telecuda

I show off this app to others more than I use it personally. The typical reaction is "magic!" or "witchcraft!" It's really that simple and impressive.

Hi Mike. I call it out specifically because crimes against children are a particular category of crime that deserves special attention from the community. Sextorting a business man with a picture of him having an affair and other $CRIMES 'should' be handled differently than the predator who drives a young teen to suicide or gets them to take pictures of their younger siblings, or face humiliation on a social network.

In the former (businessman example), a social network has a 'right' to refuse law enforcement and notify the user. In the latter example, it's my belief (which I understand isn't popular here!) that the network has a civic 'duty' not to inform the user and to assist how they can - as many of them do right now. My question has more to do with asking if social networks will examine the background of the $CRIME before notifying the user.

Phone companies recognize this distinction and, for example, will provide an emergency ping location when a child is in danger before any paper work is submitted, requiring in good faith that it will follow within 24 hours. If the following paperwork is not in order, they lose the ability to do that again.

It's a wonderful thing that the average HN reader doesn't have to deal with these issues, and disappointing honestly that real questions from someone who does are heavily downvoted. But hey, it's fine not to agree with my view.

You make some good points as well, and I admit there's not a clear answer here. However, Facebook can very quickly look at the suspect's messages to the victim for example and see clearly if the s/he is a real threat before notifying anyone.

"More open communication between law enforcement and companies" as you said is the key, especially at the state and local level.

I don't have stats, no, but Facebook openly acknowledges the problem at child safety conferences. Google "Facebook Child Sextortion" and you'll find your share of articles. I recognize "take my word for it" doesn't go very far!

I hope there's some discretion used here based on the nature of the request. Child Sextortion (send me naked photos or record these sex acts with your sibling or I'll send this devastating photo to all of your friends on Facebook) is a very real and frequent problem. If mom & dad show the sextortion messages to their local police detective and s/he fills out a Facebook records request to see if the suspect is victimizing other minors, will Facebook notify the suspect?

The average local investigator is low-tech, has good intentions to help a victim, and has nothing to do with FISA or national security issues. I'd much rather see a tech company say, "Hey, we're not just going to give you everything on this user. In fact, we'll notify the user unless you provide more justification or background on the reason for your request," than notify the suspect without warning. At least then the investigator can provide more info for consideration, or go back to a judge.

Am I correct to assume that the hardware/device piece is similar to a Pineapple (https://hakshop.myshopify.com/products/wifi-pineapple)?

As I understand it, the device is like a WiFi Router looking for nearby clients broadcasting their MAC. Since phones have the ability of turning themselves into WiFi Hotspots, could a phone/app offer this same capability, or is it missing a hardware piece that lives in Density/Pineapple?

Cool and good luck! I'd be cautious about the name sounding so close to Tweet, especially when you advertise it's "like Twitter." Less impact changing the name now than later.

It's a shame to see so many negative comments. MIT compsci student has good idea to help people, has a clean and simple UI/UX that I was able to test very quickly, open-sources the code. Even if you have no need for it, I have respect for attempts like these.

Tracks (Collaborative Playlist!):

--- Please Read Me - Bee Gees

--- Push It - Salt-N-Pepa

--- I Can Change - John Legend, Snoop Dogg

--- She's Got Issues - The Offspring

--- Repo Man - Ray LaMontagne And The Pariah Dogs

--- Stash - Phish

--- Log Trucks - Brian Regan

--- I Think I'm A Clone Now - "Weird Al" Yankovic

--- Red Eyes - The War On Drugs

--- Fork In The River - The Black Crowes

--- Checkout Time In Vegas - Drive-By Truckers

Born out of a Saturday night team hack session with a growler of IPA close at hand

I'm not sold here on this one. Since we know the specific small set of resolutions on iOS devices, I'd rather have a designer/UX lay down exactly how it should look, then have devs execute on that. If dev provides a valid reason why a design component would be a royal pain, then design can go back and adjust.

Just had this argument 20 minutes ago on using a native control versus designing our own and adding a few listeners - which has a better look and experience.

Background: taught a PSD to HTML college course; stopped doing PSD-HTML myself about two years ago; still favor PSD-iOS

A hybrid approach would be nice for your example: check in on Facebook to get online yourself, or go ask the barista for the WiFi password

So then is LOCATION visible to the ISP before it hits the first Tor Relay because the ISP knows the real IP Address of the user making the request?

Have you talked through what the company will do once developers start creating FriXion experiences with virtual children? Are you taking a hands-off approach (no pun intended) to what people do with the technology, or do you plan on vetting each application? If presented with an abuse scenario, would you cooperate with law enforcement to find who is "connecting" with (or creating) these children? I'm not knocking the tech or your intention to make a fun product - just throwing out some important questions.

This is really screwing us up and will force us to cancel paid subscriptions prematurely. There was no outreach to the developer community to even find out what interesting and/or thriving applications are relying on the API - just an expiration date. I understand a new architecture for mobile is most important right now, but it's at the expense of pissing off a loyal group of Skype developers who could help further drive the platform's success.

Not only does it put the public on a higher alert, but also law enforcement from neighboring jurisdictions, creating somewhat of an all-hands-on-deck situation.

Don't be.

