skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'd argue this isn't about bitcoins.
A (popular) VPS provider, according to that article, had a security problem that allowed some idividuals to access the VPS management interface for any machine they cared for.

They could've defaced your site in high traffic times. They could've logged in and delete your projects on the VPS. Depending on your setup (they had root) they could've searched for your backups. They could've read your mail, if that machine is your infrastructure service - and continue from there (password reset, amazon, buy expensive stuff. password reset, twitter, damage your reputation).

In this case the bits modified were part of a virtual currency and had a more or less clear value. I'd say there could've been worse results of that security hole though and 'don't put anything on a vps' is not a solution.
Reading the ticket slush posted it shows no password change logs, if linode was compromised either the whole infrastructure was compromised (unlikely) or a rouge admin or a admin comprimised account accessed the vps and stole the $, as per the bitcoin forums.
Total stolen is roughly $16,000 USD
I think it's more like those "permanent laser hair removal" things. They can call it permanent if it works for 6 months. If after 6 months you grow all your hair back, that doesn't make it non-permanent according to marketing laws.
Looks a lot like Alice: https://github.com/leedo/alice which powers http://usealice.org
Tracking User Sentiments on Twitter with Twitter4J and Esper
I don't care for the decorator at all, but the MultipleFormView mixin looks very handy. Thanks.
I had tried to setup web-irc previously. It was just so sensitive to particular library versions, I never got around to getting it working.
> Although passwords are stored using SHA1 with a salt,

Where's the bcrypt/scrypt/whatever police in this comments thread?
Cockroaches are harmless as well... A lot of people instinctively find most insects repulsive. No rational argument is going to convince them otherwise.
> There are only 6.6 billion people in the world, so you only need 33 bits (more precisely, 32.6 bits) of information about a person to determine who they are.

I think you should count the dead as well. But then, 33 bits ~= 8 billion, which should still be enough, I guess.
Not to be that guy, but a lot of people have been requesting features such as being able to search by city, intern/remote and all that.

My friend & I built http://supzu.cc earlier this month and it has most of these features. Maybe that can scratch some people's itch.

It's missing a lot of stuff that this wonderful version has such as support for freelancers among other things. We posted it when we made it but it never got much attention so there's obviously a reason for that :).
Gorillaz ft. James Murphy & Andre 3000 – DoYaThing (Music Video)
Well, in a nutshell, back in the 80s, there was a fee tacked on to all phone bills for "upgrades" that had listed among other things that everything would be moving to fiber optic. Instead they sort of double dipped. You can read articles like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre perhaps as a starting point, but essentially they charged their customers a special government mandated fee, that allowed them to build it out but not actually have to hook it up anywhere, and then when everyone forgot about this fee and what this really was, then treated as this new asset they could sell off, all while never actually figuring out the last mile problem, which was the heart of the original law to begin with. So now with wireless it is the same thing, where terms get thrown around like "bandwidth" and "capacity" and while they want to, on one hand, say that these are limitations from the FCC or just plain physics, they are actually words to describe the fact that it is their towers, or the connections to the towers, that they purposefully keep limited in order to facilitate very high profit margins. So they tell their customers "have all of this unlimited everything" but they've only built out (of their own equipment mind you) the ability to service 10% maybe of what they sell, so that when people actually start using it, they can then blame the customer, all the while showing ever increasing profits to their shareholders. I would be very very suspect of anything any of the damned companies have to say about their own capacity, and be very careful not to assume that it is the airwaves that are full, but it is really their equipment that they've oversold.
Also it is faster and much better on memory consumption (depends on app of course, but 10-20% speedup and 20-30% less peak memory have been observed on some mainstream apps).
Has anyone solved the liquidity mess? Say I want to buy a car and have to unload $20k of bitcoins. Can I do that? With a latency of less than 24 hours? Without getting my PayPal account frozen?
I know that bit pin is supposed to be annonomous but is there any way to get these back? I mean is there some logs or if they were signed by his account or anything?
Sorry, there is just no way that this is the case. Please don't throw such a serious allegation out there without any evidence. To even suggest that this is technically possible for an employee to do is a serious allegation, let alone suggesting that someone did it maliciously. This spreads all kinds of FUD.

I'll happily eat my words if that turns out to be what happened, but it is definitely not the simplest answer.
So, how do we get in touch with you?
I think he is implying these are the two tactics police used to obtain evidence; the old style is active coercion (which is illegal but fairly common in police arrests and interrogation), the new style is querying phone, email, device records, decrypting harddrives (is now potentially legal).
these are searches incident to arrest. they can already search anything found on your person when they arrest you. it makes sense that they can search your phone, which is an item found on your person.
Some of those might just make me do some PHP again.
The species obviously is not extinct.

They had been on the island and survived for 80 years, though it probably wasn't a picnic..

