Security Collapse in the HTTPS Market - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2673311 <comment><USER2> The following is all you need to know about HTTPS "security", or really lack thereof. And it's buried deep in the middle of the text:

       Weakest link. A crucial technical property of the HTTPS
       authentication model is that any CA can sign certificates
       for any domain name. In other words, literally anyone can
       request a certificate for a Google domain at any CA
       anywhere in the world, even when Google itself has
       contracted one particular CA to sign its certificate.

It's the elephant in the room that everyone tries to ignore. Google's Chrome browser tries to mitigate the problem, but only for select sites.

Firefox has made countless GUI tweaks and other useless changes over the years but has ignored this problem until very recently.

Plus, as the article makes clear, everyone and his brother can be a Certificate Authority. The first CA I see when I view certificates in Firefox is:

       TÜRKTRUST Elektronik Sertifika Hizmet Sağlayıcısı

The authorities in Turkey are delighted to have that entity there. But WTF? Why should _my_ security be dependent on their non-malevolence? I sure don't trust them. Not after this: [http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/01/08/the- turktrust-ssl...](http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/01/08/the-turktrust- ssl-certificate-fiasco-what-happened-and-what-happens-next/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know anyone who works at AOL?

When I was looking at the default root certificate repositories that the major browsers and operating systems use. They are mostly your regular list of CAs and governments, but there's one name that popped out as unique: AOL.

America Online has two legacy certificates[1] in the Microsoft[2], Apple[3], NSS[4], and Android[5] default list of root CAs. I'm assuming this is from back when AIM was all the rage, but remarkably AOL has been keeping up the audits[6] for them. Does anyone have any more info on the history of these certs?

I think might be a great opportunity to address the two problems above. Could AOL start offering free SSL Certificates?

Pros:

1\. Their root certificates are already in everyone's list (backwards compatibility).

2\. Their core business model is not issuing certificates (not seen as a racket).

3\. They would get a huge press coverage for being a "savior of HTTPS" or some such spin (positive spotlight for AOL).

4\. There would now be competition in the free SSL cert market (maybe other CAs would start offering free options, too).

Cons:

1\. This would be a cost for AOL. Perhaps other tech companies could partner with them to subsidize the cost of issuing the certificate? Perhaps there could be kickstarter to pay for the costs? Perhaps AOL could spin off a non- profit foundation or donate the certificates to Mozilla?

2\. Unforseen technical problems associated with starting to chain to a certificate that hasn't been in active use for a long time. I have no idea what these could be. Thoughts?

3\. SSL certs would likely be issued with no warranty (since they are free). Not a deal breaker in my opinion, because the scope for these could be for non-commercial use.

Anyway, just tossing out this idea for feedback. There's no sense in pursuing this further if there's technical reasons making this impossible.

Again, does anyone know anyone who works at AOL? I would love to talk to someone there about this.

[1] - [https://pki-info.aol.com/AOL/](https://pki-info.aol.com/AOL/)

[2] - [https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/...](https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/14216.windows- and-windows-phone-8-ssl-root-certificate-program-april-2012-a-d.aspx)

[3] - [http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5012](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5012)

[4] - [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/about/governance/policies/secu...](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/included/)

[5] - [https://android.googlesource.com/platform/libcore/+/master/l...](https://android.googlesource.com/platform/libcore/+/master/luni/src/main/files/cacerts/2fb1850a.0)

[6] - [https://pki- info.aol.com/AOL/2013_AOLRoot_Audit_Attestation....](https://pki- info.aol.com/AOL/2013_AOLRoot_Audit_Attestation.pdf)

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure I follow, or understand the goal. Are you suggesting that we drop all other CAs in favor of AOL as the sole root CA? The fundamental problem in my eyes is that of hierarchical, transitive, one-way trust. Take the Chinese government CA, for example, though any root CA that any user distrusts for any reason may be substituted.

We don't have a web of trust, where my distrust of the Chinese government can be indicated and influence the measure of trust afforded, or where I can revoke my computing platform's implicit trust of the Chinese government. I might not trust their intentions, or I might not trust their security invulnerability.

If you are suggesting that AOL becomes the sole CA, I see how this clears a lot of bad stuff, but I'm not sure how it fixes anything. You seem to want to me trust AOL, but maybe I don't. Furthermore, I may trust them today yet have concerns that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

HTTPS design depends critically on absolute systemic integrity -- like a benevolent monarchy, it's great when it works, but a single failure to exclude malicious entities is presumably and likely fatal, at least as regards design's intent. The system keeps "working" without meeting its goals, and any security system that does this is actively harmful and is better off halting.

<comment><USER3> I'm not suggesting that we drop all the root CAs. I'm just suggesting that AOL start to issue free SSL certs that are signed by it's root certs that are already in pretty much every root CA list.</comment></comment></comment>


A format for creating press releases - <AUTHOR> http://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/press-release/format.html

<comment><USER2> Ignoring the fact the main focus of the following website is a world away from anything HN-related, perhaps you might find the following article, from an ex- journalist, on the subject of crafting press releases helpful:

[http://www.rocknrollbride.com/2012/04/how-to-write-a- press-r...](http://www.rocknrollbride.com/2012/04/how-to-write-a-press- release-that-will-actually-get-you-featured-a-guest-post-by-debbie-carlisle/)

(Disclosure: although involved in rocknrollbride.com, I didn't write the article)

</comment><comment><USER3> And this is on HN because...? Missing from that (tiny) article, in order of importance:

1) a discussion as to why press releases don't matter anymore

2) tactics about why the first paragraph (after the title) is all most people will read, or even the first sentence of the first paragraph.

3) how to tell a story that people (and journalists) will relate to, instead of a "news" that only makes sense to yourself (Widgets, Inc announces release of Widget 1.5 Pro)

How to get the press to cover your startup is a recurring topic at the startup conference.

I searched through our video archives, we have the videos of 2012 and 2010 ([http://thestartupconference.com/video- archives/](http://thestartupconference.com/video-archives/)). Now if only we had transcripts...

</comment><comment><USER4> Little tip: If you don't want the news to be released before a given date, do not send out a press release before this date.

If you want to brief journalits before an official release date, do it in person and use a NDA. Otherwise it will not work (might not even work with an NDA).

Edit: And: The format will not help your chances getting published. Interesting content sent to the right audience will help you get published.

</comment><comment><USER5> Up next on Hacker News, "how to maximize the space on your floppy disk."

</comment><comment><USER6> BTW the original title was about how the example was amusing, even going so far as to call it a "masterpiece".

I don't think the OP meant to recommend this as actual advice for creating a press release.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great information for how to write a press release, as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> Calling it a "masterpiece" feels a little strong for a basic format that is, based on the press releases I receive, already used by a huge number of people.

