It's been like this for a while, and the project owner's attitude is pretty negative overall. I do use signal daily, but I believe it's likely compromised ala lavabit.
I thought they were never compromised? They shut down rather than comply with the order
>The service suspended its operations on August 8, 2013 after the U.S. Federal Government ordered it to turn over its Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) private keys, in order to allow the government to spy on Edward Snowden's email
Lavabit was never compromised, I'm saying that Signal may have been compromised by the feds, instead of choosing to shut down. Feds may have learned their lesson and not provided an option this time.
The chance that a small nonprofit with so much traffic is not leaking/providing data to the feds is astronomically slim imho, there are so many actors who would love to there hands on it. Maybe it thwarts some inteligance services but not those with unlimited resources.
I would point you towards Stuxnet and take a look at how sofisticated a state level attack can be and the fact that today Iran still can not keep us (America/Israel) out of it's centrifuges. Everything you type online is being stored by multiple actors, to think they can't access a small company with limited resources is wishful thinking. If no one in Signal's 180 employees is working for the feds I would be embarrassed to be an American.
List of phone numbers? Pairs of communication partners? Timing and size of messages? Metadata about transferred media? There is still a lot, sufficient for targeting a drone strike as the usual wisdom goes.
Signal doesn’t store lists of phone governments have lists of phone numbers. Comunication partners are hidden from the server using Sealed Sender for many conversations.
The rest of this could possibly be obtained, it it wouldn’t require a patch to the server as message sizes and timestamps likely appear on disk somewhere. Though the data is encrypted, you could tell “x received a message from some party (sealed sender prevents knowing who) at y time of roughly z size”.
Signal still uses and verifies phone numbers, so at some point they will pass through their infrastructure. They could still save them, knowing the source code they use gives at least at hint that they don't.
Sealed sender also is based on the pinky-swear that the infrastructure distributing the sender auth certificates doesn't correlate identities and connections with the messaging infrastructure. And that the server receiving the enveloped messages doesn't log. So all based on trust based on believing the right source code is running somewhere.
When access to that source code is restricted suddenly, of course people are worried.
Signal claims to specially protect some of that data, such claims need verification. Storing or not storing that data needs verification, without the trust that they do what they say they are no better than their competition. Trust is earned e.g. by openness about the source code. And that a server backdoor isn't strictly necessary is also beside the point because the server is the easiest and most obvious way to get at all that data.
Also, there is competition like Briar which has less of those pesky metadata problems (but some other problems instead)
I don't recall Signal ever having made implausible claims about traffic analytic attacks. I also don't buy into the idea that platforms are as trustworthy as their source release policies are orthodox.
The goalposts now seem to be at "someone might subpoena Signal's logs for some metadata", having moved pretty far from the original claim of "Signal's server code hasn't been updated because it has been secretly backdoored or intentionally weakened." It's difficult to see this as good faith security analysis rather than fearmongering.
What difference does this make? In your threat model the only serious countermeasure between you and state-level adversaries is a Logstash implementation?
Being able to hide from a government that wants to drone you while still being in the cellphone network requires much much much more OPSEC than just using Signal. For an average user Signal is about protecting the content of your messages, not your network, and it's good at that.
"No one" is a bit harsh; I even helped a poster in r/Signal set up a CircleCI build for the repo in order to show that it's not oppressively hard, just tedious (as with all things CI/CD)
The Signal android build now uses some PKCS11 machinery that requires patching out to build without using a smartcard, but otherwise it works as expected.
I dove into this darkness while trying to fix the borked MMS handling on Visible (a Verizon MVNO), and is the reason I'm generally with you: if someone can't build the project, then it's not effectively open source, IMHO, because I lose my "right to repair"
By this standard, there is practically nothing that qualifies as open source. Compile something yourself? Well can you really trust your compiler unless you compiled it? How do you compile your compiler without a compiler? Obviously this is possible but no one does it; therefore no software is truly open source.
