skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What is Apple supposed to do to prevent a social network app (i.e., something plausibly worth granting access to your contact list, and so asking for permission to access your contacts wouldn't help) from uploading your data to their servers?

I think having some sort of permission guard for contacts is totally worth doing, but to put Path's sending of your contacts to a remote server in the same category as Apple not asking before allowing something to see your contacts is misleading at best.
downvotes, really? for me it's the quickest way to get IRL material onto my phone.
If you're looking for a product idea; here's one that I have thought of since it's something that both I and enough other people have wanted that I think it's profitable.

A simple invoicing and shipping application, SAAS at a fairly low rate for tiny businesses.

You need to be able to enter customer data and product/service info, generate a nice, printable invoice and envelope and also offer the option to email the invoice. On the ship side, it should print out a packing list and a shipping label. Bonus points if it an print USPS postage paid labels, or FedEx, or UPS.

A very simple app to be sure (so why the hell haven't I done a basic version for myself yet but still keep doing it manually???) but I've seen enough people online looking for this that I'm convinced it's worthwhile. Go build it and make millions with my blessing!
A smear campaign whereby a person commits an illegal act of posting child pornography?
I'm not saying the following does happen. It is rather an example of the kind of thing that could happen when an email provider uses the content of your email to show you targeted ads:

1. You are engaged in an email exchange concerning a sensitive topic.

2. Your email provider targets you with an ad based on information associated with that sensitive topic.

3. You click that ad.

4. The advertiser records your IP address. They know what ad campaign the ad you clicked was part of, and what demographic they targeted it to. So, now they know your IP address is associated with that demographic.

5. The advertiser sells their IP demographic data.

6. Others sell IP demographic data that ties your identity to the IP address.

Now someone who buys the right databases can end up knowing that there is a good chance you (by name/address or email address) is likely in a demographic associated with that sensitive topic.

The bottom line is that the data miners are very very clever. They can extract amazing data out of seemingly innocuous data leaks. Clicking a targeted ad is one such data leak.
I think no mention of debunking psychics is complete without a nod to James Randi http://www.randi.org/site/ and of course, Houdini, who debunked countless mystics by explaning their "magical" techniques. Sure, we can all point to Mythbusters and Penn and Teller, but some of those early guys did an amazing job of arming the public.

If we'd only listen. http://www.stubhub.com/john-edward-tickets/
Would love one of these for NYC.

Or maybe just a neighborhood map for 20-somethings
These sort of subreddits have existed for years, although it is most definitely the case that the actions of Something Awful caused them to be shut down, they did not create them. For example r/teen_girls has existed for 6 months.
Even if the questionable content was legal I still support this. I don't think a website is under any obligation to allow content they don't want strictly to protect free speech. They don't want people posting sexually suggestive images of kids? That's their prerogative.
Are you honestly trying to set up a slippery slope argument starting with child pornography?

There's a significant difference between protected speech and illegal material. Reddit (finally) cracked down on illegal material. Let's talk when they crack down on legal speech.
Firstly, even "free" porn makes money through ads. Lots of traffic x CPM always equals lots of money. Secondly, there is a huge business in high caliber and specialty porn. There are plenty of people out there with money to burn and a desire for something more specialized or higher quality than what you can find for free.

Edit: let me set up an exaggerated thought experiment for clarity. Imagine that the government commissioned a "one tru porn" project, creating a porn video that's a few hours long that is then hosted for free of charge for the world. It has all the normal sex acts anyone would want to witness, it has several very beautiful and very naked people in it, really, it's quite good. So why wouldn't everyone just watch that if they had a desire to watch porn? Quite simply put, because they want something else. They want a different experience, they want a different variety of people to look at, etc. The same phenomenon exists whether there is a small selection of free porn or a very large selection.
I didn't get this impression. It seemed to me that while the admins found the content personally distasteful, they did not want to erode freedom of speech. This is why it "took so long"; it was a debate, not a clear-cut decision (in their eyes).

