LV-426

> The list goes on.

The list of what? Different ways in which the North Korean economy legitimately functions?

However "weird" you or the Washington Post think running a restaurant and remitting money back home is (or are they fronts for money laundering? the story can't seem to decide), or a country sending its workers abroad (look up the population of the UAE sometime), or operating a factory (?), all of those things are legitimate, legal and commonplace around the world, and in no way analogous to a Bitcoin ransomware attempt.

> The GDP of North Korea is estimated to be about $30 billion [...] It doesn't take much money to move the needle.

The amount made by WannaCry wouldn't even move the needle in the Bitcoin economy, never mind the economy of a nation state. Hell it wouldn't move the needle for some posters to HN.

If North Korea was that interested in acquiring cryptocurrency they could make far more simply running darknet markets or Bitcoin exchanges.

But - no - according to some people it makes far more sense to enact a convoluted and easily killswitched extortion scam with flashing neon arrows pointing straight back at them.

SMH

> it's far more likely that it's easier to pretend to be from NK than for NK to do what they are being accused of

For all the hot air about "analysis" and "evidence" and crimes NK committed when Kim was a baby five presidents ago, it's extremely easy to know North Korea wasn't responsible for this:

Because the idea that any nation state could function in any capacity while simultaneously being so broke that a puny act of organized crime involving Bitcoins could make any difference is utterly beyond the realm of absurdity.

Nobody with even moderate critical faculties can seriously believe such a ridiculous premise, and the only thing anyone does by arguing it, sincerely or otherwise, is reduce their own credibility.

> But they also are not signatories to the Geneva convention

Where are you getting this from? According to Wikipedia, every member of the UN is a party the GC, and North Korea has additionally ratified protocol I, something the USA refuses to do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Geneva_...

I think this quote is more telling (about a previous viral article months ago using the non-existent "estcoin" to promote E-Residency), since it's exactly what I thought even before clicking the link:

    Many people [...] wondered if the whole thing was nothing
    more than a marketing stunt for the e-Residency programme.

I don't think I've ever read an opinion of Estonian E-Residency from an independent party (ie, someone who wasn't involved in it, promoting it every chance they get) that didn't write it off as hype. This article looks like just more of the same.

> In October, Microsoft officially blamed North Korea,

I can see why Microsoft would want to deflect attention from its own failings to the bogeyman of the week, but I'm not sure what qualifies a private business to "officially" pronounce on weighty geopolitical matters that could result in WWIII.

When Microsoft falsely blamed Intel for Microsoft Surface failures[1], or falsely marked a non-Microsoft web browser as malware and removed it from thousands of PCs[2], at least the lives of millions of people weren't at stake.

A nation state would collapse long before it reached the point of being so broke it had to rely on - FFS - a Bitcoin ransomware attack to survive. I can't believe I'm actually having to type such an obvious thing, but apparently some people think otherwise.

What's North Korea's back up plan for economic survival, a chain letter?

It's a sorry world when people give the time of day to such transparently obvious and nonsensical propaganda, intended to suck us into yet another bloodbath, just because NK isn't a nice place to live.

> as did the UK government, neither of whom is trying to lay the groundwork for war.

Assuming that wasn't as a joke: the UK has been a lapdog of the USA (aka "Special Relationship"[3]) if not since WWII, certainly since the 1980s, when British people themselves openly referred to their country, even in popular chart songs[4][5], as the 51st State.

Of course the UK lacks the status and relevance in Washington DC of a real US state, and is simply treated (and behaves accordingly) like a reserve branch of US armed forces, supporting wars that serve US interests, including the one where at least 20% of North Korean human beings were exterminated by the US military.

[1] https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/microsoft-surface/132832/her...

[2] https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-falsely-labels-chrome-as...

[3] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/obama-us-uk-j...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmup_vQvBGk

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a75Ez48alDE

This article appears in the second top post of this (currently front page) thread, made 9 hours ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940318

It was also submitted seven hours ago, here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15944653

The original submission 19 days ago is here, with 90 comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15803725

> I do not consider buying positive reviews with free items an ethical marketing strategy: it deceives people expecting unaffiliated opinions there...

> Why should anyone take part in this?

Where did I say buying positive reviews was an ethical marketing strategy or that people should take part in it? I don't think that and I didn't say anything even remotely like it in the post you're replying to.

> offered me a pair for free. After I got them, they asked for positive review. I refused.

So they were "very disappointing", but not "very disappointing" enough to refuse a free pair, at their expense?

> That manipulation technique

Perhaps, since you were happy to accept the headphones, they believed your original negative review was not sincere, but itself a manipulation technique to get a freebie or special offer in return for a more positive review. (Which I suspect is not unheard-of for some buyers on Amazon.)

To be clear: Although I don't know you I don't believe that is what you did (most people don't do that), what I mean is the company may be used to some people trying that kind of thing, and accepting the product for free may be a hint that you're willing to do what they asked.

However, what kind of "positive review" did they want? A review where you pretend not to be disappointed, or simply an update to your review stating something like: "while I don't believe these are worth $65, and returned them, I can't fault the customer service in trying to make up for my disappointment"?

