skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you naively depend on the client, sure, it will be game over, but that is true of any naive security.

Endpoint encryption does solve many problems, but it doesn't solve all of them. Take a bank case: sure, you could encrypt your account number and transfer amount on your machine, but the how is the bank supposed to do anything with these random bytes you've sent? If they have the keys (like they do with SSL), we aren't any better off.

With some complex public key crypto, you could maybe make things better, but you would be dependent on everybody treating their private keys well. I'm not convinced big companies could manage that, much less "Joe the Plumber".

Trusting the client is not the same as securing the client.

Edit: I didn't like my initial tone, so I backed off.
IPhone 5 Android Clone
The Siege of Academe
They won't understand this, but any business model trying to treat infinitely-copyable digital goods as salable material possessions is going to either change or fail. It will happen in the next 10 years, and no amount of law, security, or resistance is going to stop it. It's already happening with music; Spotify, MOG, Rdio are all viable and spreading.

The network is here. It has made their product into a service whether they like it or not. They need to provide it as a service.
wow. you really went through hell. respect!
Yep. Here in Canada, I believe that a winner's name is published or at least known publicly.
firefox used to be the light, zippy alternative to mozilla.

Back when it was called Phoenix. When they renamed it, I guess they changed focuses - firefox became the new hulking monster that was mozilla.
Mobile Computing and Surfing Explodes: Why a PC-Based OS in Windows 8?
Seeking prior art where it most often is found in software
Thank you! This is a great resource. Already reading through some of the articles and I plan on reading his book.
The Olympics seem, in part, about creating public debt and providing a pretext to vamp up state surveillance apparatuses. Public debt creates the need for cutbacks and cutbacks create opportunities for privatized versions of formerly public services.
People are still really surprised when I offer to crack their neighbors' wifi passwords for them - "You can do that?". We've only been at it for over 10 years now.
Pirate it. You get a higher quality product.
Of course it's an improvement. You know what I used to do when new versions of my browser came out? Update manually. Now to get the same result I do nothing. You know what my parents used to when new versions of the browser came out? Nothing. Which after a few years can be a problem.

If you don't want the computer saving you work then (1) IMHO you're not really getting the point of having one, (2) you can configure Firefox to not update silently.
There's a great write-up of why doing cryptography in JavaScript isn't a good idea at http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/. The browser is a very difficult environment to run your code in a trusted way.
Ask HN:  Could this work as an alternative to pinch-to-zoom for touchscreens?
What else might work to zoom?

Has anyone patented drawing a circle with one finger? Clockwise and counter-clockwise could mean different things. Go clockwise to zoom, counter to shrink. Make a larger circle once, or make several small circles. Maybe not even a circle, but start drawing a right angle, left then up to zoom, down right to shrink.

Better yet, build a generic utility to allow users to define which movements do what. Then if the user wants to pinch-to-zoom it's their prerogative, as long as the software does not mandate it. And use such utility to define gestures for anything else, like bookmarking.

Another idea, small circle with one finger extending to line, similar to digit 6, line determining how much to zoom. perhaps reverse motion to shrink.
Being that Dot-com is an online entrepreneur starting a startup and ironically this community is "hacker" news. I wonder how many of the HN members actually support him here.
Manu Kumar wrote something similar for their K9 Ventures II fund here: http://k9ventures.com/blog/2012/07/19/announcing-k9-ventures...
Twitter's "View Album" links
The Importance of Security Engineering
I'd consider switching to Chrome if it weren't for the nightmarish way it expects you to manage tabs. I typically have 30 or so tabs open at any given time, and in Chrome that means a horizontal row of very tiny tabs with only icons (no text...therefore no context) across the top. They used to have sidebar capabilities (on Windows, which didn't help this Linux user) but for some reason I can't fathom they removed them.

Contrast this with Firefox, where I can easily get a tab bar down the side via a plugin (I use this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...). Even without a plugin, FF gives me the Expose-like functionality (ctrl+shift+e) which will show me all open tabs and their titles.