It seems like the potential PR/legal fallout has now outweighed any philosophical musings.
Funny that they knew the 3 day old subreddit before everyone else.
British Facebook URL redirects to Google 404?
Are you w1ntermute of binrev fame?
Anyone using or planning on using Go in the near future? For what?

It looks intriguing but I can't think of any obvious immediate applications (I'm sure there are plenty, I just don't see them).
Are you sure that's how entrepreneurs and investors think in Italy?

I strongly suspect that if you genuinely tried hard in a business that ultimately failed, and truly learned some difficult lessons then people will give you another chance.

For most of us, failure is a milestone on the road to success.
Microsoft Store hacked in India, passwords and usernames exposed
mail between servers is also generally encrypted via TLS

Source for this? It historically has not been, but this may have changed.

Regardless, end-to-end encryption with PGP or S/MIME is the only way to really send "secure" email, and even then you're vulnerable to snooping/mishandling/exposure at the end points when the emails are actually read.
Ah yes, those pesky weekends getting in the way of someone spoon feeding you an education.

Instead of lazily spouting nonsense about outdated teaching methods failing in the US how about you expend your own energy figured out why nations outranking the US do better? What they do different? What could apply here? Maybe even put your own effort into formulating a post from knowledge, rather than lazy ignorance.
See, I think that's the problem. There are tons of opportunities in the boring CRUDdy stuff because the startup minded all flock to the exciting ideas.

And as a result, Joe the plumber doesn't get that app that would automatically tell him the best route to his next stop along with what tools to pull out of the van and SMS the homeowner that he's on the way.
There are a few things that strike me about it, which would lead me to believe that it is fake. The first is, if the intelligence agencies are using the techniques as outlined in this document, then they would not give up their methods. You never reveal your hand, there is no advantage in doing so. Explaining to someone how you are going to catch them, in detail is universally not a good idea.

The second observation is that if it is real, then it would signify that the intelligence community has nothing and is playing a game of scare tactics by publishing something like this, in an attempt to scare off a formidable advisory. This document would be the internet equivalent of the old I know karate and my hands have to be registered as lethal weapons, so don't mess with me.

Finally, the most plausible to me, is this was contrived by a fellow hacker as a way to shake the cage, it would be the hacker equivalent of a false flag event. In which a hacker acting outside the community is generating misinformation to rally the troops. Given that it is the Mossad that is the supposed author it could also be an individual with a sympathetic view of the Palestinian situation. They could be a Palestinian activist a hacker or a combination of the two. To me this seems like the most plausible explanation for the document. This quote: They don't realize that these "globalist
corporatist" are the worst of all Psychopaths and will come after them. is a dead giveaway that the person writing it is not part of a governmental organization, but rather views large organizations as suspect.

On a tangential note, I do like the quote below from the document. If the governments where really tracking people as outlined in the document it would be completely logical to want to attack such overbearing entities. That level of surveillance and monitoring would make most logical and more importantly rational people call for a revolution and the destruction of such a surveillance state. Fortunately, I think the piece is fake and poorly done at that.

It is not possible for the young to operate on logic, they operate on emotion. Emotion "moves" them.
They MUST "feel" something. Now, the "man" they attack, is in fact deserving of it at times.
> except if you explicitly or implicitly permit him to.

What was precisely my point.

> If your gf sends you an intimate mail, I don't think she will not feel her privacy was violated if you show it to your pals.

Depending on the message and your relationship, one might be able to argue that there is an explicit or implicit contract of confidentiality between partners.
The first item on his list was a todo list. It's interesting because I once had (what I thought at least) was this killer idea for a personal task management app.

I was psyched about it until I went and pitched it to a friend of mine and he was like "It's a todo list. That is the equivalent of 'Hello World!' for product ideas. Don't do it."