<comment><USER9> Don't worry, someone will change the title.</comment></comment>


Keynesian economics won - <AUTHOR> http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/how-the-other-half-thinks/ <comment><USER2> seems like the professor is setting up a straw man and knocking it down.

<comment><USER3> Krugman, and his ilk, are incapable of being honest. If they were, they would have to admit that over and over again the policies they advocate result in disaster.

<comment><USER4> You should give examples of what you mean.

<comment><USER5> The trillion dollar stimulus package is the glaringly obvious one.

<comment><USER6> You don't seem to be aware of the fact that Krugman has always said that the 2009 stimulus act was far too small. Another fun tidbit: the actual price tag of the act as passed is less than $800 billion, not a trillion. I believe a one trillion version was considered in congress before this smaller compromise passed, perhaps that's what you were thinking of.

Bu let's not get bogged down by technicalities. Something passed Congress. You didn't like it because you think the idea itself is bad. Krugman didn't like it because he wanted it to have been far larger. And now today you're using the results of something Krugman didn't like to say "See? Krugman is wrong!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Economics is not a science. We do not have models of the real economy that are adequate for accurate quantitative prediction of behavior. Krugman is a careful thinker and observes that the qualitative behavior of the economy in this instance behaves as would be predicted under the Keynesian rubric.</comment>


Approved Textbooks of the American Institute of Mathematics - <AUTHOR> http://aimath.org/textbooks/approved-textbooks/ <comment><USER2> AIM is a John Fry (Fry's Electronics) nonprofit. There was an office between Fry's and the GM development complex in Palo Alto (where Fry's employees smoke), but it looks like they moved to a larger office in San Jose.

Actual university degree programs in the US are accredited by shops like ABET, which don't specify textbooks by name (probably because they change so often because $$$). Reasonable and trustworthy (not necessarily the best) textbooks for subjects can be found by comparing course syllabii on any number of top 50 university course websites and browsing titles on sellers which offer free samples.

There are seminal books in disciplines (ie Art of Electronics, TAOCP or SICP) but they're not "bibles" per-se.</comment>


Entangled Photons Make a Picture from a Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/entangled-photons-make-a-picture-from-a-paradox/

<comment><USER2> """

      One advantage of the technique is that the two photons
      need not be of the same energy, Zeilinger says, meaning
      that the light that touches the object can be of a
      different colour than the light that is detected. For
      example, a quantum imager could probe delicate biological
      samples by sending low-energy photons through them while
      building up the image using visible-range photons and a
      conventional camera. The work is published in the August
      28 issue of Nature.

<comment><USER3> Would this mean then that I could "image" something with a wavelength that makes things like walls, clothes or skin transparent and then see them with visible wavelengths? For example, use entangled infrared photons to see through water vapor (clouds) but end up with visible wavelength images of my subject?

My thinking are implications in satellite imaging, security, medicine, etc.

(I have basically a caveman understanding of this topic, so clarification would be helpful)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The preprint of the paper is avalable on the arxiv, in case you don't have a Nature subscription: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.4318](http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.4318)

</comment><comment><USER5> The first paragraph of the article says:

"Physicists have devised a way to take pictures using light that has not interacted with the object being photographed."

Then in another paragraph it says:

"In the first path, one photon in the pair passes through the object to be imaged"

So the light actually has interacted with the object to be photographed. The opening paragraph is obviously wrong.

Furthermore, another paragraph says:

"In ghost imaging, even though only one photon interacts with the object, both photons need to be collected to reconstruct the image, whereas in the Vienna team's work only one photon needs to be detected"

Then another one says:

"The remaining photon from the second path is also reunited with itself from the first path and directed towards a camera"

So again, the article contains a huge ambiguity, because in one paragraph it says that only one photon is needed for the photograph and then it says that one photon needs to be reunited with another photon (even if they are entangled, they are still different photons), so two photos are needed for the photograph.

<comment><USER6> Are they entangled, or just potential photons? When splitting light, photons go 'both ways' potentially even though is a classical sense there is only 1 photon that will ever be detected. Recombining them is still meaningful in a wave sense, because each potential photon path interacts with the other when the paths are reunited.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> But what if I keep the entangled photon around for very long while separating the two by a large distance. Then I image the cat using the photons I kept around which forms a cat image at the very large distance. Very spooky action.

Or is this not the way this works? Are the entangled pairs not actually used to build the image? I find it difficult to understand what they do exactly although the Nature site seems pretty clear:

"This form of imaging uses pairs of photons, twins that are 'entangled' in such a way that the quantum state of one is inextricably linked to the other. While one photon has the potential to travel through the subject of a photo and then be lost, the other goes to a detector but nonetheless 'knows' about its twin's life and can be used to build up an image." ([http://www.nature.com/news/entangled-photons-make-a- picture-...](http://www.nature.com/news/entangled-photons-make-a-picture-from- a-paradox-1.15781))

</comment><comment><USER8> About 15 years ago I saw Paul Kwiat at UIUC give a talk on "Interaction Free Measurements" which seems to be effectively the same thing as here. (cf [http://physics.illinois.edu/people/kwiat/interaction-free- me...](http://physics.illinois.edu/people/kwiat/interaction-free- measurements.asp) ) I could never figure out why this did not get more attention at the time

<comment><USER9> Is this really "Interaction Free"? You're hitting it with photons. They comment on using low-energy photons, but that just minimizes the interaction, while still producing something useful (visible spectrum image).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If this works as described I wonder if it could be used to distinguish incoming scattered entangled photons from other incoming 'noise' photons.

That would be a really exciting application for imaging in noisy envrionments.

</comment><comment><USER11> This being hacker news, I can't help but wonder about the implications for quantum computing. Maybe this is already an answered question, but can one read a Q-bit without interaction that might break it's entanglement?

<comment><USER12> As far as I have ever heard, you must collapse the wave function to measure a Q-bit, and that is when entanglement always stops. However if we can create systems where a collapse can always 'retrigger' a new entanglement we could theoretically create computers that run at the Planc Time as the clock rate, but we don't know how to do that yet. That's decades off, or centuries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Spooky action" indeed

<comment><USER14> It actually isn't spooky at all once you understand it properly (but it is almost never explained properly, especially in the popular press). Measurement and entanglement are really the same phenomenon. The process of "measuring" photon A was actually begun when it became entangled with photon B (and vice versa). We call it a "measurement" when a large number of particles (like a measurement apparatus or a brain) become mutually entangled with each other. See:

[http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf](http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf)

for a more detailed explanation.

<comment><USER12> lisper, actually measurement is the act of collapsing the wave, and entanglement only exists before the wave function collapse. It's possible to never measure something, and it could be entangled forever.

<comment><USER15> You didn't read lisper's link, did you?

<comment><USER12> Yes I read his comment. Both entanglement and measurement apply to individual particles, so the opposite of what he said is true.

<comment><USER14> You didn't read waqf's comment, did you? You may have read my _comment_ but you clearly didn't read my _link_.

