skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Google's _entire business_ is based not only on accessing servers without authorization, frequently in explicit violation of that site's terms of use because ToU boilerplate includes languages excluding all "crawlers, bots, or spiders", but also on flagrant violation of copyright law. They save the entire text of the web page on their servers when they crawl it (unlicensed copying), rehost it in Google Cache (unlicensed redistribution), save all the images and rehost them on Google Images (both), and so forth. All of this is absolutely illegal under current copyright law.

Google was fortunately that no one sued them for these things before they got big enough to defend themselves. Many tech entrepreneurs haven't been so lucky.

You may ask why a big company like Google isn't doing more to change the CFAA or copyright law. The reason is now that they're big enough, legal grey areas like those in the CFAA (particularly, "what is unauthorized access?", because it's not defined by the statute) can be fully exploited, and Google can sit secure in the knowledge that they'll never be realistically challenged on it; meanwhile, they can then threaten potential competitors for doing the same thing, since a lawsuit against a public corporation takes 10 years and $5MM-$20MM. Anyone who could mount that kind of offense against Google won't, because they benefit from the grey area too; they'll just make some backroom deal with Google and not lose their lucrative, competition-destroying ability to do things that companies with sub-$100M revenues aren't able to do.
In any judge's opinion, you'd be full of shit. Judges aren't stupid.

Which doesn't matter, because the WSJ is never going to sue you. But make sure you only consider your justification a personal one, not one that would provide any legal protection.
5 Painful Problems Sales Leaders Can Fix Today to Build a Stronger Pipeline
I agree that it's a marketing strategy, just 2 or so weeks ago Apple was getting huge amounts of bad press for their poor software development practices. So much so that it had been consuming large publications. I don't take it as a coincidence that Apple released the statement to re-gain some of that lost face. However, I don't think it's a zero-sum game, and I think Apple is definitely doing the right thing by challenging this in the courts. Apple even stated in their press release that they had previously complied with close to 80 FBI requests to unlock devices in varying degrees, but they never disclosed the breadth of what they had done in those past requests. So why choose now? Timing is everything.

I think both sides of the case are engaging in a lot of PR. The original FBI request for unlock looks pretty tame, unlock ONLY that device, disable ONLY a software protection that would delete files on failed attempts. I think the best way to compare it to is physical objects so we can get the software pieces out of the way and reason with it a bit better. Would it be within the FBI's power to ask a Safe-maker to disable a mechanical security measure on a safe that destroyed the contents of the safe when the combination was entered incorrectly after a specific number of attempts, and the FBI had no other way to obtain entry to it?

I'm not sure how far that analogy gets you or what the laws actually are, but the only way to actually get them changed is to challenge them.
Labor? My credit card auto-pays in full each month. For that I get use of someone else's money, points and cash back, and additional warranties. It is no extra work for me, and actually has less stress because if a bad charge does come through the money will never leave my account.

If you use a debit card now and are use to paying in full you are leaving literally hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per year on the table in free money by not using a credit card.
Review: The $79 Endless Mini PC isn't for you, but it's still pretty cool
It's a statement of stability.

Dev is frequently the next breaking change and/or code tested solely by is creator.

QA is code going through the in-house QA process and is basically a previously nightly build which is trusted enough to be tested against live data.

Prod is the last QA promoted to production + any hotfixes.

Library changes are slow due to the need to verify we aren't breaking production systems so we frequently have a Prod that doesn't match QA that doesn't match Dev because the process can take a month for breaking changes.

Even for non-breaking changes, we generally freeze production for ~1 week if the changes are substantial enough that we might have missed something.

We can't exactly ignore production bugs for 1-4 weeks.

---

The problem with Julian Dates isn't they aren't immediately human readable which is useful for lining up what was running when.
Not at all, I would bet that it was written in response to my post.
Recently purchased an older model LG oled, and it has all sorts of "smart" features. Simply not connecting it to the internet and not agreeing to the terms of service has turned it back into a dumb tv.
Is it possible that the enclave is in fact an ASIC with the crypto logic and udid burned into the silicon? That would ensure that it couldn't be updated or compromised, by Apple or anyone else.

This is pretty far outside my area of expertise, so that may be a very dumb question.
It is terribad in IE11, the background lags behind and leaps ahead at 10Hz or so as I scroll. If I were seizure prone, I would be having one right now.
Access to space.

There could be different things to do in space, so offerings differ. SpaceX offers you the "orbital" space - you can put your payload on orbit and it's going to sit there for a long time, while doing research, serving communications, observing Earth - or even leave for another planet altogether. Virgin Galactic hopes to offer you the "suborbital" space - a short (ten minutes or so) rides to heights of about 100 km, with some 4 minutes of weightlessness included - for a lot smaller price than SpaceX.