Imagine if the scientists had tripped a landslide over the habitat? What if the entire population had gone the way of the first two and died within two weeks?

It seems to me that in this case careful consideration probably saved the species rather than risk its survival.
Charlotte, NC, USA; remote candidates welcome

Socialserve.com is looking for developers to work on a variety of projects. We're a 501(c)(3) non-profit that has been around for more than a decade developing and operating a variety of web-based software for governments and other non-profits, starting with our popular housing database product at http://www.socialserve.com/. We take pride in focusing on the needs of our users and providing excellent value to our customers.

We're a handful of developers who get our job done using Macs on the desktop, Linux on our servers, and a bevy of open source software including Python, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Apache, and Git. While we're not strict adherents to any single software development methodology, we gladly incorporate processes that produce better software and happier developers including continuous integration, automated testing, and code reviews.

We're looking for developers with good knowledge of SQL, web development, basic Unix/Linux usage, and general computer science topics. Knowledge of Python is preferred, though may not be strictly necessary as we've found it pretty easy to pick up as long as you have experience in a couple other languages.

Interested? Contact us at employment@socialserve.com.
Quick tip: How to check your website health.
I actually looked into Quassel a while back, and although it looks interesting, the biggest issue I had with it was the apparent inability to mix existing IRC clients into a Quassel setup, not to mention it lacks a unified set of notifications.

With ZNC on my server, I can connect any standard IRC client to it, whether its Irssi or Weechat running in screen on my server, Xchat on my desktop machines, or AndChat on my phone. I also receive only a single push notification to my phone when I get mentioned or PMed, and can literally connect from anywhere to respond.
This reminds me of an old Simpsons episode:

----

KENT
Our top story, the population of parasitic tree lizards has exploded, and local citizens couldn't be happier! It seems the rapacious reptiles have developed a taste for the common pigeon, also known as the 'feathered rat', or the 'gutter bird'. For the first time, citizens need not fear harassment by flocks of chattering disease-bags.

Later, Bart receives an award from Mayor Quimby outside the town hall. Several lizards slink past.

QUIMBY
For decimating our pigeon population, and making Springfield a less oppressive place to while away our worthless lives, I present you with this scented candle.

Skinner talks to Lisa.

SKINNER
Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.

LISA
But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?

SKINNER
No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.

LISA
But aren't the snakes even worse?

SKINNER
Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.

LISA
But then we're stuck with gorillas!

SKINNER
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Cambridge, MA Panjiva (http://panjiva.com) Hiring engineers--UI/UX, frontend, backend data mining/algorithms. See http://panjiva.com/jobs
Before you get in the cab ask, "Can you accept credit cards right now?" I found they won't hassle me if they know I'm onto their scam.
Now the question is, when will this become available in mainstream Linux distributions? I guess Arch et al. will get it pretty quickly, followed by Ubuntu 12.10 or maybe 13.04 depending on how many packages it affects.

Good ol' Debian, on the other hand, might or might not get it in time for the Wheezy freeze. CentOS? Forgetaboutit.
Wasn't the point that they died from malnutrition? That's what I gathered from the second female almost dying, until it was fed a mixture rich in calcium.
"Bankruptsy! Ooo, I want that stock!"
I see a lot of mentions of zend in extension names, function names.. Could someone elaborate how Zend relates to PHP?
i remember it was a pretty big topic after twitter changed (hijacked) the RT convention. there was an outcry because twitter justified it at first with "UX streamlining", but as a matter of fact it was a scalability issue. (or maybe i'm mixing up two different controversial decisions by twitter into one...)

... but everyone got used to it and the .@ convention was adopted pretty fast.

update:
this is the "usability feature" http://blog.twitter.com/2009/05/small-settings-update.html

this is the truth http://blog.twitter.com/2009/05/replies-kerfuffle.html

this is the actual hijacking http://blog.twitter.com/2009/03/replies-are-now-mentions.htm...
As a Linode customer, I'm really looking forward to hearing out their side on this issue
you do realize that in this theory, the same person then went and stole thousands of dollars in bitcoins, right? I don't think they were worrying about liability...
At my previous job I had this problem. It was intensified by, what I perceived to be, conversation that was more flawed than accurate. I heard so many statements I couldn't agree with, I didn't know where to start commenting on anything. In other worlds, the whole idea or conversation that was being discussed was wrong. Very often I had nothing to say, because how do you tell a team of co-workers that everything they're saying is wrong?

Of course, many would assume I was more likely to be wrong, disagreeing with so many people. I worked in a very stale industry however, no where near as pioneering or cutting edge as some dream jobs in the valley: some would say legacy, enterprise software. So I beg to differ the opposite is possible also. Also, I worked there for years, knowing most colleagues would do anything just to coast, I had far more than 5 minutes to give the processes consideration.