I disagree that these are on the same level - compiling something yourself, or having something compiled by ie the Arch Linux maintainers requires a number of people to comply.
The app store is a single point of failure with huge reach.
But despite best efforts by the community to verify builds, Google and Apple can be forced to upload a malicious app to a particular user, meaning they aren't using the same app at all.
> But despite best efforts by the community to verify builds, Google and Apple can be forced to upload a malicious app to a particular user, meaning they aren't using the same app at all.
Hi there! Signal-Android developer here. App signing verification is done at the OS-level, and Google does not have our signing key, so they wouldn't be able to give an existing user a different APK and have it successfully install.
No, they could not. And if you don't want to trust $random_manufacturer's Android ROM, you could switch to GrapheneOS[0] whose developer Daniel Micay attaches a lot of importance to reliable app signatures (which is why GrapheneOS doesn't come with MicroG as the latter would need signature spoofing).
Thirding Code Complete (another top-level recommended it). I read that book very early on, and I credit it with my current ability to write clean code.
This is a survey of people who joined MENSA. I would posit that most normal, healthy, high-IQ folks never bother, and there's a selection bias at play.
I went to their meetings a couple times by invitation, and it never really "clicked" - for many of their members, their MENSA membership and related activities are a big part of their identity and their life, and I wasn't able to connect. I heard the same thing from a couple of friends who also met their entrance criteria, and there's certainly a lot of selection bias. Which is fine, but it's not representative by any means.
I joined at a young age and after a couple of meetings realized it made no sense at all to me. Joining a club because you have a high IQ is like joining a club because you have a leg or a head. I think immutable attributes in general just aren’t enough to hold a group together, or at least make it interesting. Could be wrong on this one, though.
> Joining a club because you have a high IQ is like joining a club because you have a leg or a head
That's a bit too loose analogy. A more precise is like joining because one is tall.
While the principle still somewhat holds, the difference is in the consequences. One may join Mensa because they're likely to find people with similar tendencies/interests, as much as tall people may like certain sports.
Where are all of the satisfied Mensa members? Every time Mensa gets brought up a whole swarm of dissatisfied former members shows up to explain how it's not worth attending, and yet the organization persists. What's the other side of the story?
The selection bias works the other way as well: people who are happy with their Mensa social group get their social contact from that and don't bother hanging out on HN.
Maybe it's actually HN that attracts dissatisfaction? /jk It's a well known phenomenon that people are more likely to speak on the negative/critical opinions they have than to go out of their way to give praise.
So, first, Mensa groups vary considerably across countries (US has many people that seek some activity after retirement; in Hong Kong some seem to be attracted by the mensa email they can put on their CV; in Germany it seems a fairly mixed bunch, many of which are bored in their parochial hometown).
But I thought membership was well worth it. Discussions about random arcane topics, meetings and conferences, contacts when traveling, dating, a fairly open and tolerant social circle, etc.
I know of two Mensa members. They don't seem to be dissatisfied, but they don't seem to be active in it either. Maybe it depends on the expectations one has before joining.
The friend who invited me was (and is) a happy member - he skips the large meetings/gatherings and simply uses the network to find folk with similar interests.
To me, as an outsider, I don't see the immediate purpose of the club. I imagine most clubs are about activities or a mission.
I used to go social dancing and the purpose of that group of people was to dance, and they would have various events all about dancing or improving your dancing. If you join a social justice or politically minded group, I imagine your purpose is to engage in activities to further your ideals. But to join a club where there are other smart people... your goal is to what? Share interesting puzzles with each other? :D Try to make other people smarter?
I think you're only looking at "smart people" as people who want to share how smart they are. You seem to be ignoring the social isolation that can come with it. Your interests might no be similar to those around you, if you're a child you might be able to meet others who are different in the same way, etc.
I very rarely discuss IQ since so many people are hostile to it. A high IQ makes you different. Sometimes it's subtle, like as an adult you'll typically have different interests compared to a lot of peers, and other times it's far less subtle, like when you're a school aged kid and you're always made to feel different (FYI most school aged kids don't want to feel different).
