
“Subject: Urgent Warning” - robin_reala
http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-warning/
======
madaxe_again
Ah, this sort of thing is as old as the moon.

We run an eCommerce platform, have a variety of clients using it, they have a
number of customers. At least once a week we get an accusation either from a
client or an end-user of some outlandish nefarious behaviour, usually due to
some complete lack of understanding of the nature of technology.

Way back when, we responded, tried to help, tried to explain, but it tends to
be the case that if someone has made their mind up, they've made their mind
up, and anything you say can and will be used against you - confirmation bias
is a harsh mistress.

The best response is usually no response, I'm afraid to say. It's a drain on
your time, they won't be any the wiser unless you're prepared to sink serious
time into educating a stranger, and more often than not responding results in
escalation, and people doing stupid things like involving lawyers and law
enforcement.

Case in point: About six years ago, we had an older guy phone us up frothing
about how we'd hacked his wife's computer and she'd accidentally bought
something from one of our clients. We explained that it would be hard to
accidentally enter your address and credit card details, and that if they
didn't want the order they should contact the merchant, not the web developer
(they clicked our "ecommerce by" link in the footer of the client site - we
don't do that any more!). We thought that was that. A week later we got a
stern phone call from an ombudsman who wanted to know why we were ignoring the
distance selling rules and taking advantage of old people... and they didn't
understand that we weren't a merchant, didn't place an order on their behalf,
either - so months of time were wasted, and we narrowly avoided ending up in
court over a non-issue.

Anyway. When you have a conversation with an idiot, nobody watching can tell
which one of you is the idiot.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Anyway. When you have a conversation with an idiot, nobody watching can tell
> which one of you is the idiot.

A friend of mine who works as a college professor has a fun approach to deal
with the kinds of random cranks who contact him out of the blue seeking
someone to validate their wild Time-Cube-style theories and "research": he
responds to each one by providing an introduction to the previous one.
Apparently, he received followups from some of them afterward saying how much
they appreciated the introduction and how much it helped them.

~~~
EdwardCoffin
This idea terrifies me even more than it amuses me. The notion of the long-
term influence that could be gained by a network of cooperating Time-Cube-
style theorists is enough to give me nightmares.

~~~
DanBC
See also the Freemen on the land who pass incoherent legal information on to
each other.

~~~
blowski
For a good example of such a case:

[http://captainranty.com/freeman-shafted-by-clueless-
judge-2/](http://captainranty.com/freeman-shafted-by-clueless-judge-2/)

~~~
david-given
...I got halfway through that before realising that the author was actually
serious rather than using snark!

------
Jabbles
SQLite has had this problem:
[https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d4018042c70a4db...](https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d4018042c70a4db733dd38f96896cd825f/src/os.h#L52)

~~~
speps
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=etilqs](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=etilqs)

Nothing links back directly to SQLite, nice :)

~~~
anon4
Really? I found [https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/forum/windows_7-...](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/what-are-etilqs-
files/fbab1341-acf2-4013-8394-324f2679aa89?auth=1) and others complaining
about etilqs files and being told they're created by sqlite. It's probably a
failure of the software using sqlite if these files persist to the point they
become a problem.

------
jerf
About nine years ago now, I worked for a small security startup that managed
to make its way up to PCI certification for scanning websites before keeling
over dead. It died the "just one more feature before we can release" death, so
you've never heard of it. You've probably never even heard of the company that
bought it/put it out of its misery. I'm pretty sure the customer base never
exceeded the _low_ single digits. Its most impressive moment was when it made
the local TV for just... being a startup, basically. (I'm in the Midwest.
Startups aren't and weren't _that_ rare, but few of them even tried to get on
local TV. At least at the time it wasn't hard to get into the human interest
slot, presumably because it was a nice change of pace for the TV station.)

Yet the founders had a _collection_ of letters from people, actual hand-
written letters, asking for help with their hacked computers, asking how to
hack, at least one probably-paranoid-schizophrenic one about... errr...
hacking and the government and chips in brains and all that sort of thing and
whether or not this company could help protect them against the hacker aliens
(I don't recall the exact details but this is not an exaggeration of the
flavor, alas).

There's an amazing amount of this sort of thing going on. At scale the only
thing you can really do is ignore them; engagement doesn't go well for
anybody, even the sender just ends up more frustrated and angry than when they
started if you try so it's not even good for _them_. On an isolated basis you
might get lucky, but don't count on it.

