skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
<sarcasm>I am so scared by this. You mean, a program I run can do things I don't expect it to do? Oh my... This is huge!</sarcasm>

No, really.

As far as we can know, every instance of Oracle RDBMS, PeopleSoft, AutoCAD, PhotoShop, Windows, Exchange, Office and SQL Server may harbor any number of backdoors. We will never know, since, as the article points out, we cannot examine the source code. And Sophos probably won't know either unless the maker is lame enough to include a fingerprintable backdoor.

If you are a package maintainer, you should always get your source off the tagged releases in the version control system. That way you can always test your build off trunk/head/whatever-the-most-current-version-is and ensure that, when the next release becomes adopted, your package will be fine.

If you are a Linux sysadmin and you are not using package management, you are insane. Or you will be, shortly. Even if you have to use the "yesterday" release, you should build your own package.
Thanks for the input.

Yes, I get along with the other founders. Yes, I've asked them to pay for it. And yes, they've declined. We're sort of at a deadlock.

I posted on HN so I could get input from other hackers. I don't feel that I should air my dirty laundry in public (hence the anonymity)
Since when is doing the whole startup thing about lifestyle and dating women???

If you get it this way, you have already lost in comparison to those dedicated _only_ to the success of their startup.
Considering the news with the antenna, that bumper should be an easy sell even by hawkers going down the line with clipboards.
yeah, you're right. it all adds up (server costs, legal fees, marekting, etc..)
looks quite complete! Did you already publish the results somewhere? I'd be interested :-)

thanks a lot!
You wouldn’t spend your entire marketing budget on a Yellow Pages ad, so why would you do it on a website?

Now, I understand that it would be foolish to spend your entire marketing budget on either, but I think the comparison is a little weak given the scale of each and the size of the target market of each.

A web presence requires significantly more work than some static print creative as well it disseminates far more information as well as provides a platform in which that communication can be two ways.

So while, I agree you should not blow your marketing budget on a web presence, one should consider their web platform as instrumental to their success and dedicate adequate resources to providing a good platform.

Individual who think they are going to get a good site for the price of a print ad, general do themselves a disservice and spend more money in the long run working around problems and having a professional agency clean it up.

Now in saying that, I think Wordpress and Drupal are great pieces of technology for small companies looking to provide a web presence without breaking the bank. As the article stated, not too long ago you where looking at a $20-$100k budget to just get a good web presence of the ground. With the newer technologies those numbers have been significantly reduces and one can have a nice small web presence developed for $1-10k depending on features.
The headline here is a lot more sure of itself than the original.
I met a restaurant owner recently and he says the best people he can hire to be waitresses are mothers with kids in school. They are generally articulate, intelligent, friendly. And they love being able to go home to pick up their kids at 3pm after the lunch rush.
If your hand blocks the signal of one tower, the phone will switch to the next that is probably not in the same direction as the previously best one and signal strength will, hopefully, not suffer as much from your hand.
I guess my original comment was suggesting that someone could look at the source, get a bunch of ideas, then go build something very similar with relative ease.

They wouldn't have to use the same code, but given a code base, organizational structure, and a clear end goal, someone dedicated enough could mimic its functionality in an open source project or roll just the portions they need to prevent any licensing.

Not saying they may not get chased down for it, but if its their own code and it's different enough, Senscha has given them a route to this purely out of the fact the source is visible.
You appear to have your facts wrong. From the study[1]:

> Eligible cases were all patients with a glioma or meningioma of the brain diagnosed in the study regions during study periods of 2–4 years between 2000 and 2004.

So participants in the study lasted between 2 and 4 years. Since elevated rates of cancer were only found in the group with the highest usage[2], this means people with >=1640 hours of talk time, which means between 68 and 34 hours per month.

Not two hours per month. And this is easy to sanity check; here's the study again:

> Corresponding values for [median lifetime cumulative call time] glioma controls were 100 h lifetime, 2.5 h/month and about 2000 calls.

So the median user used about 2.5 hours per month, not the heavy user.

Now, let's hear them out a bit more:

> Overall, no increase in risk of glioma or meningioma was observed with use of mobile phones. There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at the highest exposure levels, but biases and error prevent a causal interpretation. The possible effects of long-term
heavy use of mobile phones require further investigation.

It's also worth noting that you're using the word double somewhat duplicitously. Yes, the study found double the glioma rate in very heavy users (as discussed, much more than two hours per month), but it also found that the rest of cellphone users are less likely to get cancer than average.

