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Building on my previous article's discussion of consent, companies must find better ways to navigate the ever-evolving, complex web of privacy regulations. One such strategy that has garnered significant attention is the practice of "Consent or Pay." This approach hinges on giving users a choice between consenting to data collection or paying for an ad-free experience, and has sparked debate among consumers, regulators, companies, and privacy advocates alike. This article delves into the technological aspects of this practice, examines the regulations it can circumvent, and explores its implications for consumers and the future of privacy. previous article's discussion of consent The “Consent or Pay” Strategy: An Overview “Consent or Pay” is a relatively new approach that technology companies are using to comply with privacy regulations while still maintaining their revenue streams. At its core, this practice provides users with two options: Consent: Agree to the collection and use of their data, often for personalized advertising and/or enhanced service features.
Pay: Opt-out of data collection by paying a subscription fee or a one-time charge, thereby compensating the company for the loss of advertising revenue. Consent: Agree to the collection and use of their data, often for personalized advertising and/or enhanced service features. Consent: Pay: Opt-out of data collection by paying a subscription fee or a one-time charge, thereby compensating the company for the loss of advertising revenue. Pay: This dual-option model leverages the willingness of some consumers to pay for privacy, while still monetizing those who prefer free services. Circumventing Privacy Regulations Several privacy regulations around the world mandate explicit consent from users before their data can be collected and used. Notable examples include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and Brazil’s Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD). How “Consent or Pay” Works Around These Regulations GDPR: Under GDPR, companies must obtain clear and informed consent from users for data processing. By offering a “Consent or Pay” model, companies comply with the requirement to offer an alternative to data collection – either users consent to data usage, or they pay to avoid it.
CCPA: The CCPA allows users to opt-out of the sale of their personal data. With “Consent or Pay,” companies can present a straightforward choice: allow the sale of data or pay for an ad-free experience.
LGPD: Similar to GDPR, LGPD emphasizes user consent for data processing. “Consent or Pay” aligns with this regulation by giving users the power to choose between consenting to data collection or opting out through payment. GDPR: Under GDPR, companies must obtain clear and informed consent from users for data processing. By offering a “Consent or Pay” model, companies comply with the requirement to offer an alternative to data collection – either users consent to data usage, or they pay to avoid it. GDPR: CCPA: The CCPA allows users to opt-out of the sale of their personal data. With “Consent or Pay,” companies can present a straightforward choice: allow the sale of data or pay for an ad-free experience. CCPA: LGPD: Similar to GDPR, LGPD emphasizes user consent for data processing. “Consent or Pay” aligns with this regulation by giving users the power to choose between consenting to data collection or opting out through payment. LGPD: Examples of Companies Implementing “Consent or Pay” Several tech companies have adopted the “Consent or Pay” model to navigate these stringent privacy regulations. Google Google Google Google offers various subscription services, such as YouTube Premium, where users can pay to enjoy an ad-free experience. While this model isn't explicitly labeled as “Consent or Pay,” it operates under the same principle, allowing users to either endure ads (and thus consent to data collection) or pay for a service without them. YouTube Premium YouTube Premium The New York Times The New York Times The New York Times The New York Times employs a subscription-based model where users can access content by paying a subscription fee, thus avoiding data collection and targeted advertising associated with free access. New York Times employs a subscription-based model New York Times employs a subscription-based model Spotify Spotify Spotify Spotify offers both free and premium subscription tiers. Free users consent to data collection for personalized ads, while premium users pay to avoid ads and data tracking. premium subscription tiers premium subscription tiers The Technology Behind "Consent or Pay" The implementation of this model relies on sophisticated technology to manage user preferences, track consent, and process payments. Key components include: Consent Management Platforms: Tools to help gather, store, and manage user consent efficiently. These ensure compliance with privacy regulations by providing an accurate history of users’ consent choices, expanding various regions and consents.
Payment Gateways: Integrating secure and reliable payment gateways is crucial for offering a seamless paid option. These systems handle transactions, manage subscriptions, and ensure user data security.
Data Tracking and Analytics: To optimize the ad-supported model, companies use advanced data tracking and analytics tools. These technologies enable precise targeting and personalized advertising, which in turn makes this model economically viable. Consent Management Platforms: Tools to help gather, store, and manage user consent efficiently. These ensure compliance with privacy regulations by providing an accurate history of users’ consent choices, expanding various regions and consents. Consent Management Platforms: Payment Gateways: Integrating secure and reliable payment gateways is crucial for offering a seamless paid option. These systems handle transactions, manage subscriptions, and ensure user data security. Payment Gateways: Data Tracking and Analytics: To optimize the ad-supported model, companies use advanced data tracking and analytics tools. These technologies enable precise targeting and personalized advertising, which in turn makes this model economically viable. Data Tracking and Analytics: Implications for Consumers and the Future of Privacy The “Consent or Pay” model has significant implications for both consumers and the broader landscape of privacy. Consumer Choice and Awareness Empowerment: This model empowers consumers by providing a clear choice between consenting to data usage or opting out through payment. It enhances transparency and ensures that users are more aware of how their data is being used.