Looking back, he was so right. I think every programmer I know has come up with an idea for a new spin on the todo list at some point.
I think there have been a few high profile posts/submissions over the last couple of days related to child porn on Reddit so it has been a big issue the last 48 hours.
"Nobody told the artificial intelligence that it’s above my pay grade to invite professors to social networks."

Yes, yes, yes. Add the same gripe for Facebook and pretty much most of the recommendations by algorithm (70%?) falls into this category.
San Jose downtown has decent light-rail and bus connections to most places. But, public transportation is PAINFULLY slow (e.g.,: it will take you at least 1-1.5 hrs to get to Mountain View from San Jose if you take light rail / bus, and upto 1.5 hours to get to SF via Caltrain). Otherwise, it's quite good. Milpitas, CA is also an OK place --- cheaper than most of the Peninsula and SF --- with good connections to most parts of the bay (east, peninsula, south).
We would probably all agree that the core question then is "When does a SaaS pricing model (vs. an outright, perpetual software license) make sense?" The answer varies based on a range of criteria, as well as who you are (i.e. profit-maximizing business, or price-sensitive, value-maximizing customer).

Some key criteria that matters to both parties:

- Difference in price/revenue between one-time and recurring: If the recurring revenue stands to significantly exceed the one-time fee (accounting for attrition and those who decide not to buy into the subscription), a SaaS model is attractive to the business, and not to the price sensitive customer.

- How steep would the one-time fee be (and who is the decision-maker, i.e. will they have the budget for this?): If the one-time fee would be so steep that a lot of IT managers (or whoever the buyer is) won't have authority or willingness to front the cash, a SaaS model makes sense. This is a case in which both the sellers and buyers prefer a lower cost (even if it results in a higher long term expense for the consumer since the buyer may be spending out of a bureaucratic budget that they don't want to under-use, i.e. when budgets are slashed for being under-used).

- Likelihood of renewal: If the seller does not think that you will renew (due to low switching costs, an inferior product, etc.), then an upfront fee maximizes profit. If you think you are likely to renew time and time again, the buyer probably prefers the one-time fee because that is likely lower than a subscription cost in the long run. So, again, the seller and buyer are at odds: buyers who will renew would rather an upfront cost to save money, sellers expecting buyers to renew want an ongoing subscription fee.

There are surely other criteria; what else would you add?

It seems like SaaS pricing model pits seller and buyer at odds because of conflicting incentives. But as the SaaS model grows more prevalent, it can be expected that buyers/consumers will basically just have to deal with it, as they have with exorbitant annual software licenses in the past. For SaaS startups this means opportunity; for consumers it seems to mean continually increasing costs under the guise of frequent updates, flexibility to cancel, and an easier ability to try out software within corporate budget limits.
Subreddits focusing on jailbait have been on reddit for a lot longer than 3 days.
If your email is delivered to Google and you download it from there, they still have a copy.
> they only make money and continue to exist if people use their products

nope. Google only make money and continue to exist by selling access to their users to the highest bidder.
> pgp/gpg is mostly dead by now, used only by geeks that line up to compare their fingerprints and passports, calling that a 'party'

Can you suggest an alternative to keysigning parties to build a (decentralized) web of trust ?
How is that different then if you click an ad while on a site about that sensitive topic?
Nice catch. It's fixed in the latest version.
Encoding and Querying Graphs in SQL
They are cracking down on illegal speech (in the form of blatant CP) in addition to legal speech (in the form of suggestive, but non-pornographic pictures anyone under 18).

EDIT: Unless I am mistaken?
I think it's a paradox. What does smart mean? Smart = knowing as much information as possible (or knowing how and where to get information when it's needed) + gifted with normal logic. So if smart knows best, why does he/she need to ask? If he's smart enough, doesn't it mean that he/she must be least asking one?!

