skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Any decent reporter is going to try to track down additional sources if possible. Conversely Chinese dissidents who want to get word out to the world are much more likely to talk to reporters for the NY Times than to the Chinese government. Therefore this becomes a possible way to identify dissidents.

Even their public outing is good for them. The fact that this story is out there will make it less likely that Chinese dissidents will dare talk to NY Times reporters. Which means that dissidents will have a harder time getting their stories out to the world.

There are other benefits to the Chinese as well. For instance the rich data that the Times has about various US organizations could help them identify people who could become useful informants.
I don't think the RubyGems people were incompetent. The software serves its core purpose quite well (as a library delivery mechanism) and is quite reliable. But clearly they weren't thinking about security in decision, and what would happen if the repos were compromised.

Let's be honest here - no software is 100% secure. As developers and consumers, the idea that we all review all of the tools in our toolchain for security soundness is absurd. It's like saying that everyone using C made poor decisions because of security flaws in popular libraries (even security ones, like openssl) and therefore all of the C community has no engineering competence.

The fact is, China already has their eyes on GitHub and it's not beyond the planning capability to place backdoors in popular software to suit their future ends.

No matter who the attacker may be, you have to be prepared for the situation where your computers and data are compromised, period.
TBH, it could be anyone in the chain with sufficient authority to trigger it and hoping to impress someone who can reward him in a tangible manner.

And the sad thing, it is not limited to bureaucracies or government organisations. I have seen bugs that are not fixed, patches that are rejected because it allows someone somewhere to behave heroically in an attempt to impress someone.

When I first experienced this, it was a very real WTF moment from the School of Dilbert Mismanagement.
That's not how journalism really works.

More often than not, the journalist or their editor get tips from people in the know (who are trusted NOT to disclose that information to you). Only then does a journalist start combing public records to have a verifiable (and non incriminating) source -- there's just too much to look at without some initial hints.

Perhaps they are looking for information about the tipsters.
As much as I think he is an awful person profiting off of copyright infringement, I have to admire him for this.
You are also categorically incorrect.

The Chinese central government most certainly cares about Arabs, as they share a disputed border with several majority Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Moreover they have repressed domestic minority populations who are predominantly Muslim. The extent to which there are Islamic unification or nationalist movements (which are often tied in with movements in the middle east), the Chinese government very much does care about unrest amongst Chinese muslim populations.
"It then replaced every compromised computer and set up new defenses in hopes of keeping hackers out." I hope that's just poor reporting, or does the Times' IT department really have that poor an understanding of how computers work?

The audience of NYT understands "We replaced the compromised computers."

Whereas the audience won't understand "We rebuilt each compromised computer, taking care to ensure they weren't exposed to the internet (and, additionally, were isolated from our internal network) until we were certain we'd patched every security flaw the attackers had previously exploited. We've also made policy changes to minimize the attack surface of our new infrastructure."

Therefore, those are wasted words. In fact, those words are an unnecessary risk. It's a risk because it's a strategic mistake for a newspaper to publish confusing articles.
> The likes of psychedelics, however, are framing or pivotal events in my life

Likewise. I have only used them twice for that reason. I will also say the two times I have had terrifying hallucinations, they were induced by intensive meditation, not by drugs. The thing is, I think that you get out of these things what you put into them. The time I tried mushrooms, I could move in and out of reality as I chose. I attributed this to preparation because many of the others who tries mushrooms with me could not do this.

The time I tried LSD was different. I could not move back to reality, but I spent most of the time in meditation. Finally later I gave up on meditating only to have a series of life-altering epiphanies and hallucinations immediately following.

These experiences can happen without drugs to be sure, but there is something about taking oneself out of the normal world that seems to facilitate them.
I thought it was KMFDM?
Hi...

Love the idea and you've got a strong landing page... I like it, and have wanted to work on something similar for some time.