How Google can think the current tab situation in Chrome is useful is a mystery to me.
Congrats to Ev + team, from day 1 when they launched he's continued to answer my emails directly and openly, it's refreshing.

I really hope my beloved mailgun remains competitive and independently available and doesn't get assimilated like slicehost -- mailgun is a not-so-well kept secret that needs to stay as is.
>What's more, WPA and WPA2 passwords require a minimum of eight characters, eliminating the possibility users will pick shorter passphrases that could be brute forced in more manageable timeframes

Should I point out that 'password' is 8 characters :) Have there been studies done that attempt to test the hypothesis that when forced to pick passwords that meet some arbitrary complexity threshold most common users pick things like "password1"? I have a hard time believing most non-techies (heck, even a lot of techies) pick secure passwords.
Most likely all the numbers up to 10 digits long were in the dictionary.

tl;dr of this article: don't use stupid passwords.

Edit: the article mentions it was a phone number, so that narrows it down a lot.
The magic 5%
In the age of austerity, it's great that governments are still willing to commit huge amounts of taxpayer money to subsidize corporates sporting events.
All-number passwords are default on several ISPs so they're much more likely to succeed than a full keyspace search.
Here here. This is exactly what 'Freedom 0' is.
In the beginning this was not the signal being sent out to developers, so I will call you crazy :)

I understand the risks. Hell, I'm even taking them with my own project, but I always hoped if you add value to the API owner and that they created the API to give more value to their users why would they company cut you off?

As in all business there are risks. No company have every parameter under control. Building a business off other companies API is one of those risk variables I'm willing to take.

However, Twitter is quite clearly telling us that it's not a risk worth taking anymore.
This is tremendously cool!

Any plans for MacOS (or other *nix) support?
I think the important point is that "obvious" has a very precise meaning for patents, and it's not what you think it means. . There was a great IAmA on reddit with a patent examiner that's worth reading: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/ww982/iama_patent_e...
Looking to build the next big social network? Read this first.
AFAIK it was an unofficial API, discovered,through some hack on iGoogle, so despite all the tutorials on the web, basing any service on top of it was a risky business
Blended MPLS and next generation branch office connectivity.
You are creating a purely rhetorical distinction here. There is nothing that can be so complex that it cannot be replicated by someone else -- that is the whole definition of engineering.

What you're saying that is that if it is innovation in materials research then it is valuable (probably because you and me don't know anything about it). But software engineering is not, probably because you could (in theory) do something similar. Let me tell you: if you were the one doing the design of a motion sensing system, I can bet it wouldn't be "easy". And you would want some kind of protection for your efforts. It is too simple to disregard somebody else's effort when making a hypothetical point.
I went camping this weekend. I'm wifi-only, so about 30 hours without internet. The hardest part was making sure I downloaded the campsite directions to my phone.
Debatable. Past history supports negativity: the Rackspace acquisition of Slicehost marked a large, negative turning point in Slicehost's customer support and competitiveness.

CloudKick and Anso Labs seem to have fallen off the map as well. I'd be curious to hear what former Jungle Disk users felt changed with the acquisition.
Or get better at social engineering.
Top Reasons We Should Not Fear The Singularity
I like silent updates when they're not likely to be huge user-visible improvements, mostly performance enhancements and bug fixes. In the case of Firefox or Chrome, for example, I'm perfectly happy with the current feature set and just want them to keep getting faster and more stable. On the other hand, most of the Android apps I use are missing a couple of functions or have some annoying visisble bug I am waiting to be fixed. Then I prefer updates to be automatic but not silent so I can read the change list and if something I am waiting for has been added or fixed I know (and rejoice) right away.
By my math, a 10 byte sequence of decimal numbers has 33.2 bits of entropy, while a 8 byte sequence of lower case numerals and decimals has 41.3 bits. That's almost 300x as hard to crack.

