lmgftp's comments

BPS - Basis Point(S) (1/100th of a percentage point per Basis Point)

This is the interest on the bond, and the Fed sells these Treasurys to the public in order to raise money on an interim basis.

Effectively, it reflects the cost of borrowing money by the Federal Government of the United States to borrow money for ONE MONTH. This is a very short time period, as Treasurys are for sale in 1-mo to 30-year periods. So you'd only charge a high interest rate if you think the likelyhood of non-payment is actually an issue (that's risk vs. return).

Typically, 1 month is very not-risky, as it's highly likely that the US Gov is still around and solvent in a month. But with the recent debt ceiling / government shutdown rhetoric the market is beginning to get a little worried, so the premium the government must pay in order to borrow money has increased.

Basically by the Congress/White-House being deadlocked and having such fiery rhetoric it begins to appears as if there is a chance of default, and that chance is slightly higher than normal, so the risk/return on the 1 mo treasury has increased, as reflected in the increased interest rate the government has to pay to its bond holders.

In the most restrained and calm way possible, I'm wondering why this is on Hacker News at the moment...

A Wikipedia article, concerning a technology that is effectively ancient and indisputably outdated, seemingly with no relevance to any recent events in the tech world, or the greater world in 2013 for that matter.

Occasionally it seems as if one could do "Random" Wikipedia click [0], find something marginally interesting, and post it here. It's strange that this would be the case, but I suppose the points voted on suggest that the community is interested in the subject. Don't get me wrong, I read the article and found it interesting, just to learn a little something new about history, but I then wondered how it could possibly relate to HN, and I went back to re-read before commenting as I was certain I must've been missing something regarding how this article relates to some current event / technology.

Edit 10:42EST, to restate the purpose as it seems people neglect to realize I too found it interesting and are saying "but it's interesting, I personally enjoyed it", please see the below sentence (Copied from above paragraph for clarity). This comment wasn't about personal interest, it's a question of relevance.

---

Don't get me wrong, I read the article and found it interesting, just to learn a little something new about history, but I then wondered how it could possibly relate to HN, and I went back to re-read before commenting as I was certain I must've been missing something regarding how this article relates to some current event / technology.

---

Ninja Edit: Note! The following will direct you to a random wikipedia page, may be NSFW. Follow at your own risk.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

It should probably be noted that this is not some sort of validation to the fact that "the NSA owns this particular DRBG".

Surprisingly (to me), this is merely a signal of a government agency that takes public perception to heart and issues a vote of not-complete-confidence in standards it has previous prescribed, and today is seeking to rectify the problem by looking for nothing up my sleeve numbers [0] agreed upon by security researchers and the public at large. A smart move, no doubt a difficult one to make, as even the slightest suggestion of no-confidence in a prescribed standard is quite damaging to the reputation of an institution devoted to maintaining reliable standards.

More info on nothing-up-my-sleeve: [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_up_my_sleeve_number

This really could use more exposure. People who believe that because they only had to click "Accept" they may claim ignorance or stupidity/absurdity of the terms the accepted ought to be corrected. It's simply silly to think you may violate the terms of any agreement made, especially when that agreement is necessary to your use of the service (hence "terms" of service).

While it is clear that hacker culture embraces putting things from numerous sources together, in this case the Google Maps elevation API with crime data, it's one thing to make a cool presentation and another to make a cool presentation derived from someone else's work against their explicit wishes, expressed in the terms.

The use of software implies (by necessity or otherwise) that you wish to make/create/analyze/do-X with the software, and by using it you've accepted the fact that you will do-X, but within the terms.

It's a funny world we live in ;)

The issue with this comparison is... How many times has "feeling safe" resulted in saving a life?

Statistics isn't a feeling, and the comparison is correct in that, on average, air travel is significantly safer than car travel. One should note, however, that the "on average" is the key bit, as one might argue that drivers in accidents have some special characteristic at work making them more susceptible than most, but claiming that Schneier or his source is making a false comparison somehow is simply unfair and untrue. Moreover, plenty of fatal auto accidents are not the explicit fault of those that die (drunk driver, someone else texting while driving, semi-trucker not paying attn). So "feeling safe" is worth nothing when you're staring down the grim reaper in the grill of the semi that switched lanes without signalling to pass without seeing you.

Contrasted with the "forward":

   |Note: recent events have lead to these topics being in the news quite often in recent weeks. However, Pond is not a reaction to those events - it was started nearly a year ago.

Traffic information, of course, isn't the whole conversation, so his wit is appreciated to make light air of the situation, but at the same time he's quite serious about this little project. I'm impressed that it compiles at all on my Arch machine, after his warning to Arch users.

On topic to your comment, unfortunately there's no way to avoid leaking traffic information, or at least the fact that there is traffic at all, to a "global passive attacker" :) gone are the days of radio silence

Of course, you're entirely correct in that :)

My warning was truly an aside, and given the nature of a large group of visitors, of course a handful might not follow best practices and verify the signatures, etc.

