fweespeech

> I'd vote slack.

Then I suggest you put more effort into securing your LAN situation because that is a vote indicating your belief your workstations are insecure.

You've never met a call center.

They've sent bug reports with credit card data they've typed in during a phone call through a variety of insecure methods.

They've also written people's credit card info on sticky notes.

Trust me, the horror that is card data and a call center is scary.

> and what about if your network is compromised? For most small-medium businesses, that's more likely than Slack being compromised.

If your network and/or workstations are compromised, it is _over anyway_ because they have all your data. This is one of those situations where you are saying "What if they decapitated me? Slack might still be secure."

I mean, technically, you are correct but it isn't relevant because you are dead.

If you think such a business can survive a pentest from an employee workstation...XD

I'm curious...

Which is more secure?

A) Slack.

B) Open source software on a LAN accessible only through physical entry, SSH, and/or a VPN.

> Umm... why do people always assume "hosting it yourself" is more secure and not less? Do you have Slack's security expertise and budget? In my experience when small to mid-size companies attempt to manage security themselves they do a passable job but are convinced they are doing an excellent job - until they get hacked.

I'm not exposing it to the WAN, just the LAN. :\

I don't think people really appreciate how massive of a security difference that is. It doesn't matter how big your budget is if you sit on the WAN all day. Someone will _always_ tag you eventually.

LAN with hardened VPN/SSH setups are virtually impossible to get into in a software-is-at-fault kind of way. And even if they did, they'd then have to launch the attack from someone's workstation at which point you've already been compromised anyway.

Oh, and then to get to the chat service they'd still need to break the security of an open source chat service which is non-trivial.

It depends if you want to annoy human pentesters to give you the finger.

Also, no.

> Their retail/ecommerce revenue alone is around $100B. Overall, they are going to top $150B this year. Without AWS which is their primary profit machine right now, they are still at $135B+ in revenue. Don't you think if they wanted to, they'd be able to eek out a few billion in profit from that remaining $100B+ in revenue if they decided to go that way? That would get their PE below 100.

Amazon can't actually compete with us on price without selling below their costs. That is the reason we are still alive despite Amazon moving into our market. They can't raise prices _at all_.

Their ability to do so _entirely depends_ on them becoming more efficient. I suspect they can't become substantially more efficient on the retail side than they already are.

> Is this just for FBA items or for any items you sell on Amazon? I've definitely seen products selling for less on other websites than on Amazon.

All I know is if we do that, we get de-listed and a warning.

> That's a big part of the situation you left out. MFN 3rd-party is rarely going to beat any FBA for the buy box, even on a $7 difference.

The discussion was about comparison shopping. They can buy from our site or Amazon. We don't care.

So for purposes of the original comment it was irrelevant and it still isn't relevant really.

The original bit of the chain was this:

> One fascinating niche are online retailers which fill market voids Amazon deliberately creates out of corporate policy. For instance in the US one can readily purchase firearms and ammunition through the internet. Due to various legal formalities, Amazon won't touch that particular market segment. Visiting sites like www.sgammo.com, www.palmettostatearmory.com, or www.midwayusa.com, is like stepping into an uncanny PHP laden alternate reality where Amazon never existed. This federation of specialized retailers offers a glimpse into what the online shopping experience _could_ have become, if it weren't for Amazon's hegemony.

I was arguing that was absurd and is unique to that niche. Also, Amazon isn't benevolent.

I didn't argue that I cared about the mechanics of how Amazon screwed its customers.

> Also, I'm pretty sure you're allowed to set different prices on different marketplaces. Your Amazon offer must be the lowest though right?

Correct. And charging customers via FBA $62.25 is untenable for Amazon as well as us which is why they charge noticeably more.

We _could_ charge their customers $65 and ours $65 but:

1) Amazon will find compliance issues with our identical products.

1b) If we comply, Amazon will drop prices until we stop competing with them and/or use their size to pressure a manufacturer into obedience (a la Walmart).

2) We will be cannibalizing our own sales channel to drive more people to Amazon by lowering Amazon's price to the customer $4. This is objectively a terrible decision.

So why bother?