> actually measurement is the act of collapsing the wave, and entanglement > only exists before the wave function collapse. It's possible to never > measure something, and it could be entangled forever.

Entangled particles continue to be entangled even after they are "measured". If this were not true, faster-than-light communication would be possible. To understand why, read the paper.

The only way to "undo" an entanglement is to time-reverse the process that created the entangled pair to begin with, i.e. to bring the members of the entangled pair back together.

<comment><USER12> You are correct, I didn't read your link. Why? Because every word of what you said in your comment was wrong. So why _would_ I click the link?

<comment><USER14> I dunno, because you might learn something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Also [https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/entangled- photons-...](https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/entangled-photons- produce-quantum-images-of-invisible-targets-they-never-hit-97ea2d275eba) and [http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech- talk/semiconductors/devices/qu...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech- talk/semiconductors/devices/quantum-entanglement-camera), via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8234014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8234014) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8234548](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8234548) respectively.

</comment><comment><USER17> The implications of faster than light communication should not be understated. Using quantum entanglement, you could "send"(whatever that means) a text to someone near Alpha Centari _faster_ than sending a text to someone in Zimbabwe.

<comment><USER18> Please don't repeat this. It is false.

(For this kind of thing, stating credentials seems useful: I was a professional quantum physicist for 13 years, much of that time spent working on the theory of entanglement, and entanglement-based effects such as quantum teleportation.)

<comment><USER17> Why is it false then?

<comment><USER19> Because both photons in the pair must be correlated. From the article:

"The remaining photon from the second path is also reunited with itself from the first path and directed towards a camera, where it is used to build the image, despite having never interacted with the object."

So, they need both the particles together. It doesn't work if one is near Alpha Centauri and cannot be combined with the one on Earth. I'm a complete layman, but this is my understanding of it.

Apparently, the breakthrough here is being able to use different wavelength and intensity of light to interact with an object than that desired for imaging. No information is actually transferred through entanglement.

<comment><USER20> That's how I read this as well. That said, the medical applications are amazing - they might be able to do MRI-like (or better?!) imaging without the harmful effects!

<comment><USER21> MRI imaging is effectively harmless (unlike, say, CT scans, which might cause harm).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kik Raises $50M from Tencent, in Bid to Become 'WeChat of the West' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/business/dealbook/kik-raises-50-million-from-tencent-in-bid-to-become-wechat-of-the-west.html?ref=technology

<comment><USER2> Ok I don't get this one. Can someone explain this to me?

From everything I know about Kik, it's far behind a lot of the other messaging platforms in terms of growth and market relevance. Why would someone put in a whole $50m at this stage?</comment>


Fastmail sale to Opera: the story from one of the owners - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fastmail.fm/2010/05/03/fastmail-sale-to-opera-the-story-from-one-of-the-owners/

<comment><USER2> Nice story. As a fastmail user this makes me happy for them, though with a bit of trepidation for myself -- change is not something you want to happen to your email ;)

(FWIW I've been very happy with them. I'm an offlineimap sort of person, and having their service host my mail has been perfect. I just pay my bills and don't think about it, and when it comes to email delivery, that's how it should be!)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool. Congrats to the Fastmail team. Way to persevere when things got tough. Hopefully all will work out and the payoff will be plentiful.</comment>


Why there's nothing quite like iPhone - k-mcgrady http://www.apple.com/iphone/why-theres-iphone/

<comment><AUTHOR> The storytelling, the design and the animations are just sick.</comment>


GS Collections Adpoted by Eclipse, Is Now Eclipse Collections - <AUTHOR> https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/technology.collections <comment><USER2> Project homepage: [https://www.eclipse.org/collections/](https://www.eclipse.org/collections/)</comment>


Visualize Success if You Want to Fail - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2011/06/08/visualize-success-if-you-want-to-fail/

<comment> buff-a FTA: _One of the experiments tested whether water-deprived participants would experience an energy drain from visualizing a glass of icy cold water (a simple but elegant study design) and found that indeed, in even something so basic, the brain responds as if the goal has been reached._

So positive fantasy makes you less likely to get a glass of water. What about important goals? The ones that generate stress, and feelings of being overwhelmed? You, know, _important_ goals?

FTA: _Ironically, shifting into positive fantasy mode is most effective when we need to decrease our energy expenditure, when, for example, anxiety is getting the better of us. In that case, the healthiest move is denying the fire more fuel, and it seems that positive visualization is a commendably effective tool for doing exactly that._

Oh. "Ironically" in the sense that our article suggests that all these positive thinking books are wrong, when in fact, its this entire article that is wrong and we wait till the last paragraph to make this clever little "ironic" claim.

So, can we change the title to "Visualize success if you want to fail at getting a glass of water, but succeed at anything remotely fucking important".

<comment><USER2> Yes,

Scanning the article and as many of the links as I could for free, the only reference I could find to what they meant by "energy" was a comment that they meant higher heart-rate.

I think it is very plausible that someone visualizing success would experience a lower heart beat. The question is how much evidence is there that one can assume a higher heart rate ipso facto results in a greater likelihood of accomplishing a given task.

Edit: and that's a big question indeed, quite possibly implying their whole framework was meaningless...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So despite the oversimplified title, the value of this article for me lies in the last two paragraphs; which speak to me off a balance between practicing 'critical visualization' when we need to achieve and 'positive fantasy mode' when we need to reduce stress and anxiety. Both of these activities being useful to success.

I sometimes wonder why some people tend to feel the need to come down hard on one extreme or the other of an issue when so often in my experience the optimal path tends to be the middle road. I think it's because extremes are easier to grasp and seem more definite, more solid. But I also think this can be an indication of lazy thinking and should be called out more often.

</comment><comment><USER4> Tim Ferriss spoke about an old Stoic method of "Negative Visualization" that is much more useful[1]. It helps you to avoid fear of failure by visualizing the worst case scenario.

[1] [http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/06/10/the- practica...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/06/10/the-practicality- of-pessimism-stoicism-as-a-productivity-system/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The forthcoming book from the same author, What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite (which is what led to the submitted article), also looks practical for HN readers.

[http://www.amazon.com/Makes-Brain-Happy-Should- Opposite/dp/1...](http://www.amazon.com/Makes-Brain-Happy-Should- Opposite/dp/1616144831/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems the key is timing. Right before taking a free throw, the visualization helps. No benefit to worrying about misses. Three months into a six month development? Then it's better staying up late thinking of the competition. Save the champagne for later.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not much of a self help guru, but positive visualization was often taught to me in sports growing up. In these cases, it would seem the lower blood pressure and heart rate would enhance focus and improve coordination. What matters is how well you perform in actuality.

In neither sports nor work, nobody celebrates visualizing success over actual success, people celebrate tangible accomplishments. However if you're not motivated to achieve certain goals in the first place, positive visualization obviously won't change that, it only gives you that warm fuzzy feeling this article describes.

