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X-Istence

7,174 karma · joined February 18, 2010

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/deltaregeer; my proof: https://keybase.io/deltaregeer/sigs/fB1spa9ustk6eYzq4uXRVHb1D85EaTlipzh1uutGT34 ]

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delta@regeer.org

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X-Istence··on Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year
Because blue means iMessage and iMessage means E2EE.

Grey and Green means not encrypted. Simple.

X-Istence··on Still no love for WPA3 on the Raspberry Pi 5
I don't remember the name of the company, but it was a service you bought where you would get network monitoring by placing these small PoE powered boxes all over your offices.

It would allow you to do network reliability testing, as well as get data back on Wifi AP's and some environmental data.

Company I worked for had them spread out across all of their offices in various different locations, all of them reporting back to a central location.

When we took apart the device we found a Raspberry Pi inside, with a PoE hat. It made sense for the use case, cheap devices, custom case, and MAC address that was set to the vendors MAC address range upon boot up.

At the time I was helping with a security assessment, and being able to run our own software/tools on a device that would blend in was kinda nice ;-)

"Embedded industry" is a VERY large segment.

Here's a fun one for you. This was told to me by the person who helped build this project. Parallax makes a device they call the BASIC Stamp 2 (https://www.parallax.com/product/basic-stamp-2-microcontroll...). It is a very easy to use and develop for microcontroller yet it is incredibly capable. You program it in BASIC.

The BASIC Stamp 2 was for the longest time used in a production sold to consumer timer clocks for turning solenoids on and off for sprinkler systems. At one point in time you could buy it off the shelf at Home Depot not knowing that the device contained a very simple BASIC Stamp 2 to do its functions.

These devices end up in the weirdest places. You'd think a manufacturer would switch from a BASIC Stamp based product to spinning their own board + using a small embedded CPU instead, but the cost savings just weren't there.

The RaspberryPi is likely used in far more places than you or I could imagine in ways that are considered "professional". That stuff gets hidden in little metal/plastic moulded boxes and for all intents and purposes disappears.

X-Istence··on Getaddrinfo() on glibc calls getenv(), oh boy
Split DNS is broken on macOS when doing that, and for users with VPN that does split DNS it is not just an annoyance it leads to software not actually functioning.

Re-implementing system capabilities is fine and all as long as you support common use cases properly, which Golang does not.

X-Istence··on Getaddrinfo() on glibc calls getenv(), oh boy
This is something that has bit Rust as well: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/90308
X-Istence··on Yet another E-Ink weather display – but with Rust
Rust runs on the esp32 to send the data to the display, and is used on the server side to generate the image that is then served up to the esp32 to send to the display.

There is minimal software on the e-ink display side… it connects to wifi, fetches the image, and sends it to the display.

X-Istence··on Precompiled binaries removed from serde v1.0.184
The dependency chain is what led to the longer compile times and why the prebuilt binary existed. It was to shave time off how long it would take to get serde with the "derive" feature enabled compiled.
X-Istence··on Precompiled binaries removed from serde v1.0.184
This provides some additional context for why the pre-built binary was added:

https://github.com/serde-rs/serde/issues/2584#issue-18580752...

Due to the way that the derive feature was causing the dependency chain in Cargo to be longer than necessary, thereby making it impossible for cargo to compile multiple crates in parallel.

X-Istence··on Safari 17 Link Tracking Protection
Fun fact, I bank with a bank I won’t name, who has a change password flow that allows for up to 32 character passwords.

Their login page only allows for 16 character passwords using the max length. This would truncate my password on login.

Backend handles the longer password just fine though.

X-Istence··on NVD Damage Continued
> 1. What would your expectations be towards a software vendor in terms of what issues to "fix"?

