skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You have to think, that with the limited data they are allowed to release, this must be extremely frustrating! A true rock and a hard place. The general public are led to believe, that they are willing to conspire secretly together with the government, to spy on their customers, must not only be infuriating, but brand damaging! Then you are required by law not to defend yourself ;)

p.s. I'm taking google at their word -- that they are not giving 'direct access' to the NSA. I am assuming they know, that the truth could leak out at some point, where they to lie about it.
It's funny how they put 4chan with the 'F's in the list of supporting companies instead of at the beginning where you'd normally find names starting with digits.
If Helvetica was so great, why did Linotype (subsidiary D. Stempel AG) create Neue Helvetica, a "reworking of the typeface with a more structurally unified set of heights and widths"? :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_Neue#Neue_Helvetica_...
Gun ownership has fuck all to do with the "need to overthrow the government some day". That's idiocy, that's lunacy. Go ask the Weather Underground or the Branch Davidians what happens when you have guns and think you can challenge the government.

If you can't defend your desire to possess guns EXCEPT by threatening the rule of law, you have a shoddy argument. The same goes for "home defense". The purpose of rights is not defense against tyranny. If it is, then you're implicitly arguing that it would be okay to take your rights away, as long as there is no danger of tyranny.
You really love that phrase, don't you? I'm sure in other communities it is a great way to marginalize those with interests that you do not share.
I'm more interested in the international numbers, as US politics seems to differentiate between US citizens and non-US citizens when it comes to human rights.

Edit: Or is this also including requests for users in other countries? Sorry, English is not my mother tongue, so I might got it wrong.
1. Google probably should offer passive S/MIME on mail. START TLS goes a long way, but providing the same signals about message authenticity to people who IMAP from gmail as who use the web UI would be nice.

A non-google-trusting way to do PGP with a better UI/UX would also be a nice feature for gmail. Just indicating "encrypted" at the message-list view or something. I have PGP working quite nicely in mutt, but a lot of people seem to prefer webmail.

2. I'd actually prefer a world where signals intelligence, outside extremely tactical intelligence, were impossible through technical means. I think we'll be there at some point, just because the cost of protection is dropping.

(confidentiality and message integrity should be feasible for any reasonable government defender at this point. traffic analysis/direction finding/etc. burns bandwidth and latency budgets, so that might be harder, but you can do arbitrarily well.)

The US (government and citizens/private industry) probably has more to gain from universally strong COMSEC vs. effective USG SIGINT.
Apple seems to expect App Nap might create issues, the developer docs for the feature have a note indicating:

> Note: If you experience problems with App Nap, you can temporarily disable it for a particular process by typing:

> defaults write <app domain name> NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

> Immediately file a bug describing the app and explaining how to reproduce the problem.
If you can get past the icons, the UI itself appears to be much improved. Just looking at the compass app it's much clearer to glance at and get your information without the Master and Commander design of the old one getting in the way.
Another excellent test case is the track "Second Bad Vilbel" by Autechre. The rockets at the beginning pose an insurmountable challenge for most codecs. Last I checked, MP3 at any bitrate couldn't do it, and Ogg Vorbis fell down unless you went up to at least -q7, which is a rather high bitrate (~224kbps).
ps: I'm totally pro-gun. I think gun control arguments are flawed as well. But the pro-gun arguments made, including this one, are usually awful.
The cat's definitely out of the bag anyways, so Drummond is definitely right that mentioning FISA numbers can't further harm national security. Make the right call, Mr. Attorney General!
I would have preferred NFSv4 over SMB2. They are quite similar technically, but the former has less chance of veering off into supporting strange Windowsims which will be hard to translate to a POSIX client. That said, SMB2 is widely deployed and Microsoft is innovating in SMB faster than NFS is improving.

