Hacker News Reader

cyphunkon Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

This could be how the message was advertised by some but most people i met from the protestors understood googles plans were at least recently rather moderated. They all understood google was a symbolic target for a bigger problem.

cyphunkon Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

The mere mention of google already turned up into most housing and office space sale adverts. The effect on housing costs is real but the amount debatable. Rents in the neighborhood have gone through the roof the past couple years and protestors are looking for symbolic wins to make the city more urgently address the problem.

cyphunkon Is Saudi money becoming radioactive?

What reasons are there for being more suspect of money from Palestinians than other middle eastern partners:

> “typically, entrepreneurs don’t like to focus on politics and historically have not cared very much where the money came from,” except if it’s “from the PLO or Iran.”

Quote from "Longtime VC Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston"

cyphunkon Show HN: The Chinese hardware attack is false

Unable to change title ;)

cyphunkon The Big Hack: Statements From Amazon, Apple, Supermicro, Chinese Government

But also if a modification of the SPI bus can result in exploitation then the manufacturer will just patch the memory in place. Cheaper, easier, less detectable. So... the manufacturer is not the source of attack.

cyphunkon The Big Hack: Statements From Amazon, Apple, Supermicro, Chinese Government

> So which is more likely

The language of the Apple refute is so strong, to the point of directly attacking Bloomberg and calling them irresponsible. So yes, in this case there are at least a few lies being peddled by the Bloomberg intelligence contacts

cyphunkon The Big Hack: Statements From Amazon, Apple, Supermicro, Chinese Government

I have not seen anything that indicates how installing this chip would do anything at all without also modifying the trace design and fabrication of the PCB itself.

Also does anyone have information about the "baseboard management controller" mentioned? I would like to understand the complexity required to MiTM a ROM or FLASH memory read by such a controller before concluding the feasibility and number of players in manufacturing chain required for it to work.

cyphunkon Ask HN: Privacy aware anti-theft phone apps?

thanks for the recommendation. I couldn't find anything about e2e encryption or encryption before send to server in their documents. Typically this shows up, at least, as a statement indicating that the data is stored on their server in a way that even they are unable to read it.

cyphunkon Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

I thought this was already the case for years. If you use android and have a google account setup, which is essential to downloading apps, it already tracks the user in the map app.

cyphunkon Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?

classic :)

cyphunkon Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

Effect and side effect seem mixed up here. What is great about Amsterdam isn't the bikes, it's the lack of cars. Yes adding infrastructure for bikes takes space away from cars so the results appear one in the same. But perhaps focusing instead primarily on car reduction we'd find better ways to plot more livable cities.

cyphunkon Phone Numbers Were Never Meant as ID. Now We’re All at Risk

Lebanon was fun. When I arrived and purchased a SIM card, after getting on the different smartphone instamessage systems everyone that knew the previous owner started contacting me.

cyphunkon OpenSSH user enumeration

Stop letting attackers route to you. Put your ssh server behind an onion. Do the same if you have POP/IMAP and other servers that have no reason for being accessible through transparent routing.

cyphunkon UN says it has credible reports that China holds million Uighurs in secret camps

what?

cyphunkon China is detaining a million Uighur muslims in a secret camp

how is this labeled [dupe]? They are two separate articles. I'm confused because I've seen plenty of times an issue covered from different articles where both show up in results not labeled dupe.

cyphunkon How Israel, in Dark of Night, Torched Its Way to Iran’s Nuclear Secrets

There is a very long history by succeeding Israeli governments of assassinations with little evidence. Sometimes using false evidence or odd justifications to base the killing on. But there is also little reason to point the finger. The Obama administration took the policy and expanded it even further.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/preside...

cyphunkon Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

I'm going to frame this comment and put it on a wall

cyphunkon Elon Musk’s Boring Co. Wins Chicago Airport High-Speed Train Bid

small pods introduce the insanity of the highway system into spaces meant for trains. perhaps there are some improvements to be made through automation and scheduling of lanes but it seems possible pods would prove to be significantly less efficient when compared to the traditional use of lanes with large vessels that hundreds of people fit into

cyphunkon Alternatives to Google Products

By "gain" they meant privacy. You gain no privacy... you lose privacy when using iCloud and Apple Calendar

cyphunkon Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

started attending more activist-oriented and critical discussion groups or groups dealing with specific local issues in my community (Berlin). While it can feel as though there is a certain amount of depth lacking to many discussions, the trade-off is very community focused and collaborative language which has left me feeling a lot less isolated.

cyphunkon Extracting the private key from a TREZOR with an oscilloscope (2015)

https://github.com/trezor/trezor-mcu/commits/master?after=31...

As jochen mentions in his timeline in the post trezor asked he delay publication until they could fix the bug in release 1.3.3. he says they included a fix on Mar 30 which you'll find in the link above

cyphunkon We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads (2017) [video]

you point out something important. for-pay models don't properly deal with income disparities. you can be sure that for a portion of current 2.2b users $2 a month for access would be a significant chuck of their income.

cyphunkon Continuing frequency deviation in the Continental European Power System

connected botnet ready clocks, but for electrical grids?

Or perhaps you just meant setting up a (non-internet) grid time protocol? It would be a risky venture, I'm guessing, as there may be other functions that rely on the 50Hz grid consistency that would also then need their own special protocol on the grid.

cyphunkon Why Women Choose Differently at Work

Cordola Fine's Delusions of Gender is an excellent counter to Pinker's naturalist essentialism.

Pinker tends to lean to the side of nature rather than nuture in debate around gender influence. The article assumes the readers believe the same. Perhaps Pinker's prior research justifies this language. But after reading Cordola Fine's works, which I think definitely throws salt on nature assumptions, id call assuming this language are held by most to be very bold of Pinker.

   Susan Pinker Vs Cordelia Fine:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/10/gender-gap-m...

cyphunkon Vero – An ad-free social network

rough english summary: the vero privacy policy explicitly permits passing your data with 3rd parties. Also: analysis of what data the app transmits to other sites is shown and somewhat revealing

worth reading the translated version: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev...

cyphunkon Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

this is discussed here in the comments extensively. The best answer is that they block Germany because they expect if they complied by only blocking certain books they would have to deal with many more requests in the future. They also decided to take this chance to make a statement to encourage a public debate.

cyphunkon Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

Could you expand on why you think the name of the company is not important here?

cyphunkon Carl Icahn dumps $31M in steel-related stocks before White House tariff talks

that is a year old. I'd be curious the result of that accusation. I'm happy to prove Icahn is an evil __whatever__ but also it's a good chance to calibrate my desire to avoid silly liberal witch hunts, which as a self-identified libtard I have sometimes mistakenly joined.

cyphunkon Money stolen by Bernie Madoff is still being found

You are right, my comparison is absurd. bTCe work to return funds to their customers though, not those of mtgox. Nor should they need to, if indeed the accusation they colluded with MTGox hackers is false

cyphunkon Money stolen by Bernie Madoff is still being found

Irony of a dead system.

MADOFF: Rich man looses money of old timey rich people, government scrambles to find and repair.

MTGOX: e-BTC collude with hackers to hack MTGOX, FBI takes down e-BTC, FBI keeps money.