Hacker News Reader

dexenon Facebook will no longer remove claims that Covid-19 was man-made

We can be a bit more specific to it: no automatically curated feed should qualify for the Section 230 protection. Simple feeds ordered by time (or however the original poster arranged it) with no suppression, should carry regular Section 230 protection in the usual way.

We understand that feeds curated manually by platform employees doesn't qualify for Section 230 protection, example being any regular newspaper's articles. In case of online platforms, automatically curated feed should be legally similar, given that the automation is wholy created and maintained by the platform, for the express purpose of scaling out their manual processes.

dexenon Facebook will no longer remove claims that Covid-19 was man-made

True that. More to this, no automatically curated feed should qualify for the Section 230 protection.

We understand that manually curated feed doesn't qualify for Section 230 protection. In this case, automatically curated feed should be legally the same, given that the automation is wholy created and maintained by Facebook or other relevant platform, for the express purpose of scaling out their manual processes.

dexenon Fly’s Prometheus Metrics

Not to pick on Fly (seems nice), but on the trend for containers:

>if you’ve got a Docker container, it can be running on Fly in single-digit minutes.

I used to laugh at the old Plan 9 fortune, "... Forking an allegro process requires only seconds... -V. Kelly". Guess I'm not laughing anymore?

FWIW, performance of components is the barrier to composition in system design and development. You can't compose modules that take seconds to act, and still have something that is usable real-time.

dexenon Opposition to net neutrality was faked, New York says

The pro-NN were systematically publishing fraudlent, alarmist opinion pieces in the media. That the channel is different and more dignified (citizen feedback vs big-name publications) doesn't make it any better.

dexenon Opposition to net neutrality was faked, New York says

Perhaps it is as you are saying.

Nonetheless, the very charitable "perhaps the dire predictions didn't come to pass precisely because of the amount of controversy that was generated" would be neutrally described as "fake news must be published so that bad things don't happen". That's not a valid civilizational setup: it's both ripe for abuse, and also teaches people to dabble in double-think for sake of the greater good.

dexenon Opposition to net neutrality was faked, New York says

It is strange to see the correct reply in the gray.

Let's re-emphasize: the dire predictions of removal of net neutrality didn't come to bear. They didn't pass the sniff test either. The dire predictions were fake news - however they are now the official record in the media, and won't get corrected.

dexenon The handshake emoji is more complicated than you might think

Developing and writing up emoji variants provides employment for people who specialize in particular branch of culture. It is a complement to buying advertising with the activist press - both ensure positive coverage on the social media and in the more formal publications.

dexenon New x86 micro-op vulnerability breaks all known Spectre defenses

A 2013 paper[1] demonstrating exactly that: side channel detecting thermals that's measured without measuring on-CPU timing.

Instead they measured CPU temperature through frequency drift measured through change of network packet markers. A bit contrived but they made it workable quite reliably.

[1] https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2013/papers/4977a080.pdf

dexenon We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

Counter-intuitively this might be about hedging the incentives for the service provider - to avoid the moral hazard of pushing for indefinitely extending the subscription.

Just as you mention, successful finding a partner means as few "attempts" (apologies) as feasible, which in turn means two "lost customers" to the platform. That introduces a perverse incentive for the platform to "spoil" the dating to keep the customers. By making one long-spanning plan, the perverse incentive is lessened.

dexenon Facebook does not plan to notify half-billion users affected by data leak

Thank you. We want to develop morals and jurisprudence around the subject for more reasons. Computerization, in particular networked computerization, has introduced problems like "wormable" devices - were impact of a single device or data item is tiny - however at scale they can quickly rack up considerable damages and losses.

dexenon Facebook does not plan to notify half-billion users affected by data leak

Now it makes more sense. Going a bit further you could perform it within the already existing framework: apply criminal penalties where sufficient threshold of harm have been reached. Perhaps even judicial doctrine a bit to better handle cases of large number of small, or statistical, harms - there are parallels to how we already tackle health hazards and other stochastic, broad harms.

The key consideration is avoiding perverse incentives. A stellar example is how the GDPR disaster is unfolding: the smaller websites are still plastered with "cookie warnings" making them less usable, while the larger platforms - Youtube, Google - already pivoted the warning dialog into nagging for logging in, making anonymous browsing incrementally less practical. The difference in power lets the larger players use as a moat the regulation that's prima facie about privacy.

dexenon Facebook does not plan to notify half-billion users affected by data leak

You are advocating creating perverse incentives. A specific branch of government, a select agency, to become a profit center through continuous finding and fining of ever more wrongdoings. All morally excused because the victims are faceless multinational corps.

We all know how badly that goes with speed traps and red light cameras - instead of improving, the road conditions and sometimes even local rules are tweaked to maintain steady cashflow.

Say no to revolving doors of regulators, say no to moral hazard of what effectively amounts to vice tax. Apply criminal penalties when reasonable, don't make data leaks & privacy breaches just another cost of doing business.