Edit: Kinda commenting on the thread above anchored on madaxe_again's comment,
let me emphasize that I'm not saying ignore it because you can't be arsed, or
because replying is beneath you, or because elitism... I'm saying that
ignoring it works out best even for the sender, which is why you should do it.
That it happens to be the easiest course of action for you as well is just one
of those rare times when the easy action also happens to be right.

~~~
mturmon
The Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA has an exhibit of letters written by
interested citizens to the astronomers at Mt. Wilson observatory in the early
decades of the 20th century
([http://mjt.org/exhibits/letters/letters.html](http://mjt.org/exhibits/letters/letters.html)).
Mt. Wilson was famous at the time because Edwin Hubble had just discovered
extra-galactic light sources, and the Big Bang, while observing with the
100-inch telescope there.

Most letters are just routine congratulations and thanks. But others have the
tone you mention. A sample from 1928:

[http://mjt.org/exhibits/letters/26ezekielp.1dropped_image.gi...](http://mjt.org/exhibits/letters/26ezekielp.1dropped_image.gif)

[http://mjt.org/exhibits/letters/23ezekielp.2dropped_image.gi...](http://mjt.org/exhibits/letters/23ezekielp.2dropped_image.gif)

People have been having fevered imaginings about little-understood technology
for a long time.

~~~
currysausage
I find it relieving that people were already bad at punctuation 88 years ago.

~~~
DanBC
...and that people have BEEN USING CAPITALS and _underlining_ and different
colours for as long as they have.

~~~
Houshalter
Underlying was used for emphasis since typewriters can't do italics.

I don't know how they did the different ink thing.

~~~
philiplu
I remember this one, from using a typewriter back about 45 years ago, when I
was a kid. You could get a dual-color ink ribbon, and could shift the ribbon
up to print in red instead of black. Haven't thought of or seen that for many
decades.

------
vxxzy
If you desire to respond, I would relate the topic to her field. She claims to
be a photographer. Surely she has a vague idea of copyright law. I would
explain that you had developed a piece of Intellectual Property and licensed
said property in a specific form -akin to taking a photograph. The person who
takes a photograph owns the copyright. It just so happens that Spotify and
Instagram, "enjoy your work" and have decided to make use of your work under
the license you have given.

~~~
pilif
or, even easier to understand analogy: Daniel is the person on the photograph,
Spotify/Instagram are the photographers and the hacker is the person who just
stole the picture.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I fear you're still overcomplicating it: Daniel is a battery manufacturer. The
person complaining bought a camera from Spotify, which came with one of
Daniel's batteries inside. Someone stole that camera.

(It's not perfect, but it's probably as close as you're going to get)

~~~
AznHisoka
Most people don't associate batteries with cameras these days..

~~~
rakoo
Daniel built the camera lens that is mounted on your camera; the hacker
managed to make your camera send all the photos on his computer.

------
malkia
This came today on a friend's facebook page (he's in IT/QA/etc.) -
[http://imgur.com/mnfQe3V](http://imgur.com/mnfQe3V)

"My facebook suddely split in half and this screen popped up with all these
random cyber space options and it was like watching and assessing things soooo
weird? and talking about child... and children being forced WTF????? is this
some sort of cyber police thing that my IP was accedently allowed to access so
i could help stop child abuse on the net or am i going crazy???? has this
happened to anyone else??? - :(( - feeling confused".

[what happened, was that this person most likely clicked F12 or Ctrl+Shift+I -
and brought up the chrome/firefox/etc. developer console]

~~~
ubernostrum
I'm gonna go with satire here, since that's showing the Firefox Developer
Edition console.

~~~
Cub3
Pretty sure that was added after to show what she was talking about

------
robterrell
My name and email address is the very last thing in the Waze about box,
because they used some code I open sourced. Turns out it's the only email
address anywhere in the app.

Thanks to this, I get about a dozen emails a week from people asking for Waze
help. (Lots more when Waze changes something, like hardware support for a
particular device!)

I've tried contacting Google (either to get these people help, or to get my
email address removed...) with no luck.

I empathize with Daniel. It's an unexpected downside to open sourcing
something and asking for credit.

~~~
dsymonds
What license did you give Waze for using your code? Your repo (I'm guessing
[https://github.com/robterrell/TVOutManager?](https://github.com/robterrell/TVOutManager?))
doesn't mention the license, so Waze either shouldn't be using it, or you've
specified some license to them directly. Did you pick a license with an
attribution-required clause?

~~~
mcpherrinm
The last item in the Waze about box is indeed for TVOutManager.