I suppose so. It's probably more akin to a club for tall people, or a club for twins. There are things specific to who you are in those cases that outsiders wouldn't "get" and I can see the value in meeting up with those folks to feel a sense of belonging.
I feel like it is because it's a group of people in the same field, which is constantly changing. There are topics related to the group that make sense to discuss.
With smart people, I suppose any topic is on the table. It's not specific enough for me.
It seems like most commenters are in software engineering or related jobs. But it doesn't appeal to lots of people in those fields. There are biologists and truck drivers too. And lots of people have pointed out most companies are tech companies now.
Most topics here might interest people for professional reasons. But they include things like "High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders" too. People love to debate politics. And "Is the Ship Still Stuck?"[1] is the top article right now.
> for many of their members, their MENSA membership and related activities are a big part of their identity and their life
That's the case for many people that join a club, though, be it chess, functional programming, golf, gardening, or what have you, and happens naturally if that's where you spend a good chunk of your free time.
I haven't taken an IQ test since... A billion years ago, so maybe it's the same, but having taken the LSAT, you can certainly learn them. My first LSAT I ever took was 78 percentile, whereas by the end I was scoring 95-98 with relative ease.
A normal IQ person can improve their IQ/LSAT/GRE test score with appropriate training, but a higher IQ person will tend to score proportionally higher given the same training.
Not exactly. There may be some correlation, but there are certainly people who can get in via an aptitude test who would not be able to get in using an IQ test. The testing methods are completely different.
There is so much correlation that the correlation of an aptitude test with an IQ test is basically equal to the correlation of one IQ test with another IQ test. (Around 0.8) By any definition other than "it can't be an IQ test unless that's part of its name", the aptitude tests are IQ tests. They do not differ in function.
That's simply not true. The form and function of the tests are fundamentally different. The biggest difference is that you can study for one, but studying for the other is considered cheating. You can see my other comment for further clarification.
You can respond to facts by saying "that's simply not true", but it's not going to be an effective way of convincing anyone else or of developing a coherent model of the world. The facts are that aptitude tests are psychometrically identical to IQ tests. They have the same characteristics and reveal the same information. Someone's score on an aptitude test as is predictive of their score on an IQ test as their score on an IQ test is.
What you claim is counter to the intended uses of the tests and their very definitions. One measures innate flgeneral intelligence, whereas the other measures skill or acquired knowledge in a specific area.
Then show me some sources to support your argument, because repeating false statements doesn't further your point either.
>The many different kinds of IQ tests include a wide variety of item content. Some test items are visual, while many are verbal. Test items vary from being based on abstract-reasoning problems to concentrating on arithmetic, vocabulary, or general knowledge.
The SAT tests abstract reasoning (read a story and answer questions), arithmetic, vocabulary... It's an IQ test.
A person can improve an aptitude test score with some appropriate training, but a higher IQ person will tend to score proportionally higher given the same training/experience.
Yes, but the tests don't account for a similar amount of training, and so do not provide an adequate comparison. The whole point of IQ tests are to present problems which the test taker sould not have previously encountered, thus measuring their ability to quickly devise a solution, and indicating their intelligence on a standard distribution vs the population in general.
First of all, over 6 of the test listed do not give results in IQ points. So they're not nominally IQ tests.
Second, and more substantially, here's an explicit clarification for one of them (LSAT):
"The LSAT is not an IQ test. It does not measure intelligence the way IQ tests are designed to measure innate ability. A person who is very smart can receive a low LSAT score."
You can find similar declarations for the others (non-IQ) tests listed.
The LSAT is not an IQ test. It does not measure intelligence the way IQ tests are designed to measure innate ability. A person who is very smart can receive a low LSAT score.
What's interesting in the context of the post is that apparently I qualify for MENSA on the basis of several test yet have had not the slightest inkling to even figure that out, nor absolutely any interest in joining now that I know.