Economic Divide: However, it also introduces a potential economic divide, where privacy becomes a commodity accessible primarily to those who can afford to pay for it. This raises concerns about equitable access to privacy. Empowerment: This model empowers consumers by providing a clear choice between consenting to data usage or opting out through payment. It enhances transparency and ensures that users are more aware of how their data is being used. Economic Divide: However, it also introduces a potential economic divide, where privacy becomes a commodity accessible primarily to those who can afford to pay for it. This raises concerns about equitable access to privacy. Future Trends in Privacy Increased Adoption: As privacy regulations continue to evolve, more companies are likely to adopt the “Consent or Pay” model to ensure compliance while maintaining their revenue streams.
Technological Innovation: This trend could spur innovation in privacy-preserving technologies and services. Companies might develop new ways to monetize services without relying on intrusive data collection, potentially leading to more privacy-friendly business models. Increased Adoption: As privacy regulations continue to evolve, more companies are likely to adopt the “Consent or Pay” model to ensure compliance while maintaining their revenue streams. Technological Innovation: This trend could spur innovation in privacy-preserving technologies and services. Companies might develop new ways to monetize services without relying on intrusive data collection, potentially leading to more privacy-friendly business models. Potential Challenges Regulatory Scrutiny: Regulators might scrutinize the “Consent or Pay” model to ensure that it does not exploit users or create undue pressure to consent to data collection.
Consumer Trust: Companies must balance transparency and trust. If consumers perceive the choice as coercive or unfair, it could erode trust and lead to backlash. Regulatory Scrutiny: Regulators might scrutinize the “Consent or Pay” model to ensure that it does not exploit users or create undue pressure to consent to data collection. Consumer Trust: Companies must balance transparency and trust. If consumers perceive the choice as coercive or unfair, it could erode trust and lead to backlash. Conclusion The “Consent or Pay” model represents a significant shift in how technology companies approach data privacy. By offering a clear choice between consenting to data collection or paying for privacy, companies can navigate complex privacy regulations while still generating revenue. However, this approach also raises important questions about economic equity, transparency, consumer choice, and the future of privacy. As this practice becomes more widespread, it will be crucial for both companies and regulators to find a balance that respects user privacy while enabling sustainable business models which will be key to shaping the future of the internet. Further Reading For those interested in diving deeper into this topic, here are some recommended readings: European Data Protection Board “Consent or Pay” Opinion
IAPP “'Pay or consent:' Personalized ads, the rules and what's next”
Didomi Blog “Exploring 'pay or consent' models” European Data Protection Board “Consent or Pay” Opinion European Data Protection Board “Consent or Pay” Opinion European Data Protection Board “Consent or Pay” Opinion IAPP “'Pay or consent:' Personalized ads, the rules and what's next” IAPP “'Pay or consent:' Personalized ads, the rules and what's next” IAPP “'Pay or consent:' Personalized ads, the rules and what's next” Didomi Blog “Exploring 'pay or consent' models” Didomi Blog “Exploring 'pay or consent' models” Didomi Blog “Exploring 'pay or consent' models” About Me I am an engineer at Meta working at the unique intersection of Responsibility & Privacy with Monetization, responsible for keeping Meta products accessible and compliant around the world. Most recently, delivering the Subscription for No Ads in Europe. Here is my LinkedIn profile if you want to connect or know more about me. Subscription for No Ads in Europe Subscription for No Ads in Europe LinkedIn profile LinkedIn profile

The Internet’s New Privacy Tax: ‘Consent or Pay’

Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Background 2 Background 3 Approach and 3.1 Differential Testing for XML Processors 3 Approach and 3.1 Differential Testing for XML Processors 3.2 XPath Expression Generation 3.2 XPath Expression Generation 3.3 XML Generation 3.3 XML Generation 4 Evaluation 4 Evaluation 4.1 Effectiveness 4.1 Effectiveness 4.2 Efficiency 4.2 Efficiency 4.3 Comparison to the State of the Art 4.3 Comparison to the State of the Art 4.4 Analysis of BaseX Historical Bug Reports 4.4 Analysis of BaseX Historical Bug Reports 5 Related Work 5 Related Work 6 Conclusion, Acknowledgments, and References 6 Conclusion, Acknowledgments, and References 6 CONCLUSION This paper has presented a general automated testing approach for detecting XPath-related logic bugs in XML processors. We demonstrate that differential testing is applicable in this domain, since XML processors widely adhere to the XPath standards. To generate interesting XPath queries, our approach selects a so-called targeted node to guide predicate generation and predicate rectification to ensure the inclusion of that node. Our evaluation shows that this improves the number of bugs detected in 24 hours to 2× as compared to random generation. More importantly, we have successfully detected 27 previously unknown, unique bugs in six mature XML processing systems. We believe that this high number is surprising, given that XML processors are an essential part of our computing infrastructure, with the first XPath standard having been proposed more than 20 years ago, and the systems that we have tested having been maintained for at least 15 years. We believe that XPress, given its simplicity and generality, has a high chance of being integrated into the toolbox of XML processor developers. Furthermore, we believe that our work might inspire testing approaches for other XML standards, such as XQuery or XSLT. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was supported by a Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 1 grant. REFERENCES [1] 1999. XML Path Language (XPath) Version 1.0 W3C Recommendation. Retrieved July 17, 2023 from https://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xpath-19991116/ [2] 2004. XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition - Built-in datatypes. Retrieved July 17, 2023 from https://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#built-in-datatypes [3] 2008. EBNF notation from the W3C Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition). Retrieved July 17, 2023 from https://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/ [4] 2014. XML Path Language (XPath) 3.0 W3C Recommendation. Retrieved July 17, 2023 from https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-30/ [5] 2014. XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.0 W3C Recommendation. Retrieved July 17, 2023 from https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions-30/ [6] 2017. XQuery 3.1: An XML Query Language W3C Recommendation. Retrieved July 17, 2023 from https://www.w3.org/TR/xquery-31/ [7] 2017. XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 3.0 W3C Recommendation. Retrieved July 17, 2023 from https://www.w3.org/TR/xslt-30/ [8] 2023. BaseX. Retrieved July 31, 2023 from https://basex.org/ [9] 2023. DB-Engines Ranking. Retrieved July 6, 2023 from https://db-engines.com/ en/ranking [10] 2023. eXist-DB. Retrieved July 31, 2023 from http://exist-db.org/exist/apps/ homepage/index.html [11] 2023. eXist DB reference page. Retrieved July 6, 2023 from http://exist-db.org/ exist/apps/homepage/references.html [12] 2023. libXML2. Retrieved July 31, 2023 from https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/ libxml2 [13] 2023. MySQL. Retrieved July 31, 2023 from https://www.mysql.com/ [14] 2023. Oracle Database. Retrieved July 31, 2023 from https://www.oracle.com/ database/ [15] 2023. PostgreSQL. Retrieved July 31, 2023 from https://www.postgresql.org/ [16] 2023. Saxon home page. Retrieved July 6, 2023 from https://saxonica.com/html/ welcome/welcome.html [17] 2023. Saxon XQuery 3.1 conformance page. Retrieved July 13, 2023 from https: //www.saxonica.com/documentation12/#!conformance/xquery31 [18] 2023. Saxonica. Retrieved July 31, 2023 from https://saxonica.com/ [19] 2023. W3C qt3 test suite github repository. Retrieved July 11, 2023 from https: //github.com/w3c/qt3tests [20] Jeffrey F. Naughton Aboulnaga, Ashraf and Chun Zhang. 2001. Generating Synthetic Complex-Structured XML Data. WebDB. 1 (2001), 79–84. [21] Alexandr Andoni, Dumitru Daniliuc, Sarfraz Khurshid, and Darko Marinov. 2003. Evaluating the “small scope hypothesis”. [22] Jinsheng Ba and Manuel Rigger. 2023. Testing Database Engines via Query Plan Guidance. In 2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). 2060–2071. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00174 [23] Yuting Chen, Ting Su, Chengnian Sun, Zhendong Su, and Jianjun Zhao. 2016. Coverage-Directed Differential Testing of JVM Implementations. In Proceedings of the 37th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (Santa Barbara, CA, USA) (PLDI ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 85–99. https://doi.org/10.1145/2908080.2908095 [24] Timothy Dyck. 2002. DB Test Pioneer Makes History. Retrieved July 31, 2023 from https://www.eweek.com/development/db-test-pioneer-makes-history/ [25] Massimo Franceschet. 2005. XPathMark: An XPath Benchmark for the XMark Generated Data. In Database and XML Technologies, Stéphane Bressan, Stefano Ceri, Ela Hunt, Zachary G. Ives, Zohra Bellahsène, Michael Rys, and Rainer Unland (Eds.). Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, 129–143. [26] Ziyue Hua, Wei Lin, Luyao Ren, Zongyang Li, Lu Zhang, Wenpin Jiao, and Tao Xie. 2023. GDsmith: Detecting Bugs in Cypher Graph Database Engines. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597926. 3598046 [27] Zu-Ming Jiang, Jia-Ju Bai, and Zhendong Su. 2023. DynSQL: Stateful Fuzzing for Database Management Systems with Complex and Valid SQL Query Generation. In Proceedings of the 32nd USENIX Conference on Security Symposium (Anaheim, CA, USA) (SEC ’23). USENIX Association, USA, Article 277, 17 pages. [28] Jinho Jung, Hong Hu, Joy Arulraj, Taesoo Kim, and Woonhak Kang. 2019. APOLLO: Automatic Detection and Diagnosis of Performance Regressions in Database Systems. Proc. VLDB Endow. 13, 1 (sep 2019), 57–70. https: //doi.org/10.14778/3357377.3357382 [29] Matteo Kamm, Manuel Rigger, Chengyu Zhang, and Zhendong Su. 2023. Testing Graph Database Engines via Query Partitioning. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597926.3598044 [30] George Klees, Andrew Ruef, Benji Cooper, Shiyi Wei, and Michael Hicks. 2018. Evaluating Fuzz Testing. Proceedings of the 2018 ACM SIGSAC conference on computer and communications security (2018). https://doi.org/10.1145/3243734. 3243804 [31] Quanzhong Li and Bongki Moon. 2001. Indexing and Querying XML Data for Regular Path Expressions. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB ’01). Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, USA, 361–370. [32] Vsevolod Livinskii, Dmitry Babokin, and John Regehr. 2023. Fuzzing Loop Optimizations in Compilers for C++ and Data-Parallel Languages. Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 7, PLDI, Article 181 (jun 2023), 22 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3591295 [33] Jayashree Mohan, Ashlie Martinez, Soujanya Ponnapalli, Pandian Raju, and Vijay Chidambaram. 2018. Finding Crash-Consistency Bugs with Bounded Black-Box Crash Testing. In 13th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI 18). 33–50. [34] Manuel Rigger and Zhendong Su. 2020. Detecting Optimization Bugs in Database Engines via Non-Optimizing Reference Engine Construction. In Proceedings of the 28th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (Virtual Event, USA) (ESEC/FSE 2020). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1140–1152. https://doi.org/10.1145/3368089.3409710 [35] Manuel Rigger and Zhendong Su. 2020. Finding Bugs in Database Systems via Query Partitioning. Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 4, OOPSLA, Article 211 (nov 2020), 30 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3428279 [36] Manuel Rigger and Zhendong Su. 2020. Testing Database Engines via Pivoted Query Synthesis. In Proceedings of the 14th USENIX Conference on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI’20). USENIX Association, USA, Article 38, 16 pages. [37] Dušan Rychnovský and Holubová. 2015. Generating XML Data for XPath Queries. Association for Computing Machinery. 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Proceedings of ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (2023). https: //doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2206.08530 [45] Qirun Zhang, Chengnian Sun, and Zhendong Su. 2017. Skeletal Program Enumeration for Rigorous Compiler Testing. In Proceedings of the 38th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (Barcelona, Spain) (PLDI 2017). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 347–361. https://doi.org/10.1145/3062341.3062379 [46] Yingying Zheng, Wensheng Dou, Yicheng Wang, Zheng Qin, Lei Tang, Yu Gao, Dong Wang, Wei Wang, and Jun Wei. 2022. Finding bugs in Gremlin-based graph database systems via randomized differential testing. Proceedings of the 31st ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (2022). https://doi.org/10.1145/3533767.3534409 [47] Rui Zhong, Yongheng Chen, Hong Hu, Hangfan Zhang, Wenke Lee, and Dinghao Wu. 2020. Squirrel: Testing database management systems with language validity and coverage feedback. In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. 955–970. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv Authors:
(1) Shuxin Li, Southern University of Science and Technology China and Work done during an internship at the National University of Singapore (shuxin.li.lv@gmail.com);
(2) Manuel Rigger, National University of Singapore Singapore (rigger@nus.edu.sg). Authors: Authors: (1) Shuxin Li, Southern University of Science and Technology China and Work done during an internship at the National University of Singapore (shuxin.li.lv@gmail.com); (2) Manuel Rigger, National University of Singapore Singapore (rigger@nus.edu.sg).

Presenting A General Automated Testing Approach for Detecting XPath-Related Logic Bugs

Messaging & Communications, Media - October 11, 2024 - HackerNoon, the independent technology publishing platform, is pleased to announce the nominees for its annual “Startups of The Year” award, featuring the most promising and innovative companies in the Messaging & Communications startup ecosystem. The list, compiled by the HackerNoon team, showcases 30 startups making significant contributions and driving innovation in the Messaging & Communications industry. https://youtu.be/XOpG6B4AKPU?embedable=true Nominations are open - learn more here. You can nominate your company as the Startup of The Year in Messaging & Communications here. The Startups in the Messaging & Communications industry nominated for Startups of The Year 2024 include: Intellico Inc
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JobTab “We are thrilled to recognize the top startups in the Messaging & Communications industry and celebrate their achievements,” said David Smooke, HackerNoon Founder & CEO. “Starting and sustaining a company is difficult. We’re honored to showcase their work and impact.” Why It Pays Off to Be Nominated Startups of The Year 2024 is a 100% community-driven voting event recognizing startups transforming technology and the world for the better. Starting October 1st, 2024, the internet can nominate and vote for the best ventures in their city and industry. People can nominate their favorite startups until October 31st, and vote once per day per award for who they think should be Startup of The Year up to March 31st, 2025. Winners will be announced in April 2025, after a comprehensive evaluation by the HackerNoon team. Apart from validation from the world's greenest tech publication, all nominees get free interviews relevant to their region and industry. They will also receive curated startup-friendly packages and a free version of their very own Evergreen Tech Company News Page on HackerNoon. In sum, being nominated gives you major credibility as one of the top startups globally and an expert in your industry, meaning even without winning, you still gain tons of exposure. Nominations are open - learn more here. You can nominate your company as the Startup of The Year in Messaging & Communications here. About HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year Startups of The Year 2024 is HackerNoon’s flagship community-driven event celebrating startups, technology, and the spirit of innovation. Currently in its third iteration, the prestigious Internet award recognizes and celebrates tech startups of all shapes and sizes. This year, over 150,000 entities across 4200+ cities, 6 continents, and 100+ industries will participate in a bid to be crowned the best startup of the year! Millions of votes have been cast over the past few years, and many stories have been written about these daring and rising startups. The winners will get a free interview on HackerNoon and an Evergreen Tech Company News page. Visit our FAQ page to learn more. Download our design assets here. Check out the Startups of The Year Merch Shop here. HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year is a branding opportunity unlike any other. Whether your goal is brand awareness or lead generation, HackerNoon has curated startup-friendly packages to solve your marketing challenges. Meet our sponsors: Wellfound: Join the #1 global, startup-focused community. At Wellfound, we're not just a job board—we're the place where top startup talent and the world's most exciting companies connect to build the future. 