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desdiv

4,685 karma · joined September 5, 2014

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desdiv··on Using a catch-all domain is a mistake
For people who are having problem with the "hilton@domain.com" situation, consider using ROT13 or some other similar scheme (hilton becomes uvygba).

Other alternatives include:

1. shorten it so much that it's not revealing anymore (hil@domain.com)

2. use another language if you're multilingual (hiruton@domain.com for Japanese)

desdiv··on US Army's Land Trains (2020)
The Zimmermann Telegram was WW1 though, not WW2.
desdiv··on A guide to getting started with embedded systems
Pointy-Haired Boss, Dilbert reference.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Pointy-haired_Boss

desdiv··on Ask HN: Was this a phishing attempt?
Many people reuse emails and passwords, so if such a victim sign up for scam.com, all of their other credentials were basically compromised too.

(Not saying that that's what's happening here. I initially suspected that amazon.jobs was a scam site; I think OP did too, hence the question.)

desdiv··on Cryptocurrency as a cybersecurity alarm
The point of this type of honeypots is to entice the blackhats to just take the crypto and walk away. Making it harder for them to walk away with the money would be counter-productive.

Old situation: blackhats sticks around for weeks or even months, exfiltrate data, blackmail, install crypto miners, etc.

With crypto honeypot: blackhats take the crypto and leaves.

With rigged crypto honeypots that are actually not redeemable:

>on the hacker forums:

>Guy A: "I tried to take the bitcoins from Corp A's honeypot wallet, but they broadcasted a high fee transaction and beat me to it."

>Guy B: "Funny, same thing happened to me last week with Corp B's wallet."

>Guy A: "Guess it's back to the old blackmail method then."

desdiv··on Ask HN: Is it still possible to live without a bank account?
>How do payroll and taxes work in that industry?

I don't have personal knowledge of the marijuana industry, but IRS's site says they accept cash and Money Orders.

There's a $1,000 per day limit for cash, so it's not really feasible for large businesses. Instead, I think you can make Money Orders by going to Western Union or USPS, if banks are to be avoided.

[0] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-payment-options

desdiv··on 3M Cuts Output of PFAS Used in Chip Production
>Only now have measures been taken, as people living within a radius of 15km from Zwijndrecht being advised not to consume eggs laid in their own or anyone’s else’s gardens, whilst pregnant women and children also have to watch out for vegetables from one’s own garden.[0]

[0] https://www.brusselstimes.com/175561/3m-zwijndrecht-oosterwe...

desdiv··on Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability
>JEP400: UTF-8 by Default

This changes the default charset of the Java APIs to UTF-8.

I read that the Java 8's JVM's internal string representation is UTF-16 [0][1]. Is that still the case after JEP400?

[0] https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/intl/...

[1] http://tutorials.jenkov.com/java/strings.html

desdiv··on Building a modern home in the woods
It's not a typo because 400A is indeed the highest tier residential service BC Hydro currently offers[0]. 400A is also in the right ballpark for the amount of equipment he describes.

[0] https://app.bchydro.com/accounts-billing/electrical-connecti...

desdiv··on Ask HN: How do carriers throttle streaming to 480p resolution?
I see two possible ways:

1. during the TLS handshake, the domain name itself might be sent in the clear if the SNI extension is used, and if the SNI extension isn't encrypted[1]

2. if the carrier knows the IP, then they can do a reverse DNS lookup to find the domain name

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/499591/are-https-urls-en...

desdiv··on Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)
Sorry, I wasn't clear: I'm not advocating for any particular method. I was just trying to explain why Myth #1 remained so persistent for so long.

Method 1: salt and pepper, then cook immediately

Method 2: salt and pepper, let rest, then cook

Method 3: salting hours in advance, let it sit in the fridge, then cook

Obviously 3 > 2 > 1, but Method 3 wasn't done historically (by most cooks). Cooks either went with Method 1 or Method 2, and Method 2 "won" out in the end because people consistently noticed that it produced better results. Myth #1 was an incorrect explanation as to why Method 2 is better than Method 1.

desdiv··on Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)
There's a reason why Myth #1 is so persistent: the action itself works, just not for the reason advertised.

