psychological abuse (though that's an emergent focus of _fourth wave feminism_ , though it does focus on informal social and institutional discrimination (as opposed to legal and other formal social and institutional discrimination.) The author here send to conflate the two concerns.

> But this focus on the psychological has morphed, of late, from a pragmatic > mission to change minds into a witch hunt driven by the personal benefits of > virtue signaling, obsessed with unconscious and subconscious bias.

No, it hasn't; first, virtue signalling is a social hack targeting members of a movement by those who are not genuinely committed who wish to be seen as part of it. Second, feminist virtue signalling had been around at least as long as the suffrage movement, and continuously evolves to target current tends in feminist thought, ditto with racial justice since at least the immediate post-abolition period; the current level is nothing novel. Third, targeting unconscious and subconscious bias isn't a recent evolution compared to either "third-wave" (by feminism standards) style thought it the second- wave style thought the author misattributes to as characterizing third wave initially (or, a fortiori, the fourth-wave style thought he later claims is the focus of the third wave.) It's classic third-wave feminism (and, if anything, even older within the racial justice movement), because sucks and unconscious vitae at the individual level is a pillar on which informal structural and institutionalized discrimination rests. But, moreover, while it is a concern of modern feminist and racial justice movements, is not the central focus on either a genuine or virtue signalling sense; this is particularly obvious if you look at the marquee hypercurrent racial justice group, BLM. They aren't focussed centrality on vague psychological bias, whether as a witch hunt or any other way; their central focus is material accountability for concrete instances of material injustice.

> The virally popular Stuff White People Like blog of 2010 was a wry self- > parody of the cultural mores that had settled in by roughly the late 1990s > amidst a certain stripe of educated white people. "Being Offended" was one > of the cleverest entries, describing a kind of almost recreational quest to > take umbrage on behalf of people other than whites. Already, the satirical > tone of this entry dates awkwardly: Many of the people it describes would > read it today as disrespectful to the urgency of attesting to one's white > privilege.

The whole point of the original satire "of the cultural mores that had settled in by roughly the late 1990s amidst a certain stripe of educated white people" if that _everyone_ it describes would eat it that way. That's what was being satirized. White knighting isn't a new thing, not yet or suddenly become obligatory in the perception of the wider recital justice community, which is now, more than ever, not defined predominantly by the attitudes of the "educated white people" that are, of try to be by virtue signalling, associated with it.

And then, after all this confused, muddled inaccurate mess of framing, the examples (still generalizations that are far from concrete) he points to are all about efforts targeting institutional acceptance of concrete offensive behavior directed at members of minority communities or institutional endorsement and involvement in racist speech. While there might be valid complaints about these, either genuine or virtue signalling adherence to a movement that has moved on to a phase that has gotten away from dealing with concrete institutional discrimination to focus on un- or sub-conscious bias isn't among the them.

As it progresses from the most abstract background to the more detailed (but still fairly abstract and generalized) complaints, this piece builds a narrative that is both internally inconsistent at frequently misrepresents facts. But it manages to fit a litany of the standard complaints by elite defenders of the status quo about the modern racial justice movement (a perfect blackout of the bingo card is avoided only by the failure to work in the phrase "identity politics".)

Perhaps the author is genuinely confused enough to believe this incoherent mess, or maybe it's just virtue signalling for a different audience. Whatever it is, it's not a useful or meaningful or even well-thought-out contribution to the discussion of racial politics in modern America.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm really struggling to see the difference between your description of 4th wave feminism, and the author's more succinct summation. I'm also struggling to see how what seems to be bikeshedding around some fairly innocuous semantics which don't particularly change the point of the article, leads to your conclusion of the article being an incoherent mess.

The majority of what's being held up as problematic is very much a matter of approach rather than goals, while you seem to be hung up on goals. Or maybe I'm missing something? He doesn't seem to be anything other than supportive of fighting for the _aims_ you're discussing, he's questioning the degree to which moral posturing online along with crude mobs really serves those goals in the long run. I guess it feels like you e cherrypicked a strange and minimal assortment of content to analyze, and it doesn't seem like it supports your extremely harsh conclusions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love how all the hand wringing about how protesters are really just virtue signaling is basically the same argument that the joker gives when hanging by his toes: YOU KNOW YOU'RE JUST LIKE ME UNDERNEATH BATMAN

I mean come on. The argument that we need to just have a calm, rational debate over whether some groups of people are just racially inferior is so absurd it deserves to be treated with ostracism and disgust. I'm sorry that these old Ivy League gentlemen are offended by a bit of truth. But this is not about idealized debate, it's about power, and violence, and transformation, and you're not going to get that without getting a little mad and making some noise.