FBA is a _terrible_ idea if you are in competition with Amazon on any level. The sales they'll send you aren't worth selling MFN at a better price point.

> As a consumer, most of the time the convenience, security, service and shipping speed is worth the trivial difference. I don't bother doing price comparisons anymore unless it's several hundred, and even then usually need about 10% delta to switch retailers.

If you want to voluntarily pay a 10% tax most Americans can't afford, that is your choice.

> Are you doing FBA for that shoe?

We would have to raise prices to use FBA for that shoe and Amazon doesn't allow us to sell a different price on Amazon than we do elsewhere.

> I don't understand why everyone bought the idea that we don't need unions anymore.

Because things were good enough and a generation after Unions became a thing, people got complacent.

> Look at who's on the ticket. Look at their record. Look at their campaign funding. If you can convince yourself that voters have any real choice, then I admire your optimism.

At the end of the day, grass roots change is possible if people are willing. The problem is, they just aren't right now because things seem to be "OK" and so they care more about tribal signaling.

If I genuinely thought it was hopeless, I'd seriously consider abandoning the US and living out my life elsewhere.

> I'm guessing over $200B of Amazon's $475B valuation is from AWS and Amazon's subsidiaries. They have [small] stakes in some companies too. To be fair, the subsidiaries are peanuts^ (let's be generous and give them a combined value of $10B).

I just believe (rightly or wrongly) that Amazon's customers are more price sensitive that is commonly believed and the merry-go-round of constant reinvestment isn't going to be something that can be stopped for that reason. I always thought Amazon was fairly valued around $300-400/share and pretty much dumped all my stock in Amazon accordingly.

Maybe I'm wrong but I have a suspicion I'm not.

Look at Alphabet's financials vs. Googles and I think you'll find one of these seems just a much more reasonable valuation than the other at ~$1000/share.

> I think comparing online clothing retailers to firearms retailers is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. Everyone needs clothing, firearms not so much... Because of this clothing retailers have a much larger client base to draw from, and thus there's more money pumped into their sites. Firearms are a niche good, so the base they draw from is much smaller. Many other niche goods have effectively been absorbed into the Amazon monolith. If Amazon (or equivalent) were to not exist, many of these goods would have their own small niche retailers. These small retailers would have minimal capital, cue PHP hell.

The clothing I'm talking about is pretty niche as well. It isn't everyday clothes/shoes.

> US voters are impotent. Millions are about to be kicked off Medicare and Medicaid because of the signature of a man who repeatedly pledged over and over again that he would not ever cut them. Politics has become a metagame of tribal signaling with only a tenuous connection to actual policy.

Voters are ignorant, not impotent.

They just don't care enough to stay informed with their other life responsibilities and/or pleasures. The dangers of slow strangulation in the form of bills like Republicare is something they simply don't care enough to track. It'll be fully felt around 2021-2022 and by the time people realize its a problem the Republicans will have control of the government for 6-8 years.

If people genuinely cared the prescription is still rather simple:

A) Organize voting blocs to end careers on the issue of gerrymandering to prevent statehouse control == Congress control.

B) Organize voting blocs to end the careers of anyone who lowers services below Obama-era levels.

C) Organize voting blocs to end the careers of anyone who violates Constitutional liberties.

I don't think reasonable people really want people in power who are willing to do those things, they just don't care enough to do anything about it.

> It doesn't sound that great, to be honest. None of those tiny institutions could ever reach the same amount of consumer trust that Amazon has engendered with its customer service/experience.

You are paying for that trust.

For instance, right now, Amazon is charging $69.00 for a shoe we sell for $62.25 (including the item we list on their site, including shipping, etc.)

This is universally true for every item Amazon has cut us out on. It defaults to "Ships and Sold from Amazon.com" despite the fact they are the higher price.

Personally, at this point, I'd rather buy from smaller retailers. If you ever look outside of Amazon for "niche" items you'll start to notice Amazon stops being cheaper. Try looking at some of the clothing brands, the Guns&Ammo dystopia is unique to their industry. :P

To be honest, I'm surprised their valuation is what it is given I genuinely don't see how they can raise prices more than they have. Charging an extra 10% over your competitors is really already pushing the envelope as far as can be done.

> Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA. It gets conflated with an anti-authoritarian mindset. I wish smart people would gain some perspective - I got some by reading Bamford's books and a new one by Fred Kaplan - Dark Territories, about NSAs painful move to cyber. Some key points:

> * All the great powers have NSA equivalents. Meaning they play offence and defense in crypto, RF, and cyber. We (USA) can impose restrictions on our NSA but not on anyone else's. Our exploit-riddled networks are a playground for American, Russian and Chinese cyber warriors - and probably many others.

> * In cyber, offense and defense become the same. Kaplan's book covers this. So a smart country seeks cyber-superiority. The more we hamper NSA, the more we empower foreign cyber-warriors.

Reducing domestic surveillance doesn't substantially impact that mission.

> * Fear of an overreaching state is always justified; however we should focus that fear more on how NSA shares data than how it acquires it. For instance fusion centers: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat....

The CIA/NSA can't hold onto its intelligence as shown by various security breaches, whistleblowers, etc.

Not gathering domestic surveillance data in the first place avoids that problem. The NSA can keep an eye on China, Russia, etc. all they want.

You are the villain in Papers Please.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunchClockVillain

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PunchClockVillain/Vide...

^ that kind

> Anyway don't over-simplify this use case and believe "a single big SQL ACID transaction would handle the problem". That's just not true.

> In the web age, you want stateless services and HA. It means a transaction can't last more than a single web page. It becomes more challenging to design a shopping cart, because the DB can't handle a long-running transaction anymore.

Or you could cheat and not update the inventory until the purchase is made. ;)

The problem with the "adjust inventory on cart" in low inventory situations is you'll have 80% of your carts holding items that won't convert until a cart expiration. You only need the actual purchase to be atomic. Then, once the queued credit card transaction completes you adjust the order to refund the inventory [declined] or ship the order [completed].

That pattern absolves you of needing complex logic and allows you to distribute the activity relatively trivially as a set of two independent idempotent operations. And if the analog portion of the process fails, the picker hits a button and the order gets queued for a refund. Once the order is cancelled, another service contacts the customer.

Cart expiration, etc. makes the system unnaturally brittle by adding non-critical steps to the process.

> Korea is more like China's Canada. It's tiny (Canada has one tenth the population of the US; Mexico is more like one half) and culturally, though not linguistically, similar.

So your argument now is that makes it non-imperialistic?

> Depending on how the intelligence services determined it was Russia behind the attacks, it might not be very hard for a single country to masquerade as Russia to achieve their own political goals. It doesn't need to be a multi-nation conspiracy.

> Taking the tinfoil off, Russia is probably behind the attacks but espionage is all about using misinformation; so who knows. Without the methodology behind how they've determined Russia was behind those attacks, we can never know.

What would be the purpose in launching a cyberattack against Ukraine followed by essentially an invasion by another nation?

Who would benefit from Trump's election with nation-state like capability? Russia.

Who wouldn't benefit? Literally everyone else.

But sure, give me an alternative narrative that makes any kind of sense under your theory. I suspect you'll go with the China/TPP angle since its anything else. The problem with that is Clinton was also willing to drop the TPP. There isn't any other nation state with anything resembling a motive AND the capability.

EDIT due to rate limits:

> Do you know what the Russian defense was? It was the "who would benefit" argument.

Whatboutism. Thank you.

I'm well aware of what their defense was.

That doesn't change the fact this isn't one incident but a 10+ year pattern of behavior.

EDIT again:

> I have no political leanings, I'm neither American or Russian. Your biases are showing, w.r.t your hatred of Trump and your unfounded claim/assumption that Russia would benefit from a Trump presidency.

> Why does it matter so much who leaked the emails, rather than the content of them? If the DNC has nothing to hide...

1) That wasn't the only thing I mentioned. A list of war-like acts by a foreign nation isn't a partisan issue. (i.e. interfering with domestic elections is a war-like act)

2) Rather than meeting a challenge you know is impossible to meet (because there isn't an alternative villain that meets the scenario you propose) you chose to focus on attacking me. Cute but ultimately irrelevant.