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Messaging & Communications, Media - October 11, 2024 - HackerNoon, the independent technology publishing platform, is pleased to announce the nominees for its annual “Startups of The Year” award, featuring the most promising and innovative companies in the Messaging & Communications startup ecosystem. Messaging & Communications, Media - October 11, 2024 - HackerNoon, the independent technology publishing platform, is pleased to announce the nominees for its annual “Startups of The Year” award, featuring the most promising and innovative companies in the Messaging & Communications startup ecosystem. Messaging & Communications, Media - October 11, 2024 Messaging & Communications, Media - October 11, 2024 - HackerNoon, the independent technology publishing platform, is pleased to announce the nominees for its annual “ Startups of The Year ” award, featuring the most promising and innovative companies in the Startups of The Year startup ecosystem. The list, compiled by the HackerNoon team, showcases 30 startups making significant contributions and driving innovation in the Messaging & Communications industry. https://youtu.be/XOpG6B4AKPU?embedable=true https://youtu.be/XOpG6B4AKPU?embedable=true Nominations are open - learn more here. You can nominate your company as the Startup of The Year in Messaging & Communications here. Nominations are open - learn more here . You can nominate your company as the Startup of The Year in Messaging & Communications here . here Startup of The Year in Startup of The Year in Messaging & Communications here here The Startups in the Messaging & Communications industry nominated for Startups of The Year 2024 include: Startups in the Startups in the Startups in the Messaging & Communications industry Messaging & Communications industry nominated Intellico Inc INNZPIRA firsthub.in Kitchenara Creart Digital Media The Merchant Hub IPAGE #GrowSmartly GPS ROTAS SEGURAS PLATMA Mission Possible Fast Remote Services Accredify Sconto Corbin Technology Solutions Private Limited Evidoo KUENHA Megasight Didimi Forescribe ADV Today NAYAMAX SODA.Auto In Plain English UTech COOCO textomap LEGIONWEB LogicNimbus Private Limited Hoags Technologies JobTab Intellico Inc INNZPIRA firsthub.in Kitchenara Creart Digital Media The Merchant Hub IPAGE #GrowSmartly GPS ROTAS SEGURAS PLATMA Mission Possible Fast Remote Services Accredify Sconto Corbin Technology Solutions Private Limited Evidoo KUENHA Megasight Didimi Forescribe ADV Today NAYAMAX SODA.Auto In Plain English UTech COOCO textomap LEGIONWEB LogicNimbus Private Limited Hoags Technologies JobTab “We are thrilled to recognize the top startups in the Messaging & Communications industry and celebrate their achievements,” said David Smooke, HackerNoon Founder & CEO. “Starting and sustaining a company is difficult. We’re honored to showcase their work and impact.” “We are thrilled to recognize the top startups in the Messaging & Communications industry and celebrate their achievements,” said David Smooke, HackerNoon Founder & CEO. “Starting and sustaining a company is difficult. We’re honored to showcase their work and impact.” “We are thrilled to recognize the top startups in the and celebrate their achievements,” said David Smooke, HackerNoon Founder & CEO . “Starting and sustaining a company is difficult. We’re honored to showcase their work and impact.” David Smooke, HackerNoon Founder & CEO Why It Pays Off to Be Nominated Startups of The Year 2024 is a 100% community-driven voting event recognizing startups transforming technology and the world for the better. Starting October 1st, 2024, the internet can nominate and vote for the best ventures in their city and industry. People can nominate their favorite startups until October 31st , and vote once per day per award for who they think should be Startup of The Year up to March 31st, 2025. Winners will be announced in April 2025, after a comprehensive evaluation by the HackerNoon team. Startups of The Year 2024 nominate their favorite startups until October 31st nominate their favorite startups Apart from validation from the world's greenest tech publication, all nominees get free interviews relevant to their region and industry. They will also receive curated startup-friendly packages and a free version of their very own Evergreen Tech Company News Page on HackerNoon. get free interviews startup-friendly packages startup-friendly packages Evergreen Tech Company News Evergreen Tech Company News In sum, being nominated gives you major credibility as one of the top startups globally and an expert in your industry, meaning even without winning, you still gain tons of exposure. Nominations are open - learn more here. You can nominate your company as the Startup of The Year in Messaging & Communications here. Nominations are open - learn more here . You can nominate your company as the Startup of The Year in Messaging & Communications here . here Startup of The Year in Startup of The Year in Messaging & Communications here here About HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year Startups of The Year 2024 is HackerNoon’s flagship community-driven event celebrating startups, technology, and the spirit of innovation. Currently in its third iteration, the prestigious Internet award recognizes and celebrates tech startups of all shapes and sizes. This year, over 150,000 entities across 4200+ cities, 6 continents, and 100+ industries will participate in a bid to be crowned the best startup of the year! Millions of votes have been cast over the past few years, and many stories have been written about these daring and rising startups. Startups of The Year 2024 Startups of The Year 2024 many stories many stories The winners will get a free interview on HackerNoon and an Evergreen Tech Company News page. free interview on HackerNoon Evergreen Tech Company News Evergreen Tech Company News Visit our FAQ page to learn more. FAQ FAQ Download our design assets here . here here Check out the Startups of The Year Merch Shop here . here here HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year is a branding opportunity unlike any other. Whether your goal is brand awareness or lead generation, HackerNoon has curated startup-friendly packages to solve your marketing challenges. startup-friendly packages startup-friendly packages Meet our sponsors: Meet our sponsors: Meet our sponsors: Wellfound: Join the #1 global, startup-focused community . At Wellfound, we're not just a job board—we're the place where top startup talent and the world's most exciting companies connect to build the future. 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Startups of the Year 2024: 8,350 Startups Nominated in the Messaging & Communications Industry

Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . METALLIC THORIUM. here METALLIC THORIUM. By L.F. Nilson. The density of thorium as obtained by reducing the anhydrous chloride by means of sodium was found by Chydenius, 7.657 to 7.795. The author has obtained metallic thorium by heating sodium with the double anhydrous thorium potassium chloride, in presence of sodium chloride in an iron crucible. After treating the residue with water there remains a grayish, heavy, sparkling powder, which under the microscope appears to consist of very small crystals. Metallic thorium is brittle and almost infusible; the powder takes a metallic luster under pressure, is permanent in the air at temperatures up to 120°, takes fire below a red heat either in air or oxygen, and burns with a dazzling luster, leaving a residue of perfectly white thoria. If heated with chlorine, bromine, iodine, and sulphur, it combines with them with ignition. It is not attacked by water, cold or hot. Dilute sulphuric acid occasions the disengagement of hydrogen, especially if heated, but the metal is acted on very slowly. Concentrated sulphuric acid with the aid of heat attacks the metal very slightly, evolving sulphurous anhydride. Nitric acid, strong or weak, has no sensible action. Fuming hydrochloric acid and attack thorium readily, but the alkalies are without action. The metal examined by the author behaves with the reagents in question the same as did the specimens obtained by Berzelius. The mean specific gravity of pure thorium is about 11. Hence it would seem that the metal obtained by Chydenius must have contained much foreign matter. The specific gravity of pure thoria is 10.2207 to 10.2198. The equivalent and the density being known, we may calculate the atomic volume. If we admit that the metal is equivalent to 4 atoms of hydrogen, we obtain the value 21.1. This number coincides with the atomic volumes of zirconium (21.7), cerium (21.1), lanthanum (22.6), and didymium (21.5). This analogy is certainly not due to chance; it rather confirms the opinion which I have put forward in connection with my researches on the selenites, on certain chloro-platinates and chloro-platinites, etc., that the elements of the rare earths form a series of quadrivalent metals. aqua regia About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2006). Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18763/pg18763-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

METALLIC THORIUM

8000 geeks. 42 devrooms. 2 days in Brussels. 0 celebrity motivational speakers. 0 cost to get in. It’s the most relaxed tech conference I’ve ever been to. Part of this is because it happens on a weekend, in your own time. But another part is because it’s not really a conference at all, but a giant open source meet-up. Dig a little deeper and it’s actually the location for about 40 global open source communities to get together. These are the devrooms where tracks are organised by their own open source communities. A meet-up of meet-ups. 42 devrooms There is a rigid and relentless speaking schedule like other conferences but there is no registration and no entry fee. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. And there are plenty of full rooms. This year especially I got turned away from about 5 rooms. But there are also lots of people milling about, talking, coding, drinking beer. All of this helps reenforce the relaxed feel. And you get to meet with friends you haven’t seen in a while. I had some great chats (and steak) with and friends. Rob Lazzurs Free and open source software to give it its full title, or for those in know, is what the meet-up is about. It’s because of this that it attracts lots of geeks. And not so much of the geeks in suits (or maybe geeks in chinos if you work in USA). Even the enterprise geeks are in a minority unlike most tech conferences. Instead the focus of the conference attracts the geeks who contribute to open source projects. This brings with it a different vibe, kind of like an alt-techconference vibe. I love it. FLOSS So FOSDEM is a mirror of open source itself. It’s free. It’s all about the grassroots. It doesn’t have any marketing but has lots of value. It has diverse content. It is a network of communities. And it is put together by community volunteers. Some of the largest open source projects have commercial organisations that sell services that surround the code. These organisations help drive adoption of open source to enterprises by selling help and support and sometimes exclusive “enterprise” features. You can see the same big names that sponsor other conferences — Google, RedHat and AWS for example. Beyond this their influence is subtle. Thankfully there are no “sponsored talks” like other conferences that act like product placement advertising for companies. They are a more natural part of the community at FOSDEM. For example one Terraform talk was given by a community guy who was comparing the maturity of Terraform to the maturity of Puppet — but during the talk he called out the Hashicorp CTO who was in the audience. Trending Open Source Everyone in the doorways were turned away from this one. The popularity of open source products can be correlated to the popularity of FOSDEM devrooms. From what I seen this year that means Cryptocurrency, Go, Postgres, Containers and Configuration Management are hot. This is no real surprise, Containers remain one of the most hyped and popular technologies. Some think that Configuration Management has peaked given the rise of container orchestration tooling such as Kubernetes but the Container Management devroom was still filled out. Postgres remains the having strong appeal for relational-store, document-store and enterprise needs. most popular open source database Go is an interesting one. I haven’t seen much adoption of Go with businesses yet. But it has , seemingly . jumped in popularity driven by developers And cryptocurrency is almost certainly technology of 2017, breaking outside of tech circles to appeal to the mainstream. the hyped Lessons from the History of Unix I’ve been thinking recently about the immaturity of the software profession. It’s a very young profession, just an infant compared to ancient professions such as medicine but also to industrial revolution industries such as the automotive and utility sectors. We have an extremely high degree of change in software technology. And so engineers are always looking forward to the next new thing. Because of this, engineer’s don’t spend much time thinking about the history of software. But FOSDEM had a whole track devoted to history which I think is a brilliant antidote to the faddism of tech. The History of Unix talk is a great case study. We think of software having a short half-life. 5 years maybe. 