This is difficult to answer, as it really depends on the customer. I work in a sector where any vulnerability is something that we have to attempt to remediate, even if it is a tool or library that is installed in a docker image that is not executable by the app that is running inside that container (think base image has a security flaw)... it means we have a lot of work to basically copy the contents of the app out of a container and plug it into our own base images that we can control/scan/deal with the vulnerabilities on. It's a giant pain in the behind. Vendors usually don't care because they rightfully so say "that library is not something our app uses, so it is out of scope" or "that comes installed by default in the debian base image from docker, complain to them".

The field is simply too fast and large. The other one is when your binary/app is using a library that is vulnerable. Think Java/Go/Rust/Python/Ruby using a library that is vulnerable. We can't patch that (without potentially breaking things), so we have to get an exception while we push the vendor to upgrade.

That part is even difficult at times though because sometimes the version that is not vulnerable is not API compatible with the version that is, and the upgrade takes longer than the time we have to remediate the vulnerability. With Ruby/Python/Java we can usually replace the bits necessary to make it not vulnerable and get an exception granted, but for Go/Rust and or other binaries we are stuck getting exception approval and building additional security around the product to make sure that exploit can't be attacked.

> 2. Is anyone aware of a security database & evaluation tool geared for vendors not for end-users? As in: Gets a feed of CVEs relevant for our products, each of them needs to be analyzed, amended, new CVSS vector and our own analyze result and then publish them to a feed, potentially emailing all affected customers

Even if you made this available, we HAVE to use the NVD/CVE scores themselves. We can't deviate just because the vendor says so, unfortunately.

I would love for vendors to have something like this integrated though as some vendors have hopelessly outdated versions of libraries in their products because it is a lot of work for their teams to upgrade/test/validate that the new version doesn't break anything versus just sticking with the known quantity. Upgrading dependencies in a project is work, and the larger the project, the more dependencies, unless you have a really good testing framework it becomes a HUGE chore, and there is always some new feature that gets priority over gardening tasks.

X-Istence··on iOS 17 automatically removes tracking parameters from links you click on
Private Click Measurement is a standard that Apple has proposed and is working with the W3C to standardize, as well as working with other browser manufacturers:

https://webkit.org/blog/11529/introducing-private-click-meas...

X-Istence··on Calling time on DNSSEC: The costs exceed the benefits
My place of work uses it extensively with Chrome/Firefox/Safari without issues. It's great.
X-Istence··on Calling time on DNSSEC: The costs exceed the benefits
You still have the add the DS records for the hosted zones to the parent hosted zone...

The key for a hosted zone is managed using AWS KMS.

X-Istence··on Calling time on DNSSEC: The costs exceed the benefits
Route53 signs the zone itself, and the key is managed using AWS KMS.
X-Istence··on Calling time on DNSSEC: The costs exceed the benefits
It's a requirement from some of our customers in the financial industry, as well as gov't. It's something various security firms have asked for, and it's a checkbox we will continue to just check. No matter how useless I think it is.
X-Istence··on Calling time on DNSSEC: The costs exceed the benefits
I work in a field where we deploy software as a service for customers in various regulated fields, and DNSSEC is something that auditors look for as a checkbox to check that DNS is secured.

So far we've let AWS Route53 deal with the whole DNSSEC thing, but it has made moving hosted zones from one AWS account to another more difficult and more troublesome than it should have been, and making sure that DNSSEC is setup on all of them is frustrating and annoying.

Thankfully we haven't encountered any issues with DNSSEC signing causing downtime, but I expect it will happen when someone misconfigures a DNSSEC record somewhere and now we gotta wait for the caches to empty/clear.

X-Istence··on Apple passwords deserve an app
You can use a standard web browser and login: https://card.apple.com
X-Istence··on WebKit Features in Safari 16.4
I use 1Blocker on both my Mac and my iPad/iPhone and have had no issues with it blocking YouTube ads.

I kinda wish I could use 1Blocker on my Apple TV :P

X-Istence··on Apple passwords deserve an app
> I use Safari a lot but if I'm in a different browser then my passwords are unavailable.