Fortunately OS X does not use Samba as their SMB2 client.
The thing looks genuinely ugly with the outer casing off: like computer junk from the late '90s, with a touch of Jawa Quality Spares.
Is it possible that the NSA is in cahoots with the CALEA device manufacturers? Once a CALEA device has been integrated with the SP's system, might it be the case that it can act as a trojan horse?

On the one hand, they could wall off the device, and have packets routed to it after reviewing the request. On the other hand, the device could be unfirewalled from the rest of the network.
No, that's great too! I found the quiz informative. The title on HN was a little misleading, that's all.
What are the legal ramifications if employees at Google also work at the behest of the NSA/FBI/CIA (unbeknownst to Google)? It is one thing to compel the organization to reveal information, but what are the legal questions around essentially spies within the various corporations?

This very blog post mentions that Google hires some of the best security engineers in the world. I'm sure having "prior" employment at the NSA would look great on a resume, and put the person in a position to compromise essentially all internal security and data integrity.
> This isn't a new issue either.

Actually, it's one of the fundamental checks and balances. The judiciary has no executive power. The reason a conviction in court sucks for the defendant is because the executive branch actors enforce that conviction by taking the convict to jail.
If google wants absolution it needs to state it's saving no more tracking data than the minimum required by law.

But it's saving a whole lot more than that. Much more.
Content Marketing, Evolved.
vulnhub.com for vulnerable distributions. They have some distributions setup with WebApps designed for you to practice and learn various attack from.(I.e WebGOAT)

OWASP(Open Web Application Security Project)

OWASP Top Ten: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Proje...

OWASP Testing Methodology manual: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Testing_Guide_v4_Table...

OWASP Developer Guide: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Guide_Project

PTES(Penetration Testing Execution Standard): http://www.pentest-standard.org/index.php/Main_Page

CTFs: overthewire.org

Self-Promo: rmusser.net/infosec site full of information on various infosec topics. Going through right now and updating/increasing the quality of information.
The court is not secret, nor are its decisions intended to be permanently secret.

The idea behind seeking temporarily secret court-orders was that they would effect ongoing investigations, but that the court-orders would become public when the charges were brought.

An example is obtaining a wire-tap order for an individual. If it were automatically public, the individual might be watching the public record and see that they were being wire-tapped and make the wire-tap meaningless.

Now we have a situation where the decisions remain in secret for perpetuity? It's simple bullshit and an attempt to "route around" the Constitutional protections.
Violent revolution puts violent people in charge. You're going to just shoot the government with your gun? I think not. Especially not the American government - you'll be blown to bits by a robot. A proper revolution has the military on the side of the people. Join the military if you want to protect your people from oppressive government - that's what it's for. Non-violent revolution is also possible - why is that never considered by National Assault Rifle Association members?

Take a look at Yemen's attempt at non-violent revolution during the "Arab Spring". Yemen is the only country that has more guns per capita than us. What you saw were government loyalists sniping peaceful protestors from rooftops. The same in Bahrain. I worry about National Assault Rifle Association members on rooftops sniping me when it comes time for revolution.

Beat your swords into plowshares.
The issue here is that Google doesn't know how much data the NSA collects. The NSA has access to the internet backbone that Google uses and can read whatever traffic it wishes that leaves the Google network. Obviously this is not everything but most everything. It is a low view of the NSA to think that they do not have the ability to real-time decrypt SSL certs from every major SSL cert authority. So while Google can claim they do not allow the NSA direct access to it's servers that is only a small comfort in the big scheme of things.

This sort of response from Tech companies is just a distraction from the real issue.
Help Jeremy Find an Apartment
It Is Past Time To Kill "Just One Child"
This is great. I was planning to purchase a few of those services at full price anyways.
I think I might prefer that world too. Now: how likely are we to be in that world any time soon?
I would imagine the "Hacker" bit is because this is affiliated with "HackerMonthly", a monthly print compilation of Hacker News. The actual services seem mostly aimed at early stage startup projects.
Another service I get to quit. Soon they'll be nothing left.
The sentiment has value, but it feels misleading to need to back it up by aligning the idea with the Nazi Germany. (The closest quote by Goebbels appears to be about England rather than Germany, not sure if that makes it more or less relevant here)
I'm just curious: If this program in reality did not give the government unfettered access to Google user data as has been claimed by The Guardian and Snowden, would there be any amount of evidence that could now be presented to you that would convince you that you were misled?
I've even saw something that seemed to be mimicking WebOS - it's when you close a tab in Safari with the "Swipe up"/Discard gesture..

