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alexforster

632 karma · joined November 17, 2009

DDoS at Cloudflare
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alexforster··on GPT-6 Sol and Luna
Your benchmark started being gamed by the frontier models a year ago though. The original idea (find a quirky way to test models with something they don't optimize for) is great, but it needs a refresh.
alexforster··on Firefox 12.58% for Desktop Browser Market Share in North America June 2026
It's much more likely to be a methodology issue than that Firefox's install base suddenly grew 240% in such a short period of time. Maybe some AI scraper juicing the numbers? Mozilla's telemetry could confirm this, so if they don't start bragging about a huge MAU increase, I'd assume this is wrong.
alexforster··on Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT
DDG is just repackaged Bing. Always has been. I remember looking into them when I was ready to job-hop many years ago, and they asked for dedication to their search engine as their foremost requirement for employment. It's the "drop-shipping" equivalent of search engines.
alexforster··on Open-source drawing tool – Excalidraw
I'm constantly DM'd at work about how I'm able to create the "cool drawings" in my blog/wiki posts, and I enthusiastically point to excalidraw.com.

I have a background in vector illustration, which is all about creating subpixel-perfect designs. I'm also a bit of a perfectionist, which I think a lot of people here can relate to. I mention this because the reason Excalidraw really works for me is that it frees me from worrying about design. When you literally can't create something that looks "perfect", you're freed up to just sketch your idea without worrying about the visual representation.

alexforster··on Show HN: Developed from my Prison cell: A Libcurl TUI HTTP Client in Rust.
That post was fascinating. You are a model example of what progressive prison reform can accomplish and your story should be getting major press coverage if it hasn't already.
alexforster··on Nghttp3 1.0.0 – HTTP/3 library written in C
I don't think it's responsible to replace http/1.1 with either of these protocols. They both seem like complex beasts with poorly understood corner cases and little consideration for the abuse potential.
alexforster··on Vectis IP Announces Call for Patents Essential to the Opus codec
> In fact, there are so many patent farms disguised as businesses I challenge you to sit, think of something, and search for a patent for it.

Nice try, Opposing Counsel.

alexforster··on You don’t want to be on Cloudflare’s naughty list
> It’s a MikroTik running RouterOS

https://google.com/search?q=mikrotik+botnet

These things are the absolute scourge of the internet.

alexforster··on Richard Li owns a personal top level domain
This is easily searchable, so... I doubt you're seriously looking, but...

> The evaluation fee is US$185,000. Applicants will be required to pay a US$5,000 deposit fee per requested application slot when registering.

https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs...

alexforster··on Richard Li owns a personal top level domain
Give several hundred thousand dollars to ICANN.
alexforster··on Hottest May in History for Texas
CBS Austin is a Sinclair affiliate.
alexforster··on I won free load testing
Many of them are unintentional: a device sitting on the open internet has some vulnerability and gets exploited. Bad guy sets up a proxy on the device and uses it to click a bunch of ads using bots, or crawl Google results, or launch attacks, etc. Or, as mentioned below, they could simply be the result of misconfiguration.

Some of them are very intentional: https://www.torproject.org/

alexforster··on I won free load testing
Unfortunately, this type of abuse is essentially only acted on if you either (a) cause some kind of problem for ops at the VPS company, or (b) the victim tells on you. Even then, the absolute worst thing that will happen to you is your account will be closed. There is just no way on the modern internet to investigate/prosecute these kinds of things. That's why one of our primary goals with the free Cloudflare plan is to invert the problem: make DDoS go away by making it it free to mitigate.
alexforster··on I won free load testing
This is only if you have _no_ idea how to use very basic open-source tools to wreak havoc via some open proxies. The real cost of launching small-scale attacks like this is $5/month on your favorite VPS provider.
alexforster··on Pipefail: A missing shell option slowed Cloudflare down
Author here – you are correct, I tried to golf a relatively long script down to one line, and I failed :) The post has been updated.
alexforster··on Patent case against GNOME resolved
I don't understand the negative reactions here.

Gnome got Rothschild to agree to never sue another open-source project again. That's a huge concession and an outcome that's arguably better than a few invalidated patents.

alexforster··on Is anyone using the non Pro/Air Macbook for iOS app development?
Care to share that adapter model?
alexforster··on Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again
My last two Amazon purchases ended up being counterfit, even after spending a ton of time trying to avoid counterfits. I'm still going to use my fake electric toothbrush heads and fake Apple 5W USB charger, but I'm not using Amazon anymore.
alexforster··on The Murgia Hack System
There's an open Github issue where the author clarifies that his own code is BSD, and he puts the license of each file in its header.
alexforster··on Oboe: A C++ library for low latency audio in Android
The title should probably mention "for Android". It's misleading without that context.
alexforster··on Bring Your Custom Image to DigitalOcean
They likely need to be able to mount your filesystem for some of their features to work. That's how they can reset your root password, write out network configs, etc etc.
alexforster··on Zoho.com CEO says domain with 40M users suspended for abuse complaint
Mirai was an extremely rare event. I understand businesses were impacted, but it's unfair to hold a three-year grudge against any Mirai victims who are otherwise responsible infrastructure operators.
alexforster··on Open Match: Open source game matchmaker
"It’s designed to be flexible (run it anywhere Kubernetes runs)"

Is this the only supported deployment method? It's interesting if Google is OSS'ing cool projects to increase GCE/GKE marketshare.

alexforster··on Poaching Tesla
The USAF definitely noticed. He technically shouldn't be able to maintain his security clearance after this. It's probably going to amount to nothing, but it's still bad- https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/7/17833208/elon-musk-air-for...
alexforster··on Sangoma (FreePBX) to Acquire Digium (Asterisk) for $28M
I remember the FreeSWITCH from 10 years ago. They didn't even cut releases, you were just expected to always run at HEAD - and the whole community refused to talk to you until you showed your commit hash. I got cores constantly from all the null derefs littered throughout the code. And at this point they considered themselves a stable, production-ready project.

I tried _hard_ to make FreeSWITCH work for me in an SMB environment, but I ended up with such a bad taste from the poor QA that I eventually had to call it all a false start and go back to Asterisk.

alexforster··on Sex Scandal Toppled a Silicon Valley Chief. Investors Say, So What?
> the very real and well-known risk of being accused of sexual harassment

Right there - that's the sexist part. Do you believe there's an epidemic of vengeful women running around falsely accusing men of sexual harassment?

Because there isn't - but I'd love to hear your stories.

alexforster··on A MeToo Reckoning in China’s Workplace Amid Wave of Accusations
> I have never met with a female coworker alone in an office, and have never socialized with women coworkers outside of work.

> Has it hurt the development of some of the women who have been my direct reports over the years? Probably, but it has also protected the women I care about the most, namely my wife and daughter, because it has prevented any kind of accusations from getting traction.

Jesus. You're aware that you could get yourself and your employer sued for admitting this, aren't you?

> Yes, remarkably, and despite carefully avoiding any sexual talk of any sort at work for over thirty years now, I have been falsely accused of sexual harassment a handful of times over the years, but nothing has ever stuck. I think it is, in large part, because I have been so careful.

If you need the Billy Graham rule, then I am entirely sure the accusations against you had more merit than you'd care to admit.

alexforster··on Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies
Not even close, and new housing starts have been keeping pace with population growth for years (unlike most other tech boom cities).
alexforster··on Elon Musk and the Cult of the Celebrity Savior
Good example of something that got traction on HN:

https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github

alexforster··on Ask HN: What are the best hacks to fight depression?
This is really bad advice to give someone with diagnosed depression. Do take medication if it is recommended, and be less hard on yourself - not more.
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