Maybe MENSA is a representative sample of smart people, but I have a lot of friends and colleagues I consider much smarter then me and none of us are in MENSA, so I'm skeptical.
What I find interesting on that page is that the more recent (past 2-3 decades) college preparatory tests (e.g. SAT) are not accepted as substitutes to IQ tests. Shows the trend of dumbing down the tests, I guess.
That is odd. If the tests were simply dumbed down, wouldn't Mensa just raise the required score? The implication is that these tests have become less IQ-correlated. I'd be interested to see a comparison in the type of questions from the 70s vs today.
Responding in a vacuum, but the other explanation could be that these tests fail to discriminate at the high-end. If everyone with a high score is squished together, raising the floor just amplifies relative noise
That's exactly what they did - they have 3 bands of years for the SAT. Two year bands (<1974, 74-94) are accepted with different scores, and the more recent tests (94+) are not accepted.
The major change in 1994 was the allowance of calculators during the math portion. I don't know why MENSA couldn't make a similar score adjustment here.
Probably less reliable and more overhead. You have to constantly evaluate what the new equivalent score and who knows, maybe even the max score isn't good enough anymore.
You have to frame it in familiar terms for Mensa members:
What conclusions can you draw from the following sentence?
"I would posit that most normal, healthy, high-IQ folks never bother, and there's a selection bias at play."
a) All Mensa members are unhealthy.
b) There may exist some normal, healthy, high-IQ folks in Mensa.
c) All Mensa members have high IQ.
d) No Mensa member has high IQ.
My contention would be that many (not all) people are drawn to Mensa because they have difficulty forming relationships in mainstream society. I’d suggest it’s this trait that correlates with mental and physical disorders.
He's saying that, on average, a high IQ person does not find Mensa valuable or interesting and so does not bother to join.
Whereas, someone who is lonely, searching community, depressed, etc and _also_ has a high IQ would be more likely to apply and join.
The fact that you happen to be normal, healthy, and a Mensa member isn't particular important when speculating about the possible selection bias. Although, we are just speculating.
Yeah, I was well aware what the implication was :) I was just stirring the pot really...
It's always interesting to read the general sentiment towards Mensa members — implying they join out of "loneliness" or "depression" is a hilariously unfounded assumption. I agree that Mensa is fairly pointless overall, but in my experience, its members are generally pretty representative of the general population.
I did that! Doubt I'm the person you're thinking of but it was something to put on my otherwise empty resume that would have consisted of jobs at Burger King and a oil change store. Once I had my first professional job under my belt, I left it off. No idea if it helped or hurt getting that first job but I suspect if nothing else it gave me a bit of confidence going into those first interviews after university.
This was not that situation and I have no issue with someone young and bright using it (Mensa) to get their foot in the door. My guy was middle-aged, from privilege and used Mensa and other BS accomplishments to swindle people into thinking he was some sort of tech luminary.
This is a common discussion point amongst members, and almost everybody agrees it's a terrible idea. (Unless you look up the hiring manager in the membership directory first, and see they're a member too...)
Haha, absolutely not. I get almost nothing out of it. I sat the exam out of curiosity, but if you qualify and want to join, you have to do so immediately — you can't decide to later on. I've been a member for 3 years, and doubt I'll renew next year.
There's a private Facebook group for members, which has some lively discussion from time to time, but that's about it. To be honest I just posted my earlier comment to stir the pot a little :)
This may be a consequence of the place you live in or the language you're reading their material in. I expect there are plenty of people doing environmental things (possibly under other names) in Africa/India/China.
White people also invented "rolling coal", so we have both extremes.
If something is true, I don't really care if you're going to try to attach a negative emotional connotation to it (at least if we're discussing things at arm's length).
There seems to be some implication here that you believe joining mensa means you associate with people only for their high IQ. Just because that's the entrance criteria doesn't mean you hang out with some subset of those members soley based on their IQ.
Just as joining a sports team doesn't mean you only hang out with members of that team because they enjoy the same sport - the same holds true for people who join mensa or any other group I'd imagine.