Chrome used to be tied into Keychain but they went their own way a long time ago, which is a damn shame.

X-Istence··on Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners
I would like to be able to add it to HomeKit without it ever phoning home once. Matter + Thread help make that a possibility.
X-Istence··on Domain registrar Gandi gets bought out, removes free mailboxes
It's still visible to me in an Incognito browser window.
X-Istence··on EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
Watch does too.
X-Istence··on EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
iPhone Siri doesn’t. HomePod/watch Siri does.
X-Istence··on Amazon has approval from FTC to acquire One Medical primary-care clinics
How do I get one medical to delete all data they have on me?
X-Istence··on GitHub Copilot for Business is now available
Will Github indemnify users against potential copyright lawsuits related to the code it regurgitates?
X-Istence··on GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023
> Have they changed the thing where you only see a circle with people's initials during meetings and you have to click on them to see their actual names?

Nope.

X-Istence··on GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023
Yeah, the random resizing it does is also incredibly annoying. I also placed it where I wanted it so that it is to the left of the window I am sharing... I know where I want it, but Teams thinks it knows better.
X-Istence··on GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023
That's because there's nothing redeemable about Teams. My list of annoyances are the things I dealt with this morning... I am sure that if you give me another hour or two I will have a whole new list of annoyances :P
X-Istence··on GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023
> Try clicking on that tiny window with everyone's video feed on it. It gets bigger again into a full (and resizable) window with everyone's video feed, while the window you are sharing is still being shared (and outlined in red).

Yup, until you click away from that window, suddenly its the little window in the corner again and it is no longer available in Mission Control, well the little tiny window is.

So I end up clicking on that little window all the goddamn time just so I can see my co-workers and know who is talking.

I don't want it to minimize at all. And I surely don't want it to sit in the bottom right corner and if I move it, move back there.

X-Istence··on GitHub staff are required to use Teams by Sep 1, 2023
My company uses Teams... and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

So here's at least one person who is using teams who complains about it.

The shitty UI/UX is one thing, but some of the behaviors are incredibly frustrating. Here's some examples:

- Sharing a single window makes Teams minimize the window with everyones video camera on it into a small window in the corner of your primary screen. I have a 49" wide screen, I can have that Teams window open (so I can see faces/people) and share a window at full-size for everyone else, STOP minimizing that window.

- That small window sits in the bottom right corner of the primary screen, if you move it elsewhere, click on Teams for chat, and then foreground another app, it re-positions itself in the bottom right corner (thereby obscuring whatever app happens to be sitting there)

- All of my meetings that were created through Outlook/Office 365 as a Teams meeting are labeled "untitled" and there is no way for me or anyone else to change the title of the meeting, its worse if the meeting is on a shared calendar

- Teams notifications are the worst, it'll tell me I have 2 messages, but I open the app and there is nothing, OR it's messages I've already seen

- No easy integration for 3rd party chatbots and the like, which is a HUGE thing we use on Slack

- Teams out of all of the apps (including all the security software corporate loves) uses the most energy and power, and is the primary reason that we all upgraded to M1's as fast as possible because then maybe we'd have a chance to use our laptops without carrying the power brick when in meetings

- Tagging people in messages may or may not notify them...

- Meetings allow you to add people to them, but once the meeting is over they get removed from the chat, even if you've tagged those people in the meeting chat with important information, you have to formally invite people to the meeting with the original meeting invite for them to "stick".

- No way to copy/paste entire chat history/print chat history. I have so many screenshots of meetings/notes I need to keep and or share with others.

Overall Teams is one of the worst products I've used, and I was using "Teams" in the Microsoft Lync on macOS during the Office Communicator days.

The lack of native app is a real killer though, and unlike Slack which has done a LOT to improve how they use Electron/how much energy they use, Teams is the slowest and worst of them.

X-Istence··on The 5GHz “Problem” for Wi-Fi Networks: DFS (2018)
No, lie to the router about what frequencies and power is okay.
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