-edit-

Clarification: a fine works well when it's expected to be a rare penatly enacted on a singular player - as it makes that player noncompetitive in the market. Conversely, when fines are expected to apply regularly and at proportional rate to most, or all, players in a market, the fine no longer makes the player noncompetitive - it merely shifts the market. Perhaps some alternative markets (print? radio & TV?) would pick up some of the advertising slack, but largely it'd be a regular money transfer from corps to the government. And a "vice tax" like that is a clear moral hazard, with no natural end in sight.

dexenon Facebook Says It’s Your Fault That Hackers Got Half a Billion User Phone Numbers

Thank you for the explainer.

dexenon Et Tu, Signal?

As a background I'm broadly pro-crypto, in particular the privacy-preserving coins.

>He is one of the most ethical people in the information security industry.

Connecting your communications history, your transaction history and your offline ID through phone number is an explicitly pro-establishment move. Something must have changed along the way about his originally cypherpunk positions.

>Does it compromise Signals security as a messenger client?

Not that we know. The problem is much more pernicious: through centralization, it makes the user less secure. In case of a privacy breach or court ordered document reveal or seizure, the scope will be much broader: communication history AND transaction history. Given that it will also list the transaction counter-parties, this opens up others to the privacy risks just as well.

The correct solution: decouple messaging from your offline identity (phone number etc.). Decouple transactions from offline identity and from communications - proper use of cryptocurrency is good for that.

dexenon Et Tu, Signal?

While I'm generally happy with cryptocurrency for reasons of practicality, privacy, and broader governance,

connecting both your private communications and your private purchases to your phone number (and to each other) is exceedingly unwise. Especially as most western countries insist on connecting your phone number with government-issued ID. Anybody with technical knowledge and a modicum of appreciation for privacy should be either bitterly amused or straight up appalled.

"Every program attempts to expand until it can connect online identity with offline identity. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." [1]

[1] with apologies to jwz - his original is: “Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.”

dexenon Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on Signal

Privacy flaw and a security flaw: it is feasible to take over somebody's phone number through social engineering attack on the phone co's tech support. The tech support has ability to issue replacement SIM cards for users, and if an attacker socially engineers them to send SIM card with your number to them, it's a game over for you.

That is aside of the obvious problem of phone numbers being recycled for re-issue after having been abandoned for a stretch of time.

dexenon Stallman's return denounced by the EFF, Tor, Mozilla, and the creator of Rust

It's time for a new movement, a new cultural and legal framework that will protect key project founders and contributors from undue pressure from angry mobs on twitter and other latecomers. Maybe RMS will start something on his own, maybe a new person will step up. Either way, look out for one such and give it support - progress in software engineering, and maintaining freedom to hack depends on it.

re-posting an earlier comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690039)

This.

The underground in underground programming refers to maintaining low visibility, as to present low target silhouette. Additional benefit is not attracting too many participants that are in it for the clout, rather than for solving problems & good engineering.

Open Source is no longer sufficient for software freedom; the current 'battlefield' is maintaining security from activist pressure or gradual take-over.

dexenon Media trust hits new low

Excellent explanation and example, thank you.

dexenon Trader Buys $36M of Copper and Gets Painted Rocks Instead

>Could having a full trace ability for inputs and outputs of mining, smelting, and transport prevent surrepetitious theft?

Yes, if indirectly: with well documented chain of custody, we would be able to find the thief. This works as a natural deterrent. Even better, if the copper block were serialized, we would be able to provide relevant information to other copper processors & vendors to avoid that particular batch of stolen goods.

dexenon BuzzFeed lays off 47 HuffPost workers less than a month after acquisition

>I wonder if GPT4 or 5 (hypothetically) will allow these businesses to fire most of their workers.

The real inflection point is slightly different: when we switch from human preference to AI preference. Let me explain:

The current "gold standard" is human-created content. At present you have humans, algorithms, and AI on both sides (newspapers, Google) trying to out-wit each other by, respectively, pretending to be humans writing content, and by detecting non-human writing.

At present the humans are a necessary ingredient, and combination of algorithms and AI is unable to match the value.

However at some point the algorithms and AI writing content quite possibly will exceed humans' - and so Google and the likes will start prioritizing the machine-created content over the human-created content. Once that tipping point is reached, you can expect a somewhat rapid flip in content authoring. The funniest part of it is that we might not even become aware of the flip for a while - due to the sheer complexity of the algorithms and AIs that Google employs to grade the content.

dexenon Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

Every day we see a renewed attack on Bitcoin from the establishment media. Almost every day it is couched in the SV-friendly terms[1], even if - as pointed out by others here - the merit of the attack is thin.

By now I ascribe ulterior motive to those attacks, and I encourage you to also take them with a large grain of salt at the least. The establishment media seems to treat any emerging[2] technology as its opponent, and feels morally excused in posting continuous attacks.