</comment><comment><USER7> I believe a common understanding of "visualizing goals" and the one the researchers are talking about are two different things. The purpose of visualizing goals is twofold:

1\. Putting your mind on the job of completing the goal. Once this is done, the mind subconsciously spends time trying to figure out how to complete the goal.

2\. Motivating oneself to complete a goal by energizing oneself (e.g. to endure working long hours at your startup, you visualize yourself succeeding through various efforts -- this in turn energizes you.)

The water glass and thirst example does not require either of these. 1. Getting a glass of water is not a complex task your mind has to spend time pondering, so why would it; 2. Special motivation techniques are not required to quench thirst -- thirst is always enough motivation since it satisfies a basic human need.

If instead you're seeking to accomplish a complex goal(e.g. endure working long hours at your startup), and something I don't believe their study is talking about, is the process of visualizing success to energize oneself.

Is this article arguing that visualization of goals in this latter case does not work? What's a good alternative? It's merely a method of motivating oneself in times of being unmotivated.

<comment><USER8> They're talking about visualizing success not goals. Like The Secret, where you pretend like you already completed your goal of killing 3 people in a sweat lodge and then it will happen for real.

<comment><USER7> Good point -- however my comment still stands for the most part. It depends on the purpose of you visualizing success. Visualizing yourself accomplishing something as simple as quenching thirst is completely missing the point IMHO (unless you believe in the magical "The Secret" silliness), per my previous argument.

Visualizing yourself accomplishing greater things serves multiple purposes:

1\. Energizes oneself in the current moment.

2\. Opens your mind to the possibilities of accomplishing greater things. i.e. If you think small, thinking of accomplishing big things will make you believe you can, and hence have greater capacity and motivation to bring it to fruition.

3\. Get your subconscious mind started on pondering how to achieve that success.

#3 here may actually relate to the article. There may be two opposing factors at work -- on one end your mind ponders how to achieve the success, on the other hand your mind feels satisfied already, which prevents you from taking action and consciously looking further into achieving the success. Which is stronger? In the study it appears the latter is in the cases tested. However, I highly doubt a standard answer can be derived from a few limited cases. I would think there are just too many factors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> the quoted study seems to be specifically about visualizing attainment of a goal as opposed to successful execution of some skill, which is the context that I'm familiar with these visualization techniques being useful (ie making free-throws rather than winning a trophy).

</comment><comment><USER10> Visualizing success also isn't positive if you aren't prepared for the emotional downfall when you don't get that success... it's like your hopes are boosted to such high levels that anything but success will lead to depression

<comment><USER11> Victor Frankl, IIRC, covers this in his book _Man's Search For Meaning_. Frankl was a Viennese psychiatrist who wrote of his concentration camp experiences. One of these concerned a prisoner who was positive that the war would end (and the prisoners would be liberated) on a specific date. The date came and went. The prisoner went with it, dying shortly afterward. The book is a fascinating read about motivations and inner strength.

I've been pretty skeptical myself of the whole "positive visualization" crowd and its various forms. Say, "neuro-linguistic programming".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> fta: _During the course of four experiments, Kappes and Oettingen demonstrated that conjuring positive fantasies of success drains the energy out of ambition._

Completely overstated. What they _actually_ demonstrated is that on their set of selected people, conjuring positive fantasies of success drains the energy out of ambition.

There are many types of people, and many different modes of ambition and motivation. I wouldn't think this is rocket science, but perhaps it's an opportunity for me to apply for big funding.

<comment><USER13> Ok, so how many studies is enough for you? These are repeatable experiments, if you don't believe the results, recreate them.

<comment><USER14> This article has the opposite conclusion: [http://www.stltoday.com/classifieds/jobs/visualize- interview...](http://www.stltoday.com/classifieds/jobs/visualize-interview- success/article_e28255a8-1de8-11e0-849d-0017a4a78c22.html)

I realize Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps using positive visualization is just an anecdote, but it seems to work for them.

The first article's example of visualizing a glass of cold waters seems pretty useless to me. Unless you are severely depressed I think most people could muster the energy to get a cold glass of water. I'd rather see a study of people using visualization to train for a marathon or some other task that takes a little effort.

<comment><USER15> There's a difference between visualizing the process and visualizing the fruits of success. Personally I have the same experience as the article reports; visualizing success saps the motivation. Instead I live vicariously through my imagination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Part of this is harmonic with what Deepak Chopra mentions in his 7 Laws of Spiritual Success, wherein one of the teachings is to separate your _intentions_ from _outcomes_.

If you keep visualizing a specific outcome, odds are likely it will not occur and you will fail... however, if you walk that back to it's core intention(s), the possible outcomes that satisfy the intention are much greater, and likelihood of success (and resulting fulfillment) are much greater.

</comment><comment><USER17> [http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/01/success-why-expectations- be...](http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/01/success-why-expectations-beat- fantasies.php)</comment>


Ask HN: Want to start an HN Folding@Home team? - <AUTHOR> http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=169830

<comment><USER2> No. A few years ago when I moved out on my own, running these things killed my electric bill. Looking back, I feel bad for all the money I cost my parents..

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to fold a lot with a computer overclocking club I was involved in, and had some 10 computers of mine running at one point.. but now that I live on my own and pay all the bills I'm more frugal with my energy usage. Even with only my core i7 desktop that would cost a noticeable $10/month with my basic guessing, if it was running 24/7 at load. Then again, winter is coming up and the heat could help..

<comment><AUTHOR> The GPU client isn't quite as versatile as the CPU client (not all work units can run on the GPU or PS3 clients), but you can get about the same speed from a low-end GPU that you will with a Core i7.

<comment><USER3> Ah this is good to know, as I have a relatively high-end video card! I'll install it and see what the speed's like. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> For reference, I've got 2 GTX295's (dual-GPU cards) in my development machine, and it'll get between 20-35K points/day depending on which work units are available.

<comment><USER3> I would expect no less from someone running a GPU computing startup. :-) If you guys need any beta testers or what not, my best friend is a nationally recognized overclocker (top ~20) and always has ridiculous cutting-edge video card setups. Feel free to drop me a line.

<comment><USER3> @hyperbovine - something like that, yes. He gets flown out to overclocking demos/competitions by various sponsor companies and often works with AMD/Intel for testing unreleased processors or participating in their launches. He just got back from a competition in Beijing.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8_V_Zd2ljk></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


An Open Letter to Craig Newmark - <AUTHOR> http://krrb.com/craigslist <comment><USER2> Craigslist has been incredibly consistent about its position. It would be shocking of Krrb didn't get a C&D. The author's mock surprise and petty insults come off really pathetic given this is clearly a planned publicity stunt.

