Square Said to Acquire Team from Struggling Social App Yik Yak - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-24/square-said-to-acquire-team-from-struggling-social-app-yik-yak <comment><USER2> Bit of a tangent and, for those not familiar, Yik Yak is an anonymous, upvote- downvote, location-based forum (kinda) where posts are automatically deleted if they net -5 votes.

In college, I was really interested in how Yik Yak worked and found out that, given a list of N user ids (which were super easy to generate), one could send downvote requests to the server and instantly delete any post with a score <= (N - 5). Infinite loop + pass in a list of locations (e.g. a list of colleges in the US), and it's pretty darn easy to disable Yik Yak for the entire country.

There was no location checking to see if a user id was being used in both Florida and Montana at the same time, and there was no real throttling. I hit up their support, and tried to reach out to their devs, but I kept getting brushed off.

Of course this is just one small thing, but I'm not exactly surprised at how things are turning out if this was the level of interest that the Yik Yak team showed in their own product.

<comment><USER3> A problem I've mused on for a few years is related to this: when a phone submits a lonlat to an API server, how can you make the server more confident it can trust the location? I mean with curl I could POST any lonlat I want---I don't even need a phone! I don't think this is truly solvable, but how can you make spoofing the location harder?

The scale I'm thinking about is "Are you really in the store you say you're in?" where all users are from the same fairly dense city. So geolocating the IP isn't good enough. Accuracy to a city block or two seems good enough though.

My best idea so far is to submit a list of available wifi access points, and use that as a "password" to prove that you're where you say you are. If your list is 80% like the list of other users at that location, we trust you.

Unfortunately in iOS you can't get that list! It requires a private API, so calling that method will get your app rejected from the store.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

<comment><USER4> Send temperature and barometric pressure. Temp will vary (inside/outside) but pressure should be reasonably consistent.

<comment><USER5> How is that any more trustworthy? You can probably use the same source the server would use to verify that information.

Not to mention, most phones may not have those sensors.

<comment><USER4> Some very popular phones have a barometer[1]. If you are getting data from a bunch of phones, and most of them are legit, then you'll have a good idea of where the air pressure 'should' be, and if you get a barometer reading that is outside that data set by a standard deviation you can probably 'guess' that it is not coming from a phone at the same lat/lon as the other ones.

[1] [https://www.phonegg.com/list/303-Cell-Phones-with- Barometer](https://www.phonegg.com/list/303-Cell-Phones-with-Barometer)

<comment><USER6> So users on phones without barometers cannot use your app, and you are decidedly mobile-only, forever.

<comment><USER4> Not at all, the question was how to combat or at least estimate fraudulent 'adjustment' of the karma in a location based service. The way to do that is to take information that is specific to the location, and changes, and provide that data in the input stream to help understand where your clicks/votes are coming from. If one in 5 phones has a barometer with a high degree of probability, then you can use set bounds on the likelyhood that all 5 votes came from legitimate users. It won't be perfect but it will make it harder for scammers to scam without being there.

<comment><USER7> This is a really clever idea. Do you have sources of information about what sensors are present in which phones?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Square has an Atlanta office in Atlantic Station, which is ~ 15 minutes from where Yik Yak is located in Buckhead. This same Square office previously picked up the Google Web Toolkit team after Google closed their local office.

<comment><USER9> Huh, well Square seems to be in the right place at the right time to make this acquisition of talent. I still don't get how Square intends to retain/gain customers at the price point their at, Mercury, Heartland, etc are eating their lunch.

<comment><USER10> Heartland is such an utter piece of garbage. I'd use almost anything before I'd touch it (or any typical shitty enterprise processor) again.

Source: spent a year helping a client migrate from Stripe to Heartland to save a few basis points. Things like faxing docs to terrible APIs to constant lies from sales, who is a bunch of ignorant, rude good ol' boys, just like most of their competitors. Pure incompetence at virtually every point of interaction. Literally have not a single good thing to say.

I'd invest a significant part of my net worth in Stripe if I could. They and companies like them are going to destroy Heartland in the long run, and it can't come soon enough.

<comment><USER11> As someone who's worked with faxed API docs before, that's usually just the tip of the iceberg of despair. Never again.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I'd avoid direct integrations entirely, semi-integrated CC/Debit processing like Pax or Dejavoo is much less painful to implement, and costs less on hardware too. See my other comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've found _most_ acquihire situations unfair to existing employees. It seems that those coming in from the acquihire have a higher reward/payout that talented employees already at the company can never negotiate.

Are the incoming acquihired engineers that much more worth than the ones you already have? There are certainly exceptions but by and large I can't imagine this being the case.

<comment><USER13> I've seen $1M+/engineer compensation (over a 4-year vesting period) given to ordinary employees at big companies. It's actually not that out of the ordinary. One of the things that surprised me about working for a big company is that the compensation structure is not quite as lopsided (in favor of acquisitions) as I thought.

There do need to be two conditions met to bring in the big bucks though: 1) you need to perform, such that your value to the employer is > $1M, and 2) they need to be afraid of losing you. Many employees fail on one or both conditions. They either slack off or don't work on the right things (so they're not actually worth that much), or they're "company men" who will unquestioningly stay with the company regardless of whether they're compensated fairly.

<comment><USER14> Do you mean $1M per year or over 4 years? 250k per year in total compensation does not seem like that much.

EDIT: Since I am being downvoted, I thought I'd provide some data to back up my claim. The average total compensation for a Senior Software Engineer in the US at Google according to Glassdoor is $267,413.

<comment><USER15> Google is widely acknowledged to be near the top of the heap w/r/t compensation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I loved the idea of Yik Yak, but every time I tried to start a semi- intelligent conversation I was downvoted to death. And this was smack in the middle of MIT. I guess the people I was hoping to interact with was exactly the opposite of the actual user base.

It would be potentially interesting if the upvote/downvote thresholds and ranking took into account your Facebook or other social graph, and then extrapolated to other people that might find your posts interesting.

Yik Yak could have been Waze. Yik Yak could have been a tool for students to ask questions during class when they didn't understand what the professor said. But it wasn't.

<comment><USER17> People go on social apps to waste time and have fun. I get your frustration but it's not surprising no one cares about discourse in Yik Yak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > The payments processor paid less than $3 million for between five and ten of > Yik Yak's engineers

I feel like they could have saved money and created happy engineers by offering each employee a hefty sign on bonus.

<comment><USER19> It would be interesting if there were a transfer market in programmers like there is in footballers, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

(Partly this is because the rules of the game prevent replacing Lionel Messi with 1,000 cheap non-Western consultants hired through three layers of outsourcing)

<comment><USER20> What successful company has been built by "1,000 cheap non-Western consultants hired through three layers of outsourcing"? We don't need a rule against a losing strategy

<comment><USER21> > We don't need a rule against a losing strategy

Interestingly, these are common anyway. Some obvious examples are laws against suicide, incest, and infanticide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think the key problem was the hype train and the lack of product- oriented/technical leadership.

remembered them doing very well on campus last two years of college. They had on campus reps to hand out "schwag"; probably not very fun to scale. The obvious bullying was the problem. If they had found some way to solve that and snuck their way back into high schools...

then again, kids can be so cruel.

<comment><USER23> College student, it was fun for a year or two and then pretty much everyone gave up on it.

The unique commentary was what made it, there was essentially humor that everyone could relate to and the unique perspectives people felt were too uncomfortable to share with their persona attached. It was fascinating to watch what would come up over the day

<comment><USER24> To add onto this, college meme groups on Facebook have largely replaced Yik Yak's niche in the past year or so. And those don't require millions in VC funding!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Pity, mainly because there seems to be a market for local anonymous communications, but a relatively small, and very vocal subset of users can ruin it for everyone.

I wonder if some sort of anonymous reputation system could have saved them from making product decisions that were counter to the reasons for using the app in the first place.

<comment><USER26> whisper is a much superior, still alive platform that does the same thing.

<comment><USER27> I really disagree. I've used the app maybe 2-3 years ago and looking at their website, it doesn't seem like the main UI or features have changed much. If I didn't know what the app was, going on their website I would think it's a Buzzfeed clone given all their listicles and clickbaity headlines.

<comment><USER26> Listicles are not how it's mainly used. It's basically a chat app. Most of the activity on the main feed is people looking to chat. And there are very active groups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The phrasing makes it seem like Yik Yak itself is not being acquired. Is that a thing that ever happens? I doubt square is interested in their tech anyways.

I've heard that the Atlanta tech scene is dominated by business types rather then techies. It wouldn't surprise me if leadership is selling off most their engineering team and planning to outsource as needed from here on out.

<comment><USER26> >I've heard that the Atlanta tech scene is dominated by business types...

In ATL, can confirm. That's not to say there aren't good engineers here.

<comment><USER28> Can you speak more on the ATL tech scene? I've always been interested.

