csears

s/analize/analyze/g

Would that be safe even with untrusted data? (Assuming you were the one who serialized and compiled the table)

I intentionally tried to keep it light / humorous to have plausible deniability. "I'm sorry your honor. This was just an elaborate joke that got out of hand."

I'm glad it's been entertaining. This is the first time I've posted anything to HN that's gotten any real engagement/interest and I've thoroughly enjoyed the discussion.

I really don't have any way to prove this, but it's not a stunt and not connected to my employer in any way. I don't have anything to promote. I'm speaking in a purely personal capacity. I've attempted to remove references to my employer, so I'd appreciate it if you or a moderator could remove the reference from your comment.

I do enjoy intellectual discussions with smart people on thought provoking topics and that's primarily what this is. I am genuinely curious if my idea could work and I was interested in feedback from the HN crowd. I've been mostly lurking here for about 10 years, and just recently decided to start writing more and trying to participate more actively in HN discussions. This idea struck me as something that could spark a fun discussion, and it has.

Getting something to the front page of Hacker News is a bucket list item for me. It didn't happen this time (I think it got to page 4), but I learned a lot and really enjoyed replying to everyone's comments.

But to be clear, this was not a stunt. It was meant to be a little provocative and attention grabbing, but I do genuinely believe my idea has some merit and might improve a very difficult situation... if it could be done legally and safely.

Can confirm. Although I might say "moderately technical" rather than "slightly technical". Some of my interview questions got pretty deep into networking protocols and Linux OS internals. Regardless, it's a very different role than a software engineering position, which I wouldn't claim to be a good fit for.

Think tank events are a very good idea. Something similar had occurred to me.

Many successful startup ideas do sound very ill-conceived initially and often have legal problems, despite their success. Having strangers drive you places? Renting a room in a random person's house? Having a book retailer host all your IT infrastructure? So, although I do appreciate your point, I don't think those factors alone are reason enough to give up on the concept.

Yes, I was trying to play along, but that probably wasn’t obvious.

I've removed references to my employer from my HN profile and personal site. Could I ask you to edit your comment and remove that reference as well?

I appreciate that you took the effort to create a throwaway account to share this. I'll look into the Sackler Foundation. Thank you.

Done. Thank you.

Thanks for the questions. Allow me to answer/clarify.

Improving drug cartel profit margins is not a direct goal. Reducing deaths and violence is the goal, but I don't see a way to do that without getting the cartels to change how they operate a bit. The only way I can think of to get them to want to change is with economic incentives. They seem to not respond to other types of incentives/punishments. If you have thoughts on what might motivate them other than profits, I'd love to hear it.

No, I have no interest in making money from this idea or sharing profits with the cartels. Doing so would obviously be illegal and I'm only looking for legal pathways to achieve my goals.

No, I wouldn't describe it as "growth hacking". I'm not interested in growing their businesses, just exploring creative options that might reduce the death/violence. I'm speaking here in a purely personal capacity. My employer has not endorsed anything I'm discussing, nor would I ask/expect them to. I recognize that there is a possibility of some negative blowback from this post. If they asked me to, I would be happy to delete it. It's certainly not my intent to embarrass anyone or create negative associations with my employer. My hope is that if my company's leadership does come across the post, they would recognize that there was good intent behind it and don't feel the need to cut ties with me to avoid repetitional damage over a fairly abstract/hypothetical discussion on a forum where users compete to gain the attention of other people in the community. It is nuanced and not without some professional risk, but I'm pretty sure my employer would give me a chance to fix things if they felt there was a problem.

Your question about the mods is a little too leading/loaded for me to simply confirm or deny. All I will say is that the post was flagged last night, I emailed the moderation team, Dang emailed me back and unflagged the post. If Dang is ok with it, I'd be happy to post his email here, but I don't want to assume that he would want comments he made privately to be shared publicly.

Thanks for the extra details here. I can see how challenging it would be to know with a high degree of certainty that a drug was truly safe just using test strips. But it seems like the test strips are a practical, relatively low cost option that, while not perfect, could improve the status quo.

Test strips aren't the only option that I'm investigating. I know there are some facilities that will do lab tests to check for fentanyl and other dangerous additives. That might end up being a better approach.

I have family and friends with pharmaceutical industry, chemistry, and medical/healthcare backgrounds that I've reached out to for advice on the issue, especially the question of weather it's possible to safely use the test strips with a low risk of some kind of exposure.

I'll try to find a good source to back up the claim. The statement was made in a verbal, in-person presentation by the deputy chief of the university police, who was told by the city coroner. But for all I know, he could have made it up in an attempt to scare the kids.

I appreciate you pointing out that specific statue and sharing your interpretation. My idea would have non-criminal use cases as well, but I'm not clear if that is sufficient. Criminals can use Telegram to communicate about crimes. Does that mean that Telegram is aiding and abetting? I'm definitely out of my depth on the legal details, which is why I would get good legal advice before doing anything.