Other than that, i won't comment on the interface until i've used it myself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree
I really doubt Google is going to play chicken about something so serious as giving away all their user data. Is it incomprehensible to you that they are telling the truth?
The point of bitcoin was never necessarily the ability to privately exchange value (given that the blockchain is public, if you can tie a wallet to an individual you know their transactions).

It was to provide a currency that was decentralized.
Zero to One: Download Peter Thiel's Brain
@Gruber: If you don’t think iOS 7 is beautiful, I don’t know what to say to you.

https://twitter.com/gruber/status/344179342764568577
> I've read the transformer problem is one that California utilities are already addressing, as in as few as one or two charging at night could blow out a neighborhood transformer.

Be very careful who you trust on these issues. A typical level 2 charger is 30 amps by 220 VDC. That's 6600 watts. That's the equivalent of four standard 120 VDC, 15 amp household circuits. If two people using level 2 chargers would blow out a neighborhood transformer, there are significant design flaws with the local infrastructure, and the utility company has set themselves up for failure.

I'm not saying the increase in the number of EVs charging at night won't cause any problems at all, but utilities are heavily regulated. They have to provide reasons for rate increases, and this looks like a honey pot for them. Expect them to shout about it at the top of their lungs.
Game Of Thrones Finale Breaks Piracy Download Record
No one did.
You can have an opinion as a non design expert. Don't expect anyone to give a fuck about it. Especially Apple, while they continue to make huge profits from the products that you, non-design expert "don't like".
What Mom Never Told You About Building A Website
First, you are right that smart mobile devices have the most direct impact on handhelds which were a niche within a niche already.

Second, I can't imagine a game on Google Play costing $30, never mind $60. Can you imagine a world without $30 games?

Third, those $30-60 games are only possible inside the closed console market. In this context, the idea of indy games on consoles is just strange: It is contrary to the way the console market works.

The point is that if smart mobile devices on one side, and gaming PCs on the other side peel away enough of the market, 8th generation consoles will continue the decline in unit volume that happened in the 7th generation, and lead to the end of console gaming.

You are comparing high end FPS games against casual games. When, in reality, console games are divided between dozens of genres. If everything else - fighting games, strategy games, CRPGs, simulation games, etc. are all fine on handsets and/or tablets, it's the end of consoles.
59% Oppose Government’s Secret Collecting of Phone Records
It would be a felony for anyone at NSA to attempt to "turn" an employee of Google and get them to leak secret information from Google's systems.
>We have always made clear that we comply with valid legal requests

This is no comfort at all to non-americans since any request for information on foreigners is legal. Which is why this request won't fix the current PR disaster for Google.
Lossy formats are useful, no doubt about that. I was just pointing out an advantage of a lossless format.
It's not that there is anything wrong with it, it's just not very "innovative"

The new design can be classified as a "Flat UI" a recent movement in interface design where things like reflective surfaces, borders, and photo-realistic elements are eschewed in favor of a minimalist, iconographic look with bold coloring offsetting neutrally colored text. The aesthetic was heavily popularized by Microsoft in Windows 8 when they introduced the Metro UI. Google also picked up on the aesthetic in their redesign of their web services as well as recent iterations of the Android OS.

Apple has always been the darling of the design community so for them to be late to the party leaves the Apple faithful with a bit of egg on their face. How dare Microsoft dictate what is cool in a world where everything Apple makes is the very definition of hip.