Edit: I remembered something. There was a man called Said Nursi in Ottoman Empire in 20th century. He is recognized as one of smartest people ever. When he was in his 20s, after graduating 4 universities he opened a bureau in Istanbul and wrote on it's door "Here will be all questions answered and no questions asked" After answering most paradoxal questions ever he was already famous in Europe. In first days of Turkish republic people invited him to parliament, and then to be the president of Turkey. He rejected and started to write his famous books. Nowadays there are 300 millions of his students calling themselves "Nurcular" in turkish.
My only problem is, we hardly saw these disagreements when Microsoft was pretty much implementing similar features across the board with Live, and Yahoo was doing the same. This was way earlier than Google (apparently around the time when Facebook was trending up).
The appealing option, people in this thread are espousing, would be the ability to identify the app while browsing on a desktop web browser (preferably desktop OS ambivalent).

Personally, I would prefer iCloud run from an app (or several daemons?) on the TimeCapsule supporting multiple devices, and Apple just provided encrypted, off-site back-ups from the TimeCapsule (thus, making TimeCapsule the "center" of my cloud). If Apple could handle my dynamic IP address issues, and my firewall/NAT issues, I could just use my always connected, 250GB-bandwidth/ month (and 1mbps-delivering/ <80ms latency) home connection to ensure security and robustness, I'd be more inclined to buy their hardware. As it stands, I've bought an ipod Touch, only; simply because I'm too cheap to buy a phone from a big-telco (instead: metroPCS, Leap Wireless, and MVNOs like Republic Wireless or StraightTalk are things I advise people to look into).
Steve Jobs rare footage conducting a presentation on 1980
It's not the "British Facebook", it's someone who bought the domain and pointed it towards Google Sites. See http://www.facebook.co.uk/ .
Reddit already disallowed illegal material. The announcement is that they're broadening that to include a fair amount of legal material as well.
You are missing a very critical point: either you need to rent a virtual or real server and spend time configuring and maintaining it - or you could try and dare to run your mail server from at home on some linux box which will open a whole can of worms...

So gmail gives you an easy and free alternative and you can just sign up and access mail via web, pop3 and especially IMAP, which made it superior to pretty much every single other webmail when they launched that feature - and I believe that is still true today, most free webmail providers don't give you free IMAP. You are "paying" by giving away your private information but evidently, people prefer it to setting up their own mail servers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dost_test
I have to say, I found this article overly negative. Newry isn't a good host to startups because 10 years ago their population was 30k and they have a sheep industry?

Just because they're trying to encourage entrepreneurs to flock there doesn't mean they're trying to usurp Silicon Valley. As someone who isn't an American citizen I know how non visa friendly many companies in the Valley are, and I love to see smaller startup hubs around the world starting to pop up. Even if the author doesn't like the climate in Vladivostok (and I incidentally love it), that doesn't mean talent can't start to congregate there.
9000 visitors a day averages about 0.1 visitor per second.

Let's say that the peak is 100 times more frequent than the average, so that would be about 10 visitors/second.

Being a systems developer, and not a web programmer, I work on software that handles tens of thousands of requests/sec. I don't understand why around 10 visitors/second would be a difficulty with semi-modern hardware. How many requests does that translate to?

This is a genuine question, can anyone explain what is it that takes so much work in handling a web request?
You say this on a forum titled "Hacker News"? What definition of hacker are you using?

I'm using definition 3 from Merriam-Webster, "an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer", and that is the most compatible meaning for this forum.
Added some protection against that, thanks.
"I asked them if they did it for the money (which I doubted). No, but the money made them more aware of the problem."

"The only grid that we do not know if it is 4-colorable is 12x21. This is still open and you are URGED to work on it. Sorry, no cash on this one. Do it for the glory!"

This strikes me as an excellent opportunity to use KickStarter to amplify interest. If the people interested in 12x21 kicked in even $10 each, you could have a noticeable prize. Perhaps this would be a good way to focus attention on certain problems?
Their algorithms know more about you than you do yourself. There is your FUD.