If we take your causal analysis seriously, then we should also take this seriously: low to moderate cell phone usage grants instant partial immunity to brain cancer.

So, because the cancer rate in the study population excluding the highest usage group was .7 of what it is in the normal population, a rate of 1.4 times the normal population among heavy users is double the rate seen in the rest of the study population.

[1]:http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/ije/press_release...
[2]:http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010...

edited to add: Upon reflection, my analysis of the talk time is slightly wrong. The study means >=1640 hours lifetime cell phone usage. You can still use your cellphone 2.5 hours per month for 54 years before you reach this threshold.
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For those who find that interesting, read up on L-Systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system). There was a great free ebook on this a while ago, but unfortunately the title (and URL) escapes me at the moment.
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Typewriting has a visceral pleasure to it (correction tape and all) that no MacBook will ever come close to. I think this appeal to the visceral is why sometimes I will just pick up my notepad or find a napkin to brainstorm and avoid the iDevices.
It probably mean that anybody who can concentrate and focus on long stretch of time, while also processing information deeply will have an easier time earning a living relative to the scatterbrain unfocused internet mind.
One problem is that turning them off means that you get lots of prompts in flash to allow them individually.
Relevant image: http://i.imgur.com/zAJ0y.jpg
Dividends are much better. Once the market speaks a formerly mighty stock can drop very quickly. I'd rather have the cash now then a slow reduction in supply. After the "great recession crash" we saw how demand can change and even with less supply see huge drops in stock price.
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You can always call this number from your iPhone: 3001#12345#

and put your phone in field test mode

(http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/iphone/iphone-field-test-mode-let...)
That's a good point, but the first time I had a need for it was when my wife was searching for "breast cancer treatments," and the search popped up for one of the kids. That caused some grief because they thought that "mommy" was sick. She wasn't/isn't, she was just doing some research, but we had a bit of a tense time.

porno was from a different machine :)
You mean, the phones that you can do video chat on, with someone else who owns one?
I think this this raises an interesting point, why do we look at space with such awe in comparison arguably more complex and certainly more dangerous engineering tasks closer to home?
Talk about sweeping statements. There is a hell of a lot more to "Basic market economics" than "If the market's not willing to pay, then the market will adjust the price" but thanks for ridiculing everyone in the field.

In this particular instance, cases are just an accessory market for Apple. They don't care if they are selling as many of these as possible because it's not even a secondary revenue stream. They can afford to let it just sit there at $29 until it rots or someone buys it.
Right. I feel the need to add that it's not all "us vs. them" in the day-to-day, but the subject of this post is a negotiation between me and them, hence the 'us vs. them' demeanor in some of my comments.

I think you're right to question whether the $40/month is the real issue. I am questioning myself whether I want to be on a team whose non-technical leaders (I feel) do not respect their technical team members.
I bet this guy thinks using tabs in source code is a bright idea too.
somewhere on this site I posted my aliases for dealing with this problem ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1401118 )
I don't buy it. Don't have much reasoning more then gut feeling but it just doesn't sit right. Also, claiming such a thing as the internet is making us stupid is a great way to sell books.

It would seem that the author made a conclusion and didn't have that hard of a time finding evidence to support it. Now that sort of thinking is rampant on the internet and a real problem.
I don't know about this particular study, but many of these cell phone radiation studies are statistically flawed in that they start with cancer patients and then ask them about cell phone use. If you do that, you are almost guaranteed to find something if you ask enough questions.
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I will burst out laughing if a worm on my linux starts ask for dependencies.
IPhone 4 Antenna Issues explained
Try This Tutorial: Altering swf code with Yogda
I do agree (in part) with his answer to this question that I asked: “How should the industry be approaching software development, in your opinion?”

He answered, “With humility and measurement.

"The Principle of Dispassionate Methodology: Don’t get your method advice from a method enthusiast. The best advice comes from people who care more about your problem than about their solution."

This makes me want to read that other guy's blog! Sounds like an approach to software methodology that would come out of LessWrong.
I feel the need to follow up on this comment.

IMO, the OP of the comment was rude by implying that having internet as a utility is on the same level as having electricity or that I'd need to buy my own computer to be on call. (Especially since he didn't explain his reasoning) If this were reddit, I wouldn't have bothered, but I feel the need to call out especially negative, rude, or non-constructive comments on HN.

My apologies that I sniped at him/her.
It doesn't really work for everyone.
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This has been around for a very long time (2005 or so). They were originally called Persistent Identification Elements.