Not only that, there are several major faux paus in the unveiled design that designers are having fits over. Many of the icons in the default interface lack a consistency across different parts of the iOS (like the camera). Any sort of organic rhythm is lost in the palette and seen as jarring. Worst of all, the prized "golden ratio" that Apple has been well known for in their design seems to be gone.

To people who pay that kind of attention to things like this, its an unmitigated disaster.

PS: Also, skeuomorphism. Because it was horrible until Apple got rid of it, apparently.
Just to clarify, I think you are irritated with the inaccurate/sensationalist reporting of PRISM, and not that it was leaked to begin with?
For the consumer listener, I agree with you. On the vast majority of consumer sound systems and consumer ears, as you point out, compressing that further into a 128kbs MP3 isn't noticeable. For me it personally is, but on most music say 192VBR MP3 isn't.

Currently at the end of the line all audio is going to be squished, at best, to 44k 16bit sampling. Most audio production and engineering is going to be taking place at quality levels than what the final CD master is, however.
/During/ production working with higher quality sources such as a higher sample rate, higher bit rate FLAC sample means that you can 'do more' with it before you start running into the walls of unintended artifacts and distortions. Think of all audio processing as a destructive process - the more you have to begin with the more you can do before the destruction becomes noticeable.

Intentionally ignoring all debates on aesthetics, obviously in many artistic circumstances the artifacts and distortions are desired - but when they are you can easily achieve them in an /intentional/ way. Avoiding them is the challenge.

And there are certain contexts in which it is more noticeable: high quality club sound-systems, custom home and car audio systems, etc. My vehicle's sound system has a very easily audible difference between a 128KBS MP3 and an uncompressed 44k 16bit CD for most music, and in that context you are damn sure I want the uncompressed experience. So having an /option/ for high quality lossless formats such as FLAC available universally helps to serve such niche markets.

tldr; if you are in camp that can't tell the difference, you shouldn't download the higher quality larger files. They aren't for you. Other camps do exist, however.

edit edit: And this all ignores the annoying 'loudness war' trend in modern audio engineering to use compressors to flatten out all dynamic range anyway. Le sigh
You're suggesting that the idea of Google as a tool for the NSA is a marginal interest on HN?
I'm a New Zealander living in Spain. My circle of acquaintances here seem to be disappointed, frustrated, but not surprised about the recent Prism revelations.

I find myself yearning for a non-USA based alternative to Gmail, Facebook, et al, yet am resigned that the alternatives are currently so inferior that I'll stick with the compromised options.
Search only interfaces are limiting. I feel you need both - a hierarchy is a valuable tool for browsing, if you aren't sure what you are searching for.
Actually it sounds to me like it was a brilliantly executed troll.
You can do reports by voice and reporting it is just a few clicks if you don't use voice. I think this will work well even after they get self0driving cars, even when you have self driving cars there's still a need for good traffic data.
If a graphic designer/data-driven/infographic designer made this pretty I'd buy one for my cube wall...
Yeah, I suppose. It's all good. I'm just feeling somewhat surly this afternoon :/. I also realize I'm in no way the target market for this package.
Not to be partisan, or anything.

The thing that stood out the most for me was slide-up to unlock, that's been a Windows thing since they began their redesign with WP (from WinMobile).

Still I think that somehow Apple did a better job with the flat UI, I'm currently using Windows 8 (by choice) and my phone is a Lumia 521 (again by choice), and I always feel that something is off with the WP/W8 buttons, they just seem too flat or too... just off -- I can't explain it but I get this weird feeling everytime I see them, the buttons and controls just don't feel polished enough.