<comment><USER9> Please do not post in the flamewar style to Hacker News. It's beyond tedious, and we're hoping for something more interesting here.

It's good to remember that authors of magazine articles don't pick their titles. We've switched to the subtitle above (shortened to fit HN's 80-char limit).

<comment><USER8> The article doesn't belong on hn at all, but if people are going to upvote it, then I think it's fair game to trash it. I mean it's got nothing to do with technology and it's not news.

<comment><USER9> Please read the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

The first paragraph says " _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one 's intellectual curiosity._"

The second half is an extended plea not to engage in "trashing" on this site.

<comment><USER10> And startups are populated by young people, so the cultural shifts that exist matter. If you have any employees at all between 18 and 30, the current culture is something you need to understand.

And I don't think even big companies like Google do. The backlash against drones and that China SE were telling.

I don't have any answers to those problems, and these sorts of articles are interesting as background to what it all is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Our author seems to be quite drastically mischaracterizing the intentions of what he calls the "contemporary left":

>The contemporary left's concern is with the underlying biases that bolster the racism that remains. It seeks, as a way forward, a society not only without racist structures, but without racist thought, which, for one, can foster race-based disparities that eerily parallel those conditioned in the past by overt segregation.

This, as someone who spends a lot of time both in a very liberal college and in lefty online "safe spaces", is an ideology I've never encountered. Leftists generally Subscribe to an ideology that explains material conditions as the force that causes struggle in a society. Those conditions usually being economic structures, but usually include specific things like the power structure of a police force, private ownership of prisons, the "war on drugs", etc.

The author complains heavily about how "SJWs" call people White Supremacist too often, but doesn't give any specific example of this happening and why the label was inappropriate. In fact, nearly every one of the "examples" of leftist speech seems to be your average dismissive "laugh at the cuck cringe complication" quotes attributed without context to nobody in particular:

>The new normal is, "If you don't like it, cry loudly and then louder, because you're always right and they're just bad."

I don't actually think anybody really thinks this. I've never heard this ideology espoused by anybody, except anti-sjws, as they're sometimes referred to as, who are trying to strawman and discredit someone.

The times I have heard people call people White Supremacist is, for example, when a white person starts arguing about IQ scores, which is an explicitly white supremacist argument, and uncontroversially so unless you're unfamiliar with WHY iq tests are inherently biased, in which case you might not see why the label is appropriate and will only see a lib getting mad for no reason.

I believe the author has simply collected a few instances of college liberals losing their temper on camera and extrapolated that into an entire incoherent worldview without any analysis of what the leftist cucks actually believe.

Additionally, the phrase "virtue signalling" is extremely sloppy. Is there any action done, aside from those done under the privacy of total anonymity that could not be motivationally attributed to wishing the signal virtue? Perhaps I'm virtue signalling for writing this reply. Maybe you're virtue signalling for upvoting it. Maybe the author is virtue signalling for having written the article about virtue signalling. Even if what he says about progressives was true, why would wishing to change the psychology of percieved white racists be "virtue signalling"?

<comment><USER12> Not only that, but the author has displayed a poverty of knowledge on the topic they're writing about, in particular the theory which drives the movements the author is arguing against. For instance,

>Contrast this approach with that of people lionized today who worked within a racism none could disagree was more implacably overt and hostile than today.

This is exactly the issue being raised by the people the author decries. The fact that these issues have become less overt and hostile is part of the problem - we compare current racisms to the more "overt" ones and therefore conclude they have disappeared rather than change form, just as Zizek notes the new forms of dominance in the workplace are no longer to command you to work, but for your boss to befriend you such that you feel bad for not working. I think the superego is at work in racism and in the workplace.