CL is simple, unobtrusive, and doesn't make its users feel like it's try to monetize every click or pageview. That's why the dominate the market. I love it that they sue the hell out of anyone that tries to ride on their coattails. If they're doing it wrong, someone can prove it buy building a better classified ad site and clean up the market.

EDIT: since I'm getting downvoted anyway, and I have no conflict of interest (not a CL employee, relative, and very infrequent user).... pg, instead of posting stuff like this, you have unique resources at your disposal to build a CL clone that behaves in the way you wish CL would behave. How hard could it be? Or is it that building up and operating a classified listing site while allowing 3rd party sites to repost your listings is a money loser?

<comment><USER3> No, it's that craigslist has massive network effects working for them, so there's no incentive for buyers or sellers to use a different site, even with a better interface and feature set.

3taps is alleging that this monopoly position, combined with craigslist's legal and technical efforts to block any innovation that makes use of data posted on craigslist, constitutes anti-competitive behavior. Whether that assertion has legal merit I don't know, but it seems we'll soon find out.

Edit: Ironically, Krrb itself is essentially an attempt to create this 'better craigslist' you describe. They attempted to deal with the craigslist monopoly problem by providing an easy way for users to post on _both_ craigslist and Krrb, for which they received the C&D.

<comment><USER4> _They attempted to deal with the craigslist monopoly problem by providing an easy way for users to post on both craigslist and Krrb, for which they received the C &D._

Is it unfair to observe that the way to create a new craigslist should not depend on content already posted on CL? Of course, if krrb or whoever was the source of the content which it then autoposted to CL, they would run afoul of the autoposting prohibitions on CL that Craig does not enforce (or is being paid not to enforce) against the third-party resume sites (jobvite, sourcery, etc.) that have been ruining the CL jobs section over the past couple of years.

<comment><USER3> It's a tough question. If craigslist truly does have a monopoly, then it indeed might be fair for competitors to have some use of content already posted on craigslist. Also, in the case of Krrb it's the user posting the content, who owns the copyright to such content, using their own computer to copy it to Krrb. Krrb is simply providing a tool for them to do so more easily. That certainly seems like it _should_ be acceptable.

<comment><USER4> Well, then lets cut to the chase: does Craigslist have a monopoly? If so, in what way are they using it illegally?

<comment><USER3> You can read 3taps' antitrust claims submission here: [https://3taps.com/papers/3taps_Amended_Counterclaim.pdf](https://3taps.com/papers/3taps_Amended_Counterclaim.pdf)

The 'Nature of the Case' section at the beginning provides their allegations regarding craigslist's monopoly. IANAL so I don't feel qualified to discuss the legal merits, although reading the claims they at least sound worth investigating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's important to note that this is, at first glance, a different beast than the padmappers/3Taps issues, which were primarily about scraping craigslist data and placing it on a different site. Krrb has users press a button, which scrapes a given post.

The end result is the same -- the same data as Craigslist being displayed on a different site -- but this is coming from the Krrb users' own volitions, which I think makes this much more difficult to justify from Craigslist's point of view.

I honestly don't understand why Craiglist has taken this tack. I think the moves they've made in the past are respectable (as in, they have the right to protect their data and leverage their position) -- I just think there's more value to the company and the community to become the Amazon of local.

<comment><USER6> I think this is the same issue as Padmapper, just on a much smaller scale. Don't write code that will re-display/re-post content of a Craigslist post on your 3rd party website.

I bet if the button were changed to just cut/paste an html link to <city>.craigslist.org/post all would be well.

This is just CL trying to keep their postings exclusive to their website of which they've spent many a time and money trying to build and brand.

<comment><USER7> The question is whose data is it? Padmapper just scraped whole site for apartment listings. This is an action by the user to take their post, which they wrote, and redisplay it somewhere else.

If I write an ad for a chair I want to sell, I should be able to post it to Craigslist and any other site I want to. The Krrb button is no different than the user manually copying and pasting her own content into Krrb's posting form.

<comment><USER8> I don't think this is what's happening here - for either Krrb or Padmapper.

It's important to note that Krrb and Padmapper both make the distinction that they're scraping _facts_ , not posts. One is copyrightable, the other is not.

You can lay claim to the sentence "I have a room in a 2-bedroom apartment for rent in Williamsburg, going for $1500"

But you _do not_ have the right to own the _fact_ that there's a room for rent in Williamsburg, in a 2-bedroom, for $1500. It would seem that Krrb and Padmapper both scrape the facts only, not textual content - or at least, that's what the letter seems to say.

This is a frequent misunderstanding of the Padmapper issue. Padmapper never scraped posts wholesale from Craigslist - it scraped and displayed _only_ structured data (i.e. facts), and in fact if you wanted to contact the seller it links you directly to the Craigslist post!

<comment><USER9> Does it matter that they are using Craigslist infrastructure to automate the process? Consuming bandwidth that Craigslist pays for and taking advantage of the hosting Craigslist is offering their paying customers? Sure, facts are not copyrightable, but if you took a stack of phonebooks from a recycling bin and starting selling them as your own, I think the company that printed the phones books might have an issue with that.

<comment><USER10> As I understand it, Krrb is _not_ using Craigslist infrastructure - it is simply taking the post already in the user's browser because they navigated there in the process of entering the post, and copying the text out for reuse.

Craigslist can only litigate on that basis because they know Krrb doesn't have the means to defend themselves. That's not a public good.

<comment><USER9> The post I was replying to was grouping krrb and padmapper. I don't know much about krrb or what it does. Seems like a glorified copy past so I'm not sure how that exactly translates to a business worth putting this much effort into defending. Maybe I'm missing something.

But padmapper is clearly leveraging Craiglist's infrastructure for padmapper's own benefit. I find that difficult to defend.

<comment><USER10> I agree with you on padmapper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I used to have a great deal of admiration for Craig, and craigslist... It's all but dissolved.

After his/their repugnant treatment of Eric/padmapper and their more than glacial acceptance of the fact the CL UI sucked and was actually punitive to the UX - and yet another example of CL just being jerks, I am pretty much completely devoid of any respect for Craig/CL.

It's too bad, especially given how Craig attempts to keep a socially responsible image - I think his persona is a farce.

<comment><USER12> I've never bought into this "nice guy" image Craig Newmark seems to have cultivated for himself. Between numerous interviews where he gives flippant, condescending answers to reasonable questions and the overly litigious actions of the company that bears his name, I don't have a particularly high opinion of the man and I'm not surprised by this latest episode with Krrb.

<comment><USER13> In a sense he is a man who is limited in many areas but has been thrust into the limelight and given much power.

A cautionary tale to anyone placing special powers on someone who has achieved something great, that is that they have special powers everywhere and are generally right or have special insight about most things. They aren't. The best baseball player isn't any better at buying a car than a regular guy (and probably not anywhere as good as I am!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While I agree with the main argument of the letter, I don't understand the characterization of CL's law firm as "infamous," and its employees as "cronies." What exactly are they infamous for? Just sending C&Ds on behalf of Craigslist?