Regardless, what I learned is, if everything in the conversation sounds wrong, and the appropriate "5 minutes" have been given, perhaps you are participating in bad conversations / keeping bad company. Switching jobs is the best thing that could have happened to me in order to improve my expertise.
What does PayPal have to do with Bitcoins? Trying to buy or sell Bitcoins with PayPal is foolish.
It took them long enough! In 2008 They voted 14/9 against short array syntax, even though a key user group voted 17/3 pro...
yeah ... the change was introduced in 2.6.39 ... but its a pretty rare kernel to have afaik, not even in debian backports anymore
Getting smarter about bandwidth
The video provides zero information about differences with "facebook/irc/campfire/status.net".

https://www.yammer.com/product/index seems much more helpful. Looks like Yammer has added lots of what would've been called "groupware" features in the recent past, none of which are present in Facebook, StatusNet, etc. Maybe so much money has been raised because investors think it will eat into Sharepoint, Notes, etc?
Growing & Getting Ready - Interviewing, Testing and Tweaking
How does that make him less humble? He donated ~25 million to the University, the University decided to name their school of Computer Science after him.
You didn't have to lock in. If you paid full price for the iPhone 4s, then when you first plugged it to iTunes, you got a "congratulations, your phone has been unlocked" message, and the phone stopped being carrier locked. This worked since iPhone 4s release day, before the 'official' unlocked phone shipped.
You can buy one for $499 without contract.
Really looking forward to traits. We have some hacks using interfaces and __call that we have been using to try and approximate traits, but the real thing is always much better. :)
It's more akin to breaking into a safe you carry on your person, not bludgeoning you into speaking. Bad connection.
What to Wear
While this is a great step forward, it could be rendered pointless if auto-updating is disabled and updates are not pushed out quickly after going through an approval process. Given how quickly Google pushes out major updates, old versions of Chrome could simply be as prevalent as old versions of IE, with little long term benefit.
No, the 1.0 vs. .08 is for the entire eight year period depicted, during most of which Node.js didn't even exist. What's relevant is the trend and how they compare right now -- RoR is going down, Node is going up, and Node is right now nearly as high as RoR. If you change it to show only the last 30 days, RoR is 1.0 and Node is .87 (i.e., RoR is getting only 15% more searches, not 12 times the searches).
Making Your Home the Hangout
Comparing Floating Point Numbers, 2012 Edition
Where are you reading this? The status page and the blog have no mention of the incident.
Which is why everyone should maintain a passcode.
Suddenly there is a huge interest in Chrome NaCl vulnerabilities on Windows...
maybe this link can help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zend_Engine
I don't, not for a minute. Look at how the AT&T iPad plans changed a month after launch. That was not a usage based decision, and it takes longer for a company their size to create the materials than the time between launch and the change.

They've known what they were doing, and considered these actions a viable contingency.
50 things I learned at 500 Startups
Like the idea - unfortunately I will not be in Boston that weekend. Hope it happens again.
Django's documentation is indeed terrible for class based views, but I encourage any developers that have had trouble reading through it to just take a look at the source. I found it to be much easier to learn that way.
This is great - now I can test all the browsers PLUS the plugins. The only problem - $250 a month! For that much cabbage, I can get a very powerful server or several VPS and test everything myself.
The title reads like a title one would expect from the future.
That update had already been released when I made my original comment (hence why I said "a customer service interface was compromised via stolen credentials"). It doesn't reveal how the credentials were compromised, nor how the attacker managed to use them to log in.
Zend developed the Zend Engine, a virtual machine. PHP4 is based on the Zend engine. Zend is more than just the framework, it literally is the core of PHP.
No, you buy before good news, and sell before bad.

(If you don't understand your market well enough to know which it will be, maybe you shouldn't be investing.)
You misunderstand. Not the thief's liability, Linodes. If someone, say, engages in insider trading because of something they saw in Linode's own analysis system, Linode can be sued for failing to protect that information. If they have a policy of never reading customer data (and can prove it) that becomes much harder. The posited "anti virus checker" would throw that promise out the window.
LiveDrive cancels BeeCloud.eu's Reseller Account
Got this email not long ago,

====

Dear customer,

It is with regret that we need to inform you that we have ended our relationship with Livedrive.
We are no longer a Livedrive reseller and cannot support you further with your backup account.

What does this mean for you?

Your account will continue to work until March 13th 2012, giving you the opportunity to restore files to your pc if needed.

As of March 13th 2012 you will no longer be able to backup or restore data and all the files that are backed up will be removed online.

You are advised to search for another backup solution if you still need one.