------
elthran
Definitely agree with one of the comments on the blog - the domain (haxx.se)
really doesn't help the author's case here when trying to explain to a
layperson.

~~~
elthran
Also, from
[http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/about/](http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/about/)

>I’m Daniel Stenberg, a network hacker working for Mozilla.

Sigh. Why does everyone have to be a hacking rockstar ninja? What's wrong with
not using a word that has negative connotations to the rest of the world, and
just calling yourself a developer/engineer?

~~~
mwcampbell
Why all the downvotes for this comment? I think the point is reasonable. It's
fine for us to use the word "hacker" in the non-criminal sense among ourselves
(for example, the title of this site), but not where the general public is
likely to see it and misunderstand it.

~~~
mhurron
> but not where the general public is likely to see it and misunderstand it.

So nowhere. It's on the public internet which is where 'the general public' is
likely to see it so suggesting that you don't use some phrase where 'the
public' can't see it in practically means you can't use it anywhere.

I know the last thing I want to do is self censor myself everywhere because
someone somewhere might get offended.

~~~
pconner
It's not "self-censorship," it's understanding that the generally-accepted
definition of a word is different from it's obscure jargon meaning. The word
"hacker" has meant "someone who maliciously breaks into computer systems"
since at least the 1980's (thirty years ago, before some HN readers were even
born). Languages are fluid.

~~~
mhurron
Yes languages are fluid but words also have various meanings. If we have to
prevent ourselves from using some word because others may find it offensive,
that is self-censoring.

OP tried to get around that by trying to say that when you could be heard by
'them' you shouldn't use those words, but this is the public internet. You are
always communicating in the presence of those that will be offended.

~~~
pconner
This isn't a matter of anyone being "offended," though. No one finds the word
"hacker" offensive, they just might have a completely different definition of
it depending on what their experiences are. You might as well use a word
that's unambiguous.

Likewise, editing a paper to remove grammatical errors is also not "self-
censorship." It's improving the clarity of your message.

~~~
Kalium
What word or words do you suggest that are fully, completely, 100% unambiguous
identifiers in this instance?

------
js2
“Attack of the Repo Men”:

[http://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/repo.html](http://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/repo.html)

The only way to win is not to play.

------
centizen
Honestly, I wouldn't even respond. I would imagine any response you give is
going to be twisted as your original ones have been. You've tried to be
reasonable, and you don't owe her anything - don't engage her any further.

~~~
brohee
One of the suggestions on the blog comment is good, explain the issue in term
of car and parts, people usually get that.

------
mootothemax
I once received a request to hack a load of different companies' client
databases due to one of my posts in the HN "Seeking freelancer" job threads,
pretty much well solely because "Hacker" is in the site's title.

Bless him, the guy _mostly_ kept on signing off his emails as "John," having
forgotten to change his name in the "From" field, except for the time he
forgot and signed his "real" name again.

(I say "emails" \- it was a bizarre few exchanges, starting with "I have a job
for you," and myself replying to his opaque emails to find out _quite what on
earth_ the guy was on about)

~~~
ChrisClark
That's actually kind of cute. He was trying to act all secretive, a 'job' for
you. :)

------
lazyant
This reminds me of the case when some state or local agency got the default
CentOS / Apache page and they contacted them as if they were hackers.

EDIT (thanks mariuolo):
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_centos/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_centos/)

~~~
mariuolo
That was the city manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma.

~~~
madaxe_again
You're sure it wasn't Buttle?

------
vog
The author information is part of the user interface, and can be as confusing
as every other UI aspect. It should be carefully designed such that it is
clear what the author takes responsibility for and what they don't.

Some years ago there was a similar issue with the default Apache website on
CentOS. Somebody that their webspace being reset by their hoster, but rather
than complaining to the hosting community, the user complained to the contact
info shown on the default website, claiming they had hacked their website.
(Sorry, couldn't find the link of that story anymore.)

~~~
danieldk
The CentOS story was named 'the Tuttle hack'. Googling for 'Tuttle hack' finds
relevant links:

[https://lwn.net/Articles/177085/](https://lwn.net/Articles/177085/)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20060427011138/http://www.centos...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060427011138/http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=127)

~~~
david-given
That conversation is very sad --- an absolute textbook example of how not to
handle this kind of issue.

Instead of complicated, technical and annoyed explanations of what Linux was
to someone who obviously just doesn't care, the simple statement that:

    
    
        Sorry, we make components for websites. This just means that your web people are using one of our components and has set it up wrong. You'll need to talk to your IT people; they'll be able to point you at someone who can help.
    

...would have gone a long way towards defusing the situation.

Given their first reply ('...we produced it for free and you are able to use
it without paying us ... and are even threatening to have us arrested...') no
wonder the conversation went badly. That's just being an arsehole.