Further, the argument that zealous attempts at protecting IP means you should be .com not org falls pretty short to me. The Red Cross has a policy of sending C&Ds to game companies that use the red cross on white logo, and also claim such use violates the Geneva convention. This may be overreach, but it would be a strange stretch to claim such actions meant the Red Cross should dump their .org domain.

<comment><USER15> I agree Antiterra,

I've worked with a few associates at Perkins Coie. They represented the nonprofit I work for at no cost in an arbitration case against a dodgy web development shop that sued our nonprofit for nearly a fourth of our annual budget over a breach of contract after we fired them for being incapable of keeping our site up under even modest traffic levels. (Load testing and not letting junior developers with no experience with caching, MVC best practices etc, do all the work: how does that work)

The Lawyers were nice, polite, well mannered, treating us and the opposition with respect, etc. They were a pleasure to work with. I didn't see a single crony in the bunch.

Lawyers are lawyers. They do what they have to do to protect the interests of their clients. That is their job. Perkins Coie is very good at their job. That doesn't some how make them bad people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The tone of this letter is horrible IMO. I understand you're angry, but I imagine this will piss him off more than rile him up. I'd rather see you take them to court with a strong case than start a public, one-sided flame war. There must be a syndicate of investors that realize it would beneficial for them in the long-run to see Craigslist lose the stronghold they have on classified's data. PG (submitted this) and Garrytan (got angry re: padmapper) might be a good starting point.

<comment><USER17> I think it's a good letter. Up until now, I wasn't aware that Craig's List had moved in such a contentious and litigious direction. It sounds like instead of innovating and improving their service, CL is spending its time trying to squash anybody who tries to add value to their product. They have a right to do what they want as a business, but I also have a right to judge their practices and protest with my voice and my wallet. I get turned off by overly whiny and emotional complaint letters, but I found this one more factual than emotional. I will be avoiding use of Craig's List's services until I feel like they are allowing people to innovate off their platform and ceasing to try to own their users' content.

<comment><USER18> "... squash anybody who tries to add value to their product"

Add value? They're _extracting_ value.

> _I will be avoiding use of Craig 's List's services until I feel like they > are allowing people to innovate off their platform and ceasing to try to own > their users' content._

Will you also be boycotting all books, TV, and movies until their authors grant unlimited licenses to use the content for whatever value-extracting purpose anyone wants?

Will you boycott your local businesses until they agree to let competitors post in-store advertisements?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They certainly get marks for consistency. I'm willing to bet that 90+% of the regular HN audience would have been able to predict _precisely_ what CL would do in the face of scraping (and yes, that's what the krrb button does) CL content.

It's someone ironic in the face of Marco's post regarding the open web, that CL maintains such a moat around their content through litigation/legal threats.

Don't get me wrong - I absolutely understand why CL does it, and I'm sure most of the business savvy people here realize it's a profit-maximizing strategy given CL's current market position.

But - it might be just a local maxima.

I wonder, if given a different approach, CL might be able to build something more open and visionary; a platform that other developers can build on top of, instead of being prevented from doing anything innovative by CL and their legal team?

<comment><USER20> i'm also willing to bet that not a single CL user would understand why CL claims ownership on their ad content, when the user themselves are the ones publishing it elsewhere.

on a sidenote, the fact that the legal system makes it so expensive to defend themselves that they prefer to just obey really means the rich always get justice on their side. it's a really big issue. i wonder why there isn't any start up that tries to address it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The worst part is the hypocracy... what Buckmaster claims about himself:

"Possibly the only CEO ever described as anti-establishment, a communist, and a socialistic anarchist"

[http://www.craigslist.org/about/jim_buckmaster](http://www.craigslist.org/about/jim_buckmaster)

<comment><USER20> i've often noticed that many people claiming to be communist simply have an unhealthy love/hate relationship with money.

<comment><USER22> The quote loses all its context without the underlying hyperlinks.

He's turning around these press insults and using them as badges of honor.

It was Fortune Magazine that questioned whether he was a communist, because he wasn't focused on maximizing profits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The big red flag here is the author splitting hairs about the copied content being "factual data." This tells me he is insincerely attempting to navigate a perceived loophole. Anyone who has visited "Best of Craigslist" ([http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all/](http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all/)) will see that there is a ton of creativity there, not just factual data. This goes for classifieds posts as well.

And yes it is the user's content but it is posted on CL subject to the TOS.

Put yourself in CL's shoes: they have to defend not only against "fledgling startups" but also against deep pocketed companies like Yahoo that sometimes buy fledgling startups. They cannot leave their service vulnerable to the whims of any parasitical company that would come along and attempt to exploit their users, their community, and their users' content.

Another piece that Krrb is pretending to ignore is that the users only take the initiative to post in the first place because of the good will and critical mass that Craigslist has, with long investment and significant sacrifice, been able to create. Leveraging third party services is a time honored model for startups, but a startup founder should not expect a free pass if they try to do so in an abusive manner that induces users to violate the TOS.

</comment><comment><USER24> craigslist's position is pretty clear, whether they publicly admit it or not: they don't want, and will aggressively work to prevent, other companies attempting to bootstrap themselves off craigslist's content. I don't know why we have to all pretend we're shocked about this.

<comment><USER17> I think you mean craiglist's users' content.

Shouldn't the user have the right to do what they want with the classified ad they wrote?

<comment><USER2> Sure, they have the right to post their content anywhere they want, but after that it's CL's. Same is true with comments, posts on discussion/Q&A sites, etc.

<comment><USER25> >but after that it's CL's

If that were true then CL would be liable for _their_ content. If a pimp posts a message and CL owns it, then CL is responsible for pimping. When state AG's have pressed this issue, CL claims they don't own the message.

They can't have it both ways.

<comment><USER26> Um, yes they can. You are free to post the same content elsewhere -- you still have copyright in the material. What you don't have is rights to redistribute content _from_ Craigslist. The publisher's rights (which you granted) are different from the author's rights, but they still exist. That doesn't make them liable for your content.

<comment><USER27> What's the difference between copying and pasting from a single text file to both CL and krrb and copying and pasting from a CL post that you wrote to krrb? They're functionally equivalent as you're the author and retain your authorly rights in either case.

The krrb tool extracts data from a file not on craigslist servers, but from the browser cache on your own computer. It's a browser plug-in, not a server- side tool. If CL is okay with you downloading a copy so that you can see the post that you just made (which they obviously are by virtue of how their service works) then in fact there is no additional bandwidth being consumed!

<comment><USER28> Well technically an author, too, isn't allowed to scrape content from CL. Just like an author of a book is not authorized to make a copy of his own book. Can't break publisher's rules.

It is just that, with a copy-paste job, it would be impossible to detect this, which is why they seem functionally equivalent. But actually they're not.