So, you can have different accesses to space. Space have different places (and, in case of suborbital flight, speeds) - and the costs to get there are different.
I actually like the font a lot.. it's readable, depending on size/resolution, and has a nice "unfinished" feel to it.
> You could eat nothing but potatoes, or even mangoes, and still get enough protein

And probably diabetes too!
> People who form corporations are granted free speech abilities that are beyond the means of everyone else.

Corporations such as -- to pick an example completely at random -- the New York Times?

One of the many, many problems with advocating limiting corporate speech is that virtually everything larger than complaining on a blog or tacking a sign to an electrical pole is done by a corporate organization. If the New York Times can say what it pleases using its vast financial resources and nationwide distribution networks, it's very hard to argue coherently that, say, General Electric can't.
Oh yeah, there are a ton of possible combinations...with and within the Watson system. I haven't found much success with their currently available vision APIs, but have thought it'd be a cool idea to calculate facial expressions during given phrases, which is something that Microsoft Oxford and Faceplusplus offer...though that's probably not as relevant as calculating vocal tones.
>Linode’s security team did discover a vulnerability in Lish’s SSH gateway that potentially could have been used to obtain information discovered on December 17, although we have no evidence to support this supposition. We immediately fixed the vulnerability.

Yeah, LiSH was exploited like 3 years ago...

Unless it's been completely redesigned it's probably still got heaps of vulnerabilities, screen wasn't designed for untrusted input.

>CC Tokenization: Although our investigation yielded no evidence of credit card information being accessed, we are taking advantage of our payment processor’s tokenization feature to remove the risk associated with storing credit card information.

Nobody thought about doing this when every customers card plaintext card info was taken years ago?

Anyway, the entire blog post is bullshit. It completely fails to address their previous security track record. A single hack isn't that big of a deal, but this has happened to Linode countless of times.
How to Reduce Deployment Times
Agreed but it isn't curated information - I bought a bunch of old Pascal books but finding newer info that isn't Delphi specific is pretty damn hard - a set of design pattern books for FPC guis would be amazing. The forums are good though!
Yes, and if I don’t want people to steal stuff I should lock my door.

It’s still not morally okay to claim the work of someone else for yourself.
A usable, secure messenger is a pretty important niche to fill. Cryptocat is a good concept (usability is important), but its implementation is flawed enough that it's worse than useless. With some TLC, better ground-up design, and through auditing? Pretty sweet. There isn't one messenger that fills every niche reasonably well (eg. Tox is fragmented and hasn't been audited as far as I'm aware, Jitsi is clunky and relies heavily on outside services, Retroshare requires an intricate knowledge of GPG, several other messengers sit over Tor which requires education, and libpurple is garbage, etc.).
"can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?"

OMG,that would be one fast Beowulf cluster!
Yes, and I suspect that's what going to get them to change it back again. After a ban from Google and the traffic drop it'll likely bring, that paywall is likely coming right back down. An awful lot of media companies made similar mistakes before, and it's always ended with them quickly removing their 'work arounds'.
See: "but the execution was flawed."

> Security at the expense of usability comes at the expense of security.

It got the usability part down, it just wasn't secure. And I wasn't claiming it was.
> but that various classes of corporations should have constraints appropriate to their class.

Who will decide what class a corporation falls into?

I get the uneasy feeling that, practically speaking, corporations expressing certain approved political opinions or supporting approved political candidates will have the least constraints.
There's also http://shop.keyboard.io who (from my limited experience on demo keyboards) have _much_ better thumb cluster design & positioning than the ergodox... Looking forward to manufacturing happeing for that.
Man, and I thought I had scoured all of the Preferences, too. Thanks!
The author says that Google and Github imitate aboriginal methods.

Later, he says that we are right to fear aboriginal companies.

Wait, what are aboriginal companies? Google and Github? They are failing, is that why we should fear them? Or we should fear them because they have lost their way, and that this is also making them fail is merely incidental?

I'm confused.

I thought this article was going to be about tribal founders or something.
I am a SimpliSafe customer, and I emailed them about this. Here is the response:

"Thanks for writing in. As our systems use wireless technology, there is an understandable concern over the potential to hack or jam our signal.

Much of it comes from a certain video online that fails to depict the equipment used or the number of attempts made to compromise that signal. While any wireless system is susceptible to this type of attack from a sufficiently savvy and motivated intruder, our systems can be backed up with with a land line or an internet connection for no additional cost.

Also, this type of attack represents such a small percentage of total break-ins that the FBI does not even keep a count. This is because the majority of break-ins are a quick forced entry and not the sophisticated type of attack that requires diligent planning as well as highly illegal and cost-prohibitive equipment.

Assuming an intruder has the requisite technology, he would need to know the frequency ranges he needs to jam, and also know the layout of your home beforehand, as he would have to avoid motion detectors even in the unlikely event that he bypassed a door sensor.