>fostering social justice requires fashioning oneself as vulnerable, injured, and/or broken by things

Does this apply to the large body of academics in the social and philosophical sciences who have usually maintained a large degree of professionalism, or is the author only criticising young people who are, like any other generation, interested in drawing attention to themselves, in addition to whatever legitimate grievances they might have?

>She believed that the speech rights blacks had fought for so hard must be extended to people she found noxious, including on issues as personal to her as race.

This is one example where the author cites a black person to maintain the notion that if a civil rights leader has done something correctly, then it _must_ have been right. Could it not, on the contrary, be argued that modern times have called for a change in tactics and a renewed set of problems, even if the author had previously suggested that they are less overt, could it not also be that they are different in kind not merely degree? Is the author aware of the work of Herbert Marcuse in his criticism of J.S. Mill's idea of speech and tolerance, or indeed the left criticism of human rights? I'd actually suppose that if the people he decries are putting forward strong anti-racist arguments then he should also be willing to consider the critique of ideology which drives them.

He is thus either not willing to look deeply into what he criticises (i.e he will focus on the appearance of "woke" college students rather than the essence of why they do what they do psyhcoanalytically or philosophically) or he is unable to look that deep for one reason or another.

<comment><USER13> The author isn't doing any of the things you're claiming.

He agrees that racism has changed form and supports the goals of 3rd wave anti-racists, and understands why they do what they do.

He just argues that the tactics they use are self-defeating.

<comment><USER12> Except he is doing what I'm claiming; but claiming that racism manifests itself differently (which, if it is his only position, I agree with him) isn't only what he's doing, he's also implying that the racism of today is less pernicious, and leaving no scope for it to be equally as pernicious. If racism has changed form, shouldn't the responses to it also change form? The author also brings up racist viewpoints as merely "challenging the orthodoxy of race".

The issue here is very simple; the author sees the tactics as self defeating because he doesn't agree with them, or because they don't want to accomplish his own aims - because they challenge the liberal orthodoxy, which he defends by mentioning several _policies_. To him, only policies can be challenged, and anything other than a policy doesn't count for institutional racism at all. The only exceptions he's willing to make are when racism is _so bad_ that liberal approaches don't work so well - in Dr. King's instance. But I would contend that racism (and indeed sexism and classism) manifests itself in a much more overt and discreet way, but this only makes them categorically worse, just as the workplace example I used.

I'm not entirely convinced he does understand what they want to do, having opted to go for a standard "they just want to control what we think" line rather than addressing their issues with the process as it actually stands. It's a bizarre article which hasn't looked into the history of the movement as it exists, and what its strengths and shortcomings are.

<comment><USER14> I'm struggling to understand how one _would_ attempt to claim that the racism of today is equally or more pernicious than the racism of first and second wave antiracism movements? Is it your genuine belief that racism today exceeds that during 2nd wave antiracism? That people in 2018 suffer racism of equal magnitude as compared to poll taxes, explicit refusal to hire certain races, de-facto legal lynching, etc. ? Or first wave antiracism (abolitionism)? It seems incredibly difficult to make either of these claims.

No doubt, any amount of racism is more than what is ideal. But to criticize the article for, "implying that the racism of today is less pernicious, and leaving no scope for it to be equally as pernicious" strikes me as non- sensical, since the overwhelming majority of people would agree that it is less pernicious.

<comment> james-mcelwain Liberals have a tendency to focus on legal frameworks and equality before the law while ignoring the material conditions and the lived experiences of black people.

In some sense, it's trivially true that legal equality means things are "better", but there's plenty of empirical evidence that suggests that material gains won by the civil rights movement have regressed significantly.

For example, in many places, schools are more segregated than they've been since the 60s [1]. Further, the housing crisis erased gains in black wealth back to levels of the 80s and 90s [2].

This is too large a subject to get into in an HN comment, but if you're curious, I'd highly suggest reading Michelle Alexander's excellent book _The New Jim Crow_ [3], which focuses particularly on incarceration.