<comment><USER29> Not OP but I'm a software engineer working for a startup in ATL. I'm not sure how we have a reputation for being "dominated by business types", but we do have a relatively high contingent of fintech and b2b companies here (our only unicorn, Kabbage, plus several others like Square, Salesloft, Salesforce). I think though that our pool of engineering talent is relatively high - I'd guess it's the most likely landing spot for good engineers from the southeast.

<comment><USER30> > I'm not sure how we have a reputation for being "dominated by business > types"

Two things:

1\. Atlanta's tech scene is largely b2b. Its driven a lot by people who worked in industry and then had a great idea for a company and left. Or serial entrepreneurs who are capable of building a business but not a product. So a lot of companies simply originate from "business types" because they're founded by them, for them.

2\. ATV. ATV strived to make itself the face of the ATL startup scene, and generally succeeded. But the resources ATV provides are all primarily aimed at business types - pitch practices, VC events, demo days, and networking gatherings. And so business types gathered there, since that's a convenient place to be, and the successful companies went elsewhere due to rising rent. So now, ATV is largely the face of startups in Atlanta, and yet is a building filled with "business types" hustling to get their company started or funding secured. The optics on the startup ecosystem are consequently very heavily "business types" because everyone tends to just look at ATV as the thermometer.

<comment><USER26> For those outside ATL, ATV = Atlanta tech village [1]

1: [http://atlantatechvillage.com](http://atlantatechvillage.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This app used to be very popular on my university campus up until last summer that they removed the anonymous posting feature! Almost all of their users were upset and were threatening to leave the app but yik yak didn't take them seriously. That resulted in them losing 90% of their active users within a few weeks

They brought back anonymous posting a few months after in a desperate attempt to bring back the old users but that didn't save them

</comment><comment><USER32> > The payments processor paid less than $3 million for between five and ten of > Yik Yak's engineers, according to the person.

Classic acquihire scenario?

<comment><USER33> Are they required to work there, what's stopping them from finding a new job?

<comment><USER34> Golden handcuffs.

<comment><USER35> That's not really the case here. Golden handcuffs refers to stock that was previously granted but either has not yet vested or has vested but the employee can't keep if they walk away from the job. While the employees in question surely own Yik-yak stock that stock is now worthless.

They're starting at Square just like they would start at any other job. Thus they will stay at Square if it is a better job for them (for whatever reason) than they could otherwise get.

<comment><USER36> Yes, but presumably as part of the acquisition they're getting $X00,000 of stock/cash on a 4-year vest. That's far more than one would get for a standard new hire options package at a company of Square's size/maturity.

I'd say that's accurate to describe as "golden handcuffs", since they (probably) can't just walk down the street to another company and get that offer matched.

<comment><USER35> I wouldn't call that "golden handcuffs." I would call it a better job offer.

<comment><USER36> If golden handcuffs are "stock that was previously granted but either has not yet vested or has vested but the employee can't keep if they walk away from the job", I'm curious at what point unvested stock becomes "golden handcuffs". The one-year cliff? One month in? After the first day, when waiting for your one-year cliff is one day closer than your one-year cliff would be if you quit and started a new job the very next day?

(Hope this isn't coming across as combative — if we're gonna have a discussion of semantics, I'm trying to nail down where you're coming from :) )

<comment><USER35> As with many things in life I would say that it's shades of grey. Perhaps they are handcuffs from day one but they haven't been latched closed yet. The longer you stay the tighter they get.

The "tightness" of the handcuffs is, roughly speaking, the % of your motivation to work there based on a previously accrued reward vs reward that is earned day by day.

With powerful enough golden handcuffs the company could reduce your salary to zero and you would still stay (though perhaps be pissed about it).

(not coming off as combative :) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm missing something. Were these engineers under a transferable contract? What, specifically, did Square buy with their "less than $3 million", and from whom?

<comment><USER38> What this likely means is that the engineers at Square get some kind of vesting stock options (i.e. golden handcuffs) that are valued in aggregate at less than $3 million. It also means the engineers get to have a well- recognized brand on their resume, and not a gap of a few weeks to months that then needs to be explained (not to mention the hit their bank accounts would take). This is generally what's called an "acquihire."

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Yik Yak destroyed itself by ignoring their users and making changes that undermined the reason people used their app in the first place. They're only "struggling" because of a series of self-inflicted wounds.

<comment><USER40> They faced legal trouble for the anonymity.

<comment><USER41> I don't think that's true, could you provide a source?

<comment><USER42> I don't know about legal challenges, but they basically created an anonymous area broadcast. There's a lot of complications that come along with that.

<comment><USER41> I really don't think there are. As long as they complied with authorities when somebody used Yik-Yak to do something illegal they're in the clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> >The site became a point of contention on campuses across the >country, with many universities debating banning it.

Yes universities could "ban" an app

</comment><comment><USER44> Sad to see things end this way - Yik Yak was pretty dope at Berkeley. However, I felt like the content got stale and predictable, and met the classic homogenous fate of every upvote/downvote community ever.

</comment><comment><USER45> Square pays less than $3M for a whole team doing some declining startup and refuses to comment. So Bloomberg makes a whole article about it?

</comment><comment><USER46> I played with it briefly, curious about whether it might on any way become similar to the "local" view that was in Google+ for a while, but it seemed mostly to consist of dig jokes and a little bit of high schoolers trashing mostly students from other schools.

</comment><comment><USER34> The two co-founders attended Furman University and were fraternity brothers who met in a coding clsss.

Square probably doesn't need more brogrammers.

<comment><USER47> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14187223](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14187223) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> > The company's reputation suffered from cases of cyber-harassment, hate > speech, and threats that appeared on Yik Yak's platform.

Angry young white men strike again. It's one thing to be threatened by anonymous mobs on Twitter or Reddit but when you know the attackers are phisically within a mile or two things can get seriously scary.</comment>


By ditching usernames, OKCupid is removing a crucial protective barrier - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/22/16812152/okcupid-usernames-controversy-anonymity-privacy-dating-online <comment><USER2> If you think _this_ is big, by the way, make sure you take a look at their post from December 11th:

[https://theblog.okcupid.com/why-okcupid-is-changing-how- you-...](https://theblog.okcupid.com/why-okcupid-is-changing-how-you- message-f14d492e7853)

They've completely obliterated the way messaging works. You will never see a message from someone unless you're either looking at their profile or you've "liked" them.

It's an interesting model. But it's also essentially driving interaction through the matching bottleneck, which is at odds with the substance-over- selfie slogan, since it turns incentives towards profile enhancement rather than investment in messaging. And it's also the kind of change you can't just blog-post explain away and expect to keep your existing users, just like the name change. It would be better suited for a new product than an existing one.

Then again, maybe dating sites work best with massive turnover in userbase anyway. And even if not, that doesn't mean this isn't some of the sharpest possible product management out there. At least in the sense of responding to the incentives for people who want to develop their product careers, not necessarily in terms of actually improving the product.

<comment><USER3> > They've completely obliterated the way messaging works. You will never see a > message from someone unless you're either looking at their profile or you've > "liked" them.

I've read people on /r/okcupid say it's a bad thing, but quite honestly I consider that a good thing.

There's nothing more exhausting as a guy than to write messages and basically get very few if any replies. One of my best friends is like myself, a person of colour, and his response rates are putrid despite putting good efforts in writing interesting opening messages that relate to the persons profile. He and I probably interacted with as many profiles in a two year period, except he had to put way more effort into his endeavors just to get marginal gains in the number of actual women he got minimum first dates from.

When I use apps that have a model where you can't unlock messaging unless you have mutual interest, it still results in low response rates but the amount of investment is far, far lower than when I used the traditional model of having to initiate with messages and hope to God that they're okay with dating an Asian dude. The newer model actually encouraged me to use the app because I only had to spend a minute or two a day just to navigate through a select number of profiles.

Going into online dating, I used to believe in the whole substance over selfie idea, that putting your best foot forward and having a good personality could make up for some differences, but after analyzing my stats of online dating over the last two years and seeing the disparity in terms of reply rates by ethnicity([https://i.imgur.com/UTfGthn.png](https://i.imgur.com/UTfGthn.png)), I'm particularly skeptical of the idea that putting efforts in messaging and profile writeups really make that much of a difference.

<comment> vertex-four > There's nothing more exhausting as a guy than to write messages and > basically get very few if any replies.

As a really quick point, dating sites are quite explicitly not built for men. They acquire men at a far higher rate than women, and men ~tend~ to be the ones approaching women, and so pretty much every feature should (from an objective point of view) be designed to _filter out_ men that women aren't interested in, so women receive fewer attempts at interaction from them.

The bias against PoC on dating sites is a serious problem, though. And tbh, the whole mess that is the online dating experience in general is a cultural one that dating sites aren't going to solve - it's a system which allows people to much more closely follow their biases, with essentially no risk of anything bad happening.

To be honest, as a woman, I don't know anyone of any gender who's had a good experience with dating sites (aside from using Tinder to find sex partners). My experience has been that I find most of my partners almost by accident through hobby/social meetups, or in the IRC social channels where I spend a lot of my time.