~~~
Piskvorrr
"Sorry, we make _flurble glurble purple_." (user's eyes glaze over, rest of
line remains unread)

------
mattlutze
Lest Stenberg get tangled up too much in the email-sender's unfortunately
troubles, he should likely refer the emailer to Instagram and Spotify's
customer support.

As an aside, hopefully someone can recommend to the emailer as well to use a
different service to host high-quality versions of her photography so that
potential clients can evaluate critical clarity in her technique. I'm not sure
I'd want to rely on Instagram as the sole example of my work, but, maybe she's
targeting a different clientele that I'm imagining.

As an aside (#2), who hacks Spotify accounts?

~~~
LeonM
> As an aside (#2), who hacks Spotify accounts?

My first guess when reading the article is that her Facebook account is
compromised and that she uses facebook login for both spotify and instagram.

~~~
JBReefer
That makes a great deal of sense, as there's no obvious benefit to the data
you would get from a compromised Spotify.

Older people also use the word "hacked" to mean a too-wide set of things, from
"broken" to "locked out" to actually owned.

------
vitd
It's not exactly the same, but it reminds me of something I heard a few years
ago. I knew someone who worked at a small non-profit. Once a year they'd do a
particular fund drive that involved calling their previous donors and either
talking with them or leaving a message asking them to please donate again. And
every year, they'd get a message back on their machine saying only, "Please
take me off your list!" They had no idea who the caller was, and she never
answered the phone when they called her, so they could never take her off the
list!

~~~
stephengillie
Having worked for a Real Estate webhost who provided email campaigns as a
service, we got those all the time. Someone who wasn't subscribed in the
system, but was receiving our spam nonetheless. These were usually due to an
email distribution list being subscribed and that person being on that DL.
Unfortunately some of these were distribution lists of distribution lists, so
we couldn't see the original DL address to unsubscribe it, or help at all.

------
logicallee
Sorry, it's pretty ridiculous that the author chose to write all that and
engage in correspondence without mentioning the elephant in the room either to
the photographer, or to the reader (us) in this write-up. The elephant in the
room is that haxx.se is a tongue-in-cheek name (or a coincidence.)

Would it have killed him to mention this?

"Dear Photographer Lady: I run a very well-regarded library, you may have had
this reaction because I have the tongue-in-cheek name haxx.se [alternatively:
because of the coincident name haxx], however I am a well-paid consultant
similar to yourself and other than this choice of domain name there is nothing
alarming. The library is famous and you should see a similar notice in all of
your friend's phones (or anyone else's you check). It is in use by major
corporations including Apple and Spotify. Sorry about the confusion."

that's literally all this is about. (obviously.)

In fact, it makes me seriously question the author's good faith that he ends
with the call-to-action "I’ve tried to respond with calm and clear reasonable
logic and technical details on why she’s seeing my name there. That clearly
failed. What do I try next?" without mentioning the elephant in the room.

------
joefarish
TIL Spotify is a major partner of Spotify.

------
icebraining
Seems to be down, here's a cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_tJLn3s...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_tJLn3sVzMYJ:daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/01/19/subject-
urgent-warning/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=ubuntu)

------
johannes1234321
I can't count how many mails I got via php.net webmaster and security mails
(yeah, I admit my involvement there ...) from people who locked them out from
some website with a "powered by php"-button and asked me for a password reset.
The picture of the producer of a screw in a machine often seemed to work.

------
hospes
Unfortunately in this kind of cases more technical you get and try explain
things, more they think that you have something to do with it. If you still
want to try to convince her, then ask her to check the same information from
any of her friends devices or any other device, so she can confirm that your
name can be seen in all of them. This is simple enough that she can do
herself. If I would you, I would just forward the email to Instagram support.

------
FussyZeus
> "I came across this information using my Spotify which has also been hacked
> into and would love your help hacking out of Spotify. Also, I have yet to
> figure out how to unhack the hackers from my Instagram"

You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means.

In all seriousness though, she went to the ToS for help with the Instagram
app? Why not write Instagram support directly?