Also automation and convenience have huge legal implications. I can, for example buy an iPod in the US and gift it to a friend of mine in Turkey. We have effectively circumvented state tax. I can't, however, write a website that acts as a broker between US passengers landing in Istanbul airport, and people who want cheap iPods. Even though they would be technically paired up with a "friend" and would be within their legal rights to bring valuable goods into the country.

I can have a friend stay a few days at my house, but I can't turn my house into a hotel with Airbnb. Volume and convenience affect the bottom line for different parties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> hmm.. so this guy - Craig - works his ass off all these years and builds a site that makes him money. HIS hard work paying HIM money.Now someone else comes along and wants to build a site that has the potential to hurt Craig's work..

Wonder why Craig doesn't like it..

Before pointing a finger at Craig, how about you build something from grounds up, get to Craig's level and then allow anyone else to just take stuff away from you, piece by piece.

He is still providing value to people by letting people post and use it. Of- course he is making money, but anything worth charging will be charged.

He is just as passionate about his site and what he has built as you are. Maybe he just doesn't want you to build a building on his island. So be it, there is a whole world out there waiting for you.

Bottom line : Stop wasting time, build something else. You are smart enough to work on a completely unique idea of your own. Why spend your energy on sipping from someone else's ocean when you have an ocean inside you.

<comment><USER30> It is always interesting to see a site where many users are all about free market and generally libertarianish thinking Craig should provide the infrastructure for them to monetize off of, because information should be free or something.

I guess we need to heavily regulate these digital monopolies, coerce them somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is a pointless waste if time. The guy has made shed loads of money and his actions have clearly demonstrated he doesn't give a flying whatever about anyone's opinion of his actions and will continue to do whatever maximizes his profit. I say that without positive or negative judgment. It just is what it is. The whole - hey we know you're really a nice kid so stop bullying the other kids - schtick never worked in the play ground and it doesn't work as grown ups. I see this sort of thing all the time. We don't live in a society where shame has any meaning any more so trying to appeal to someone's good nature and the whole "hey it's not you it's your minions" crap is of no use.

<comment><USER15> I've chatted with Craig before. He has helped us at greatnonprofits.org quite a bit in the past. Regardless of what business decisions the executives in charge of craigslist are making that does not somehow make Craig not a nice guy. In particular I respect his decision to not second guess or meddle with the judgement calls of the executives in charge of craiglist. I am sure if he has any disagreements with how they do business he has the tact to discuss this with them in private.

As far as I can tell Craig cares a lot about the world. I'm sorry if he has been focused on customer service and his nonprofit work and doesn't have time to go out of his way to save every single wantrapanuer that believes they've figured out some way to make a dime off of his past investment in craigslist.

<comment><USER32> I've spoken with him too, very recently. It's my impression he's still actively answering support emails for CL (as in daily). No?

<comment><USER15> That is the impression I get. He comes to our annual events but I've been out of the country living the expat life and keeping expenses down . . . so you've likely spoken to him more recently than me. He talks with my CEO now and then and helps give her advice on growing our nonprofit and helping our consumers. Which we appreciate a lot.

I don't really follow his comments in the news and so on but everything I've gleaned first hand and second hand about the guy leaves me thinking that he's still a class act, and all around traditional geek.

As far as kribbr or whatever it is called goes . . . if there is a long history of litigious behavior from an organization and you go ahead with a business model that may spark a C&D don't act like your personal hero has stabbed you int he back. Whether the C&D was grounded or not how is it occurring a surprise. CL has every legal right to try to protect their business model to the extent allowed by the law. If you genuinely feel that they've over stepped it then fight it. Or come up with a business model that disrupts the space with out needing to leech off of what is already there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You should piggyback your plugin into popular installers to get this on millions of computers. Then, don't make them push a button to post it on krrb, do it automatically. Make sure your TOS at install time says this is going to happen.

(I may or may not have been involved with a company that did this to great success.)

<comment><USER3> So instead of providing a useful service, they should distribute malware designed to... what, maximize their chances of being sued by craigslist?

<comment><USER16> Does it, though?

The plugin today quite arguably scrapes Craigslist programmatically. I think Craigslist has a case there.

However, if Krrb instead injected JS at post-time to publish cross-site, I think that argument becomes much less convincing.

You can make a case on either side, but I think doing it at post time is important (for one thing, it guarantees that the publisher is actually the person krrbing it)

<comment><USER3> Does it increase the chances that they would sue? Yes, it does. Does it increase the chances that they'd win? Perhaps not, if your arguments hold. Does that matter? No, because you're still talking about stealth distribution of a program that tracks and republishes user data without their knowledge or permission! (And no, a notice buried in the TOU doesn't count.)

Edit to reply to below: Ah, ok. Your phrasing of "piggyback your plugin into popular installers to get this on millions of computers" sounded like you were planning to sneak it in without users' awareness. If it's an explicit opt in, then I would have no great problem with that from a user perspective. (Of course as a user I'd prefer to just install what I want, rather than being presented with options for a bunch of unrelated stuff, but advertising and affiliate programs keep things going, so I deal with it.)

Personally don't have a problem with the part about scraping something I might post on a classifieds site. Whenever I post something on a public web site I expect it to be scraped and to appear on search engines and such. It was specifically the idea of a service running on my computer, watching and potentially publishing aspects of my web use (and who knows what else), without my knowledge or permission that I took issue with.

<comment><USER16> What if we put a little checkbox that says "Install the krrb plugin to automatically post your craigslist listings on krrb as well, thus increasing your chances at a sale."

I'm defining "piggyback downloads" as the extra page that comes up in someones installer. Isn't this a well-established practice? Maybe it's disappeared in the past few years?

I also love seeing this argument come within a community that's generally supportive of programmatically scraping that same user data and republishing it without user permission (although that was more what Padmapper did, not krrb).

Edit: your point re: increase chances of being sued vs. increase chances of success in court is well taken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Fundamentally different from other scraping sites. This is a client-side browser extension to extract _your_ own content that you posted. I haven't read the TOS but users _should_ retain ownership of their own content (as in, it's a good business practice that endears users). Petty move on the part of Craigslist.

Really patronizing tone though and I bet that will backfire on them.

</comment><comment><USER34> Craigslist is the saddest example of a near natural monopoly formed in a two- sided market on the internet. Considering the pace of innovation over there, it's only a matter of time until they are disrupted. In the meantime we'll dread looking for apartments, buying/selling through classified ads, and anything else that we need to do on Craigslist.

<comment><USER35> I don't get your comment. How is Craigslist sad? Everyone seems to use them and I hear very few complaints.

And I personally find the website very easy to navigate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Craigslist litigation history is available at:

[http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/index.html?id=3388&table...](http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/index.html?id=3388&table=partydockets)

</comment><comment><USER37> eBay owns a reported at least 25% of Craigslist [1]. Whenever I tell people they are genuinely surprised. Craigslist never has really added huge features in years and I honestly think it is because eBay slows them down and doesn't want them to. Think about how Twitter and Facebook have grown built APIs, 3rd party integration and apps. Craigslist doesn't even have an official iPhone app.