<comment><USER4> > > There's nothing more exhausting as a guy than to write messages and > basically get very few if any replies.

> As a really quick point, dating sites are quite explicitly not built for > men. They acquire men at a far higher rate than women, and men ~tend~ to be > the ones approaching women, and so pretty much every feature should (from an > objective point of view) be designed to filter out men that women aren't > interested in, so women receive fewer attempts at interaction from them.

Your dismissal of the importance of not wasting the time of men doesn't work if higher quality men have more of their time wasted. That is, if the men who write detailed messages get worse results than the men who write a thousand identical one-liners (or who swipe right on everything, etc.), then the former type of men will leave the site and women will be left with the latter type.

More generally, I've talked to _many_ women who decline to actively seek out good men in real life, and who explicitly justify this based on their observations that there is a deluge of men trying to get their attention. So they decide they'll just passively filter the seemingly-unlimited supply of men who approach them. The key flaw is the assumption that the pool of men is unchanged compared to an active strategy.

<comment><USER5> > if higher quality men have more of their time wasted... if the men who write > detailed messages get worse results than the men who write a thousand > identical one-liners (or who swipe right on everything, etc.), then the > former type of men will leave the site and women will be left with the > latter type.

Yeah, that's not what makes a man "high quality" by the data and revealed preferences online. Attractiveness does. The men any woman wants to see on a dating site online don't have their time wasted, because they get responses to whatever they write.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think most people who've commented on the OKC post here and on their blog, are missing a few points:

1\. Names can be faked. I don't see any long term and practical way for OKC to enforce real names (as FB and G+ showed in the past). So this is really a non- issue.

2\. Photos are much more problematic because it's assumed that one cannot search based on a photo. A 5 second Google Image search on profile pictures from OKC however shows that a lot of people re-use photos they post on various social sites. It takes one of those places to have your real name next to your photo and you're identified! Google Image search is just the tip of the iceberg. It's getting easier and faster every day to compile database of photos and run a AI algo on it to recognize faces.

Any company who boasts protecting privacy of its users ought to find a way to protect against facial recognition.

<comment><USER7> Just because names can be faked, doesn't mean that everyone who should be doing it (which is everyone), will be doing it.

Some might misinterpret the sign-up process, thinking the name will only be used in special situations, others might think that they're thought of as weirdo, if they don't use their real name, when everyone else supposedly is.

And the last group simply does not understand, or does not think of the consequences of entering their real name. It's simply irresponsible to leave privacy and security entirely up to your users. Especially without any reason.

Pictures being potentially worse does not have anything to do with this being shit as well. Many potential stalkers don't know reverse image search either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems like we go through a round of this every couple of years. First it was Google Plus, then it was Quora, it's been Facebook for a while, and now OKCupid has thrown themselves into the idiocy ring.

I've already written and spoken at length about how misguided, stupid, and harmful these policies are. So has the EFF. For years. There really is no excuse for a company to even consider adopting one of these now, assuming they adopt policies based on evidence and reason, which seems increasingly unlikely.

This one is particularly egregious because of all the abuse it opens people up to, especially women. If you have a photo and a legal first name, all someone has to do is match the photo against Facebook or flickr, match your first name, get a last name, and the address comes along shortly after that. Because of the nature of okcupid, I could actually see someone sending a woman a few messages, taking it personally that she doesn't respond, looking her up, finding her physical address, and then she shows up as a news tragedy.

If OKCupid moves forward with this, there might actually be blood on their hands in the future.

</comment><comment><USER9> OkCupid user since 2006 here (with multi year periods of inactive account).

The OkCupid website hardly changed since 2006. The only big changes I've seen is making their messaging someone dependent on first liking / starring them. Now this name change...

I'm surprised by the sudden change -- I was prompted when I opened the app. I did change my profile name to my real first name. I'm already easily identifiable on the internet (for example through an image reverse search), but my first name and city usually suffice to find me on your favorite search engine. While this puts me at risk (which I can personally manage), it does make others more comfortable. In fact, I want people who are motivated to be able to verify that I am a real person.

That being said I'm glad that OkCupid (now; perhaps a policy update) is not forcing real names to be used. It would be better if they altered their prompt and asked for an online nickname that is not a username and need not be unique.

I doubt OkCupid will let users search by real name. The username still seems to be an internal identifier for the time being. The profile URLs are of the form [https://www.okcupid.com/profile/<username>](https://www.okcupid.com/profile/<username>)

If you knew my username you could still directly jump to my profile despite my real name update.

Just for fun -- compared to the OkCupid population I'm apparently:

* More Organized * More Polite * More Scientific * More Nerdy * More Mathematical * Less Spiritual * More Confident * More Athletic * More Trusting * Less Suave * More Indie * Less Friendly

There is definitely some bias since OkCupid users mostly come from a US culture background I believe. I come from a certain European country that would be well described by the above ;)

<comment><USER10> A "real name" policy (which is really just a "legal name" policy) would drive away trans users, which is arguably a major portion of their userbase.

I do not use Facebook because it is impossible for me to change my legal name due to restrictions of my birth state. What the government insists on calling me is a legal name, it is not my "real name". This is far from exclusively a trans issue: Facebook even harassed Salman Rushdie over it, because that's only his pen name.

<comment><USER11> > Facebook even harassed Salman Rushdie over it, because that's only his pen > name.

That's a big misunderstanding from Facebook. In the UK you don't have a legal name. Your name is whatever you wish it to be. You can use whatever name you like, so long as you're not doing it with the intent to defraud.

<comment><USER12> Can you just get a passport with whatever name you want? If not then you clearly do have a legal name.

<comment><USER11> Yes, you can get a passport in any name. Passports might require a deed poll - but that's just a piece of paper with a solemn declaration that you no longer use the old name.

Salman Rushdie would be able to get a passport in either his pen name, or his other name.

<comment><USER13> I think that's pretty awesome. In Estonia, you can only change your first name (and even that with that quite a few restrictions and a lot of hassle with the government paper work), but you can only change your last name to be one of your close relatives's last name (mom, dad, grandmothers, grandfathers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> However they're not forcing people to use their real name?

As someone who used okcupid, it seems like a good move. A lot of people chose very silly usernames. Okcupid would even recommend at some point to suffix names already taken, so I would see a lot of "foo_taco".

<comment><USER15> And fooasaurus

<comment><USER16> I'd certainly have coffee with that person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there any real benefit to this change? It seems like a wash for men and a serious increase to cyber-stalking for women.

<comment><USER18> It enhances bad behavior from men because they it helps them "hide" their user name. Also, if you think that men are immune from cyber-stalking and harassment, you haven't been dating on-line very much.

Frankly, it's a bad idea to supply ANY personal information to random strangers (like on a dating website.) If you have an unusual first name, it's almost trivial to search Facebook to find someone.

There are certain communities (such as people who are genderqueer and transsexual) who experience targeted harassment. Asking users to expose additional personally identifying information is a really shitty thing to do.

<comment><USER6> > it's a bad idea to supply ANY personal information to random strangers

How about your _photos_? Those are as PII as it gets. If you're not careful (and majority of people aren't), and upload the same photo you use for your linkedin or twitter account, a 5 second Google Image search can easily reveal your true identity.

In fact, I have, in the past, emailed OKC and others and asked them to put measures in place so when a user uploads a photo, it's checked against various sources online and if it's a match, the user would be warned that it's potentially revealing their identity. I'm not sure if they took note of that.

<comment><USER19> The old pre-Match OKC might have, they were proper old-skool data geeks. Match execs won't have understood what any of those words meant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Real name policies are terrible and misguided.

<comment><USER21> Maybe in the case of a dating site, but I disagree when it comes to Facebook. I see a lot of low quality comments, and they almost always come from people with a fake name, a fake profile picture, or both. Anonymity seems to bring out the worst in everyday people when it comes to discourse.

<comment><USER22> > Anonymity seems to bring out the worst in everyday people when it comes to > discourse.

While I agree that anonymity may allow for bad behaviour, it also allows for good behaviour and focusing on the message rather than the messenger. Our conversation here on HN is an example, where draugadrotten and seattle_spring doesn't really reveal which one of us has two PhDs and a couple of million dollars in the bank. Our comments are judged based on what we write, not who we are. When it comes to sex, politics and religion, people are sometimes harassed or killed for what they say under their real name, so anonymity is very important. Transgenders have been mentioned as an example on OkC. And on dating sites, relationships benefit from being judged on the content of the message, rather than the cover photo and cv. There are many women on LinkedIn who thinks otherwise and court men with a good job, but OkC was always a good alternative. With a real name policy, this is no more.

<comment><USER23> This is what I miss about the old internet. The one I grew up with, when everyone was (rightly) told to keep their personal info off the internet. I didn't have to spend much time worrying who I was talking to, and how it could be tied back to me. Conversations felt more honest, because I could focus on the merits of the conversation, rather than based on the "credentials" of who was having the conversation.