I tried to sign up, but wasn't able to. The sign up form just loaded to the same page, no error messages, no confirmation emails etc. I tried logging in with the details I used but it just came back to the login page, with no error message. Using firefox 18. Hit me up on twitter (@jayoneil) if you want me to try again...

I'm pretty keen to see your implementation and see how it works. Have you thought about deciding on a standard format for CC-licensed lessons? That way you could potentially integrate lessons from here into other systems / apps / viewers too.

Jason
And network card firmware. And graphics card firmware. And in some cases, also ILO firmware, DVD drive firmware, and maybe a few other pieces.

If you trust your IT supplier, and the equipment is a two years old, it's probably more economical to replace everything than try to fix it.

But why would you trust your IT supplier - who sources all their stuff from China in the first place?
Huh? You only need an FCC license for radio and other over-the-air, not for running fiber.

I know people who have started local ISP's in the US (10+ years ago, not recently, because it's hard to get into the market now for business reasons) -- they needed no FCC license. Although, yes, by renting fiber from the teleco's not by running their own. But that's a capital issue, and a right-to-run-fiber-through-the-public-way issue (permission from muncipality, as you note), not an FCC issue.

I'm not sure what you're referring to.
Tour package
It's funny, I am not the OP but I read this:

> Have you tried not smoking AND not drinking? ;-)

And i noticed that my home remedies for asthma and respiratory stuff all involve either smoking (legal, non-tobacco) herbal remedies (Verbasculum thapsis) or binge drinking ;-). Fortunately it's only required a couple times a year at most. In both cases, I find the duration and severity of respiratory problems goes way down..... (In comparison to modern pharmaceuticals.)
> I don't think the RubyGems people were incompetent.

They sat on a publicly disclosed vulnerability in the YAML parser for a week. The YAML parser itself was ridiculously designed to (essentially) eval() YAML.

Those were the two active decisions of incompetence.

On top of this, they built a massively central system that is widely trusted with no means of code verification whatsoever. There is no telling what people could have injected into that repository at any point in its history.
Adium does this, optionally. It is configurable. It is occasionally a PITA, but usually "just works"
I am trying a new method.

Code till I want to stop coding, wake up when I want to wake up.

The only thing is to do regular weekly progress checks. So at the end of the week, I'll actually take a stock check of what I have accomplished. As long as its pretty reasonable progress (say 40-50hours coding with actual results), then I'm good to go.

I find my body is hard to understand. Some days I can code for 12 hours. Some days I can code for 2. Some days I wake up bright and chirpy in the morning. Some days I dont.
So PRC online spin doctors couldnt do the job
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
The take away I got from the article is that complication in a requirement multiplies many times in the rest of the business process. The KISS principle is not just for developers. It's more so for the business people. Having simple business models, requirements, and features directly translated into ease of implementation, simpler operation, and more satisfying service. And lower cost, too.
It's the consumerist...
If you want to give credit to a report detailing how much money your political leaders have piled up for themselves, hacking the media outfit that published it is a great way to confirm the story.

Do you think it matters now for the Chinese gov? By doing this and more they will make it very expensive for NYT and impossible for smaller outfits to mess with them. Maybe they'll uncover some dirt and release it to embarrass or discredit its reporters, who knows.

Google thought they'd forced them to back down and we know what happened.
Personally, this leans on the polite side to me.
You can't buy one? (They're not $10 anywhere I've seen, btw. Break even is around a year.)
‘Your Map’s Wrong’
Not taking credit cards and "no laptops allowed" are hallmarks of indie coffee shops though. No other sane business in New York would even dare to pull that off—they have the only audience who would put up with such limitations.
Wired telecoms is not exactly the first industry that would come to mind if someone were to mention startups. Maybe if you found a wireless way to do it? But even then, government regulation's a bitch.
I once sat next to a guy at work whose phone would induce this noise in my speaker about 10 seconds before his phone actually rang. So one day just before his phone rang I said 'Steve, your wife's phoning' and a few seconds later, she was. He was totally freaked out by this; he'd never noticed the buzzing sound. He had no idea how I had worked this out. His wife rang him all the time, statistically it was pretty likely to be her. :-)
Demo: https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons

We charge 1% when you buy or sell bitcoin (by connecting any U.S. bank account). Sending BTC-to-BTC is free (we pay the minimal bitcoin fees on your behalf).