10 years at most. However, the first Unix code was created in the early 1970s. That’s 45 year old code. who gave the talk has put together a github repo that has all extant PDP, Unix Research Edition and BSD unix source code history from the 70s to the latest FreeBSD. This is a fascinating source for the evolution of Unix. Diomidis Spinellis repo Much of the thinking from the early 70s lives on in today’s Linux distributions — kernel, filesystem, virtual devices, pipes, filters, shell, C, dynamic memory, virtual machines, regular expressions. Apparently some code even still lives. You can see the overlap by comparing the with the one from the . What can we learn from this? For me, it’s the success of joining many smaller simpler things and the effective use of abstraction and modularity. architecture diagram from today Research Edition of 1971 And it isn’t just good designs or code that was decided early. Documentation in Unix distributions remains such high quality because of early decisions about manual pages. Early on distributions mandated this documentation and enforced deletion of any user commands that didn’t have man pages. Clearly draconian but effective. Monero, BitCoin 2.0? Cryptocurrency has broken into the mainstream in 2017. We now see over that can be mined, traded, stolen and (sometimes) used for purchases. Investors are clamouring to invest in the next Bitcoin. VC firms are backing new cryptocurrencies and Independent Coin Offerings (ICO) have entered investor conversation. And of course . 100 cryptocurrencies open source is vital to cryptocurrencies Many of the big cryptocurrencies are open source software, led by Bitcoin. Take a look at the . This makes sense given the aim of cryptocurrencies led by Bitcoin is to offer a de-centralised system of currency using mathematics and independent distribution as trust. Openness increases trust. That’s not to say of course there is no need to trust with open source or cryptocurrencies. Instead trust is placed with the developers of the blockchain, cryptocurrency client or smart contracts. This is how an from their blockchain. Bitcoin code in GitHub Ethereum wallet bug allowed Ether to be “stolen” Anyhow back to FOSDEM (it’s so easy to get distracted by cryptocurrency). I listened (along with hundreds of the other conference attendees) to a contributors. is a new open source private cryptocurrency. XMR currently has a price of $272 and is 13th largest cryptocoin by market cap. But we weren’t at FOSDEM to hear about money. great talk by one of the Monero Monero I hadn’t heard of Monero before this. It was described as “Bitcoin 2.0”. Isn’t that what all cryptocurrencies are attempting to be? Hmmm. What is clear is that Bitcoin has significant challenges as a currency. Bitcoin has a finite supply (by design). Hence the long and vicious block-size debate inside the community with the inevitable fork of new cryptocurrencies by those who don’t win the debate. It uses an increasingly large amount of effort to mine (by design). The downside is this means we are using an increasing amount of electricity to create new coins that only have value because of trust (not by how difficult they are to mine). . It’s mining has become geographically centralised: the majority of Bitcoin mining is said to be in China using dedicated hardware and cheap electricity. . It also is not anonymous. Bitcoin transactions are stored publicly on the blockchain and when you transact with someone you see their identity and all their previous transactions with this identity. Iceland is apparently using more for mining that domestic use China has responded by recently clamping down Monero looks to solve these by being an anonymous, private digital currency that closely mirrors cash (the original anonymous, rate-limited paper currency favoured by privacy advocates). It uses ring-keys instead of single keys to reduce the likelihood of tracing transactions to one private key. It will in future use i2p multi layer-routing to reduce the likelihood of sender IP tracing. Their proof of work also is designed to use a lot of RAM (2Mb) to try and make it prohibitive for ASIC miners to work at scale. So will Monero succeed? No idea. We are undoubtedly in the wild-west of cryptocurrency right now. A few people are Bitcoin millionaires. Many more want to be cryptocurrency millionaires. Eventually things will normalise into a smaller number of truly valuable cryptocurrencies. I suspect that the ones to succeed will have value outside of their backers. If Monero really did become a digital equivalent to cash and it remained anonymous, private and de-centralised this would be valuable to many.