<comment><USER21> The "old internet" I remember is still alive and well when I play older video games. I don't think less than 75% of the messages on their online platforms are anything other than hateful slurs.

<comment><USER20> Good behavior in communities is a result of moderation and leadership, not pseudonyms vs. real names.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Via email, a company spokesperson told The Verge that OKCupid won't require > legal names

If they aren't requiring using your legal name, then doesn't this just really mean that instead of making up a handle like "bigasslectroid" I need to make up something like "John Bigboote" instead that looks like it could be an actual name?

<comment><USER25> If they're just making people change their handles with a _suggestion_ they be real names, I have to wonder if, in effect, it was all just an attention- getting setup for the email they sent out today with a discount on paid subscriptions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not an OKC user but this seems silly and petty; I presume they've hit some sort of ceiling in user engagement and think that this will let them break through it.

Thing is, those silly usernames tell me something about who I'd be dating if I were a user; there's nothing wrong with someone having a cheesy name if it helps them find love with someone who has a similarly cheesy take.

Also, it's bizarre that a site like OK Cupid thinks words like sexy and lover are somehow 'dirty' (according to their own blog announcement).

</comment><comment><USER27> Say that I am building an app that leads to real world interaction, potentially with strangers. Clearly a real name policy is not a good way to make these interactions safer, but what would be a proper alternative? A reputation system? Any existing apps that do a good job with this?

Right now I've just surfaced links to user's social profiles so that other users can verify if this is someone they may be able to trust

<comment><USER28> I wonder if this is a more difficult problem because the "good" ones are taken off the market, potentially forever. Follow the logic, does this leave emotionally irrational people to have a larger share of the reviews than normal? And then just like it takes only a couple of unreasonable bad Yelp reviews to unfairly damage a restaurant, I can imagine a couple of emotionally unhealthy people damage someone's future dating prospects by writing stuff that has more to do with themselves than their dating partners? Maybe you can account for this by reevaluating reputation by weighing scores from people who receive high scores higher than scores received from those with low scores? Gets really complicated really fast, no? Really curious how online dating companies attack these problems.

<comment><USER29> This problem is exaggerated on dating sites due to their nature of "good" users exiting the system, but it applies to pretty much all reputation systems since there's always something to be gained from unfair damages, whether that's emotional release or perhaps competition. And people are usually more motivated to post bad reviews (for whatever reason) than good.

I think if we don't bother with a total score the way many rating systems do and instead show the count of good/bad reviews and show the reviews side by side, it should represent the depth of those reviews and a reader can then try to determine from the review contents whether the good or bad reviews are more likely to be true. It takes a lot more effort to write a compelling negative review than it does to simply rate someone/something poorly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Usually when a website makes changes to the terms of service users will be notified and they can opt out if they don't agree.. I cannot believe that a website with more that 1M active users did not send such an email.. It's on the users to take care of their digital identity. (I don't work and I don't have any affiliation with okc)

</comment><comment><USER31> A friend of mine worked at OKC two years ago, and departed when things went vertical.

Given the horror stories she told, I'm not surprised they've fallen to pieces.

</comment><comment><USER32> I (straight male) found my wife on okc but not sure it would have been possible with these changes. My pics are for some reason generally unflattering and I get a better response with profile plus actual meeting people. Also I would have been too embarrassed to message people if I had to use my real name

</comment><comment><USER33> It asked me to tell them my first name. I told them my first name was my username. Problem solved.

As soon as they start enforcing real names, I'm out of there. They claim to be "substance over selfies", but most of their recent changes are going in the opposite direction.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've always felt that dating websites dig into our personal data on a different level than social media platforms. This seems like it might be the next step in that evolution, to really drill into us, and encourage our privacy erosion.

</comment><comment><USER35> Do people still use this website?

It was the one that had people with the least affinity with what I was looking for

Edit: older platforms don't attract people that are up with the latest trends

<comment><USER36> What do people use nowadays? Tinder?

<comment><USER35> Tinder is pretty popular, there are other big players in this market

<comment><USER37> Such as?

<comment><USER35> Happn, Bumble (I think there might be others)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Outrage culture at its finest; then again, it's The Verge, so I'm hardly surprised.

The author has absolutely no argument apart from a dubious anecdote by a reddit user. It also cleverly ignores every _counter_ -example out there, e.g.: Tinder uses real names, Bumble uses real names, Hinge uses real names. I mean, by its own admission, the article is much ado about nothing: "Via email, a company spokesperson told The Verge that OKCupid won't require legal names, but the shift is already unpopular with users."

What's the difference between a non-legal name and a web handle? That you can use underscores and numbers in the latter? Why are people getting mad, again?

<comment><USER39> Those other websites don't have extensive question lists encouraging users to reveal sensitive information about their political, religious and sexual interests.

People who are interested in kink, for example, are highly represented on OkCupid because they can advertise it without worrying about being identified by co-workers, family members, fellow church-goers and whatnot; similarly they typically don't want to be stalked by strangers either.

There's also the problem of uncommon names. This handle is my actual legal name, a decision I made years ago that I frequently think of as both profoundly liberating and incredibly stupid.

The name "Jacques" is quite uncommon in the USA and the Anglosphere generally. I'm aware of this because my name has been mispronounced and misspelled for my entire life. Even though it is a common western European name, I fully expect that I will be reported from time to time and occasionally removed.

At which point, what am I meant to do? Scan my passport?

<comment><USER38> > People who are interested in kink, for example, are highly represented on > OkCupid because they can advertise it without worrying about being > identified by co-workers, family members, fellow church-goers and whatnot; > similarly they typically don't want to be stalked by strangers either.

If you upload pictures, you can be easily identified. If someone wants to stalk you, a reverse-image search is trivial to do. But even if we disagree on that point, you _don 't have to use your real name_. So, again, what is the argument?

<comment><USER39> > _If you upload pictures, you can be easily identified._

If it has your face, yes. Kink profiles don't, as a rule.

> _If someone wants to stalk you, a reverse-image search is trivial to do._

Most folk use a photo specific to OkCupid for this reason.

> _you don 't have to use your real name_

You have to use the one you'd prefer to be called by. I don't know about you, but that's the name my mother gave me. On top of which, it is already being "enforced" in a way that will pretty much guarantee that my actual name will be seen as an evasion of the policy.

If folk want to go by their name, the original policy allowed that. Or they could go to Bumble or Tinder or a billion other wannabe apps. What OkCupid allowed was choice to choose any name, even a dumb one, for any reason.

That they sneered and smarmed their way through the announcement just makes me angrier and less willing to take them seriously.

Edit: there are also people saying that they edited the blogpost and their FAQ after a backlash against a strict real-name policy: [https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/7ljp4u/realname_ch...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/7ljp4u/realname_change_hits_lgbt_community_hardest/drmyeoq/?context=5)

Edit 2: There are multiple screenshots of "first name" and "real name" text from the app and website which predate the alleged change to the text of the blogpost and FAQ: [https://imgur.com/LaYdmba](https://imgur.com/LaYdmba), [https://imgur.com/aOIKjKR](https://imgur.com/aOIKjKR)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost." - <AUTHOR> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=160292 <comment><USER2> When you deposit money in a bank you become a protected senior creditor, but creditor nonetheleas, to the bank. The government insures the first €100 000 or $250 000 against losses, but that guarantee is only as good as the government.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the eurogroup, told the FT as the bailout was announced:

" _If we want to have a healthy, sound financial sector, the only way is to say: 'Look, where you take the risks, you must deal with them, and if you can't deal with them you shouldn't have taken them on and the consequence might be that it is end of story.' That's an approach that I think we, now that we are out of the heat of the crisis, should consequently take._ " [1]

If you want a dollar asset as close to risk free as possible, buy Treasuries. If you are afraid of inflation buy inflation-protected Treasuries, TIPS.

Not Bitcoins? No, not Bitcoins. The purchasing power of your savings has a higher probability of being retained when backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government than a cryptocurrency. This may very well change, but it is not the case today, particularly if you pay your bills and buy your food in dollars. Speculate in Bitcoins, use them to transact if you must, and perhaps participate them as a form of activism, but do not convince yourself that you are George Sorosing the global financial system.

[1] [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/68c9c18e-955e-11e2-a151-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/68c9c18e-955e-11e2-a151-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2OWQybIgY)

<comment><USER3> No, don't buy treasuries. Getting back inflation destroyed dollars is not risk free, in fact you're getting defrauded because you're not actually getting your money back at all.

A quick check on what dollars will buy (the true judge of the value of a currency), spanning 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years tells you everything you need to know about the destruction your capital will suffer while yielding almost nothing to offset the devaluation. And now the Fed is working harder than ever before to abuse the global reserve FRN standard.

Now is the absolute worst time possible to buy treasuries. The era of cheap money is coming to a close with a frantic flailing about of currency devaluations, binge stimulus, bailouts, and robberies. Anybody that claims hyper cheap money lasts forever, is selling a pipedream (which may be accompanied with the words: it's different this time).