Most cooks who advocate for Myth #1 will salt and pepper the steak, then let it rest for 20-30 minutes. The salt draws out some of the moisture from the surface of the steak and leaves it behind on the resting surface. The less moisture that enters the pan means better browning.

desdiv··on Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons
Do you happen to have a source for that?

My understanding is that Napoleon's Continental System caused a shortage of cocoa in continental Europe, so chocolatiers had to substitute in hazelnuts. This became Gianduja[0], which later were modified to become Nutella.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianduja_(chocolate)

desdiv··on 1Password Has Raised $620M
Bitwarden. Both the client and the server is open source. You can selfhost the server, or you can use their server.
desdiv··on Train burglaries in LA
From 2007:

>A May SEC filing revealed Berkshire owned 10.5 million shares of Union Pacific unp and nearly 6.4 million shares of Norfolk Southern nsc.

>Berkshire omitted those investments from a quarterly summary of its stock holdings filed earlier this month because the SEC allowed the company to keep them confidential, so it's not clear how much Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern stock Berkshire currently owns.

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3550477&page=1

Berkshire's 2022 ownership of UP (if it exists) is less than 1%.[2]

[2] https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...

desdiv··on Tell HN: GitHub no longer supporting unauthenticated `git://`
> Was there some notification of this change sent directly to all github users? I checked email and didn't find any references to the change from github.

Same here. No notification email as far as I can find. (Through this might depend on your notification settings? I have mine set to the minimal.)

>Is there some other automated system to become aware of changes like this, other than stumbling upon a HN post?

Github offer the web changelog, their RSS changelog, and the Twitter account @GHchangelog. These three all relay the same information, and ironically all three missed announcing this important change. Instead they posted a blog post[0] which was not linked at all by the changelogs.

So to answer your question: you need to follow all updates on both https://github.blog/changelog AND https://github.blog.

[0] https://github.blog/2021-09-01-improving-git-protocol-securi...

desdiv··on Solving Wordle with Z3
>It was also very funny to watch because they spelled words that most people didn't know they exist.

This kinda reminds me of the New Zealand Scrabble player who won multiple French World Scrabble Championships despite not speaking French. He just memorized the French Scrabble dictionary.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_(Scrabble_playe...

desdiv··on Upwork asking me for a $12.5k refund as the client was using someone else’s card
He has his upwork profile linked in his HN profile. Sounds like he has a niche and he's very very good at it.
desdiv··on Launch HN: Homestead (YC W20) – Lot-splitting to build new housing supply
>You are honestly not allowed to put a letter in a friend/neighbour's letterbox?

Yes, that is correct. If you want to hand deliver a note to your nextdoor neighbor, their mailbox is off limits. The federal government views that mailbox as some sort of exclusive domain of the USPS. You can leave the note anywhere, other than their mailbox.

The text of the law is:

>Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits any mailable matter such as statements of accounts, circulars, sale bills, or other like matter, on which no postage has been paid, in any letter box established, approved, or accepted by the Postal Service for the receipt or delivery of mail matter on any mail route with intent to avoid payment of lawful postage thereon, shall for each such offense be fined under this title.[1]

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1725

(An interesting possibility would be to affix the correct USPS stamp on the note, void said stamp by crossing it out, then hand delivering the note into someone's mailbox. In that case the correct postage would have been paid, so maybe that might be legal? Not a lawyer, just pondering an interesting possibility out loud.)

desdiv··on Internet disrupted in Kazakhstan amid energy price protests
I'm not sure which metric GP is referring to, but by total value of food exports they're 7th in the world. Extremely impressive for a country of only 17 million people.

[0] https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/WLD/Yea...

desdiv··on Almost Always Unsigned
I foresee two problems with that:

Problem 1:

If i is used multiple times inside the loop, then you might need to make a temporary variable for it, making it confusing:

for (size_t i_plus_one = size; i_plus_one > 0; i_plus_one--) {

size_t i = i_plus_one - 1;

f(i);

g(i);

h(i);

...