[1]: [https://www.vox.com/2018/3/5/17080218/school-segregation- get...](https://www.vox.com/2018/3/5/17080218/school-segregation-getting- worse-data) [2]: [https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/wp- content/uploads/2017...](https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/12/Foreclosed.pdf) [3]: [https://www.vanderbilt.edu/ctp/The_New_Jim_Crow.pdf](https://www.vanderbilt.edu/ctp/The_New_Jim_Crow.pdf)

<comment><USER14> No doubt that the lived experiences of black people aren't entirely captured by legal changes. But the point remains: how can one reasonably make the claim that the lived experiences of black people between reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement, or before abolition of slavery are the same or better than today?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ray Tomlinson, creator of e-mail, has passed away - <AUTHOR> http://joshrowe.com/2016/03/06/rip-largest-social-media-network-founder/?utm_content=buffer638d2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><AUTHOR> The referred facebook post: [https://www.facebook.com/vint.cerf.9/posts/10156702383400160](https://www.facebook.com/vint.cerf.9/posts/10156702383400160)</comment>


Is there room for a social service like this on the www?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.echo.it/video

<comment><USER2> Warning: Bloody annoying pop-up auto-starting video.</comment>


Certainty: Automated CACert.pem Management for PHP Software - <AUTHOR> https://paragonie.com/blog/2017/10/certainty-automated-cacert-pem-management-for-php-software <comment><USER2> (Full disclosure: I published [https://packagist.org/packages/totten/ca- config](https://packagist.org/packages/totten/ca-config) several years ago. I like how `paragonie/certainty` will do a better job of staying up-to-date in badly configured systems. But for well configured systems, I sorta prefer the way `ca-config` defers to the system's CA.)

A few clarifications/suggestions:

1\. Does this verify the bundle's signature everytime one _reads_ the bundle (ie everytime one uses `curl` + `getLatestBundle()`)? That would feel a little heavy-handed. Maybe it could check the signature everytime one _downloads_ the bundle?

2\. Does the default configuration (as written in the docs) really treat `vendor/paragonie/certainty/data` as a writeable data-folder? So downstream developers+admins need to set pretty liberal file permissions? (Or perhaps dig-up a way to use an alternative data directory?) Might be useful for the docs mention this.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Maybe it could check the signature everytime one downloads the bundle?

Yes, that's probably the direction we're going to go.

> So downstream developers+admins need to set pretty liberal file permissions? > (Or perhaps dig-up a way to use an alternative data directory?) Might be > useful for the docs mention this.

That's a good point. Another developer indicated they were writing a pull request to add composer post-install hooks, and I could easily add one that chmods this directory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This looks to be a replacement for/alternative to [https://packagist.org/packages/composer/ca- bundle](https://packagist.org/packages/composer/ca-bundle) which updates certs every 24 hours instead of at whatever interval you upgrade your system or update your dependencies.

I'm curious, is this apparent issue of outdated cert bundles also a problem outside of the PHP ecosystem?

The article leads by talking about people ignorantly disabling validation, which is fair enough, but using plain old composer/ca-bundle would be a solution to that without going as far as the per 24 hour updates.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I'm curious, is this apparent issue of outdated cert bundles also a problem > outside of the PHP ecosystem?

Yes, that is a problem that would exist outside of the PHP ecosystem. We provided a solution for it in our tool because we strive to be forward- thinking.

I'm not aware of any systems being breached because of stale cacert.pem files and the employment of rogue CA certificates, but that's probably due to the rarity of attackers having access to a rogue/compromised CA, and that attackers that do are unlikely to get caught very easily.

It may turn out to be the case that this has never happened before and won't happen in the immediate future, but if a bunch of CAs suddenly get hacked and their private keys are leaked on Pastebin, then this would of course change rapidly.

For these scenarios, I can only prescribe something like Expect-CT to force attackers to leave evidence of their attack behind. [https://scotthelme.co.uk/a-new-security-header-expect- ct/](https://scotthelme.co.uk/a-new-security-header-expect-ct/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ensuring you have some sort of root trust store is a _start_ but probably not the end for anything but trivial hacks.

The file you know as cacert.pem is a result of processing source code Mozilla makes available for NSS, the trust component of the Firefox browser.

Now, Mozilla makes its trust decisions in public, on the hybrid newsgroup/ mailing list mozilla.dev.security.policy. But it makes these decisions _primarily_ as a web browser. The Web PKI (a PKI for things that speak SSL/TLS over the Internet, not necessarily just the web) overlaps well with that, but the two aren't quite the same.