<comment><USER4> That's plain wrong. You don't buy treasury bonds unless you know the interest rate. Even after all the bail outs, all the crisis and despite rising government debt there is no safer investment.

It's just usually not used as the sole investment, but rather the safest position in portfolio...

<comment><USER3> That's exactly my point. You can't even remotely earn enough interest on treasuries to offset the destruction in the dollar that is occurring as the Fed generates massive inflation (aka expands the money supply at a record pace). The M2 is expanding at 12%, and the M1 is expanding at 7.5%.

You don't have to take my word for it. The destruction has already occurred, and is getting worse. A 5 minute effort on calculating what your dollar will purchase today versus 10 or 15 years ago, proves that. Except now your treasury paper yields almost nada because the Fed is acting to destroy your 'return' by holding rates artificially low while devaluing the dollars you use every day to do so.

Treasury paper is as dangerous as holding your money in a Cyprus bank. The next decade is going to be a fiscal disaster for the US. The bill is coming due, and not only can the US not afford to repay its debts ever, but it can't afford any real interest on its debt (4% * $20 trillion = bankrupt US Government). This isn't going to happen in decades, it's happening now, which why the Fed can't raise interest rates, can't ever sell off its holdings, can't stop buying 85%+ of all the US Government debt being issued, and can't stop buying mortgages. Worse yet, they're going to increase their purchases again this year.

<comment><USER4> The argument about inflation really depends on what you have to do with the money besides putting it into investments, and what other investment options out there.

It is still consensus that the bond rate + inflation risk is understood much better than any other asset I can think of. I'm talking about the financial term 'risk' here, not the colloquial one that you are using. In financial terms, you can have a loss without any risk and still be happy about the position afterwards...

<comment><USER5> The only true and safe way to stay ahead with the rampant inflation of the money supply is: become a government contractor and get your hands on the money first before it's effects appear in the system.

Does that make sense?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Background and summary (forgive me if some details need correcting):

Cyprus is a tiny country with a GDP not much higher than Tim Hortons. Yet, it had something like 150 billion in private funds stored in two of its banks: the Bank of Cyprus and Lakie. Why? Because the majority of the funds (I am generalizing) belongs/belonged to Russians who took advantage of the people on the conversion out of communism (dirty money). As North Americans have Swiss bank accounts, the Russians have Cyprus. Obviously, other people have their money in here too.

Greek's insolvency impacted Cyprus greatly, because a large portion of the Cyprus population are of Greek descent. Thus, when the banks were figuring out where to invest, a large portion of the funds went to Greece. As a result, the banks lost a ton of money, and are on the verge of making the country insolvent. The IMF said the government needed to come up with a large amount of money.

At first they tried to pass a bill that would skim 10% off all Cyprus bank accounts that had over 10k Euros. There was unimaginable outrage, because as you can guess, that affects a good portion of the population. In response, they changed the bill to only affect those with over 100k Euros. Interestingly, this time, mostly the Russian dirty money was affected, and there was not as much public outrage (stealing stolen money). As a result, now 30% of all bank accounts over 100k Euros are being seized.

All the North Americans probably don't realize why this is such a big deal. In North America, we have money in companies, hedge funds, etc. In Europe, from what I've been told, banks are the major (almost exclusive) depository. Thus, you can imagine that this is a much bigger deal.

<comment><USER7> So, if some country (and as you say Europe) where still primary mode of parking your earnings is banks what are other options to play safe in case such a seizure happens? Real estate is one I can see. What else? Gold, you will have to keep in a bank in the end. What about shares, aren't they somehow related to sth deposited in a bank? I mean, how do you safeguard your savings then?

<comment><USER8> There seems to be some confusion as to what a bank is on this board.

Every time you deposit say $1 with a bank, they lend out $.90 of it at interest for mortgages, payrolls, etc. It's these investments the bank makes that can (and do) wreck money. The government of the US and EU recognize this risk for most people is detrimental and offer insurance on the first 100,000 deposited.

The phrase "seized account" does not appear to be correct, more correct would be "The Cypriot banks lost something like 40% of all deposits and all depositors over the 100,000 insured mark have lost their investment."

Any deposit in a bank is still an investment, even if they don't pay interest, because banks don't just put all your coins and bills in a vault, they just mark you down as a number in their books. The risk you take is that government backing the deposit insurance AND the bank don't do something dumb. Banks are usually much more highly regulated than hedge funds, but a quick look at how often banks fail (the US has something like 800+ banks on the unnoficial FDIC watch list) should sober anyone up.

Hold physical money is the only not to be at risk of losing a deposit, and then you have to provide for security, and you sure aren't going to earn interest.

I'm not really enthusasiastic about bitcoins, but one could argue they solve the problem of trying to keep a bunch of wealth out of the risk of banks, without having to have a huge pile of physical currency/valuables.

<comment><USER9> "Every time you deposit say $1 with a bank, they lend out $.90 of it at interest for mortgages, payrolls, etc."

Actually, when you deposit $1, they loan out about $9 (maybe a bit less nowadays, but still a multiple of the $1 being put in). That's what the 'fractional' in 'fractional reserve banking' comes from.

<comment><USER10> That doesn't make any sense. You've mixed up macroeconomics and microeconomics. A single bank cannot lend more than it has in deposits. However, in an economy with many lenders and borrowers, a deposit (or really any kind of expenditure) can be reinvested fractionally many times, enlarging the money supply by more than its nominal value. Also, the multiplier "rule" of taking the reciprocal of the reserve rate is more of a rough estimate, since individual borrowers may not spend all of the money they have borrowed.

<comment><USER9> You're right, I did mix them up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, blame Angela Merkel and not the bank executives at your bank that loaded up on Greek debt while Greece was careening towards insolvency.

I appreciate the PR nightmare here for the E.C. People are going to be madder at the E.C. for wiping out depositors at this unviable bank than they would have if the E.C. just let the whole Cypriot banking sector collapse and let everyone lose their money.

See: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732350100457838...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323501004578386762342123182.html)

<comment><USER12> Blaming evil banks and profligate creditors while tightening the money supply wasn't a particularly fruitful thing to do the last time there was a global economic crisis, and a whole lot of modern macro was about not repeating that mistake.

Then the world goes around and repeats the same offenses, and the public once again buys the easy, moralistic stories. Bleh.

The fact of the matter is that the Eurozone is a bad idea, a lot of economists said it was a bad idea, and now they're seeing their predictions come true. For each European financial disaster it's easy to blame some convenient cause, but eventually you have to ask: what is it about the Eurozone that is so good at precipitating financial crises? As banks collapsed and massive financial contagion in America was uncovered, did anyone in 2007-08 (besides a small number of monetary-inclined economists) think the very Euro would be threatened again, and again, and again, as America lurched along in limp but definite recovery?

To paraphrase Bill Clinton: it's the money, stupid. The Eurozone is structured to suck the money out of peripheral economies in times of crisis, which then seize up like an engine starved of oil. The best banking system in the world cannot survive if all its money disappears. Cyprus does not have the best banking system in the world, so I guess they're worse off.

<comment><USER13> _The Eurozone is structured to suck the money out of peripheral economies in times of crisis_

It seems like Greece is doing much of the sucking, much to the chagrin of their stern German neighbors.

I don't see the Euro as structurally deficient, I really think this problem is a due to Greek culture in the early 2000s being incompatible with the EU. Remember that Cyprus is a very small country, being half the size of Pittsburgh.

I think many people forget why the Euro exists. It exists to grow trade and foster connections between European countries, and it serves to level them and their societies. This is a social agenda. If Greece stays in the Euro their culture will have changed for the better.

<comment><USER14> _"Remember that Cyprus is a very small country, being half the size of Pittsburgh."_

Cyprus is small, but it's not _that_ small.

Pittsburgh, PA: 305,704 people (Pittsburgh metro area is 2.36 million though)

Cyprus: 786,873 people

Pittsburgh, PA: 55.37 mi^2

Cyprus: 3572 mi^2

Courtesy of Wolfram|Alpha: [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=size+pittsburgh%2C+pa+v...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=size+pittsburgh%2C+pa+vs+cyprus) [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+pittsburgh%2...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+pittsburgh%2C+pa+vs+cyprus)

<comment><USER15> The way some Americans rate city populations is weird to my (Australian) sensibilities. We assume the metro area in the city population - because the city is referred to as a whole. If I go to visit a friend in the metro areas of Sydney, I'm still 'going to Sydney', not 'the Sydney metro area'.

<comment><USER16> Actually, not some Americans, but some (or all) Australians. It all depends on the pov. :)

Europe is the same as is most of the first world as far as bigger cities go (bigger meaning >=1 million inhabitants). There is "city population" and "metro area population" (outside the well-defined boundaries of the city). In the 3rd world this data granularity often isn't available.

