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Comment by zomglings | Hacker News Reader

I apologize in advance for the profanity. This really pissed me off.

FUCK you HackerRank, for even entertaining the notion of litigating open source projects at scale for no good reason.

FUCK you for taking down the the documentation for a harmless open source symbolic mathematics engine without any justification that I can see.

What content of your shitty ranking company could SymPy possibly have infringed on?

Also an honorable FUCK you to GitHub for your DMCA policy to take down the repository without even a standby period (perhaps with a warning?).

And FUCK the internet in 2022 for its bureaucratic and corporate spirit.

And FUCK me for not having the steel to just take my code off of GitHub. I am part of the problem.

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HackerRank and LeetCode are a scourge on our industry, for more reasons than this shitty behavior.

automated programming tests are pretty dystopic, it's true.

especially if the web based editor doesn't support vim style key bindings.

amusing irony that likely parts of a question were lifted from the very source that was subject to the takedown.

bigger problem i have with coding tests is that they check if someone is familiar with some subset of reference material (usually algorithms). in my experience, anyone can pull those from a book in practice and real software engineering has little to do with that and more to do with having the knowledge and experience to avoid making a mess or building weird software.

Well said!!

Personally, I like designing and building software and have been doing so for 20+ years but after doing several HakerRank and Leetcode style interviews it makes me wish to do something else.

I’ve had FAANG recruiters tell me “study for hours per day for a few months” and then you can be ready. Even smaller companies focus on leetcode more than actual experience.

I’ve worked with plenty of optimal algorithms in my life but when I do I spend time researching and looking at many examples rather than having to memorize something that shouldn’t be memorized in the first place; but the way the interviews are done it seems like companies just want code monkeys (even the good paying companies).

No other well-paid profession tolerates this style of interview one you have experience. I would never recommend Software Engineering to anyone given the current environment.

Neither HackerRank nor Leetcode invented this style of interview. The questions you're complaining about predate both sites. The sites were created to help you study for those questions, they did not significantly popularize the questions.

Except, there's a difference when you're in a room with somebody who can tell when the shitty site or the vague nature of a question makes it difficult to complete the request. They can also better gauge someone's understanding of subject matter, merely by talking through the question, approach, etc.

The availability of these sites makes it seem like it's a standard, which adds to the problem. Some small company might not have taken that approach. Now, you don't want to fall behind by not making use of a widely-accepted "standard" practice.

I agree with many parts of your comment. I have been in interviews where the interviewers themselves clearly had no fundamental understanding of the problem or solution. To be clear, I didn't either, but asking clarifying questions got me nowhere.

> Now, you don't want to fall behind by not making use of a widely-accepted "standard" practice.

Absolutely. I can understand Google asking you to write a k-way distributed sort off the top of your head, but I've had similar questions from an "enterprise gone unicorn" that were clearly still in the "wtf even is cloud" phase.

Even so, there is either someone available for some clarification, in my experience. Obviously, this varies across companies and at various levels of helpfulness. Your point is valid, though. The other part there is that it puts the onus on the third-party site(s), exacerbating the problem; whereas, if the interviewers do not understand the question, they are more likely to focus on one of those items to correct going forward.

> No other well-paid profession tolerates this style of interview one you have experience.

Not exactly true, pretty common in finance/trading as well.

It's the result of making IQ tests for jobs illegal. Leetcode and the trick questions asked in finance are just IQ tests in disguise. You can't regulate your way out of the market - if companies want smart people they'll find a way to hire smart people.

IQ tests for employment are not inherently illegal. It’s only illegal if whatever you’re testing has no bearing on the job so as to be used as a proxy for discrimination.

So a job that involves complex problem solving in unique situations would be perfectly reasonable to have an IQ test qualification. But not for something like sweeping the floors or working the assembly line in a meat processing plant.

Difference with trading though is someone is a great trader at one hedge fund they can jump ship pretty easy without hurdles. In fact they compete to get good traders.

For Software Engineering you have to jump through hurdles each time even if you have accomplished a lot at past jobs. I might be wrong but it feels like there are far more Software Engineers compared to jobs than 10 or 20 years ago.

Granted not all software jobs as the last one I got I just had to interview a CEO and show my portfolio. Seems like the algo challenges are really geared toward Silicon Valley but not it's ending up a lot of tech jobs.

Fuck the DMCA, not GitHub!

AFAIK, they're legally required to take down material as soon as they receive a DMCA notice or else lose their safe harbor status.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notice_and_take_down

That's reasonable. Apologies to GitHub. If software companies didn't do it, the DMCA goon squad would go after the data centers.

Thank you for the link.

If you don't take down something you get a DMCA notice for, do you lose safe harbor status for everything, or just for that one thing? If the latter, then wouldn't it be a good move for GitHub to ignore DMCA requests that their lawyers are sure wouldn't hold water?

As I understand, there are different safe harbors and each applies at the "service" level. It's "online service providers" that have safe harbor status.

If you lose safe harbor status you become liable for infringing content on that service.