Further, Mozilla can and does make trust decisions that go beyond the simple binary decisions reflected in NSS and thus in cacert.pem. For example, if Mozilla decides they trust a particular CA to put honest dates in their certificates, but that their validation regime was too poor to be acceptable until August 2016, they might tell Firefox to reject certificates from that CA which say they were issued before that date. But NSS will only mark that CA as acceptable, and so it'll be included in cacert.pem

If you have a very specialised application you can and should curate your own trust store. Most people are too lazy, but that's a bad thing. Now, disabling CA checks altogether is definitely _worse_ than using Mozilla's trust store blindly, but it is not a panacea.

This isn't PHP-specific. If your application cares whether it's talking to real.example.com or dubious.example.net then you need to care about trust stores. They are not very sexy, there is no magic solution, and "Trust Mozilla" or "Trust my operating system vendor" is, again, better than "I dunno, let's switch the checks off altogether", but you really ought to do better.

Apple runs the Podcasting backend that matters for most people. You would assume that huge multinational corporation Apple carefully curates the trust store for that right? Er, nope. It's built out of Java apparently, once Oracle shipped a JDK update that trusted a new CA, magically that CA was trusted by the Apple podcasting system shortly afterwards.

And by the way apart from the fact that they're the ones who provide source code ready for download, the other reason people rely on Mozilla these days is they're open about how this works. If you use the built-in trust on Windows, or MacOS, you have no insight into their rules, they don't publish anything beyond the very basics of how to apply to be added to their stores. What are the acceptance criteria? Nobody knows.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is an interesting solution to a problem that hasn't really affected many.

The bigger issue is one should not automatically trust packages and should audit each before using because chances are the attack vector in the source is a bigger target than a man in the middle attack.</comment>


The State of the Octoverse - <AUTHOR> https://octoverse.github.com/ <comment><USER2> This is a good report. Looks like Dart is finally climbing on the back of flutter and nice to see Rust growing as well.

Java with all the controversies around licensing/build/release and C# with more open .Net Core will probably come closer in terms of adaption. Personally what I see is traditional Java shops are either sticking to Java or exploring something like golang but rarely move to C#. Same is happening for .NET.</comment>


FB's Amended S-1: 500M Mobile Users, Paid $300M Cash + 23M Shares For Instagram - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/23/facebooks-amended-s-1-500-million-mobile-users-paid-300m-cash-23-million-shares-for-instagram/

<comment><USER2>
      "Our ability to acquire and integrate larger or more
      complex companies, products, or technologies in a
      successful manner is unproven"

That's very candid.

<comment><USER3> SEC filings tend, amusingly, to be very down on the company filing them. They're filled with lists of risks, to better fend off the inevitable shareholder lawsuits. But of course because "everybody knows" the SEC paperwork is fudged downwards, it gets treated just like marketing material (which everyone knows is fudged upwards) and ignored.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am just trying to understand how this works, where did the 23M shares come from? Did they have to allocate a new share, from reserved share or from some where else?

</comment><comment><USER5> That puts a share of Facebook around $30 if you buy that those 23M are worth 700M.

<comment><USER6> The math on the valuation of the shares is a little more complicated than 1000mm - 300mm / 24mm.

The rumor that I heard (need to substantiate somewhere) is that the options were priced at a Facebook valuation of around ~75bn. It's impossible to accurately price these options without knowing the total # of Facebook shares issued so far.

<comment><USER3> Shares come in different classes with different valuations in any case, there's no single number. Presumably zwigby is talking about the eventual market price of a post-IPO public share. But of course there's no requirement that these be issued 1:1 with the existing shares.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> a Lot of changes should be happening soon with Instagram.</comment>


Can Oracle become a public cloud power? - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/can-oracle-become-a-public-cloud-player/ <comment><USER2> I hadn't seen their Public Cloud before ( [https://cloud.oracle.com/compute](https://cloud.oracle.com/compute) ). It seems like this is way overdue. If they had a free tier and had aggressively been trying to get developers on board years ( like 5-10 years ago), I know I would have used it for certain small projects.</comment>