Getting involved with politics had crossed my mind. On this issue specifically, I suspect there are policy think tanks that might be open to giving me some advice. Maybe handing the idea off to one of them and letting them pursue related policy changes might be a better option. In my experience, lawmakers don't pay much attention to random people on HN.

One could argue that cartel members and VCs do share some qualities. But again, your point is well taken and you may very well be right. I won't move forward if there isn't a safe, legal path to do so. I appreciate your feedback.

You may be right, but it's not clear to me they are totally irrational. The fact that they seem to have business partnerships with chemical suppliers in Asia would suggest that they are capable of cooperating when it suits their interests.

I appreciate your take. I agree that working with multiple cartels would be risky, but it seems like working with just one cartel would also be risky. I'm not sure which is the better option. Ideally, I'd prefer to work with more of them.

And on your other point, there would be hardware and software involved, but the cartels wouldn't be interacting with them directly. I'll be sure to have the cartels sign my EULA before proceeding with anything.

I have no interest in a cut of the profits. As I've stated elsewhere, I was hoping that establishing some form of communication might derisk the situation a little. If one-way communication is the only practical option, I'm fine with that.

I'm certainly going to do my best to not get arrested, or be in a situation where anyone in law enforcement would want to arrest me. As far as I know, it's not illegal to ask for advice about a legally ambiguous situation.

So you're saying that Zoom would be a bad option?

Good point. I have removed my employers from my bio. I don't think there was any implication that they were at all involved or endorsed anything I'm saying here, but it never hurts to avoid any potential backlash. Thanks for pointing that out.

That's not lost on me. Obviously it would be a tough balance to strike to remain "useful" to the cartels, while not being "too useful" that they would feel the need to exert control. That's why I'm interested in educating myself more fully on the whole situation so I can make an informed risk assessment. If there's no path forward that also kept my family and myself safe, I won't pursue it further.

I appreciate the feedback. I don't have a way to prove it, but I'm really not concerned with ego/fame in any of this. I've also stated several places that I plan to get legal advice from a real lawyer before moving forward with anything. As far as I know, I haven't discussed doing anything illegal. I've clearly said that if there is not a legal path forward, I'll drop the idea.

Also, the post did get flagged last night. I emailed the moderation team and asked if I had broken some rule / guideline with the post. Dang said I had not and unflagged it.

I've touched on this in a few other replies, but I'll restate here:

I'm not interested in making money from this.

It would feel really rewarding if I could (directly or indirectly) save someone's life or prevent some act of senseless violence. Even if there's only a small chance of achieving one of those outcomes, don't we have a moral obligation to pursue something like that?

Years ago, one of my wife's friends was having major problems with her husband. The friend had been texting my wife and mentioned that there was some kind of confrontation. And then the friend just stopped responding to texts. My wife was kind of freaking out after a little while, so we went over to the friend's house (the husband was also there) and sat out there trying to figure out what to do. We had no reason to believe the husband was violent, but it's hard to know how someone will react in a tense/emotional situation. We weren't sure if it made sense to call the police, because we didn't know if the friend was actually in any danger. After weighing the options, we decided to call the police non-emergency line and ask if someone could check on the friend. They transferred us to 911, and we told the dispatcher the situation. They said they would send an officer to check. At this point, we decided to knock on the door. The husband answered, clearly unhappy we were there. We said we just wanted to make sure the friend was ok. He told us to get off his property or he would call the police. We agreed to leave but told him we had already called the police. My wife got a text shortly after that from the friend saying that she was ok, but thanking us for checking on her. We waited for the police to arrive (about 10 minutes later) and we drove home.

Long story, but I've thought about that night a lot. I think we did the right thing. If we had done nothing, and the friend been hurt somehow, I would have felt horrible knowing that I might have been able to prevent it and didn't.

I feel this is a similar situation, but on a much bigger scale. Honestly, until yesterday, I had filed the fentanyl epidemic away in my brain in the large folder labeled "tragic things in the world that you can't do anything about". But hearing the campus police chief talking about student deaths related to fentanyl-laced pot at my daughter's college orientation made me start thinking about it again. I'm very cognizant of how cringy it is for tech people to think they can save the world with tech, but I tried to consider the economic, social and political factors involved and let myself be curious about out-of-the-box solutions. And I came up with something.

PS. Oh, and I think it would be a fun story to tell at parties.

If you really want to get a job at AWS, I still have some friends there and I'd be happy to help.

In general, I think people overestimate how hard it is to get a job at a big tech company. Their turnover is very high. If you learn the skill they're looking for and understand how to do well in the interviews/hiring process, I'd say your odds are better than 50/50.

Agreed. I plan to publish the details shortly. And to be clear, although I refer to it as a "startup", I don't actually want to make any money off of it.

I will be making the ideas public shortly. No research yet. Stay tuned and thanks for the encouragement.

That's good to know. I've only done a little initial research around this. I ordered some test strips from a manufacture called MD-Bio (https://mdbio.com). I'll be sure to review all their instructions and safety info.

Out of curiosity, are you saying that a Fentanyl level can be so low that it's undetectable by the test strips, but still high enough to kill someone?