Have a browse:
http://duckduckgo.com?q=persistent+identification+elements&#...
The Amazon 1984 book was malicious?
The title is inflamatory, sensational, and misleading - albeit effective.

As others have pointed out, this isn't a "linux trojan" as much as it is a "software source code repository hack."

Dropping a trojan into someones unguarded source repository can happen on any system. This isn't anywhere close to a "security breach" for linux because people still had to download and compile source.

This raises an interesting question - do you trust the source you build? But that's a different issue. The closest thing to Linux security issues is the null pointer bug which allows arbitrary execution as root. And that's like one in 25 years as far as I know.
HTTP Error 403.6 - Forbidden: IP address of the client has been rejected.
Even as a developer, I hope to God that is never available to anyone but Google.

If I've downloaded a free app, and the developer decides he wants money instead, I don't want him having the power to forcibly uninstall the free app from my phone as "incentive" to buy the paid version.

I could probably imagine other malicious uses of that feature if you need more proof that it's a bad idea.
But I don't view that stock buyback as successful.[...]But we let the cash sit in the bank and worse we gave a lot of it back to investors in a manner that did not do much for the company.

Cash for investors? But doing nothing for the company? That's a good thing and more companies should do this.

The sole purpose of the company is [1] to increase shareholder value. If reinvesting in the company would bring above-market returns, then it's a good idea to do. If not, corporate leadership should increase shareholder value with cash rather than building an empire with other people's money.

[1] I ignore nonprofits and corporations with special clauses in their charter.
Sorry but those are not best in class. iTunes doesn't play nicely with windows and there is no way to use my Ipod as an usb device, something that every single mp3 player I have even brought did.

Face it, Apple makes shiny things but they are crap.
> "If an application is removed in this way, users will receive a notification on their phone."

The notification is optional (the Market TOS clearly states that they can remove applications without warning)

> And honestly, you're trying to spin the removal of malicious apps as something bad? Really now?

The applications removed were not even malicious (and that's straight from the Android Dev blog), they misrepresented themselves in the description but that's pretty much it.

So clearly, the Android team allows itself to remove not just malicious applications but any and all application from users's handsets.
FYI, minor change to the stylesheet (pre {overflow:auto;}) to improve readability of preformatted text: http://anoved.net/2010/06/mcreadability-and-preformatted-tex...
No, and neither were the applications removed here.
> Today something bad is malicious software.

Or it might be, it happens that it isn't:

> These applications intentionally misrepresented their purpose in order to encourage user downloads, but they were not designed to be used maliciously, and did not have permission to access private data — or system resources beyond permission.INTERNET.
Right angle circuitry
Most Linux users get all their software from their distribution's repositories, instead of pulling source from assorted websites. All major distributions GPG sign their packages and use (GPG signed) checksums, which are automatically verified by the package managers.

On Windows, you may need to go to dozens of vendor sites to get software updates - each with their own update procedure (in addition to the Windows update itself). This process alone is probably responsible for many Windows infections, as it's hard for end-users to tell what's 'normal'.

There's also a difference in the user base. Linux desktop users, by definition, are more technically knowledgeable and experienced - they can install an OS. As trivial as it sounds, most people are not willing or able to do that. The willingness to learn what's necessary leads to better practices.
5.5GB in one cell. The human body in a way is like a massive parallel computer, with cells giving and receiving signals and affecting other cells. There are approximately 30 trillion cells. Although most of the DNA is junk, the genome is better compared to software (containing data + algorithms).
If you prefer dividends, sell shares back to the company in proportion the share buyback. It's mathematically equivalent to dividends (you own the same fraction of the company before and after), but you pay less tax.
"I didn't understand what was going on. We had more cash than it would take to buy back every share in the company and yet the stock kept going down."

Obvious exaggeration. How many companies have more cash than market cap? Only ones that owe the money to someone else and cannot use it to buy back their stock. That made me question the whole article.
Bloomberg.com - Black or White (Safari vs Firefox)
I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what is going on with the Bloomberg website (www.bloomberg.com). I recently noticed when visiting this site from Firefox that the styling has changed significantly, specifically the background has changed from black to white and the layout has also changed. Now I much prefer the old style to the new, but more importantly I recently visited the same site from Safari only to find the old (Black Background) design still in full operation. When I visit www.bloomberg.com from Safari I am re-directed to noir.bloomberg.com

So, here I think I'm onto something and I return to Firefox, type in noir.bloomberg.com and wait for the magic - but no luck - instead I am redirected back to www.bloomberg.com and forced to endure their new (and crappy, IMHO) white background website.