I've known Sean for a few years and operate a (smaller) disease-based Q&A community as well with 2,500 members for Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) - http://answers.ankylosing.org

I created it when my girlfriend was diagnosed, dismayed that Google yielded mostly information from WebMD and pseudo-FAQ sites from big pharma.

Where networks like Crohnology shine is in connecting others who share the same pains, frustrations with doctors, experiences with medications, comforts, and very personal conversations about the impact on sex and relationships with their disease.

And guess what, when someone puts out misinformation, that community hops on the offender like white on rice, even emailing me directly (can you ban them!?).

I've seen few social networks truly as tight-knit as disease communities and that's where Sean focuses his energy (whereas mine is a small side project). They're the only place to interact with a cohort that really "gets me" and they take pride in helping others to an amazing degree.

Finally, in reference to a doctor and the "first 5 minutes" comment - the reality is they only give you 5 minutes, and when you complain about a new pain, symptom, you'll often get "Yup, that's Crohn's/AS/etc." Then they'll write you a script for a drug where the ONLY real place to get good information on the side-effects/positive-effects are through networks like ours.

edit: I still always manage to spell Crohn's wrong

At this stage, add to the list hounding friends and family on Facebook and in person. They're more forgiving of bugs and can drive some of the very early activity an app needs to get traction.

The link within the thread that breaks out of your mobile web app should open in standard Safari - this way I can easily email or SMS the link to a friend. Nice job.

This is a great app, but FYI there are a very limited number of phones that record the line audio. Most require it to record through the mic while on speakerphone mode.

Not Supported:

http://www.grinzone-apps.com/1/post/2013/04/not-supported-de...

Tested (doesn't mean supported necessarily):

http://www.grinzone-apps.com/1/post/2013/04/welcome-to-our-b...

I support Crimes Against Children investigators on the tech side. I'm a civilian.

From first-hand experience, Facebook is overly protective of user data when it comes to state and local law enforcement requests (I obviously don't know about the NSA side). They provide very little on initial subpoenas and require warrants for anything more. In fact, most law enforcement are angry at how little Facebook will reveal about a suspect.

I thought the same thing. But then again, I waited in line at the grand opening of Florida's first Wawa because I missed them so much.

One day I hope to bridge law enforcement and the tech community over the massive CP problem. I know there are many talented people here that would contribute solutions if they only had access to the right information and knew they could build something to help.

For now you'll have to take my comment at face value, but you would be shocked at the number of major offenders in each community - and I'm not talking about the Sex Offender Registry. Too few sheriff's offices take advantage of funding for internet crimes against children, and just as few prosecutors pursue these cases. If your local law enforcement doesn't make it a priority, you won't hear about CP arrests in the paper. That doesn't make it any less of a problem.

I encourage tech companies on HN to send someone to http://www.cacconference.org in Dallas to join the likes of FB, Google, and Yahoo! for education on the topic, or contact me. In the future there will be more I can share.

Missing a RESET button on every form

IF a court order (40+ page Title 3) were provided to surveil a criminal suspect, do you believe that Apple/iMessage and VoIP services should be required to respond to law enforcement intercept requests?

If yes, then legal and technical frameworks are needed where service providers outside the traditional telcos can respond. This is the gap that has been widening since the introduction of the smartphone.

It's not a huge problem right now since most criminal communication that police are interested in is still done over traditional voice, SMS, and email (where these providers are already interfaced with law enforcement).

We sell to many federal/intel agencies and are seeing customers choose Amazon GovCloud over on-site storage 3:1.

While security is of great importance, it has more to do with the trust in your business relationship than where bits are stored at the end of the day.

Great response. I'm not proposing any new laws, but my belief is that a judge will ultimately disagree with your statement that "The service that actually hosts the file doesn't know what it is."

You're correct that an automated service can't identify/fingerprint these digital files, but if I go to mega-search.me and see tens of thousands of copyrighted movies/music/software, it's impossible to say, "I didn't know there was illegal material on my server."

Where YouTube keeps the rights holders at bay is by having those screening mechanisms in place. If Mega's design can't make that possible, and they as a company don't take actions to protect copyright holders, then I see the courts finding a basis to shut them down - on what basis I don't know, but I don't imagine major copyright holders sitting idly by.

I believe encryption will buy them some time until the law catches up, then poof.

Here's the part I don't get:

IP addresses, file ownership and payment info are stored unencrypted (http://bit.ly/VswkJi). If someone or something is advertising they have a trove of copyrighted material, the standard procedure for law enforcement is to subpoena the cloud provider for the IP of the user, then the ISP for the subscriber's physical name/address. When they confiscate their computer they'll find the data on there. What is to stop this from happening with Mega? Do they not have to respond to these subpoenas in New Zealand? What if CP is involved - will they respond then, even if not compelled by the law?

I don't understand how end-to-end encryption protects illegal file sharers if the file ownership information is stored unencrypted. I understand Mega's value prop is encryption, NOT illegal sharing, but my question remains.

I have their Ambient Orb (http://bit.ly/XFemSb) on my desk. It starts at red in the morning then fades to yellow to green as we get more registrations throughout the day.

Also, pre-Arduino we used a WebSwitch $199 (http://www.controlbyweb.com/webswitch/) to turn on/off a police siren when a certain goal was reached.