[1] I half-jokingly expect a "Bitcoin deepens gender inequality" headline tomorrow

[2] or perhaps any "unregulated" technology

dexenon Notes on the Slate Star Codex Controversy

The essay begins with a thought-terminating cliche in the third paragraph:

>This is someone who repeatedly speaks admiringly of Charles Murray, puts Nick Land, Razib Khan, and various other fashy types on his blogroll, and openly advocates eugenics.

>The claim that he’s troublingly invested in racist bullshit is straightforward and, frankly, uninteresting; anyone trying to dispute it has a disingenuous agenda most likely involving racist bullshit.

Ironically enough, the essay throws an accusation of "tedious Gish gallop working its way through a host of minor claims" into the mix, also in the same third out of 100-odd paragraphs. Thank you for providing a morning chuckle.

dexenon Plain Text Protocols

HTTP/2 is a good example of how to handle textual-to-binary transition.

The original HTTP/1 was textual (if a bit convoluted), and that helped it to become a lingua franca; helped cooperation and data interchange between applications proliferate; everybody was able to proverbially "scratch his itch". Gradually tooling grew up around it too.

The HTTP/2 is binary, and also quite complex - however most of that is hidden behind the already established tooling, and from developer's perspective, the protocol is seen as "improved HTTP/1 with optional extras". The protocol appears textual for all developmental intents and purposes - because the transition was handled (mostly) smoothly in the tooling. The key APIs remained the same for quick, mundane use cases - and got extended for advanced use cases.

There's a lesson in that having been a success. Unpopular opinion warning: contrast the success of HTTP/2 with the failure of IPv6 to maintain backward compatibility at the API level - which hampered its ability to be seamlessly employed in applications.

dexenon Facebook’s ban on sharing Australian news stories hurting publisher traffic

The other possible scenario is even more enticing: that smaller, or entirely new, outfits raise in popularity on Facebook and bring back the much needed plurality of voices.

dexenon Facebook’s ban on sharing Australian news stories hurting publisher traffic

>Centralization goess against the ethos of www

A very good contention. Goes to bolster opposition to any link tax.

Note that having to negotiate extra surcharge with news publishers would make online even harder for smaller, independent websites, and (relatively) easier for large platforms. A link tax incentivizes centralization.

And the current excuse of "only large platform" is just that - an excuse, easily changed with a stroke of a legislative pen, once the precedent of link tax is established.

dexenon Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

I am unhappy with your mis-representation of my post. I'm not asking beyond a clear "rhetorical question" used to emphasize the incredulity of the situation, quite the opposite: I am pointing out that the points, as described, are equivalent. That's not a contentious issue here.

Obviously different points could be raised and argued - as per other posts in this thread. However the specific points on which the court decision was based do match the relationship between cities and (regular) taxi drivers. If UK was a nation of laws, this ruling would also change the relationship between cities and taxi drivers.

But we know that won't happen - because public entities get an extra leeway with laws.

dexenon Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

>1. Uber set the fare which meant that they dictated how much drivers could earn 2. Uber set the contract terms and drivers had no say in them 3. Request for rides is constrained by Uber who can penalise drivers if they reject too many rides 4. Uber monitors a driver's service through the star rating and has the capacity to terminate the relationship if after repeated warnings this does not improve

I sure hope they'll declare all taxi drivers "employees of the cities they get the medallions from". With the city being equally on hook for all the insurances and other benefits for its taxi drivers.

How is the relationship, as described, any different from relationship between a city-managed tax driver? Aside of the star rating system - cities, having local monopoly, have literally no interest in maintaining high quality.

dexenon Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

>It's not localization that's stopping European companies from taking over the entire EU market

It very much is about localization - both language and to some extent also culture. Both are notable problems with b2c, and there are no "good enough" automated solutions.

My point of reference is the success of Polish domestic "Allegro" ecommerce platform, which was able to out-fox EBay, and later on Amazon, and still maintains dominant position on the local market. There were no significant technological advantages, nor any notable political connections. The platform won purely on being local.

In spite all the local success the platform could not expand to the west of Poland due to localization (language and partly culture). It did expand a little bit to Ukraine and Czech Republic. And while it's possible to browse foreign offers, it's rather rare to do so - due to the language barrier.

dexenon Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

>defamation lawsuits

>copyright

>local city's taxi medallion scheme

Arguably the three areas of law where special protections & privilleges got expended so far, repeatedly and over decades, as to create ample opportunity for easy arbitration. Especially in case of copyright and taxi medallions, mafia-like structures were created through very one-sided markets; the only distinction from mafia being that those were gradually introduced through layers upon layers of legislation.

The fault, if any, lays with the legislators. The tangible result of tech businesses is cheaper music for the consumers and cheaper transportation for the consumers.

>special protections for local businesses online

Good luck with that./s France also tried similar legislation, targeted specifically at extracting more tax revenue from Amazon under the guise of "protecting local bookstores". That's neither moral nor productive.

dexenon Compiler Class

Consider the KenCC[1][2] - somewhat minimalistic, and the flavor of C it uses is very sane.

[1] http://gsoc.cat-v.org/projects/kencc/

[2] yes, by that Ken