Furthermore, our systems use a proprietary algorithm that helps the system distinguish between everyday interference from nearby household electronics, and unusual, possibly targeted interference. Our interactive monitoring plan for $24.99/month can be set up to notify you if your system detects abnormal RF interference.

Ultimately, no system is impenetrable, and it would be unfair for us or any company to tell you otherwise, but SimpliSafe has measures in place to protect you against this type of intrusion, and with the likelihood of cellular jamming being as slim as it is, the odds are more than in your favor."

Note they are trying to sell me on their most expensive plan and that they never mentioned the attack that is referenced in the article (which I linked to)."

Time to look into a new company.
Code signing isn't a backdoor. It's the only door. Coercing or bribing someone into giving up their private key also does not make it a backdoor. But it does violate the explicit promise of code provenance, and thus very broadly and indiscriminately will reduce trust in the entire computing ecosystem, not limited to just Apple.
You're assuming that 'food' is a single fungible commodity. Spending twice as much on food doesn't mean buying twice as much food, it could also mean buying better quality food and going to higher quality restaurants. I could easily both double and triple my current food spending without eating more or wasting food.
Show HN: Locent – Mailchimp for SMS
While I agree with general sentiment, he only tried two laptops. Why not the Dell XPS?
Instructions are at https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2938260?hl=en. Even though the setting is under Android Settings it does also enable Google Now for iOS.
Building a Unidirectional Data Flow App in Swift with Realm
Hey guys,

Thanks for reviewing our product! We built Locent to help you reach customers more effectively using SMS (text messaging). Think of us as Mailchimp for SMS. We help you build a full text marketing program in minutes. All the ordinary email use cases apply with text messaging, we just have higher read rates and conversion rates particularly on smartphones. Really appreciate your feedback!
Don't mix the separate points I was making. Text messages are like mail, other device use is like thought, imagination, or memory. I also notice you didn't mention spouses, which are treated differently from friends, and did not address the third point about encryption.

I'm also not making an argument from sci-fi, I'm talking about reality today. Star Trek (especially TNG) has a lot of great morality plays and valuable lessons can be learned from it, but the vast majority of the action we see takes place on a military-like vessel and can't inform us about how to structure a total population. But this is all beside the point that we are experiencing the melding of our minds and our devices right now.
I've had a number of jobs in different cities (none in SV and only a couple that were really "startups") and I find it completely normal to have alcohol in the office and eerily sterile to ban it. Nobody really starts drinking before 5pm and almost everybody finishes up their work for the day first. I've never found it to be a problem. I would have a hard time trusting people that I felt like I couldn't have a drink with.
I completely agree that a usable, secure messenger is important!
18 USC § 1030 (a) (4) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

Knowingly and with intent to defraud, accesses a
protected computer without authorization, or exceeds
authorized access, and by means of such conduct
furthers the intended fraud and obtains anything of value,

The courts have interpreted "protected computer" as any computer connected to the internet.
Cool beans, herb.
Also be careful about redirect handling: http://evil.com might redirect you to file:///etc/passwd
Well, if she can't "get" another CEO job, she can just create one. She's got enough money and contacts to simply start her own company and be its CEO.
What we actually do is ignore it until we encounter someone complaining about it, and then harass them on social media for their insensitivity.
I don't know about that. The business world tends to recycle CEO's like the NFL recycles head coaches. And for something of the same reason - some people believe it's better to hire somebody who's done a job and failed (and learned a lot about what went wrong and what to do better next time), as opposed to hiring somebody who's never done the job at all. Some look at it as "I'd rather hire somebody who got trained on someone else's dime".

I'm not necessarily endorsing this position, but I think it has at least some merit.
Not sure it wouldn't work.

Imagine you have a small GPL program, that all it does is to load plugins, e.g. with dlopen and invokes some function, let's call it "main".

It clearly doesn't care what license the binary loaded that way has.

What i does is to load a binary in memory, locate an address and transfer control to it. If the GPL didn't allow this kind of thing to happen, then the GPL linux kernel couldn't possibly load any proprietary program.

Now, let's allow those "plugins" to do something more interesting: request some action by the plugin host. The "main" function receives a function pointer that serves as an entry point for "system calls". Again, it's perfectly legal to invoke such a function, regardless of whether you can see this as "dynamic linking", you can also see this as "providing an operating system system call".

If you're not convinced, let's call this "plugin host" an novel operating deepcloudstrumpfkernel operating system.

Now, this is a pretty hard to use interface. You probably want a library linked to your "plugin"/"program" that provides a more natural interface on top of this basic "syscall" interface. This library and it's headers will contain functions, constants etc.