* Succession Planning Succession planning is a mandatory topic for senior leaders in organisations who care about the future. So I was surprised to hear a talk about . Of course many open source communities care about the future of their projects so they are interested in succession. But for open source this is not just leadership succession, it’s succession for anyone in a key contributor role. succession planning for FOSS Meritocracy is something often referenced within the open source community. pointed out that good as this is, meritocracy is implicitly discriminatory if merit is not defined and when there is no mentoring programme to allow others to succeed. A good point I think — meritocracy needs to be explicit and clearly described to be effective. . Vicky Like Redhat did Funding Open Source The XWiki founder Ludovic Dubost told us about his . He described how the XWiki code is open source, licensed permissively as LGPL. But he has created a to provide a commercial SAAS XWiki. So if you want to roll-your-own, use the open source code but if you want a cloud service operated and managed by someone else you can pay the subscription. They also provide some pay-for modules (which is a common thing with other for-profits). This is an interesting model and as more software moves to become a cloud service it’ll be interesting to see if this becomes pervasive. Ludovic also described how his company was non-VC funded because this is incompatible with open source. He told us that VC funding leads to primacy of making money for investors which is not what open source is about. funding model and business model for open source for-profit organisation Security Theatre Is Open Source for information security? One speaker about believes that it is. There are few today who believe open source is less secure — that view has been . But is it secure? I haven’t seen any evidence to support this but I do agree there is a psychological benefit to that encourages better security practice (as well as better practices generally). mandatory Security Theatre discredited for many years more coding in the open Being open does make things better. Teams who code in the open know they cannot hide behind obscurity and so it changes their approach. Developers know others will look at their code and their commit comments and so they approach it differently. This is big advantage for open source / coding in the open. There were of course some less interesting talks. But I’m not going to focus on these because this is inevitable in every tech conference. Instead I’ll finish with one question: Why do Belgian frites taste so much better than chips from other countries? mmm belgian frites double-cooked in horse/cow fat You can check out all the or watch most of them on the . FOSDEM talks from this year YouTube channel

FOSDEM: More Popular Than Ever

LONDON, UK, October 11th, 2023/Chainwire/--XDB CHAIN TO POWER SANDBOX-BRANDED CRYPTOCURRENCY AND TO ENHANCE THE EDUCATION SECTOR’S TRANSITION TOWARDS WEB3 , the London-based group operating a network of learning businesses, announced a partnership with , the easy-to-use open-source blockchain used to power digital assets. Sandbox Group XDB CHAIN The collaboration will see the development of an exclusive branded cryptocurrency that will be made available as a payment choice to users of Sandbox’s wide portfolio of digital products and services worldwide. The soon-to-be-released cryptocurrency will serve as a medium of exchange, enabling transactions, exclusive rewards, and incentives. Its secure, decentralized, and transparent nature will ensure the integrity of the ecosystem, aiming to address some of the most pressing challenges in the education sector’s digital transformation and growth. The launch of the new branded cryptocurrency represents a key development in the world of blockchain as it will be exclusively integrated into Sandbox Group’s portfolio of brands and services that include Kidomi, the all-in-one super app, and Code Kingdoms, online coding courses for kids. XDB CHAIN has lately introduced Branded Coins (BCOs) that allow multiple brands to collaborate across the same technology stack. This innovative concept will allow Sandbox Group to provide progressive benefits to its users with an enhanced user experience in web3 and the decentralized internet, as well as offer special discounts, resulting in even better value for its subscribers. Shan Eisenberg, Chief Commercial Official of Sandbox Group, says: “We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the new cryptocurrency, which will enhance our existing Sandbox Group products and will offer unique incentives to our users. Our decision to mint the cryptocurrency exclusively on the XDB CHAIN stems from XDB CHAIN's innovative approach to blockchain technology, specifically engineered to onboard brands and leverage loyalty ecosystems.”Daniele Mensi, CEO of XDB FOUNDATION, says: “We’re excited about partnering with Sandbox Group as we see this relationship as the perfect way to address the challenges faced by the cryptocurrency industry: mass adoption and user experience. By integrating this new cryptocurrency into Sandbox Group’s product ecosystem that reaches millions of users worldwide, we aim to encourage widespread legitimate acceptance of cryptocurrencies towards a set of enhanced real-world use cases.” The official whitepaper will be released later this month, including the name of the coin and all details. The launch of this new cryptocurrency is expected in early 2024. For more information, please contact: Sara Sciusco: Marketing Manager  media@xdbfoundation.com Agnes Lesti: Communications and Partnerships Manager a.lesti@sandboxkids.io About Sandbox Group Sandbox Group is a London-based group operating a network of learning businesses. At Sandbox, we seek to build, nurture, and support the scaling of a diverse family of brands and services. We know the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so we believe in the power of collaboration with like-minded partners to create fun, engaged learning. Our businesses are at the intersection of the digital, learning, and media industries and include brands like , online coding courses for kids, , a preschool learning platform, and Leiturinha, Brazil's No1. kids book subscription service. Sandbox is committed to providing an unparalleled ecosystem of edutainment products and currently reaches over 65 million children, their parents, and teachers. Code Kingdoms Hopster About XDB CHAIN As XDB CHAIN, the entire project and its community stand poised to propel the blockchain industry into a new era to embrace novel use cases, nurture collaborative communities, and boldly push the boundaries of what technology can achieve. This is just an invitation to join XDB CHAIN on this journey into the future of Blockchain for Brands empowering The Consumers of Tomorrow. Contact Marketing Manager Sara Sciusco XDB Foundation media@xdbfoundation.com This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Brand As An Author Program. Learn more about the program . here

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