In Australia, I guess it may be available but the distinction simply isn't made (which also helps making you feel bit more "important" when comparing Aussie city sizes to other big cities in the world, I guess). ;)

When I lived in Australia I wondered why Sydney felt so small, smaller even than my home town Hamburg, in Germany. Even though it was supposed to have 4.5 million inhabitants while Hamburg barely has 2 million. After understanding this it all made sense. Hamburg has 1.75 million city + 3.25 metro area = 5 million ... in 3rd world/Aussie city population math. :)

Check Wolftram Alpha; you'll find there is no metro population area data for most 3rd world/Australian cities, but it is there is for most big cities in the rest of the first world.

<comment><USER11> I think it's because American/Australian cities are sprawlier, so using metro area makes them sound bigger.

At 1.75 million, Hamburg would be solidly the 5th largest city in the U.S. However at 5 million it would only be the 10th largest metro area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Comment #7 in that thread says it all:

 _"So you trusted a small tax haven island with your money. The plan failed. Your next step: trusting even smaller tax haven island with your money. Pure logic."_

<comment><USER8> Yeah...funny thing is blaming the EU. The banks were lending out the money on what turned out to be bad assets, not sure there's any cure for that where deposits don't get wrecked.

Iceland before, Cyprus now, not sure what they think will happen to Carribean banks in the long run. Bitcoin might be an ok solution for people who don't care about earning interest, but if you still want the interest you have to deal with a lending institution.

<comment><USER17> even funnier thing is thinking that these haircuts are gonna do much…

the template according to troika is to do more of the same :D

granted the only future i see in bitcoins is in actual business transactions and not earnings interests,which with typical fiat are subject to the whims of ZIRP and central m̶a̶n̶i̶p̶u̶l̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ planning :D (which [number of business transactions with bitcoins for goods or services] has gone up these couple of years if you look beyond the hype)

and the fact that it would be pretty hard for .gov reallocate funds in a .dat :P

<comment><USER8> You would lend out your bitcoins at interest, just like you do with any other currency. Unless you want to be a direct lender, you'd still use a bank.

Maybe the EU's policies led to the propagation of all the bad assets, but Cypriot banks were offering a higher interest to attract deposits. You can't get that higher interest without investing in somewhat riskier assets. Even assuming the EU policy is terrible (I am no expert on the EU and want no part of that argument, btw), the problem with the Cyprus banks was poor controls and risk management, which was by design to attract deposits.

Pretty simple, unless you had a very good reason (tax avoidance, money laundering, interest rate), parking money in the Cyprus banking system was a very bad idea. So either the person with 700k was avoiding taxes, laundering money, enjoying a higher than normal interest rate, or being foolish with their money. I have no idea which it was, but if I personally had to oversee such a sum, I wouldn't be parking it in such a risky place.

<comment><USER17> Lending is one thing, storing your wealth in a currency under ZIRP is another. I'm lucky that I at least get dividends on my savings being with a local credit union.

And only half of their banking system consisted of foreign deposits (not to mention most of those deposits were able to leave the country via loopholes). Where does that leave the individuals and small business native to cyprus? Is it such a horrid idea of storing your money in your own country?

And since the ECB is calling cyprus the template, where does this leave the next country that needs to be bailed out (which will happen again[1 bailout in 2010,1 bailout in 2011, 2 bailouts in 2012, 1 so far in 2013; this is starting to look like Fibonacci's work :P]) will banking in portugal, italy, ireland, greece, and spain be a very bad idea for people who live there, or are they all banking in their home country for tax avoidance,money laundering and for ZIRP to negative interest rates on their savings?

<comment><USER8> If you ever read The Wealth of Nations, it has a long history of the value of silver(commonly used for money at the time), and the effect new mines had on the value (overnight 1/3 value loss not unheard of). There is essentially nothing in the world guaranteed to hold or increase in value that we use or have ever used as money.

If you are lucky enough to have money over the limit, at least in the US, you can open accounts at different banks to try and have more insurance. For the native Cypriot running a legit business, yes, it's unfortunate, but that's what has led to a central banking system. If you look back a hundred years, bank runs were much more common, but people still had to use banks.

I don't offer financial advice, but it certainly would seem that maintaining bank accounts above the insured limit in any of the countries you listed is very high risk at the moment.

<comment><USER17> >I don't offer financial advice, but it certainly would seem that maintaining bank accounts above the insured limit in any of the countries you listed is very high risk at the moment.

I'd agree, but i'd like to add that one would have to be fooling themselves if this high risk is anything but contained to the PIIGS or the EU.

ex: Some british pension accounts were hit: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/cyprus/9944...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/cyprus/9944544/British- pensioners-fear-for-savings-as-Cyprus-proposes-capital-controls.html)

I guess in any case, having any bank account over "insurance" limits in any country isn't sound (as we've seen that even those limits can be changed [usually changed or able to be removed at any time like what the FDIC announced in December]). But then again, people don't usually act in a logical manner (which I guess in a weird sense they shouldn't since any currency is ultimately built upon trust or belief which is not directly connected to logic).

I guess it's just better to stick to the basics (food,water,shelter) and let the bankers worry about when their fellow citizens or russian oligarchs will come for their heads which according to history, eventually happens :P

<comment><USER8> It would probably be beyond my abilities and knowledge to really write about the banking system fully.

I would note, even the US has a long list of banks on the endangered list: [http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2013/03/unofficial- problem...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2013/03/unofficial-problem-bank- list-declines_30.html)

Some big banks in the US seem immune at the moment, but the recent revelations about Chase losing billions while trying not to reveal it to regulators is just par for the course.

I personally trust the US government to back my small deposits far more than any bank. It's not because the US government is so good, it's because the banks are so bad.

To me, it appears that without IMF prodding and EU intervention, Cypress would eventually have had a banking collapse that would have wiped out 100% of all depositors. The general operation of banks when losing money seems to increase leverage to try and make up for the losses, instead of acknowledging losses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh boohoo.

The OP appears to forget that without the European Commission, _all_ of his money would be lost.

It's like getting mad at the guy who chainsaws you out of the car that you folded around a tree because he sawed your car into two pieces.

<comment><USER19> If anything he should be angry at his accountant. I assume he has one if he has 800k. How many wake up calls does someone need. In the UK when banks were failing, before there was a solution the Government said they would guarantee the first £50k of savers. It might have then gone up to £100k.

My parents who have a fairly large sum of money hired a decent accountant to mitigate a large portion of the risk. Spreading their money between a fairly large number of bank accounts.

You then look at when Iceland banks failed. Lots of people lost money.

The Cyprus banking sector size was ridiculous. It was 7x Cyprus GDP. If the sector failed it was fairly obvious Cyprus would be unable to save it. You have no idea what the terms would be of a bailout or if a small country like Cyprus would get one..

So back to my main point. Get a decent accountant. Understand where your money is going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >I'm not Russian oligarch, but just European medium size IT business

I fail to see the difference, honestly.

The OP, by running a business within a society where many services essential to that business are provided by the government and paid for by the citizens and businesses within that society, profited directly from other people's taxes - but refused to contribute.

I feel about as bad for him as I do for any of the other gangsters, Russian or otherwise.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure why, but natermer's past several posts are all dead.

He wrote:

> The people running the government, which uses the taxes to secure loans that > they have no intention on paying back, in order to prop up a failing economy > that is failing because of the rules and regulations that are setup to > maximize the illigit profit for said people running government.. those are > the real gangsters.

> Most large state governments amount to little more then just legalized > mafias. Ran by political and family dynasties serving the purposes of > whoever is capable of providing them the most money and power.

> IMHO, paying as little taxes as possible is a moral imperative.

<comment><USER22>
      I'm not sure why, but natermer's past several posts are all dead.

He was hellbanned in this thread: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4276766>

<comment><USER23> I might be missing something obvious here as I only just woke up but that thread looks entirely innocuous and uncontroversial to anyone who doesn't accept the constant refrains to the necessity of the state, is that really a position that will get you hellbanned here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Putting money in an uninsured bank is an investment the same stocks or property.

If the asset you invest in fails you lose your money.

Don't see how this is the European Commission robbing anyone.

I thought (But could be wrong) without the bailout all the money would be lost. Isn't this them giving someone who's lost it all 20% of their money back?

<comment><USER25> So where you suggest people should keep their money if the only insurance they can get for their deposit is Euro 100k ? Matresses? Safes?

Bailout or no bailout, all money in Laikie is lost except what was insured.

Some interesting points 1) Laikie bank also had a loan of 9 Billion from ECB, that won't be written off , even though depositor's money is written off. That loan will be transferred to Bank of Cyprus. 2) Out of this 9 Billion half was used by Greek branches which are not effected as sold to a greek bank, even then Bank of Cyprus will have to pay full 9 Billion. 3) If you had a mortgage with same bank for 300k , and had 300k Deposit, only Deposit will be reduced to 100k , but you will still owe the bank 300k loan, as they are transferring all good loans to Bank of Cyprus.