There's also the issue of pattern heuristics. Number-only passwords seem like they'd be common, and thus a reasonable pattern to try out to ~35 bits or so (something that corresponds roughtly to "can be tried in a perceptively short time"), but it's not as clear that there's a significant fraction of passwords in the wild that use alphanumerics but no capitals. So they wouldn't try the passwords from the 36-character alphabet, more likely using a slower heuristic like things where the leading alpha character might be capital, or there might be punctuation between "words", etc...
Browser Ponies
50 Redundant Phrases to Avoid
If they did finally solve this, I might be nearly back to using FF as a primary. With Chrome I have had more and more problems with certain sites (not all legacy either) the last few months. Also, I've been impressed with the improvements in speed and reliability of Firefox in the last couple of releases. Everyone remembers the days of 15 second FF startup because you had a handful of add-ons turned on.

Now, I've gained some discipline and stopped installing 50K plugins, but Firefox has done the heavy lifting here. On FF 15 I only have a small amount of plugins (partially because I abandoned its usage) but on my work Mac, it goes from shutdown to usable in 685ms.

If anyone you know is delusional enough to think that competition doesn't improve products, just point to FF. The existence and popularity of Chrome has turned FF from a decrepit bloatware to a sleek modern web racehorse. I'm proud of those guys because in all honesty, I was convinced they would fail. Kudos.
I think its pretty obvious that one of Libya's biggest challenges with their oil money is going to be corruption. The Sovereign Wealth Fund works well at limiting corruption by drastically reducing the amount of money available, but ONLY if the level of corruption was low to begin with, and a high level of transparency maintained.

On a hunch, I have a feeling that Libya does not have suitable conditions. However which way they decide to spend the money, I predict that large amounts will not be used as 'intended'. The difficulty of keeping corruption at a low level, even for such a 'benevolent' task of rebuilding a country should be clear from how badly Iraqi reconstruction went. Why worry about rebuilding the rest of your country when you can get a cut of money from a source NOT LINKED to the well being of your country.
Is this the photo that could clear Assange?
Thank you, Bill Nye, for slamming creationism
I have the same issue on Chrome (21.0.1180.82)/Mac OS X (10.7.2). Other WebGL stuff works.
Grand Canyon-like Terrain on Mars
How many people tried to stream stuff and thought that there was something wrong with their tv or ipad because only audio worked?

At the very least they should advise the user that they can only airplay the audio, but even still, it's not good.
Are your twin girls adults yet? Nutrition and diet are difficult while people are growing. Your body is actively building itself in a way that never happens again. You need larger quantities, of almost everything, than body mass would suggest. You're right, for children, it isn't simple calorie arithmetic.

That said, how disparate are the "differing amounts" they eat? Are they identical twins or fraternal? Lifestyle differences? There are a lot of factors that could produce the effects you're seeing besides "calorie arithmetic doesn't work".

The essence of telling people "calories in - calories out" is to favor a simple (i.e. "easily applied") rule over an absolutely correct one. While people are growing, the equation changes. Get all of your calories in the form of twinkies and your body doesn't get the nutrients it needs to process food, so the equation changes. Assume "normal" ranges for diet and exercise and it more or less works.

This is a fantastically complicated topic, but it is not immune to human nature. We like simple rules that generally work, even if they're full of loopholes and caveats. For people that are overweight or even obese, calories in - calories out is good enough to get started. There are a lot of factors in managing that equation (satiety, nutrient balance, impulse management) but I think a clear goal is a better start than dumping people in a sea of (correct) information.
Javascript AMD considered harmful: autopsy of a persistent discomfort
I am debating this notion of all browsers. There is Chrome, there is Firefox, there is IE and there is Safari.

Chrome is a marketplace, so they'll be there selling you products (and yourself to the products) as long as they can.