Because I don't see anything at all wrong with the latter; and it's certainly more reasonable than leaving a negative review of a product which you were happy to accept at the 'right price'.

I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13645825

I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13453189

A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13629593

US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13702981

The last one didn't even happen on US soil but at Vancouver airport; there are now more than 600 US customs agents stationed in multiple airports around the world:

    Dublin and Shannon in Ireland; Aruba; Freeport and Nassau in The Bahamas; Bermuda;
    Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; and Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal,
    Ottawa, Vancouver, and Winnipeg in Canada.

Anyone who seriously and unironically bases any kind of world view on either:

a) Memes, or b) Lines from The Matrix

is probably not someone to take seriously.

In a catastrophe like our whole economic system collapsing (presumably somehow leaving Bitcoin's internet/mining ecosystem untouched) the last thing on anyone's mind is going to be computer money.

> > Something being pirated 1M times never means 1M lost sales.

> I've never said it did

You didn't provide any specific numbers, but seemed to be arguing with your two anecdotes that piracy (as opposed to simply natural market/product factors) caused so many lost sales it put people out of business.

> I don't know why you've put this sentence in your reply.

Perhaps for the same reason you replied to a post about copyright hoarders using stringent legal methods and talked about something else entirely; because, to quote you, things are "not all black and white".

Downvoted for asking someone a question/clarification? WTF.

> But I will note that the comment you replied to said nothing about IQ. I only spoke of a need for validation and that's it. I was quite careful to not suggest it had anything to do with intelligence or competence.

What did you mean by "smarts", if not "intelligence", "competence" or "IQ"?

> Are you from Philippines? From what I know people there

Is his argument invalid if he's not in the Philippines, but yours isn't?

> If you are in US I can't see how can you criticise him given that death penalty is quite widespread there

Because maybe he doesn't support the death penalty in the US either.

> and a lot of times the trial is a farce especially if you are black.

As compared to the trials in the Philippines? Here's what it looks like:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/07/world/asia/ro...

> Calling someone you don't like a "fake account" (as someone has already hinted about me in this very comment section!)

I don't know where someone hinted that you're a fake account, but you are certainly disingenuously passing yourself off as some kind of authority on what ordinary Filipinos think, when you don't even live in the Philippines, but a country thousands of miles away.

This explains why your only evidence of "the entire population" favouring Duterte is a Youtube of people who like Duterte saying they like Duterte, and what some people allegedly told you when you visited the country.

> even though they live in the country [...] who has probably never been in the Philippines?

And why are you even getting so worked up and fanatical about this? Because you spent two weeks in Boracay? It's not your country - you live in South Africa - so why are you acting otherwise?

I think you could achieve the same result (if not better, since fewer people are likely to sit through a video) with an image of a snappy fake quote next to someone.

People who want to believe "fake news" will believe it, people who don't care, won't care, and people who think it sounds unlikely or don't want to believe it will either disbelieve it or hopefully attempt to fact check it.

To take a more positive view of this kind of tech, I think it has promise in producing satirical content.

The video claims it's to help people who have lost the ability to speak. Can someone explain how this is supposed to work?

Because it looks more like, and is seemingly marketed as - if a video of Barack Obama saying things he hasn't said is typical - a way to make prank videos.

Edit: And why is it even called ObamaNet? Is it endorsed by the former president?

(I'm not making a political point here, I'd ask the same if it was TrumpNet or GagaNet. Is Obama notably connected with this kind of tech or research?)

> There's a claim (according to wikipedia and other sources) that Flappy Bird was a clone of another game (called "Piou Piou vs Cactus").

Haven't read the Wiki page, or heard of Piou Piou, but I always thought FB was a rip off of Copter, a game for Nokia style phones where you pressed 5 (IIRC) to keep it airborne.

Maybe "original" Flappy was great and I just played crappy Flappy clones, but dying literally within seconds over and over again didn't make me want to continue, I was just instantly bored, stopped playing and forgot it. I don't understand the craze for such a horrible game.

Copter was good though.

> https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=137.0

I'm not one for all that "if you bought $100 of bitcoin in 2013..." stuff, but wow, that first sentence...

Though I guess if he had 10,000 to blow like that, he probably had a lot more, and probably isn't short of a few now. (Hopefully anyway.)

I think I'd rather be someone who paid 10,000 for two pizzas though (which I assume was more or less the going rate in 2010), than being one of the people who didn't or couldn't take him up on the offer - two days later and nobody had done it.

> We all remember [...] people giving thousands of btc for them to buy pizzas.

I've heard a story of one individual on a forum ordering someone two Papa John's online in return for another forum member sending them 10,000 bitcoin (or something like that) but I've never heard of people sending thousands of bitcoins to "occupy wall street" (who, exactly?) so they could buy pizzas. Where do you remember hearing that?

Of all the things to grind an axe about "European nations", this is a pretty strange one, considering European countries have absolutely always led the way on this issue, providing limited rights to same-sex couples in the 1970s, same-sex civil unions in the 1980s, and full same-sex marriages half a generation before the US Supreme Court finally got around to removing bans in the USA a mere two years ago. What was that about a grotesque travesty?

> the majority of European nations don't allow gay marriage

The majority of American nations don't either.