(The alternative is a bunch of i-1 all over the place, which is also confusing.)

Problem 2:

If operations inside the loop is short, then the extra "i-1" arithmetic could result in unacceptable performance penalties.

desdiv··on Americans seeking to renounce their citizenship are stuck with it for now
>My understanding is that you cannot renounce citizenship on US soil.

I know nothing about this except 5 minutes of googling, but seems like USCIS does process renunciations on US soil:

>Further attempts by prisoners to renounce under 1481(a)(6) continued to be stymied by a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services policy that applicants had to attend an in-person interview and demonstrate that they could leave the U.S. immediately upon approval of renunciation. [0]

Reading between the lines though, the process seems far harder than doing it aboard because you must demonstrate "intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship", meaning cutting off all US ties and establishing foreign ties, and that's hard to demonstrate when you're physically inside the US.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relinquishment_of_United_State...

desdiv··on IRS: Stolen property must be reported as income on taxes
The thought of a kidnapper inquiring about the child's social security number in the ransom note is pretty good dark humor. But I think the IRS has some restrictions on who you can claim as your dependent.

To claim someone as your dependent child, they must be either:

- Your son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, or a descendant (for example, your grandchild) of any of them; or

- Your brother, sister, half brother, half sister, stepbrother, stepsister, or a descendant (for example, your niece or nephew) of any of them.

To claim someone as your dependent relative, they must be either:

- Your child, stepchild, foster child, or a descendant of any of them (for example, your grandchild). (A legally adopted child is considered your child.)

- Your brother, sister, half brother, half sister, stepbrother, or stepsister.

- Your father, mother, grandparent, or other direct ancestor, but not foster parent.

- Your stepfather or stepmother.

- A son or daughter of your brother or sister.

- A son or daughter of your half brother or half sister.

- A brother or sister of your father or mother.

- Your son-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law.

[0] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p501#en_US_2020_publink1000...

[1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p501#en_US_2020_publink1000...

desdiv··on US returns $154M in bitcoins stolen by Sony employee
>Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department arrested the 32-year-old Ishii the same day and criminally charged him on suspicion of obtaining $154 million dollars following fraudulent money transfers from mid-May.

The private key seizure and the arrest happened on the same day (Dec 1).

desdiv··on US returns $154M in bitcoins stolen by Sony employee
>I have no idea how this passed Coinbase's KYC limits, there must be much more to the story here.

He fraudulently opened a Coinbase business account for SA Reinsurance, a Sony Life subsidiary. The SA Reinsurance documents he submitted were legitimate, but he was not authorized to open such an account.

desdiv··on US returns $154M in bitcoins stolen by Sony employee
He fraudulently opened a Coinbase business account for SA Reinsurance, a Sony Life subsidiary. The SA Reinsurance documents he submitted were legitimate, but he was not authorized to open such an account.
desdiv··on My career of treating patients has ended
Two different replies to the same post both quoted the phrase "I've been on reddit for 14 years, trust me", so presumably that phrase had been in the original post, but has since been deleted via an edit.
desdiv··on I was part of a human subject research study without my consent
This is my interpretation of their dilemma:

"We screwed up by spamming a lot of people. We like to apologize and fix our mistake. We currently have two options:

1. apologize by sending a second email. This second email will contain an apology and the phrase 'disregard the prior email'

2. apologize by some other method (e.g. this website)

Option #1 pro: reaches everyone we're previously spammed

Option #1 con: we will be spamming people a second time. If the first round of spamming puts us in legal/ethical jeopardy, then this second round of spamming could make it worst

We have not performed Option #1 yet. We do not know whether we should perform Option #1 or not. We are taking the temperature of the 'email operator community' to see whether we should performed Option #1 or not. If Option #1 gets the green-light then we'll do it ASAP."

desdiv··on Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement
To be fair, it could two (mostly) disjoint groups voicing those two conflicting opinions.
desdiv··on AWS down again?
For those out of the loop: this is a reference to the Log4j RCE story that's also currently on the HN frontpage.

Amazon uses a lot of Java, so the two stories might be actually connected somehow.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29504755

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