Microsoft doesn't want you to use XP anymore, so they are not providing you updates. Safari for Windows is pretty much the same story now. Which practically leaves Firefox and Opera. Two choices.

I am arguing for more credible and substantive choices. I have not used Opera substantively but Firefox to me seems stuck in the past. If I were to add further thoughts, I see that the basic use and function of browser has remained the same for very long time. Just look at the bookmarks manager. Have you seen any browser provide native innovation to their bookmarks manager? The last upgrade in Firefox was several years ago when they introduced Live Bookmarks, but things have gone quiet.

This is just one example of basic functions of everyday use of browser. Has anyone seen any innovation in browser functionality in a long time? It used to render HTML websites in the beginning, and it is still rendering websites (so what if the websites have evolved - the browser has practically not evolved for the daily usage of average users).
Municipal income taxes is one of those things I've never understood about the United States. If the city is highly desirable, like NYC, or even San Francisco, then sure, it might make sense. It does seem like quite an absurd premium for a city like Detroit.
It sounds more like you're bringing out the strawman when you start talking about the average person who buys a computer at Wal Mart. We're not talking about them. We're talking about you. There's a plethora of competitive browsers in the market. You just happen to be using an OS that is not competitive in the market anymore.

The only developers who still see a return from going out of their way to support Windows XP are malware authors.
NightPro.co a SaaS for the nightlife industry launches out of Miami Fl.
This article repeats itself on and on over and over without end.
Anecdotally, most people I know without secure WIFI passwords pick things like:

- Their address (sometimes with numerals spelled out)

- Their last name

- Their child's name

- single (common) dictionary word

- single (common) dictionary word + one or two digits.
The very existence of personal computing disproves your point. The patent system is not a new invention, and there are thousands of patents in every step of this development. Each company creates patents and then licenses them to other companies interested in the technology.
jmcnevin is right, there is a special deal for Rackspace customers. It is documented here https://sendgrid.com/products/rackspace.
Are software patents really hindering innovation in the US? What startups were stopped because of software patents?
It's time for personal robots, and Apple needs to do it
I solved this problem using http://leafo.net/lessphp/. Obviously that only works if you are programming in PHP, but I would imagine there are similar solutions available for other languages?
It's particularly annoying that this prohibition is in place even though there are still other ways-- albeit less convenient ones-- to get the video streaming to your TV. For example, you can use a thunderbolt-to-hdmi connector (or VGA) from your laptop, and probably a 30pin-to-hdmi from your iPad (although I've never tried the latter).

So it's possible to still get the content to your TV, in a much less user-friendly (i.e. tethered) way. I know not everyone has these connectors, but since the ability is there, you'd hope they would just be gracious and allow for the better experience.
Still suffers from region locks, inability to get it on my TV easily, late release times, and all those other things that are made so easy when you download TV.
Handpicked jQuery Plugins
I can back Jack in saying the Berlin startup culture is vommit-inducing.
2012 Q2: Software Engineering Salaries in Silicon Valley
I'm not sure I'd want new users to participate. I'd want them to lurk for a while (a few weeks or months) to learn the standards of the community before "contributing".

If the average new user just started doing what they do on other similar sites, HN wouldn't be a "fantastic community" for long.
That site certainly looks very good, but is awfully slow. I'd have prefered a not so flashy design, and I also think this would have presented the police department better. It does look modern and slick, but not very professional/official. Makes sense if they want to present themselves as modern, but it's not really accessible. I visit official sites like that to inform myself, so the best design would've been clear, performant (in case someone has an old PC) and, in the optimal case, include a contact form/chat applet.

It's a well designed website, but the design doesn't fit the target group.
I think we can all agree that as far as understanding the unimaginable complexity of life, the universe, and everything goes, the human race is pretty much Screwed with a capital F.
Yes, automatic updates can be technically risky. The worst-case scenario is a buggy automatic update that breaks the updating mechanism itself so you can't recover. This has happened to companies the size of McAfee and Skype. But of course users also hate automatic updates that disrupt their experience, changing around the UI or enforcing a new registration scheme or breaking some piece of compatibility or just generally bloating the program.