Infringement still has to happen and you'd still have to be taken to court and lose, but it's now "as if" you yourself uploaded everything.

So in this instance GitHub would be fine, but if they didn't take down the content then they themselves would become liable for any fringing content on their platform.

Or rather Microsoft would become liable, I suppose.

IANAL. That's just my rough understanding.

Fenwick and West has a lovely 36-page FAQ: https://assets.fenwick.com/legacy/FenwickDocuments/DMCA-QA.p...

That is not technically correct. There is no definition "as soon as they receive it". In fact the law calls for "expeditiously or remove" access. Courts confirmed many times that days or weeks is considered expeditious.

Github could've easily take the time and wait for SymPy to file counter notice which then allows Github to keep the content up up until courts say otherwise. Github instead elected to remove content immediately. By their choice.

That's fair. I didn't mean it literally, but should've been more precise since we're talking about a law.

I wonder how many tech companies w/ platforms have any delay. Is there precedent?

There are cases mostly around Facebook and Youtube taking weeks and prevailing on the judgement. Currently there is no established limit.

European legislators are trying to establish some time limits but these are mostly around toxic content not related to copyright.

People and corporations complicit with unjust laws are partially responsible for the injustice.

This. Especially those with real power, such as trillion dollar corporations.

> your DMCA policy to take down the repository without even a standby period (perhaps with a warning?).

See https://github.com/github/dmca/pull/10944:

  > Before disabling any content in relation to this takedown notice, GitHub
  > - contacted the owners of some or all of the affected repositories to give them an opportunity to make changes.
  > - provided information on how to submit a DMCA Counter Notice.

(Disclosure: I work at GitHub)

One of the SymPy maintainers said they responded within 2 hours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31091731

Unless i'm mistaken about the law[0], they can only restore it after 10 business days to give the legal team of HackerRank (the claimant) time to file suit.

0: 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2)(b) and (c) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512

>> > - contacted the owners of some or all of the affected repositories to give them an opportunity to make changes.

This implies that GitHub is believing the DCMA notice is justified in the first place...

I will add a fuck YC for insufficiency ethics filters on who they support I suppose it can be hard to be perfectly prescient (I'm not) but that is what lawyers are for, include a don't be a dick later on clause, and enforce it.

> What content of your shitty ranking company could SymPy possibly have infringed on?

from the request[0]:

> Someone has illegally copied our client's technical exams questions and answers from their official website hackerrank.com and uploaded them on their platform without permission.

Archive of the allegedly infringing page is here[1].

0: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2022/04/2022-04-1...

1: https://web.archive.org/web/20220114132753/https://docs.symp...

intersting, im not seeing anything that looks like it would be copywritable at "questions and answers" on that archive page.

I feel like hacker rank might be facing an uphill battle for this one.

Phew, this sounded like a scene from a Tarantino movie. We engage a 3rd party for this service. That said, ultimately, we are accountable for this because it's our reputation is at stake. We are looking into it ASAP and this action will be reverted. We do need to get to the RCA to ensure we are giving strict guidelines on DMCA activity with the 3rd party or perhaps even consider switching to a new one.

You are using a third party to perform an action which at core is counter to how the Internet works, AND you are using the same third party who has acted in bad faith before and did exactly the same thing to another victim of yours, and now you're deflecting onto the third party? This is entirely on you at this point.

I literally said this in the comment above -- "That said, ultimately, we are accountable for this because it's our reputation is at stake."

That's what people say when they are ceremonially falling on their sword and don't think they really did anything wrong.

I don’t like this phrasing because it sounds like you only care because it’s on the front page of HN and it’s a bad look — “because [your] reputation is at stake”.

You should care because paying someone to disrupt totally innocent open source projects is a shitty thing to do. Filing false DMCA requests on your behalf is also illegal. I like to think that if this never got any attention and your reputation wasn’t at stake, you’d still be adamant about doing the right thing. “Perhaps even consider switching“ providers doesn’t reflect the urgency in getting this right.

Here's what we are doing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31092085 You are right. HN thread triggered this. And we are working on fixing this at the core.

Great response, credit where credit’s due.

Better be true this time, because you have been forgiven before, haven't you?

> And FUCK me for not having the steel to just take my code off of GitHub. I am part of the problem.

as a user you literally are not the problem. the problem is the monopolization of technology by a small group of investors, which makes it nearly impossible for alternatives to rise.

why isn't a platform like Github part of the commons instead of a private, proprietary fiefdom? why is it instead the private property of, and part of the investment portfolio of, a person who says things like: "As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software."

I do think that I am part of the problem.

Although there is no commons alternative, there is Sourcehut - run by a team that is dedicated to the principles of free software. I should be giving them the money that I spend on GitHub.

At the very least, I should be giving them more money than I give GitHub... I will do that immediately.

Sourcehut is also subject to US law and would have to take down your project if this company files a false claim against you. The problem in this case isn't GitHub, it's the filing of false DMCA notices. And that's not solely a US problem, it can happen in the EU as well.

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