We also released a nice API: https://github.com/coinbase/coinbase-ruby
Columnar Storage
No, it means they use Windows :)
It was more about 'awesome' rather than 'nasty'.
ASUS AS-L7000L Battery - 6000mah Li-ion AS-L7000L battery pack
6000mah ASUS AS-L7000L Laptop Battery Description:

Battery Type: Li-ion

Battery Capacity: 6000mah

Battery Voltage: 10.8v

Battery Size: 139.6 * 89.0 * 18.9(mm)

Battery Color: Black

Battery Brand: ASUS Laptop Battery

Availability : In Stock
Very good points!

>> it does not see a line between NGOs, the NYT/WSJ, and the US government.

Aren't we all doing the same mistake when we refer to them? All we know is that the attacks came from China, so we safely assume it came from the Government? Why is it that each time something comes from China (a country with approximately 5 time more people than the US - source Wikipedia) we blame their government and treat it as a declaration of war (or, with less exaggeration, a political move)? Is it possible that this enormous gigantic human honeycomb has, say, organizations, corporations, competitors, God-knows-what-which-isn't-their-government?

The western media have created this weird image of China and ... something doesn't add up. I've never been there and I hope I'll get the chance some day, but I can't help but feel that "someone" (feel free to replace this word with the antagonists of your favorite conspiracy theory) is trying to shove down our throat that China is a menace.

That being said, I agree with your analysis. The Chinese government has seen what happened in the Arab world and it knows that the US constantly needs an enemy. It probably does feel threatened.
The Magic Words of Early-Stage Startups
I was concerned about this very thing when I was preparing to immigrate to Australia. In the end, because I had a job offer I got in on a 457 (good for 4 years) and didn't have to pay the ACS' accreditation fee. Even better, in 6 months when I apply for Permanent Residence I still don't have to pay the ACS because I've been working here for 2 years.
The only problem I have is that they tend to "Engineerize" the titles, if you will. The new titles are usually more bland. Maybe it's selection bias, but when I notice it's usually a "well, that was a lot more intriguing the first time I clicked this submission."

I dunno' - I can see the pros and cons of having more emotional or attention-getting titles, just as I can see the same for the "this is the information in the article" kind of title too. It's a tough line to balance on. Personally, I dig the emotion side more, but I also know I don't speak for everybody.
Sorry, I added the second part a little later.
You can check out a sample of my work here: http://nwdesign.us
Did you read that article by any chance? Full of assumptions and statistics obtained essentially from asking 250,000 people what phones they bought last year... Those claims were from a sales poll, not any official sales report. All this post is doing is stoking the flames and begging for a raging response from Android and Windows Phone users.
What does that have to do with accepting anonymous donations?

Presumably accepting donations in bitcoins can only be beneficial. Accepting payments may or may not be a different story.
What is the strategic gain from hacking NYT? Identify potential other sources (within china) perhaps?

---email---

Hey [NYT reporter,]
you may wanna check this
....lists wealth and place where this can be verified...

James
---------

---------
email 2

Hey NYT Exec
got a tip from a State Dept source regarding Chinese leaders
wealth....
--------

Maybe they'll get a "I can't believe he/she gave me herpes" email or at worst they mess with, and raise the cost of doing business for NYT. The cost to the Chinese is as close to zero as possible, they have the money and manpower, so why not do it.
For C#, maybe (not enough experience, but I would be surprised if what you say is a good practice).