Regards,
BeeCloud.eu

=====

I contacted them regarding it, and LiveDrive terminated their contract because apparently giving out 512GB of Free backup is against the Reseller policy.
You mention two distros that are designed for stability. Thats very different from following the bleeding edge and they have their purpose and reason for it(Which while developers like myself and I assume you sometimes forget, our server admin friends never do). If you want to follow the leading edge there is always also the option of making your own packages.
If you're not too short, they usually take the cash over the card. You get a cheap ride and they don't get all pissy. I do it all the time.
Silicon Valley Homeless Feel The Grip Of Recession's Long Reach
Perhaps we were unclear. Coding layouts in tables is coding towards appearance rather than meaning, hence the problems you described.
Need beta testers/ Early adopters for our startup
Looking for beta testers / early adopters as we are getting really close to launch.

Tweet @cliqflip so we know who to add as beta tester - sign up at http://www.cliqflip.com

All and any help will be greatly appreciated
What example? I read it again, and I really don't see any "info on what makes us different than facebook/irc/campfire/status.net"

As I already said https://www.yammer.com/product/index does give me some idea of how Yammer is different.
What Bloggers Think About All Day [infographic]
Right. So no liquidity solution then. It's foolish, obviously, because it doesn't work: it looks like fraud. As it does to all the other banks out there. So bitcoins are illiquid. They're like oddball collections. "Valuable" to a few, but basically useless as an "investment" to people with liquidity requirements.

One corrolary you'll note is that because they are both illiquid and volatile, they even suck as a speculative investment: if you make a bad bet you can't get out of it.
DoS in cell phone network. A bit on femtocell- the network "extender"
The actual count of releases hasn't been much higher than normal. But recently a number of previously more experimental or controversial features have been released. IMO, the main one that likely wouldn't have been released without the Clang/LLVM pressure is the plugin interface that has been around in branches for many years.
Ask HN: Productivity & GTD Tool StartUps
Show me how your startup deals with your productivity and gtd needs and let me feature your app in http://www.productivitybits.com
Sounds intriguing, just signed up. Don't have an excuse to not try to bang out some work that's been sitting on the back burner.
Coercion is illegal? I've seen coercion used in every police investigation I've ever seen. It's so common I had no idea anyone thought it was illegal. Police isolate and begin lying to suspects immediately after they're identified.
It's much more common in the Midwest.

In Chicago cabs are essentially required to accept credit cards if they want to pick up a fare (there's an exception for the handful of independent cab's in the city).

I don't take cabs all that often (4-5 times a month) but I have had a driver resist taking the credit card at least 20% of the time, and within that subset well over half use the 'broken machine' excuse.

Of course it always seems to work once I tell them "it's credit, or I don't pay"...
Now, do you think that is the driver personally using square to accept card payments as it's more economical for him to manage that stuff himself rather than relying on the cab company?
How is '<?=' being always on great change? I always thought it was weird and kind of stupid, but I'm genuinely curious how is that great thing.

Also,

Chained string offsets - e.g. $a[0][0] where $a is a string - now work.

I have no idea how is that supposed to work. What should be the outcome on, say:

$a = "foo"; $a[0][0]

What about (assuming $a is still "foo"):

$a[0][1]

etc.?
Here are my extensions to Django's class-based views:

https://github.com/AndrewIngram/django-extra-views
From here: http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration54.other.php

> Chained string offsets - e.g. $a[0][0] where $a is a string - now work.

Can someone explain why this is? I'm sure I'm misunderstanding, but this seems to mean that the following would work:

$a = "Hello";
echo $a[0]; //"h"
echo $a[0][0]; // also "h"??

What's the point? To avoid failure if I pass a string instead of a 2-dimensional array?
Use OAuth2, Facebook and Twitter Auth in Chrome Extensions
The problem is it's a difference at all and for a lesser valued brand with a smaller screen that's a losing proposition. It's like a 32" inch Vizio tv costing more then a 35" Panasonic, the whole idea is a nonstarter for most customers.
At what point do we consider those 347 residents as an invasive species?
Any examples of library-in-app in the wild. I get the idea, but want to know what this looks like in practice.

Mounting engines or Sinatra apps? Creating a new gem to for extractable functionality? Just curious about what this looks like under the hood.
It's quite possible that the attacker has been using the support admin login details for much longer against Linode, without being noticed, until now.

What sort of defenses can developers put in place to protect against admin panels?

I've used these sorts of techniques in the past:

1) Separate username/password system compared to the regular website
2) IP whitelist of who may even access the admin panel
3) Failed login attempts send an e-mail alert with a log entry

Any other recommendations or suggestions?
AT&T relents on unlimited data throttling
BTW, you can email me your stories: mribunal@gmail .com
> Finally removed register_globals ;)

They've also removed magic_quotes. A few functions that queried its status still exist, but you can't turn it on.
Closures can now have a `$this` (by default it is the class in which the closure is declared). No more $that = $this hacks :)
No one should have to read the source to understand such a large and useful area of a framework.

That's similar to expecting people to read the source code to understand ActiveRecord or something.