Scary bit is it's not server on HTTPS, which is probably a must-have for sites that publish public-key information. Much easier to MITM attack the site and claim to be posting "his" public key and email address while really publishing your own info, etc.

A great tutorial, however. Very accessible in my opinion and considering it's purpose my previous paragraph is more of an aside.

An interesting choice if he were seeking to flee (/defect, perhaps) to Bolivia, as they have an extradition treaty with the United States [1].

It's bilateral, but I wonder if the Bolivians would keep him after the US refused to send them their former coca-growing president [2].

[1] http://www.oas.org/juridico/mla/en/traites/en_traites-ext-us... [PDF]

[2] http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/12/why_did_the...

Just curious, but how can we be sure that GMail doesn't continue to do voodoo like uploading a copy of draft without complete transparency?

i.e. will this also disable any scripts that would send data to GMail while drafting is in progress, because if not I could see that as a potential hole for a future breach. Something like "while typing a draft, block all upward data triggered by this page" seems appropriate, rather than targeted draft-saving

If he's willing to give away state secrets (I know we have objections to their content sometimes, but they are state secrets), he should also be willing to face trial in the U.S. in civilian court.

Running across the ocean is possibly the most cowardly thing, and only further cements his future legacy as a "traitor". Unfortunately one narcissist cannot decide the policy of a nation, and Mr. Snowden has made a mistake in attempting to do so via leaks of classified and top secret information. It's... Traitorous.

This article seems to make a point of showcasing Zagat's rating in search above others, somehow indicating that Google is unfairly manipulating search results to it's own gain (as Zagat is Google, Inc. owned).

However, there's an important point here to be made, which has been said in numerous antitrust arguments against Google, and that is, "what if the product in No. 1, Google's, is in fact preferred by consumers and therefore is, to use language of the tutorspree authors 'organic'?".

It's an interesting question. I find much of the article interesting and of course the screen space dedicated to search is a hot topic, and Google's minimal style still remains in my favor, I just wanted to briefly object to the claim that somehow showing a non-ad Zagat page is "0%" (in the author's numbers) organic search.

What I find in this article of most interest is the fact that it reveals the FBI's intentions when they went to Iceland. I've missed the source (sorry), but there was a previous article on here that made it sound like the FBI was harassing Wikileaks and showed up in Iceland under false pretenses. In addition, it had quotes with numerous public figures going all "we expelled the FBI since they lied".

This article clearly demonstrates that their intentions were true based on the information available from that video, and really paints a more competent picture of the FBI's counter-computer-crimes division. I, for one, am pleased to see that the surveillance bashing in the un-sourced (since I forgot it) article is done with and we now have real information into the FBI's Icelandic foray.

Lacking easy migrate support, at least the export option exists.

Simply because the vast majority of cases regarding visas/entry into the United States are determined by strict procedure and in accordance with the law. So most likely, as in the majority of cases, there is a reason we're not able to see here, for national security or one-sidedness.

Their decision was probably based in some way (assuming it's based on available information, which is admittedly risky) in his marriage to a foreign national while expressing interest in moving to the states, and the embassy's reluctance to chance him violating his visa permissions and in some way moving here with his wife in a permanent resident-alien w/o a visa type manner.

Not claiming to know anything special, but if that really is the only perturbed variable, it most likely hinged on that. Or familial ties that are somehow inscrutable. All conjecture, but I find these single cases to be ridiculous, because there are competent individuals in government who oft do what they're supposed to, even if the whole government mechanism appears corrupt and broken. Most likely there was a legitimate reason, and of course we only have one side of the story here, by an associate professor and his PhD student.

The quick add feed functionality is annoying because it requires that my cursor stay in the box horizontally until I hit "Add Feed" after the "Add Feed url" textbox pops up. So I have to play maze to get there. (I don't mind, just pointing this out).

Also the "add feed" button in "discover" and "my feeds" doesn't seem to like me, I click it and nothing happens. However the "quick add" bar up top does (with the maze caveat, see prev. paragraph).

Edited to Add: Also does it not play nice with some FeedBurner RSS? I am attempting to add (I made an account, this seems nice guys!) "http://feeds.feedburner.com/schneier/fulltext, but it won't take it.

Willingness to pay is someone's valuation. That's not the real value. That's not the inherent value. The inherent value of BTC is nill, except as a speculative commodity.

I won't further comment on BTC since both sides are staunchly rooted in their positions.

Acknowledged. Mostly a facetious comment, as any known distribution could be found (over infinite time) and you'd only become pseudononymous (which is exactly what the original comment wouldn't like!)

On the other hand... It would be secure :) never withdraw. Anonymity through one way function/flow.

U[0,∞]