They've had the capital, the resources, and the users who provided the content which were all they needed and could eventually launch a way to ship and provide feedback for users and destroy eBay. I think Craig sold out and doesn't have a lot of say in the legal matters which is why it happens in the first place and Craigslist really will never improve.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_eBay#ci...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_eBay#cite_note-18)

<comment><USER38> I doubt Ebay has any influence on the day-to-day operations of Craigslist. They have those shares because CL gave them to an early employee who then sold Craig out. It was not an investment CL sought or wanted, and I suspect that the official answer to any Ebay request is a curt GFY.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> From the first couple paragraphs I though the was going to drop some bombshells, but nope, just another C&D.

</comment><comment><USER40> Krrb just make a tool for user's convenience. Krrb didn't do any scraping of the content of craigslist. It is user's action/intent to scrape and repost. There is nothing wrong with Krrb just provides a tool for user's convenience

</comment><comment><USER41> Craigslist is a poor website but since everyone uses them, everyone is locked into using them. Any site that helps people use Craigslist with other sites might cause people to eventually switch from Craigslist entirely. This applies to both finding listings and posting listings.

That's why Craigslist is so litigious, even on the posting ad side. It seems hard to justify legally, but they probably figure small startups won't be able to fight them in court.

</comment><comment><USER42> A thousand startups and every newspaper have failed to topple craigslist-- but maybe their own over-litigiousness will (finally!) be the downfall.

</comment><comment><USER43> I don't know if I should be disappointed in Craig Newmark or not, as I don't know how much control he has. He certainly has control to speak his mind. I've seen him at the National Conference for Media Reform, Netroots Nation, and Code for America events, so I know he's a good, well-intentioned guy.

</comment><comment><USER44> You are a competitor. You are scraping material. Just make your app easier to use. I mean it's not rocket surgery. How could the New York Times let you scrape an article to put on your own site. Just give it a rest and take your lumps and move on.

<comment><USER45> What if you owned the copyright to the New York Times article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> At the end of the day, clever technical workarounds still usually get a cease- and-desist, because the people sending the letters have no incentive to understand why your workaround is so clever.

</comment><comment><USER47> Can't anyone build an alternative to craigslist? It may not get as famous but if it actually stood for the openness described in that article it would be a hit with most of us at least.

<comment><USER48> Many people have built alternaives to Craigslist. For example, Gumtree, which is popular in the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I wish someone would actually go to court vs. Craig; they're not as bad as Intellectual Ventures, but only because copyright law sucks somewhat less than patent law.

<comment><USER50> Uh, please do flesh out the comparison between a company that essentially pays law firms to sue people for using ideas and a company that builds a classifieds site and then refuses to let people build other businesses on top of that site.

<comment><USER49> (I don't _strongly_ believe in this, but I do thing both IV and Craigslist suck. And it's worse in a way because IV was always evil; Craigslist actually was a force for good at one point, and has become evil.)

The postings themselves belong (in a moral sense; I'm not sure what the current craigslist license is) to the people posting them. If I post my room for rent, I would be happy to have more people see the listing, especially with a clean UI (like padmapper). I'd be aggrieved if Craig Newmark blocked people from seeing the listing. The "server load" issue is a red herring; people have been more than willing to pay a reasonable fee to offset that, and it's a minimal amount of load to begin with.

It's even more egregious in the case of a posting tool, which is what this appears to be.

I agree IV is a vastly bigger deal; I personally just soft-boycott Craigslist, but if I had a chance to destroy IV while taking only moderate legal or financial damage, I'd do so. But I think a lot of that is due to the patent system being totally horrible, and copyright being only moderately broken (and trademark being only slightly broken). If Craig/Buckmaster had the ability to use the patent system to kill services which might compete with them, they probably would claim it was "helping their users by making the market more comprehensive and efficient", too.

Sure, it's the KKK vs. Augusta National, but mostly a difference in degree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Craig: legal team, take care of any violations.

Legal team: Hmm -- we get paid for anything we find. Let's widen the scope a little bit...

</comment><comment><USER52> Pressing spacebar or pagedown hides content on that webpage. :(

</comment><comment><USER53> Hi answer will probably be: TL;DR</comment>


I Would Vote for Gov Romney if He Was a Democrat - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2012/10/25/i-would-vote-for-gov-romney-if-he-was-a-democrat/ <comment><USER2> This is what I've been saying lately. I wouldn't mind Romney himself: I think he'd be a mediocre President, but Obama hasn't blown me away either and probably wouldn't dazzle much as second terms aren't great usually. The problem is handing over the entire Executive branch over to the GOP, whom I despise. Romney is a delegator first and foremost - he will delegate away most of his responsibilities to people who simply can't be trusted.

</comment><comment><USER3> To Mark's final point on a third party - I thought it was interesting when Bill Maher called out the Occupy Wall Street Movementers for not forming some form of a party and getting people to run for seats. His argument was that the Tea Party had successfully done this and were on the far right of every issue. The occupiers could take up the room on the far left side and make their case.

Ultimately American politics continue to be corrupt and not even Obama could change that. I am a supporter still though.

<comment><USER4> A third party would dilute votes between the liberal candidates giving the Republican candidate a win. The Tea Party candidates ran as Republicans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it interesting from a UK perspective as over the last say 20 years the lines that divide a parties policeys have blured. We have 3 main parties labour, liberal and concervatives. Over the last 50 years or so the lines have started to become less clear and over the last 20 those lines have blured to the stage that it is not as easy to identify a policey to a party as it was in years gone by.

This seems to be a factor in USA parties and whilst I feel those lines are not as blured as they are in the UK, they are certainly not as clear cut as they were in years past.

Common sence prevails in many forms, nobody is ever going to argue against that.

It's far from perfect but it slowly and at times painfuly goes in the right directions.

Nomatter who you cide with the most important thing in any election is to excercise your rights too vote. It is when you get your say, albiet small in the future that effects you, so vote for who will serve you best as others have the right to think for themselves and show there feelings in there vote. Be selfish, but do vote.

<comment><USER6> The problem though is that there is still a line, and only one line. Either republican or democrat. If there were a third major party in between Republican and Democrat, Romney would probably fit pretty well in that one. He wouldn't be stuck in this situation where he feels the need to pretend he thinks trickle-down economics still works and Obamacare is a terrible idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Who invented ObamaCare and has the most successful implementation to date?

Ted Kennedy...

A recent Frontline[1] suggests that Romney worked with Kennedy on healthcare primarily to serve as a crowning achievement for his future Presidential run.

[1] <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice-2012/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Mark Cuban is a master of sales.</comment>