What gives? Are they just subjecting me to an A/B test against my will? Is there anything I can do to get my precious noir Bloomberg back on Firefox?

Help!
Read: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Artists spend their whole lives on the awareness of seeing. When you fall for someone you truly see them, much like an artist does. There is more beauty in that than a roomful of 10's at a wet T-shirt contest.
I can only imagine the kind of domain name land-grab this will invoke. Squatters will be prepping their naughty keywords database in preparation, I suspect.
I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what is going on with the Bloomberg website (www.bloomberg.com). I recently noticed when visiting this site from Firefox that the styling has changed significantly, specifically the background has changed from black to white and the layout has also changed. Now I much prefer the old style to the new, but more importantly I recently visited the same site from Safari only to find the old (Black Background) design still in full operation. When I visit www.bloomberg.com from Safari I am re-directed to noir.bloomberg.com

So, here I think I'm onto something and I return to Firefox, type in noir.bloomberg.com and wait for the magic - but no luck - instead I am redirected back to www.bloomberg.com and forced to endure their new (and crappy, IMHO) white background website.

What gives? Are they just subjecting me to an A/B test against my will? Is there anything I can do to get my precious noir Bloomberg back on Firefox?

Help!
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while this is a great article, and it is probably 99% correct, isn't there something wrong with generalizing from "I hired one artist with flexible time, it was good" to "all hail artists flexiworking as the revolution to come" ?
(Or Did I miss the listing of other artists he hired in the article?)

With envy, a fairly flexible (sadly-)non-artsy worker
Websockets alive in Firefox nightly builds
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/

Seems to work great so far, excellent to see support spreading now.
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Classic: "Zigtag: In Need of Tagging Assistant"
I think he's missing the point. When a stock is trading below its tangible book value each share of stock bought back delivers increased value per share to the remaining stockholders.

The only reason not to buy back shares if they're trading below tangible book value [1] is because you have investments available that will yield greater returns, or do not have sufficient cash to do so.

[1] Factoring in a margin of safety, of course.
Thanks. I think almost everyone I've spoken to agrees (as do I) that I need internet. Any input on who should foot the bill?
Release yourself to the church, to the state, to Apple Corporation. Or Flow.
A limit order sell at $20.00 will never be executed at $1. It will never even be executed at $19.99. It will simply go unfilled until someone is willing to sell at $20.00 or higher.
I use Flush by machacks to delete my Flash cookies. I think it's for Mac OS X only. http://machacks.tv/2009/01/27/flushapp-flash-cookie-removal-...
In Nintendo's "Duck Hunt," how does the TV know when you've hit a duck?
Nice to see crazy in-depth coverage for phones (this article covers both the Motorola Droid and the N900) that have been around the block a few times rather than just cheer-leading the newest and shiniest. I had to triple-check this wasn't just an old article getting reposted.

Interesting that he keeps saying the N900 is more a tablet than a phone, which I think people have always said, but suddenly in the post-iPad world where Apple have apparently created a new market segment, those years of experience building little internet tablets might stand them in good stead.

Personally I'm glad to see so many worthy contenders in the phone/tablet space (meaning iOS, Android, Meego & WebOS with room for more I think).
Apple Acknowledges iPhone 4 Reception Issues, Says Don't Hold It Like That
Couldn't agree more re increasing shareholder value.

Also, a share buyback signals to investors that the company believes its shares are undervalued.
Facebook Unleashes Open Graph Search Engine, Declares War On Google
He realizes your point- he remarks "We just gave back a lot of cash to the investors."

His point is that companies that can't find better ways to use capital than a buy back aren't innovative enough to succeed in the long term
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I think you hit the nail on the head; anonymous CTO seems to have some commitment issues, and doesn't seem to realize that a site that's having unscheduled downtime of 3 or more hours a week is going to feel flaky (that's 98% uptime folks), and that it's his responsibility to take care of it. Battling over internet at his home is a proxy for his other frustrations with the startup. But yeah, expecting the CTO to have internet access at home, and to be able to keep the effing site UP for customers isn't out of line for a startup.

My take, this venture is over; it's done, once team members are taking petty office grievances public like this, there is no team anymore.
The iPhone 4 uses a microsim instead of regular sim cards. It takes some time to replace and transfer data to the new one - the whole process takes 15min per person, thus mindlowinly slow lines.
Palantir Raises $90 Million