3) Thank you for admitting the best defense you could compose was "WELL YOU ARE A DEMONRAT!" which is odd for a "Canadian". Good day.

4) As for the benefits, Trump wants to be friendly with Putin, keep NATO at arm's length, drop sanctions, etc. Its absurd to argue you he isn't a pro-Russian president.

> The warring states were all part of a more-or-less unified preexisting Chinese culture, sharing sacred objects, rites, language, etc. It's not ridiculous to see the quest to take control of China as a different sort of thing from the quest to take control of foreigners.

We share a more-or-less unified culture with Canada. Do you feel the US invading them isn't a quest to take control of foreigners?

I'm asking these questions because its genuinely a foreign concept to me that these things are not imperialistic quests of conquest. I understand people have different point of views and so I'm trying to understand what the justification is.

Due to rate limiting, I'll edit:

> If communications technology broke down and the United States fractured into 5 different states, would you be surprised if most military efforts went into taking over other regions of the former US rather than Canada or Mexico?

That isn't the same as the warring states since that was the first proper unification of China as an empire. Up until that point in history, it wasn't unified in the sense the US is. I also would consider attempting to recover those regions an act of imperial aggression.

> If they were eventually reunified after hundreds of years of fighting each other while having displayed no urge to invade Mexico, and subsequently spent several more centuries not invading Mexico while denigrating militarism and soldiers generally, why would you start worrying for Mexico?

China invaded Korea (China's Mexico). So I'm not sure where you are going with that given that is a historical falsehood when it comes to analogies.

Similarly, when you are refusing to acknowledge the territorial claims of your neighbors like China is in the South China Sea to the point you are taking military actions

> More like what has always been considered "China" got taken over by the Kidan, then the Monguls, then the Manchus, each time forcefully, but then slowly emerging as a "More Unified China", rinse and repeat.

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

> The Warring States period (Chinese: 戰國時代; pinyin: Zhànguó shídài) was an era in ancient Chinese history following the Spring and Autumn period and concluding with the Qin wars of conquest that saw the annexation of all other contender states, which ultimately led to the Qin state's victory in 221 BC as the first unified Chinese empire known as the Qin dynasty.

What historical event created the first unified Chinese empire in your alternate view of world history?

> Let me be clear: I am not here to defend Russia, or Putin (I am sick and tired of our ossified, unchangeable government, but I prefer not to think about them too much; they are disgusting, like many other politicians, perhaps much more so). I am only trying to defend reason, and critical thinking, and the importance of making valid arguments.

And yet, the only time you demand proof is related to Russia and your account was inactive for over a month before that. You protest and deflect far too much for me to believe you are genuine.

Sorry.

> I totally agree with your point about intelligence being kept secret. Sadly, this is indeed the case. I do not invite US secret services to reveal their sources. I am only saying that if they choose to keep evidence secret, it is not reasonable then to expect people to believe them. In absence of evidence, there is no way of knowing whether you are being told truth, or deliberate lie, or anything in between. Like someone else in the comment above said, this is essentially a matter of trust. And frankly, secret services do not deserve our blind trust (no-one does, but especially not them, because misinformation is, by definition, part of their trade).

It isn't blind trust. Russia has an established pattern of behavior of such meddling in countries like Georgia, Ukraine, etc. as well.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hacking-in-america/timeline...

> May 2014: Three days before Ukraine’s presidential election, a Russia-based hacking group, took down the country’s election commission in an overnight attack. Even a back-up system was taken down, but Ukrainian computer experts were able to restore the system before election day. Ukrainian police say they arrested hackers who were trying to rig the results. The attack was aimed at creating chaos and hurting the nationalist candidate while helping the pro-Russian candidate. Russia’s preferred candidate lost.

> May 2015: German investigators discovered hackers had penetrated the computer network of the German Bundestag, the most significant hack in German history. The BfV, German’s domestic intelligence service, later said Russia was behind the attack and that they were seeking information not just on the workings of the Bundestag, but German leaders and NATO, among others. Security experts said hackers were trying to penetrate the computers of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic party.