~~~
edkennedy
Instagram support is an utter joke, accounts are routinely stolen/disabled and
Instagram doesn't offer much support besides a pat on the shoulder and a
"there there"

------
mrsirduke
Site is broken, here's a link/mirror in googles webcache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/01/19/subject-
urgent-warning/&num=1&strip=1)

------
Walkman
I'm starting to believe to use my real name for my email address was not a
very wise choice (kissgyorgy@me.com).

~~~
emilburzo
Oh wow, I never thought about how Hungarian names sound in English.

A website where you input a name and it spits out if it contains profanity in
any language would be useful.

But yeah, you should definitely change it.

~~~
slig
There's one made by a HN user: WordSafety
[http://wordsafety.com/](http://wordsafety.com/) "Show HN" thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297)

------
9NRtKyP4
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fdaniel.haxx.se%2Fblog%2F2016%2F01%2F19%2Fsubject-
urgent-
warning%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fdaniel.haxx.se%2Fblog%2F2016%2F01%2F19%2Fsubject-
urgent-warning%2F)

------
6stringmerc
Personally this brings up a very ridiculous and rather humorous observation on
the nature of ToS agreements:

Intelligent people don't bother reading them closely, and the people who have
read them often use the information contained in rather stupid ways.

Granted I have spent many hours over the years reading contest / entry rules
and ToS type documents, so I'm pretty comfortable picking on myself a bit here
and there. Often I've read a very clear ToS and then observed the responsible
company basically disregard their own rules and stated processes. Two notable
examples were for a Deadmau5 remix project (he 'lost his laptop' and they
stretched the contest for a couple months, barely supplied any promised
materials, etc) and a Local Motors contest (routinely lied about what they
were looking for as judging criteria, then claimed to contact winners on day X
to start authorization process, instead vetted winners in advance and then
used day X to announce). I've used these experiences to temper my trust of any
online engagement or contest, because it's nearly impossible to hold any
provider accountable when they're dishonest or just inept.

Antagonizing bothersome people is a form of entertainment [1] from time to
time. If there's nothing to be gained from actually being constructive, then
being obtuse might be the most worthwhile course of action. YMMV.

[1]
[http://dontevenreply.com/view.php?post=111](http://dontevenreply.com/view.php?post=111)

------
harryf
> "Also Spotify is a major partner of Spotify"

It reads like text generated by a computer

------
TazeTSchnitzel
This sort of confusion could be partly resolved if apps with "License" or
"Legal" screens would actually have a little explanatory paragraph at the top,
explaining what it is they contain in layman's terms. For the average person,
I imagine that scrolling through one of those would be quite bewildering,
especially if WTFPL stuff was in there.

------
agentgt
Maybe advise her that she have a lawyer explain it to her or one of her
friends look at it and explain it to her.... ie delegate.

------
msh
Reminds me of back in the late nineties I developed a freeware email client.
The client header in the send emails said "???mail by www.example.com"

I tought it might give me more users... What it gave me was lots of angry
emails once someone used my mail client to send out spam. That header was gone
pretty quickly.

------
tehwebguy
The "hacking ring" accusations remind me of the ill person who used to harass
a friend from their time at DailyBooth, incredibly weird situation.

It's pretty unnerving because the person clearly needs some assistance but
also thinks you are the bad guy.

------
biot
"You know how when the credits roll on a movie, it shows a list of songs the
movie has licensed? Same goes for software. I have as much ability to
influence Instagram as Mozart does to influence the movies his music is in."

------
onetwotree
So there's a lot of "LOL LOOK AT THIS DUMB PERSON I AM SO MUCH SMARTER THAN
HER!" going on here, especially in the reply that he seems to have sent her.

Here's what's going on. Her IG account may, in fact have been hacked. This
happens. She's obviously afraid and angry. She is the kind of person who
thinks she can solve all of her own problems, and found the licenses section
of the app, which included something with a nonsensical name (libcurl) and a
domain "haxx.se". Despite having known that haxx.se is for libcurl basically
forever, I occasionally see it and associate it with gray or black hat stuff
before I remember. So it's not at all surprising that a non-initiate saw this
and thought it might have something to do with her IG account being hacked.

Daniel says his reply to her original email was "clear and rational". It
should have been "understanding, compassionate, and patient". This is someone
who is seriously freaked out, because her livelihood is at risk, and based on
the fact that she went digging through the app, she is probably having what a
shrink would call a "crisis of control". So here's what the author should have
done:

1 ) Patiently explain what libcurl does (it let's programs request web pages,
just like a browser). Explain that he's the author, but he's given it away for
free. The license is in the app because he took pains to ensure that nobody
can package it up with some slick marketing and sell what he's giving away
free.