Because the residents are Bad(tm) and need to be punished.
These standards only seem to apply to America and Europe.
Does anyone have a counterexample outside of America or Europe where the underclass is allowed to live side-by-side with the rich? I've never heard of one but perhaps I'm ignorant. Most countries seem dead-set on rejecting any and all immigrants that don't bring $500k+ along with them.
Most likely they chronically overspend, just like any other organization with chronic budget issues. The people there seem to think that everything comes for free, and as long as the city can secure additional debt, they're right.
But it's not sustainable, and imo, downright evil.
I think your analysis is spot-on. Those existing NIMBY's bought their house with an expectation, and they vote accordingly.
I don't think there's really a way forward without torching rule of law. They don't want the place to be amenable to new/young people, and they make the rules.
It's unfortunate that big tech decided to make this place their home, perhaps with covid and remote work it will go back to a dreamy boomer-land.
These selfish NIMBY assholes have been borrowing from their cities future as they both condemn newcomers, tax them extra (prop 13), refuse to build new housing for them, and then profit off the induced housing demand.
The selfish assholes that think they can tell people who live in other communities what those communities ought to be - are the the root of the problem.
There are vast, open, free spaces for people to build and live in communities as they so choose.
If people want to live in homes and not high rises, it's absolutely their choice, and visa versa. Anyone who wants to live among them, in homes, is free to do that. If they want to live in high rises, they can go to where there are high rises, or where there are those who want to build them.
Are there situations where the people in control cannot even change the system if they wanted to, based on the interests that have been set up? And situations where a minority's interest in preserving the status quo prevent what could be an overall better situation for everyone else?
Also, this sounds a lot like, "As long as you're under my roof you'll follow my rules, young man". Which is not always reflective of a healthy situation.
An interesting proposal I've seen that attempts to still save the retirees from being forced to move out for not paying their taxes vs houses locked at a certain rate for too long would be to recover the FMV rate owned taxes upon selling.
Currently, not only does the existing homeowner have to pay less taxes (if prices increase over 2% YoY), but later when they sell their house they can cash in the entire difference. That doesn't seem fair if the entire point of Prop 13 was to protect retirees from being kicked out of their house. So instead, make it so that when the house is sold they have to pay in backtaxes all the difference between the FMV based tax and what they actually payed from any profit they are making on the house. Also stop all means of being able to pass the house between generations without re-assessment (that is currently possible in many states in CA).
The way forward is not to 'torch the rule of law'.
There are plenty of ways to do things. Oregon just passed a housing law (HB 2001) that re-legalizes "missing middle" housing for instance, by right, in all our cities.
In other words, you take some of the zoning control away from hyper-NIMBY local jurisdictions.
Larger political entities can consider more than the narrow, selfish interests of a few "I've got mine" NIMBYs, such as future residents, the racist history of zoning, and the impact on the environment of forcing people to commute a long ways.
Local control in places like Palo Alto is two wolves and a sheep voting for what to have for dinner.
Some of us would like our children to be able to live in the place they are growing up. And we value what newcomers and immigrants bring to the table in terms of hard work, new ideas, energy, and so on.
Also, one of the easiest ways to make people better off is to let them move to where the jobs are. That used to be very common in the United States. That has been stunted in some part by rigid land use laws that pull up the ladder behind the people who got in while the getting was good.
There is a lot of work in economics showing the benefits of clustering, rather than having a talented up and coming person move to, say, Cyanide Springs Oklahoma because it's cheap.
If you want your children to live there, perhaps allowing newcomers isn't the best idea? Our housing prices go up up up as does our population, and the only approved solution seems to be to lower our quality of life.
Unless you think living in an apartment with no garage, no yard, no storage, and no way to stockpile food (save costs) is a quality of life increase?
Our children will probably not have children if forced to live this way at this price.
Personally I don't really get it, but I don't live in San Francisco.
> Our children will probably not have children if forced to live this way at this price.