I can go on with more points to prove that its unfair politics just to give a message to Rich Russians to send their money to Germany instead of keeping it in Cyprus.

After the crisis, German banks are trying to put full page Ads in Cypriot newspapers both in English and Russian saying that their money will be safer in Germany!!!

<comment> X-Istence The same thing is the case here in the US. FDIC insures up to 250k. After that you are liable to lose it if the bank goes tits up.

In this case, the bank went tits up, he got his 100k EUR back from insurance.

As for mortgages and loans, those aren't insured to the bank either (unless underwritten by the gov't ...), so if YOU go bankrupt the bank is out that money. In most cases you have some equity backing that loan so even if you go bankrupt some part of the money can be recovered by for example selling your house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Apparently he didn't read up on deposit insurance. In most EU countries, anything over Euro 100,000 is not safe.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit_insurance#By_EU_country>

<comment><USER26> Other than convenience why wouldn't you open several bank accounts?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The OP does not seem to understand that the bank account was not robbed by European Commission, it was just lost because it was a bad investment.

He put money in a bank that failed. Presumably, he made the investment for reasons of convenience of operating the capital in Cyprus, but also because the particular bank he chose was paying high interest rates. It was paying high interest rates because everyone knew the risk was high. The risk materialised. Who is surprised?

EU helps a bit but is not prepared to compensate him for losses; this is not a fault of the European Commission.

I'm a bit short of sympathy because of this blaming of Merkel, Rehn et al. They're not perfect, but they are not culpable for this loss.

Cyprus has had tax as percentage of GDP at below 40 %. Northern Europe is closer to 50 %. If you had wanted buffers provided by the state, you should have collected taxes to do so. Alternatively, you could have stayed out of the euro, and then the government could just print money and rescue the banks. Of course, outside the euro you wouldn't have been such a great haven for grey and black Russian money.

</comment><comment><USER28> What is the poster suggesting? EC should've stayed out and let the banks go bankrupt?

Oh I know, they should've just covered all the tax haven banks losses.

<comment><USER25> EC should have treated Cyprus in same manner they treat other countries which are part of Euro Zone. If they can bail out Greece without a haircut which actually caused crisis in Cyprus, why do this against Cyprus? Also it might be a tax haven for others , but for Cypriots its their country. And this haircut is applied to everybody who has deposits in the Cypriot branches of Laikie bank but Same bank has branches in Greece and people with deposits in Greek branches won't suffer.

<comment><USER4> Cypriots had continously higher interest rates on their deposits than other Europeans. The small levy wouldn't even have eaten up these profits which are essentially due to tax havenry and unsound business practices on a country wide scale. No pity there...

Even if the 7% levy was all hard-earned money instead of too high interest rate profits, this would have hardly bankrupted more than a few depositors which were in dire straits already.

<comment><USER25> 7% levy was proposed on all accounts, and it was illegal to put levy on insured deposits, and it was asked to put this levy on all banks even if they are solvent.

Can you quote what high interest rates are you talking about on deposits? And what about interest rates on Current Accounts? Business usually pay money to have these accounts.

Cyprus also has higher interest rates on mortgages, and most Cypriots have mortgages, so they are not actually having any profits because of "so-called" high rates.

If European Union is so concerned about Tax-Haven issues, why didn't they come clean and ask Cyprus to raise tax rates as they did in 2004 when Cyprus joined European Union, And what about Luxembourg, isn't it where Apple is registered for saving taxes ??

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So, you deposit your money in a bank with very high interest rates - very high because they invest in risky Greek bonds. If everything goes well, you keep the interests. If the risky investment of the bank goes bust, we (EU citizens) should pay you the risk, even beyond the insured 100k. Is that correct?

<comment><USER30> >ZERO INTEREST!

>I've already explained that it's CURRENT ACCOUNT (transactional account).

>Not bank paid to me, but I was paying annual fee to the bank in order to maintain this account and debit card.

>Current accounts are usually not affected even if bank goes bankrupt. Upon liquidation, current account holders are paid first, as money on this type of account cannot be gambled by bank. It's most liquid assets, like cash.

<comment><USER29> It's VERY hard for me to believe that anybody would keep a balance close to a million euro in a bank with zero interest. Even I get a small interest on my current account...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is just undermining the bank system. There is no reason big enough to do something like this and it appals me that some people are saying that he had it coming.

A part of it is 'dirty' and that argument is being used to validate the confiscation of working people's money and company's money which the EU's economy is based upon.

The fact that they announced this before taking a decision is just beyond stupid, any normal thinking human being knows that it's a bad approach given that they want to prevent a bank run. People in other countries are fearing that the same procedure will happen to them. This has a way bigger impact than just some companies and some rich people and some bad russians, they are just harming the image of banks in whole Europe.

Next to that fact, OP has a medium sized business, people work there, wages can't be paid, this has a major influence on companies all over Europe and everyone who works there. OP put his money in Cyprus because it was profitable, is that a bad thing? You have to choose paths that are most profitable for your company and he didn't put it in some obscure market, it was backed by a bank, we generally trust banks.

Now they want to prevent a bank run, this is just a ticking timebomb. Whenever the 300 euro/day rule doesn't apply anymore, there will be a bank run. No money will be going into the bank anytime soon. They are going to regret this.

<comment><USER32> Thanks for speaking up against those in this thread who virtually blame this guy for the wrongdoing of others around him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> While I would probably have the same reaction if I was living in Cyprus, important points are missing here.

The way I understand it: Cyprus failed to control their economy and required the help from the European Union. In order to lent them a crazy amount of money, they wanted some guarantee. They could not provide anything, so their government had to use the peoples money to pay for the governments previously bad judgement about not saving up for bad times.

</comment><comment><USER34> It appears this is a current/chequing/checking account rather than the savings/deposit accounts that were originally reported to be subject to the special tax and which pay the ridiculous levels of interest (10%+).

The impact on local business is already being felt, both consumption & payment of supplies & salaries (and soon tax remittance), and imports will suffer significantly in the coming days and weeks too. Exports may well be paid for and the funds remain outside of Cyprus, further creating problems for the economy, as it goes almost all-cash and tax is evaded too. Credit card balances can not be paid off for now either.

It will be interesting to see how Russian mobsters (and various shades of business people) react to having millions/billions taken from them. I'd not want to be a Cypriot politician or banker having to say no to these guys.

</comment><comment><USER4> Basically, someone deposited his money in a tax haven, with patently risky banks. Then the banks went into trouble. The European Union tries to help them avoid total loss, and now that same someone blames the EU for the partial loss.

Total loss was the alternative to the bailout...

</comment><comment><USER35> This fellow is using Laiki bank, and the Cyprus Finance Minister said that they would be seeing an 80% haircut.

Relevant: <https://twitter.com/finansakrobat/status/316813023639646208>

<comment><USER36> _Cyprus's finance minister said Tuesday that large deposit holders at Cyprus Popular Bank PCL (CPB.CP), the island's second biggest lender, could face losses of as much as 80% on their deposits as the government moves to wind down its operations._

 _Speaking in a television interview with state broadcaster RIC, Michalis Sarris indicated that it could also take years before those depositors see any of their money returned._

 _"Realistically, very little will be returned," Mr. Sarris said._

[http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2013/03/26/cyprus-finance- mi...](http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2013/03/26/cyprus-finance-minister- uninsured-laiki-depositors-could-face-80-haircut/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm not sure why people think investing above the insured deposit ceiling in a badly rated bank is risk free. If you have that much cash, you certainly can do (or pay someone to do) some due diligence and store your assets in a safer way.

<comment><USER38> Very true I think. When the banks started to fold in the UK I split my cash into units of up to £35000 each into different banks. The guarantee was per institution, not individual. It certainly made more sense to me to fit within the guarantee limits, though there was no absolute guarantee that even those limits would hold.

<comment><USER39> Is the EU EUR100k guarantee per person and not institution?

<comment><USER27> Per person depositing in an institution. On European level, it would be futile to try to limit it to EUR100k per person, for many reasons, for instance because lots of people can have multiple identities -- expect perhaps in the Big Brother societies in the northern EU countries, where you can actually do a census by saying SELECT COUNT(id) FROM population WHERE alive=1;

Moreover, how would you treat accounts that are not owned by a person, but e.g. companies?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It amazes me how many people mention tax evasion, and other excuses for apportioning of liability.

The liability should lie with the people who bought the Cypriot/Greek debt in the first place. They are the ones that in essence lent the money to these two tiny countries when it was obvious it was out of control and would blow up.

But where is the incentive not too when the liability is offloaded to people who had no part in the debt transaction; either the citizens or other third parties.

To me these risk balances are way out of whack and are just asking for the irresponsible fiscal activities we are seeing.

<comment><USER41> the cypriot banks bought the greece dept, that is the problem.

<comment><USER40> And the Greeks bought the Cypriot debt maybe; humour attempt.