For C / C++: You do that with static libraries, not shared libraries, and that's the only sane way to work: Have all library projects part of your main workspace, so you can easily debug and fix stuff in them, yet manage them independently.
My apartment complex has a $15 convenience fee for paying online. It's 2013.
But see, the thing is, that's not what it says on the box. http://us.norton.com/antivirus/

"It's okay to blink, because we never do – SONAR technology and live 24x7 Threat Monitoring watch over your PC for any suspicious behavior to quickly identify threats."

"Protection from the future, available today – our exclusive reputation and behavior antivirus technology are so advanced that they can stop online threats that bad guys haven't even created yet."
You would probably get something out of being a MCP. There just isn't a good reason to be a member of ACS - at all.
Would be cool if it was live to both rather than clicking the arrows.
All of those things are technically true, but don't match up with the M.O. of the perpetrators in question (they're not actually using any super-fancy BIOS rootkits).

Also, the remediation process is exactly that, a process. It involves a pre-planned, direct remediation effort at a specific time, after which, egress traffic is monitored to look for any other outbound connections that pop up that were missed in the first "sweep." Passwords are all changed.

You "rinse, lather, repeat" that process until you stop seeing the communications. It can take several times before you sound an "all-clear".
Well, life comes with batteries included, but the desire to hook up the 240 volt is there regardless.

Here, brain, inside, outside, no idea what any of that means.

It's like saying what is outside of everything, or what is inside of outside.

Not one single thing can be explained, but as if by magic Scala 2.10 build times remain slow and another Ruby library gets hacked into.

And so it goes...ours is not to reason why
Closure JS optional parameters are lousy
I'm confused... What's the relationship between Arabs and Pakistan/Afghanistan?

There's a difference between being Arab and being Muslim. The greatest Muslim countries are not Arab (Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan).

"Islamic unification" is by definition the opposite of "nationalist movements", and is very unlikely to happen. I can guarantee that Saudis, Pakistanis, Morrocans and Turks have way too little in common to even consider unification.

Source: I'm a non-Muslim from the Middle East.
So much time and effort by talented people being used for such useless purposes. So monarchic.
I am wondering about the kernel piece. Does Chrome on Windows have any code that is loaded in the kernel? I'd be quite surprised if they did. Any Chrome expert know?
Own3d.tv shutting down
Just give it time. All of the poorly run NYC businesses I enjoyed in the late 90s are long gone.
That would be a completely different study. You can't make any claims about the effect of a&b if you've only studied a|b.
> This is why the Chinese government feels that it is under attack by the United States, and it does not see a line between NGOs, the NYT/WSJ, and the US government,

Ironically, you are assuming the same thing about China.
Have used both ankhSVN [1] w/ VS2008 extensively over the last few years and lately using Git Source Control Provider [2] w/ VS2010. Both tools have been excellent for me, have very rarely needed to drop down to external tools. YMMV

[1] http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/
[2] http://gitscc.codeplex.com/
Android Development - A Hello World tutorial from zero to go
Reddit went Bananas for my Android Hello World tutorial and I was advised to also post it on hacker news. This is the first in a series of planned progressively more complicated Android tutorials.
I'm personally fine with the policy. In several cases, where the title was too long, their edit of the title was better than mine.
BEST THING EVER!
Mozilla has developed a PDF reader addon for Firefox using javascript. I've been running it for about a week as my default PDF reader. It's been acceptable for my needs.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pdfjs/
Next you're going to be telling me they make pipes for smoking marijuana. Call me when you start making sense.
everyone I know who owns a smartphone with a virtual keyboard is very proficient at typing on it, myself included. Older folks may have a hard time with it, but the younger crowd adapted very nicely to it. I'd rather have the extra screen real-estate.
100$ a month for 50M/50M still seems pretty damn steep of a price to me; even with phone and tv. Especially compared to Google Fiber at 1G.
they can certainly help one see amazing insights or interesting things, but he's correct that they're not particularly good as a tool to awaken/enlightenment. too much distraction.
Seeing both would be nice - something along the lines of:

"Original Title [A brief description if the original title is insufficiently detailed]"
If I'm not mistaken, I think, at least in Ontario, there is a massive amount of dark fiber just laying around not being used.
yes, but the OP doesn't actually expose any of the functionality you list as exclusive to web audio. which is why i asked my question.
// Why are we incorporating Git?
Cus, MicroSoft can't write something equivalent to git - but a shitty VSS!
x-post from the consumerist thread:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5143224

--"Please change the link title"
Sounds a lot better than Vancouver. I'm paying $45/mo for 15 down 1 up, with a bandwidth usage cap. You literally can't get home internet for less than $40/mo, and the speed you get when you pay that is a joke.
Buy this from your favorite online site:

http://www.motorola.com/Video-Solutions/US-EN/Products-and-S...

Call the service # and tell them you have a new MAC address to give them for your subscription and the fee gets removed. All-in-all it took 5 minutes.
I like how the whole article is rambling about Chinese hacks yet no strong & clear evidence suggests it's from China, except perhaps from a Chinese IP address.

You know what, Chinese computers are also likely to be hacked easily.
Maybe you can apply for a CS master's program.
There are interdiscipline researches, so called computational chemistry. you use computer to simulate chemical reactions, protein structure... I guess a professor in this area is willing to accept students with chemistry background who can also program. But you need to make sure the program is in CS, not in Chem.
There is also computational biology. simulating Cell division
for example. i guess it's full of chemistry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_chemistry
Firefox Now Blocking All Plug-Ins Except Latest Flash
Google adds North Korean prison camps to maps
As a Chinese, I would say the Chinese government is worried about 'Arab Spring', but that's not why they attacked NYT this time. The 'Great firewall' was built to prevent any uprising similar to 'Arab spring' from being started.
How come the Anonymous never attacked Chinese government?
interesting. i haven't messed around with web audio in about a year and wasn't aware that this was now the case. my googling failed to turn anything up so i'd be interested in reading anything you might be able to link me to about this.

also, since you say "for starters" i'm curious what your other reasons are.
You may believe reinstalling the OS is enough

I made no such claim, but verifying bios and firmware signatures (and indeed detecting changes when they happen), and reinstalling them at scale is not a major challenge with a well managed IT infrastructure.

I can accept however that the Times may well have been running 10 year old PCs, with manual IT management processes, and outdated security software, and that replacement may have been overdue and economically more viable.
Zimbabwean government bank balance 'down to $217'
Wifi password hack
Wifi passwordhack
I love this! Who made it and is it open source? I'd love to combine it with IODocs so that you can query an API and not only see JSON but also explore the objects contents.

edit: Just noticed there is indeed a footer with a link to the sourcecode. Awesome. Going to add this to IODocs tomorrow.
"a thermostat in one of its corporate apartments and a printer in its offices — were still communicating with computers in China"

This is the dark side of the "internet of everything". Software=inherently buggy
Software EATS WORLD
Word=buggy?
Website Calls to Action Done Right
So you prefer Slashdot?
Great article and great insights. Working with Chinese Manufacturers takes a lot of time and know how. For many hardware companies on HN, they quickly realize what a process manufacturing really becomes. Frequent trips to China and effectively communicating isn't always feasible.

Another option is HD Trade Services (YC S12). We help find factories, manage relationships (including communication and specs translation into Mandarin), and handle Quality Control (Factory Audits, Inspections) and Logistics (including fulfillment in the US). We are currently helping high profile start ups take their prototype to reality. We are based in the US but have boots in the ground in China to handle sourcing, communications, QC and more.

check us out! www.hdtradeservices.com
Stickam is shutting down
India Rape Victim's Friend Describes Their Love Story
That is true, but when you start it is certainly the part that seems the hardest.

It's one of those things that seems almost impossible until you get the "aha" moment and then everything seems to get a lot easier. Then you try and solve more difficult problems and it suddenly gets hard again.