Maybe check out some other parts of the world where this is the norm, and people have plenty of kids, once the pandemic is over.
And it's not a given that that happens in any case. People might not choose to live quite so densely, but if they want to, the option is there.
Look at the 'Montreal' option in that article for instance. That'd add a lot of people without having Big Towers.
And I actually lived in Italy, in a flat, with no yard for a while. It was great - we'd go to the park with my kids where they'd almost always see friends. Way better than our big yard here in the US where "there's nothing to do".
I'm Not from the US, but from a country with overwhelming support for same-sex marriage. I'm also from a country that has a proper democracy where voter turn out is 98+% and first-past the post isn't a thing.
What is the alternative you suggest... you hope you get a ruler who agrees with you? Good luck with that.
Glad to hear you live in a country like that, I wish I could say the same. But these are core difficulties with the United States that aren't going away any time soon.
The nation is very divided and there's no hope of overthrowing first-past-the-post here.
And when the nation doesn't agree on things, allowing the majority to rule can be terrifying.
That's not true, I'm quite certain a number of states have started removing first-past-the-post in favour of preferential systems. (Sorry I don't know the states nor what the term for the above is in the US).
I agree democracy has its flaws... but what's the alternative? (This is highly off topic sorry). But complaining that minority rule to protect a "Happy Neighbourhood" is morally equivalent to "gay rights" seems like a dishonest argument to me.
My point is that these things can be morally ambiguous depending on the society you talk to. There are many places on earth that don't allow gay marriage to this day (or anything gay at all).
One of the main problems with democracy is that it incentives politicians to buy voters, rather than use principled judgment. Everything becomes "politicking" to the lowest common denominator, because they have the most votes, and are most influenced by emotion.
Every system has it's flaws, and ultimately, I believe the problem is the people, not the government. If people were more principled, they wouldn't be susceptible to this emotional rhetoric. Monarchies are not inherently unjust, although many of them have been.
One additional problem with democracy, at least in the US, is that it sells out to the highest bidder. The masses are easily manipulated with TV and other propaganda, and they are the ones who elect the winner. It's like an oligarchy - the politicans are beholden to big money.
But people blame the politicans, not the oligarchs. They vote out "bad" politicians, only for new puppets to take their place, protecting the true masters (business interests, wall street, etc).
In a true oligarchy, people eventually go for blood. It's a joke to think that the riots on Jan 6th would do anything - kill the puppets, and the puppeteer brings in a new prop.
But effective democracy limits financing, which solves the buying votes problem.
Investment in education solves a lot of the manipulation problem.
You are Using one of the most dysfunctional democracies as your standard and then pointing out how bad that standard is. The US is a pathetic excuse for a democracy. It’s got some really great ideas that are stifled intentionally.
But you haven’t provided an alternative...
And back to the original point... you would like a monarch to rule The Bay Area?
Please don’t stop at Plato, Aristotle expanded on it and specifically made some key observations around democracy relating to “the wisdom of the masses”.
"It's unfortunate that big tech decided to make this place their home"
Big Tech was established when much of that area was literally little bits separated by fields and farmland.
I think our living spaces are more important than industry, if we need more housing for Googlers etc. well, there's tons of room in Cali. There are even many areas amenable to more density, it's just not SF or Palo Alto.
I'll bet that in Oakland it's much more possible to build semi-high buildings and fairly dense, modern 4 story buildings for the middle class, it's just that fewer people want to live there.
I wonder if Apple and Google get together and bought a large plot of land south of Morgan Hill, they could build a mini city to house 500K people and frankly run the gauntlet of whatever they wanted in terms of setting the rules, and there are at least 500K migrants who'd be happy to live there.
Imagine 'Facebook Campus' but now, your home as well. What's Orwellian to you and I would probably be fine for others. And of course, less cynically, it wouldn't need to be like that either.
But, they do something similar - they open offices in other cities until the cost of living rises to match San Francisco (see Portland and Seattle). It's just not in California.