2 ) Acknowledge that haxx.se sounds kind of shady. Explain why he chose the
domain. Self deprecating humor would be great here. Explain that despite this,
all kinds of apps use libcurl for perfectly benevolent purposes.

3 ) Explain that he has nothing to do with instagram (commenters have
suggested the car parts analogy, which seems like a good plan).

4 ) Finally, and most importantly, link her to their hacked accounts page!
They have people paid to deal with this stuff, who are much, much better at
dealing with panicking laypeople.

There is a lot of "reason good, feelings bad!" stuff in the tech community
these days. It makes people see us as a bunch of borderline autistic[1], self
centered, stuck up, evil nerds. Many of us, myself included, were terrible
with social interactions and dealing with our feelings at some point in our
lives, so the finer points of human interaction and emotional thinking left a
bad taste in our mouths. But we've all grown up. We aren't social rejects and
evil nerds anymore. We have lives, careers, friends, and family. We need to
let go of the stuff we suffered in our youth, forgive those "stupid popular
kids", and learn how to be nice.

[1] In the sense of the popular conception of borderline autism, not the
clinical condition, which generally doesn't make you a jerk.

~~~
david-given
Yes, absolutely. The whole episode is actually pretty sad and using it for
laughs makes me uncomfortable.

...

As a tangent, you say:

> 2 ) Acknowledge that haxx.se sounds kind of shady. Explain why he chose the
> domain. Self deprecating humor would be great here.

I work in a big multicultural office --- I'm the only UK person in my team. We
occasionally have these tedious courses on defusing disputes. One of the
things they said that was actually helpful is that humour's generally not a
good idea; it's way to culturally specific, doesn't translate well, and in
particular doesn't come across in text.

Something which to a fellow UKer is obviously self-deprecating snark can look
absolutely serious to someone from another culture, and can frequently make
stuff worse.

I saw an interesting study the other day on punctuation in text messages. Even
as simple a change as using a ! instead of a . at the end of a sentence can
have a huge difference in the impact the message has...

~~~
onetwotree
That's not something I'd thought about. I work in a multicultural office too,
but we were all raised by the internet, so internet flavored humor is
generally universally understood.

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nkrisc
I think I might try to explain it this way:

It's like he makes paint. He mades this really cool shade of red paint that
everyone likes. One day, some really mean dude used this guy's paint to paint
his car red. He then used that car to go on a crime spree. The victims of the
crime then went to the guy who made the paint demanding their stolen money
back.

~~~
donutz
Wait, are you saying the bad dude is Facebook, or the hackers who got into her
account?

------
tripzilch
Dear Sir/Madam,

You have contacted the software design company that licenses these commerce
systems to merchants. We do not deal with the merchants' customer service.
Please directly contact the merchant instead.

This is an automated message and you cannot reply to it.

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xg15
Well, if she found thieves had the lock of her bike cracked open with a steel
cutter, she wouldn't call the manufacturer of the cutter either and accuse
them of thievery, would she?

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peterwwillis
How terrible would it be to just create new accounts?

~~~
stronglikedan
That's not her problem. She's her own worst enemy.

> help me salvage my original Instagram photos, pre-hacked, despite Instagram
> serving as my Photography portfolio and my career is a Photographer.

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joantune
Urgent: use cache before hitting your DB all the time in your blog :P *
website is down * (an easy way to do that is with cloudflare)

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cek
This link now goes to 'download.gz'.

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cptskippy
I think the proper response is something along the lines of "did Michelin
Tires hack your car?"

~~~
beachstartup
this requires interpretation and analysis of an analogy, something most people
are terrible at (back when i took the SAT this section was a source of
frustration among my peers - i suspect all high scorers had a knack for it).

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shade23
webpage down?Any link to a cached copy?

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dangerpowpow
>haxx.se

------
throwastone
452aeed4794ff312e6963a043b17676f

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coldcode
I think it best not to use your actual name in such an email/web reference so
you more easily ignore the lunatics.

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grb423
I think you are misusing the phrase "nothing to do with." It seems to me that
you in fact did have something, however indirect and misunderstood by the
emailer, to do with these products. I, on the other hand and for example, had
nothing.

~~~
jdenning
I think you must have missed the end of his sentence:

"...I also have nothing to do with Instagram other than that they use software
I’ve written."

I think that's an adequate description of his relationship with Instagram.

~~~
grb423
My only problem is with the use of "nothing to do with". I'm sure it's just me
but, as I tried to explain in my comment, that's a pet peeve of mine. If you
had "nothing" to do with it, what word would you use to describe what _I_ had
to do with it?