When I first installed W8 on my laptop, I thought it might be because it's a beta product and not finished, then when they shipped those icons, I thought it was just my screen (my laptop is a four year old dell inspiron that shipped with vista, incidentally it runs W8 better than it did W7, and better than vista before that), but now that I have a new smartphone the niggling is justified -- there is something odd about the buttons, especially when compared to the new iOS7.
I guarantee you that the "who is Snowden working for?" story appeals to more people than the "how do we get the NSA to stop this?" story. Pretty much everyone that grew up in Reagan's America is more concerned about Russia and China than the NSA. Indeed, that front would be unified bloc, with the 65+ crowd along with the usual hawkish conservatives, if not for the sole fact that this was revealed under Obama's watch. This fractures the usual conservative response. They're still paranoid about whether China or Russia is behind this, but at the same time they hate Obama, so...
The only one that looks useful to me is the Geckoboard @ 50% lifetime off. But I'm confused, it also says, "50% lifetime discount off any plans* (usually $294)". Which of their plans is usually $294 (http://www.geckoboard.com/plans-and-pricing/)? And is it lifetime for the initially selected plan, or can I maintain the 50% off when I upgrade?
Is this how the smartphone OS market is going to go now? Companies imitating other companies design?

Besides WP7 and WP8's interface, there really hasn't been a huge leap in this space for a while. Is this because companies are simply following the market leader and playing it safe?
So ok, it copies an AMI and fires it up, thats not real exciting, right?

If you are "doing it right" you can actually get a freshly installed server in under 60 seconds if your installer isn't totally busted (IE: stock ubuntu/centos/etc).
Ask HN: What is the performance cost of PRISM?
Has there been any discussion of what, if any, performance penalties that PRISM might incur on internet traffic overall?
Visit EE classes and study areas at your local universities.
Oh, they know. Legislators have pretty high clearance.
Ask HN:  Can we have a discussion about Tor?
I tried (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5843524) to do this before but it flopped.

I get that the government funds Tor; which doesn't really matter to me. The government also makes guns but I can still shoot a government official with it, if it came to that. What I want to know is whether or not, if I am using Tor correctly, can I be identified.

By correctly I mean:

- Only use Tor from bootable live, generic distro.

- Never use plugins

- Never use any identifying information

- Always use PGP for sending any personally identifiable information

- Never access any of my 'real' identities stuff.. like logging into my reddit account or gmail or something that I would do on the 'clearnet'.

If I, hyopthetically speaking, were going to engage in an illegal activity, such as clicking a hypothetical felony button on a hypothetical Tor hidden service; and I did it from my home network which I pay for with a direct deposit out of my bank account; from a technical and likely reality situation (regarding who controls Tor nodes), what are the situations that would lead to me being able to be convicted of said crime.

Further, what if I add a VPN, and which VPN do I need to add? I do get that a VPN is theoretically adding a layer of security, but it appears I have to trust the VPN itself; which is less than ideal, cus I may get unlucky and pick a honey pot.

It seems, in light of recent revelations, that some discussion surrounding this would be interesting and/or beneficial to many people.
Not sure how I missed that on the first read through - good to see though, reassuring as long as the scope descriptions are reasonably clear!
This is true.

I have a huge amount of respect for people who:

A. Ask for feedback.
B. Publicly!
C. Act on the feedback.

That's why Sean is awesome :) He did a GREAT job incorporating our feedback into something that's 10x better than before.
I'd bet "before 2025", absent some major catastrophe. First you build systems which let platform developers centralize trust, then the essential step is letting individuals or organizations pick their own roots of trust (and some kind of crazy web of trust thing for interchange).

We're doing a pretty good job on mobile of "centralized trust", and also sort of with cloud infrastructure, if not apps.

At least, we'll have secure infrastructure on which people can continue writing insecure applications by 2020-2025. The "people writing insecure applications" won't stop until people stop writing applications, hopefully replaced by non-humans writing applications, maybe in 2050+.
The "work harder" here is that you don't need to acknowledge pretty much any of those popups in Waze. If you leave them alone, they'll timeout and disappear automatically, you don't NEED to interact with the app while driving, I rarely touch it except to report traffic or a wreck, at which point I'm usually stopped anyway.