But what's the lesser evil? The risk associated with automatic updates, or the headaches associated with many versions of software existing in the wild and security problems in them going unpatched? The software industry seems to be discovering that automatic updates are better off for the bulk of users in the bulk of situations.

Just as one example, what if IE6 silently updated itself to IE7 then IE8? The web might be years ahead of where it is now if we'd gotten off supporting that buggy dinosaur in 2007 instead of 2011.
Noteworthy that Armstrong as an X-15 pilot falls in both of these groups.
Similar to the "The Lisp Curse": http://winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html

Every project has friction between members, disagreements,
conflicts over style and philosophy. These social problems
are counter-acted by the fact that no large project can be
accomplished otherwise. "We must all hang together, or we will
all hang separately." But the expressiveness of Lisp makes
this countervailing force much weaker; one can always start
one's own project. Thus, individual hackers decide that the
trouble isn't worth it. So they either quit the project, or
don't join the project to begin with. This is the Lisp Curse.
I agree that .azw/.mobi is an inferior format to .epub/.pdf, but Calibre is free software for Linux that converts most formats without an issue (and given that the Amazon version already has formatting issues, I doubt that's a problem).

The best thing to do, though, is what Cory Doctrow does: http://craphound.com/down/?page_id=1625. He even has (had) an option for a Gamebody Advance reader!
Just to update, after a couple of hours playing with it, I am finally noticing it fluxuates up and down. It appears to let go of consumed memory after a period of inactivity. That's great news!
Online Coding Exercises For Programming Education
OK, first off -- awesome! Secondly, I have a number of questions that probably have to do with the fact that I'm unfamiliar with a lot of this stuff.

1. Would it be possible to build this fully on top of git (perhaps using libgit2)? I ask, because the "holy" grail for me is finding some magic way for my designers to use git without knowing it. Right now my designers (and I think most non-programmer people), love to use Dropbox. Dropbox has a number of issues as a shared project tool in my perspective (not the least of which being that you are only allowed ONE dropbox account per computer, so you start having a shared folder mess and your dropbox begins to balloon in size on every computer with that account). It appears that something like this could look like Dropbox to everyone disinterested in vcs and act like Git to everyone else who cares.

2. The other reason for libgit2 is to ideally also git-push after every edit/save, to something like github.

3. Max OS X support please :)
I'm assuming the ten character all numerical password was a phone number. Phone numbers have discernable patterns, like area codes.
My grandmother owns a Kindle Keyboard 3G and a netbook, she says she prefers the Kindle because "there are two many things popping up at me" on the netbook.
Engineers Onstage: Reuben Smith on RIM's fall, community management at wikiHow
Anyone else tired of all these entrepreneur/startup blogs and articles? It's a bubble in itself.

Now I skip past them like I skip tabloid and gossip "articles".
Show HN: Desktop software to secure your wifi - Wifi Protector
Seeing the article on Ars technica about wifi hacking, I feel this could be relevant for other folks here who want to stay secure on wifi networks.

Few weeks ago we launched Wifi Protector - http://www.wifiprotector.com. Its a windows software that will scan your wifi networks and asses how secure they are. It will show you intruder alerts if somebody new appears on the network and it will also offer VPN protection.

We have been working months on it and got some decent reviews already. I would be interested in your feedback since we still working out what useful features to pack into the product.

Warning! Its a free product that is ad-supported, if you do not want to see any ads - untick the Browser Extension during installation.
Firefox has that simplified API in the Add-on SDK (aka Jetpack). However, they're stuck supporting all the traditiional XUL and XPCOM based extensions as well.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/tools/builder
Damn Cool Algorithms: Homomorphic Hashing
The ISP might not have any idea, but your usenet provider does. I'm curious if it's common practice for them to log user activity.