This doesn't really change my assertions, the Cypriot debt holders should take the hit first, let the pain filter through the whole rotten trail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Looks to me more like 700k was blocked as part of the capital controls to prevent a bank run. The actual amount to be seized will be much smaller. Cold comfort, I know.

<comment><USER43> Doesn't sound like it[1]. It looks like it is 700k gone.

1\. [http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/03/27/cyprus-finance- mi...](http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/03/27/cyprus-finance-minister- uninsured-laiki-depositors-could-face-80-haircut/)

<comment><USER42> Oops, you're right, this is CPB. He's screwed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> In one sense, this submission really is politics and I feel bad about up- voting it, since politics are against the HN site guidelines.

In another sense, this is also about tech, specifically, bitcoin. The desperate people in Cypress may turn towards alternative currencies as a way to escape their situation.

I know there are a lot of folks around here who vocally support bitcoin or other alternative currencies. For me the _idea_ is very interesting, but the _reality_ makes me nervous. There are one of two possibilities; either (1) I know bitcoin well enough to never trust it, or (2) I don't know bitcoin well enough to make an informed decision.

I'm still betting on the latter. ;-)

None the less, there's a lot of negative bitcoin news that never makes the front page of HN, and I wonder why. The most recent was:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5459304>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fvSYT7vhQY>

The _worst_ part of the above could the sensationalism, but in my opinion, it's my inability to verify the veracity of the claims. Are they just muckraking to (successfully) cause "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt" (FUD)? --Sadly, stuff like this makes us already skeptical and squeamish folks even more nervous about it.

Market manipulation is a very real problem in all markets, so even if the above is entirely true, it's merely one instance of graft against bitcoin, when there are countless instances of corruption in all the other markets.

</comment><comment><USER45> The EU has nothing to do with it it's cyprus that can't keep it's economy afloat.

If i got to decide the EU should have let your contry go bankrupt fall in to civil war, but hey we decided to lend you money to stop that.

But yes blame the very people that helped you from loosing all your money. That seems like a good idea....

</comment><comment><USER46> One possible upshot of this is that maybe people will actually start paying attention to how their home banks are capitalized. What's their reserve ratio? What are their major investments? Have those investments been rated by _independent_ agencies?

Schemes like the FDIC (which, as mentioned in a previous comment, can change the rules at any time) only serve to dumb us down and encourage bad behavior; firstly by lulling depositors into a false sense of security, and secondly by eliminating the incentive to be prudent and appropriately risk-averse.

<comment><USER4> People don't actually need to pay attention to that. Most banks in the European Union are already watched and have regulations up their collective funnels to avoid exactly these kinds of problems. The only mitigation strategy neccessary is to split your cash assets in multiple accounts...

And of course, if you partake in a well-functioning state, which protects your rights against all sorts of problems, educates your workforce, regulates your food and healthcare, you might consider the taxes a bargain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> So, the system worked and he gets to keep €100K? Because his bank is insolvent and that is the amount of money that was insured?

I'm not saying this doesn't suck for him and his company, but €100K is better than €0.

<comment><USER48> Keeps €100K but can not withdraws or transfers €300 daily.

<comment><USER49> That's effectively a 1 year freeze.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> AFAIK that's already more than was lost in any of the bitcoin heists...

</comment><comment><USER51> I don't really see how the EC is robbing when it's actually lending Eur 10bln. Without the loan, _all_ banks would have collapsed and you'd have lost the first 100K as well.

The initial proposal was to only tax a percentage of the saved amount. That was rejected by the cypriotic people/govt.

</comment><comment><USER14> By the by, doesn't that bank logo look kind of familiar? Engadget's logo was inspired by the RSS logo, but this one doesn't even try to be original.

<http://i.imgur.com/WKZEMiQ.png>

<comment><USER52> It's not an especially unique form <http://www.gnsegroup.com/images/logo/TelemedLogo02_News.jpg>. Do you think Engadget did it first?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The alternative is that the bank goes bankrupt and you lose everything. Be glad.

</comment><comment><USER54> If and when those banks reopen there will be a bankrun and they will both go bust. It's only a matter of time.

</comment><comment><USER55> Could someone please tell me, who is going to make money during this fuss?

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if the FDIC can cover US deposits with leverage of 371:1… :P

<comment><USER35> The unlimited FDIC protection ended December 31 2012. It's back to the 250K

<comment><USER17> Correct, and since MF global showed us where deposits lie on the totem pole compared to derivative exposure, i'm quite excited to see whats next when [insert bank here] needs to meet its margin calls :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> It's your fault for using such a bad bank. Just use paypal instead.

/s</comment>


TED Partnerships: Ads Worth Spreading - <AUTHOR> http://partners.ted.com/adsworthspreading/

<comment><AUTHOR> "We want to encourage development of ads-with-a-difference. Ads that engage our audience authentically, intelligently, delightfully. Ads that people will want to share because, like the rest of TED, they encapsulate ideas worth spreading."

Chris Anderson Curator, TED Conferences</comment>


Monument Valley: an iOS and Android game by ustwo - <AUTHOR> http://www.monumentvalleygame.com/ <comment><USER2> needs a humble store or bundle release =)</comment>


UI Testing Tutorial - <AUTHOR>

Can anybody suggest me good UI / Javascript testing framework tutorial.<p>I have heard of qunit and yui test but never used it before. <comment><USER2> I've had success with Scriptaculous Unit test. You can find out more information here:

[http://wiki.github.com/madrobby/scriptaculous/test-unit- runn...](http://wiki.github.com/madrobby/scriptaculous/test-unit-runner)

The test suite itself is fairly standard: you have a test suite with setup and teardown function, then you implement the test cases. You can setup your the test suite in very short amount of time, since it only depends on PrototypeJS and Scriptaculous. There is not very many info or tutorials on this, but you can read the instruction and it will help you get started.

Alex.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Alex. Will give it a try.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best approaches for Javascript game graphics? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering what the most viable approaches are for 2d (or 3d) graphics in straight browser Javascript?.<p>Canvas, SVG? Are there other straightforward approaches that offer primitive graphics operations like drawing lines, circles, pixels? Experiences and thoughts on this much appreciated.<p>(I recently wrote a dinky little javascript game [plug]messynotebook.com/?p=71[/plug]. Straight CSS+DOM worked for me in that case, but I'm looking into better ways of doing it next time.) <comment><USER2> checkout Raphael js it provides cross platform svg type drawing, pretty sweet and that way you can target everyone.</comment>


Deceptions, Misinformation, and Word Games Used to Mislead About Surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/guide-deceptions-word-games-obfuscations-officials-use-mislead-public-about-nsa <comment><USER2> When I read "in this case, we do not do that" it instantly makes me wonder in which cases they _do_.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also: Barry Ritholtz's Cheat Sheet:

[http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/08/cheat-sheet-on- spying/](http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/08/cheat-sheet-on-spying/)

</comment><comment><USER4> At this point, who cares what words Mr. Obama uses to describe his actions? He has done things that demand his sacking; after that, he can tell it to the judge.

</comment><comment><USER5> Anything short of a nationally televised debate between representatives of the government agencies and the civil liberty/privacy groups is useless in my opinion.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 Some of these things might be deceptions, but they also might just be caused by the fact that human language is imperfect and ambiguous and thus it is necessary to have really precise definitions for certain actions, especially when it comes to the law.

<comment><USER3> The traditional method for countering the inherent ambiguity of language is to use more words instead of changing the defintions of common ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words." -1984

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Many thanks to the mods for improving on my title shortening.</comment>


The Adorkable Misogyny of the Big Bang Theory - <AUTHOR> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs <comment><AUTHOR> Growing up around the tech industry in the 1980s, I found the casual racism and sexism of computer engineers difficult to deal with. The behaviour was "excused" by its being an exclusively white male niche, with "geeks" derided by society, excluded from the social core and under-valued as people. As long as this is the defining self-image of people in technology, framed by the US high-school geek vs jock enmity, there is little hope for change. This was not my experience, and it is not a frame that is useful given the dominance of technology in the wider culture. We need as an industry to stop behaving as outsiders and start to accept the responsibilities inherent in leadership. TBBT is one example of the antediluvian attitudes that no longer reflect reality and need to be changed. Cudos to the creator of this video for calling it out.</comment>


Haskell performance patterns - <AUTHOR> http://johantibell.com/files/haskell-performance-patterns.html

<comment><USER2> I have a very basic Haskell understanding, where I still struggle to understand Monads. I read through every slide and I the only thing that I understood, is that Haskell programs can be made faster by forcing strict evaluation and value unpackign. But I have to admit that I still do not understand how this works under the hood and it makes me sad. As well it seems as if lazy-by-default is actually an obstacle for fast programs.

Can someone enlighten me?

<comment><USER3> I find sigfpe's explanation of monads to be very clear. This blog post links to the blog posts he made about monads: [http://blog.sigfpe.com/2010/03/partial-ordering-of-some- cate...](http://blog.sigfpe.com/2010/03/partial-ordering-of-some- category.html)</comment></comment>