This library doesn't have to be licensed with GPL; any license compatible with your "plugin" will do. Let's make it CDDL (or MIT).

Now, it would be very useful that this library, or parts of it (e.g. constant definitions), is shared with the "plugin host" a.k.a deepcloudstrumpfkernel; No problem again, whoever owns the copyright for this library can release it with both MIT and GPL license.

You can use the same trick to implement a loadable kernel module that doesn't violate the GPL. However there is a lot of work.

In order to properly abide by the GPL rules, you must be able to build a fully working kernel module without touching any line of GPL code (except header files and library objects provided by the compiler and your OS "primary interface").

This last part is what is tricky. If you want to create a kernel module, you need to include some helpers. If linux had a stable "driver API", somebody else could write a library that helps you build a compliant kernel module, but in order to be more agile, IIRC the linux kernel module subsystem is designed to be source compatible and not binary compatible between releases and the layer exposes a lot of linux internals, which are part of the kernel and it would be very hard to duplicate all this without being caught in a copy paste.

jbooth's suggestion was to write such a dummy layer that bridges the linux VFS interface with something else; thus not requiring the kernel module to use the internal linux API. However
there is more to it than the VFS API: you also need the bare minimum to make your kernel module actually loadable by the kernel not depend on any GPL library that helps you adhere to that ABI.
I think if they are going to sell at volume, it has to be as animal feed. I just can't see enough people wanting to eat crickets themselves - but most of those people probably don't care what the animals they are eating were fed with.
Depends on audience and type of site too.
Journals requiring trials to be preregistered could help, if the registration included a requirement to report at least informally on the outcome of the trial.
The page's title "Security Investigation Retrospective" fits the content better than the current HN's "Linode Security Advisory":
it is about last July's breach that caused January's password reset; what happened and what they've done about it.
We need a D&D nerd on the google book scanning team to get involved so their scanners can be use for this.

Anyone know how to connect with them??

Wizards should also reach out to this team with this request...
Yup, and it feels more train of thought which also makes it easier to follow. I loved it.
> a request can only be considered malformed if it doesn't conform to the standards

That is demonstrably false. I, personally, can consider any request malformed unless it starts with the letter W. Regardless of what the standards say, I can think whatever I want to.

Similarly, the law can make up whatever rules IT wants to about the definition of "malformed". In that case, it pays some scant attention to things like standards, but mostly cares about "to the random guy-on-the-street (jury member or judge) did this seem like stealing". And there, I am afraid you lose.
Yup. It solves my main complaint about the ergodox, which is the poorly placed/uncomfortable thumb cluster. It also has out-of-band communication with PC for e.g. LED or layer controls, which, well, I've thought of a few interesting things for that already. At minimum, indicators for e.g. vi insert mode, running shell as root, &c&c...
There are preliminary benchmarks from Phoronix available here:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=talos-wor...

TL;DR Performs similarly to current E3/E5 xeon CPUs, and the 64 cores (57 tested) are great for parallel workloads. There's some applications (OpenSSL) missing POWER8-specific optimization.
I argued for parallel development, not necessarily imitation. Though methodology does not exist in a vacuum, but parallel development does occur. So what if I was making that argument? What if it was true? Would it offend you?

I mean that we are right to fear something that makes us confront a difficult part of our self.

Learning is painful and hard. It is rational to fear those lessons. But to run from them means lacking courage and it is this courage that is behind any true greatness in the world.

Thanks for commenting btw
Not sure what to think about Linode anymore, on the one hand from a pure reliability point of view they have been bullet proof, had a few issues during the DDoS in December and I've always found their support to be good (the few times I've used them in 7 years).

On the other hand they've had security issues fairly regularly and their response to the DDoS was pretty poor.

That said if I was a cynic I'd say they probably have one of the best setups for dealing with future attacks (old joke about never firing an employee who made an expensive mistake because he'll never make that mistake again) and finally seem to be taking security seriously, for me the list of changes all sound good (particulary open sourcing Linode Manager and tokenising CC's had to reset a card because of them once before).

We are slowly moving a lot of stuff back to a DC up the road but we still have some stuff with them.
I do not think using any User-Agent alone constitutes a crime. There are valid non-criminal reasons why one would like to use Googlebot's or other User-Agent. I think it is the intent to bypass the paywall + success to do so that may be regarded as offense or even crime, but I'm not sure.
"There are no jobs" and "have you seen what kind of weather they have" apply just as much to Vermont as they do to Maine. (fewer killer clowns or vampires tho).

The "next to NY/MA" is a bit disingenuous; there's hardly anything on the NY side of the border, and even less on the MA side.
Interconnect and memory would eat up most of the resources.
I believe the parent comment was referring to "allowing updates of the OS without requiring either unlock of the device or a wipe of stored data" as the backdoor.
An Introduction to IPFS