> December 2016: Earlier this month, BfV head Hans-Georg Maasen warned "There is growing evidence of attempts to influence the federal election next year," referring to German parliamentary elections likely to take place in September 2017. Maasen specifically cited Russia as the source of the attacks, adding, "We expect a further increase in cyber attacks in the run-up to the elections." Experts believe the Russians are trying to damage incumbent Chancellor Merkel, who supported sanctions against Putin’s personal associates after Russia annexed Crimea.

Are you saying the entire Western world is engaged in a conspiracy to blame Russia for cyber attacks against multiple countries, some of which include elections?

Because, either this conspiracy exists or the fact that Ukraine, Germany, US, etc. all come to the same conclusion is based on actual evidence.

> Pardon me, but this is not a satisfying answer to the request "show me the proof". Unless I am missing something, the paragraphs you cite are conclusions made by some authority bodies - based on evidence, perhaps, but without any demonstration of the process how such conclusions have been arrived at or of the evidence itself. Which makes these statements not independently verifyable. They can not therefore be regarded as proof - merely as an opinion.

As you are a Russian, please provide me access to the GRU's classified intelligence and I'll happily enlighten you on what you want to know.

No?

Well, how delightfully odd that you cannot provide that information. It is almost as if intelligence gathering and the related evidence is frequently kept secret to protect methodology/sources while the end result of that intelligence is all that is made public for decades.

I'm curious, can you say anything negative about Putin in relation to his human rights violations?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukrain...

https://qz.com/336047/an-appalling-list-of-human-rights-abus...

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international-affairs/...

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/russi...

> Sorry but this is pure speculation ( or fake news if you like the term ) by CNN, MSN and WaPo. Show the proof if you have any.

Are you kidding me? This has been known for months and is in declassified DNI reports.

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

> Cyber Espionage Against US Political Organizations.

> The General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)probably began cyber operations aimed at the US election by March 2016. We assess that the GRU operations resulted in the compromise of the personal e-mail accounts of Democratic Party officials and political figures. By May, the GRU had exfiltrated large volumes of data from the DNC.

> Russia’s effort to influence the 2016 US presidential election represented a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations aimed at US elections. We assess the 2016 influence campaign reflected the Kremlin’s recognition of the worldwide effects that mass disclosures of US Government and other private data such as those conducted by WikiLeaks and others have achieved in recent years, and their understanding of the value of orchestrating such disclosures to maximize the impact of compromising information.

> We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts in the United States and worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes. We assess the Russian intelligence services would have seen their election influence campaign as at least a qualified success because of their perceived ability to impact public discussion.

> Russian Cyber Intrusions Into State and Local Electoral Boards.Russian intelligence accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards. Since early 2014, Russian intelligence has researched US electoral processes and related technology and equipment.

> Public Disclosures of Russian Collected Data. > We assess with high confidence that the GRU used > the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data obtained in > cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.

> Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting in June

Btw this is the GRU:

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

> China simply does not have the consistent history of far-reaching imperialism that other historic empires like Britain or America have. There is also an absence of an enlightened ideology of imperialism, which the aforementioned British and American empires used to justify mass conquest and genocide.

China invaded its neighbors on multiple occasions. It was the failure of its imperial ambitions that resulted in it turning inward. Or does the likes of Korea and such simply not count in your mind?

China also became "China" after invading neighboring kingdoms.

China simply was never in a position to expand substantially beyond its current borders due to technological limitations and the superiority of its neighbors' military. Pretending it is some virtuous position is categorically false and you can see that in the way they look the other way when working with African dictators, etc. and making all the "moral compromises" the American Empire has.

> The US has shown time and time again that it has absolutely ZERO morals with regards to monitoring/spying/breaking security products at whim, when it suits us, and often even when it's a REALLY bad fucking idea and everybody knows it.

> Despite the clear slant in this article to associate this with more malicious goals... This is an ENTIRELY reasonable request.

So does Russia and China. And given the fact Russia launched a massive cyber attack against the voting system and the DNC, the purpose of the request is certainly offensive in nature regardless of the excuses made.

Tbf, AWS can't do that inter-region well either which is effectively what we are talking about. They rely on DNS-based solutions and so do many CDNs.