Also sender and recipient "identity" have central role in identifying spam. Microsoft is building a profile about you as well and owns an ad network, which makes their propaganda video hypocritical as well as deceitful.
As you said, there are a ton of niche companies that handle this. Just look at the attendee list at the Bar & Nightclub show in Las Vegas. I work for a company that provides a similar service, but we have a short code and work directly with the carriers. Lots of competition and not a whole lot of margin if you don't have the volume drive cost down. Good luck to the, but free isn't going to last too long.
Building a non-WSGI Python framework would be useful because WSGI does not support websockets (http://librelist.com/browser//flask/2011/12/30/websockets/#b...).

A ZeroMQ-based framework might be interesting -- Brubeck (http://brubeck.io/) is an example of this.

Nginx (https://github.com/FRiCKLE/ngx_zeromq) is starting to get support for ZeroMQ, and Mongrel2 (http://mongrel2.org/) was designed around it.
>By offering you the convenience of sending it to you via email they are collecting your address. "

That's a great point, and the more I think about it while also considering about the noted sponsor for the post, SwellPath, whose stated purpose is to, "[...] merge measurement and performance-led marketing to make digital campaigns actionable and accountable," the more I wonder at how careless people are with their email addresses and other personal information.

Convenience is quite seductive, and even utilizing Occam's Razor I can't fathom a respectable position for one to espouse the ideas same as this post.

Disclaimer: I could easily be accused of tinfoil-hat-syndrome, so I apologize if I offend(ed) you.
You might want to review the Dost test & some of the links I & others have posted in this thread. It's very possible that what you think of as child pornography may only be a subset of what the law holds to be illegal.
Plaintext passwords at Microsoft - shocking.
Great article. As a super techy guy something which really sticks out for me (and which has been confirmed by my day-job recently) is how key marketing seems to be. You can have the crappiest product but with the right sales team its possible to get anybody to buy it.
> What is Apple supposed to do to prevent a social network app ... from uploading your data to their servers?

1) Put in their detailed rules that this (uploading entire address books) is not allowed.

2) Remove apps from the Apple App Store if they are found to violate this rule.

Apple could also remove such apps from phones after the fact as if they were hostile malware. This may be going too far, but it can be done:
http://cybernetnews.com/apple-can-remotely-remove-bad-apps-f... I mention this since by saying "What is Apple supposed to do to prevent.." you may be asking if there's anything Apple can do at all. Yes, of course there is. It's not hard to do something when you own the app store and have control over all the devices.
But it is the right thing to do. It obviously is. Why do you think it isn’t?
Now if you and your small webhost is outside the jurisdiction of US courts then that might be a different story... At least that's the only "privacy" reason to not use gmail that I can't immediately dismiss. Anybody have any thoughts on this case?
Then get an Apps account and don't complain if there is a fly in your free soup.
Ignoring the legality of it for a minute. The title "Jailbait" implies sexualization (My spell checker insists this is not a word, but it's meaning should be obvious to infer.) of the images within. Even if the images were all "legal" by the standards of United States law, (I'm assuming Reddit is hosted in the US.) they're still being used to fuel sexual fantasies related to the images. As I understand it the reason that child pornography is illegal is because it's distribution and consumption encourages the sexual abuse of children worldwide. If the end result of the Reddit "Jailbait" subthread is sexual fantasies of children, then the damage done is the same. For example, if the FBI seizes your computer and finds a file labelled "Porn" on your hard drive full of images like children tricycling around a neighborhood, your almost certainly going to be asked about it in the police interview(s) even if it's not necessarily prosecutable.

Everything thats illegal isn't necessarily immoral; and everything thats legal isn't exactly moral either. The sexualization of children is immoral, legal or not.
The value is in the slog
Doesn't jpeg2000 do that for images (ie. you can get progressively better image with more data read). How much harder is that to extend to video.