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jessechahal

11 karma · joined December 5, 2016

Software Engineer in the west-coast who focuses on backend. Currently doing DevOps work.
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jessechahal··on ChatGPT, the Abacus, and Education
Most likely they will have to. The governments main role is to make sure the majority of people can live together in a society. If a something as suddenly as 99% of people becoming unemployment overnight the governing bodies will have no choice but to redistribute wealth, kill/enforce any rioters, or dissolve into anarchy.
jessechahal··on Why do new cars look like wet putty?
I only really see this issue on old vehicles. Most vehicles have lights set to automatically turned on when it gets dark. I very rarely see a new vehicle that doesn't have this enabled and/or daytime running lights. Even newer Honda civics have a feature to automatically turn on high beams when no oncoming traffic at night
jessechahal··on An app that tells you the best time to run and pee during a movie
Some streaming services added a feature called "watch it together" during covid. Essentially you stream a movie with someone simultaneously. I think plex, Netflix, and Amazon prime have this feature. For many years there have also been online "watch parties" similar to book clubs but done online. It's usually slightly older movies but these groups do exist.
jessechahal··on Russia creates its own TLS certificate authority to bypass sanctions
A Certificate authority is someone/group that can create certificates for domains/websites. Anyone can create a certificate authority in 10seconds in cli. For instance it is common for corporations to create their own certificate authority and create certificates for their local intranet corp sites. The problem is that browsers need to trust this certificate authority.

  - This certificates has to be accepted by browsers which most developed by western companies (Like emphasized on the article). So you have to manually add TLS certificate to these browsers. (Which does not sound safe since these service will own by Russian Government)
A CA or certs aren't unsafe because of russian government. Certs do 2 things: create an encrypted connection and prove that the website has payed/bribed a CA for a cert. Since Russian sites cannot bribe/pay western companies for a cert and because they are cutting themselves off the internet they (probably) will not be able to access free certs from letencrypt.

The article talks about man in the middle attacks. With a cert a browser can create an encrypted connected between itself and the website. If a person tries to listen in the middle they just get "gibberish" because its encrypted. If the Russian government is acting as the CA it means they have access to the private cert Russian websites are using. They could theoretically change the contents the website sends to the browser because they can create a secure/encrypted connection that is deemed "trusted". They could also modify routes that go to Facebook (because they control the local russian internet/intranet) and instead go to a dummy/fake version. That version could also have a valid & trusted cert issued by the Russian government and says "yes this is facebook".

  - Even if they find a solution for this problem. There are many sanction on SWIFT, which will not allow users of this sites to have a purchase.
SWIFT doesn't matter here. If Russia Gov'n or a Russian based company create's a CA and a way to bribe/purchase certs then all is good for Russian websites. Russians just need to have the CA added to their browser or OS.

  So is this service is only for their own citizens? If so, why not they just ban other browsers? (We all know how authoritarian and crazy the regime over there. They can kinda do that?)
Browsers aren't the problem, the problem is the centralized "web of trust" used by browsers basically only includes CA from western countries. CA either are so large and used by so many websites that browser must included them as trusted, they bribed the browser maker with money (like Google does with Apple to get google search as default), or CAs come with the OS.

  This national TLC certificate authority not sound so smart. It's like having your own Credit Rating Agency which no body gives a shit about.
CA are basically companies that websites/people/corps have to bribe to get a cert trusted by browers. Thanks to letsencrypt we can finally get around the cheapest level of bribes.
jessechahal··on Make the internet yours again with an instant mesh network
I have the same problem with my ISP. Solution was easy, just use DNS validation. All my home service's have valid Lets Encrypt certs using this method.
jessechahal··on New XPS 15 Laptop
possible referring to one of razor's laptops http://www.razerzone.com/ca-en/gaming-systems/razer-blade-st...
jessechahal··on New XPS 15 Laptop
WD15 has 1 mDP, 1 HDMI, and 1 VGA. I'm hoping to get something that supports linux + 3 DP or HDMI based monitors.
jessechahal··on New XPS 15 Laptop
thanks, worked like a charm!
jessechahal··on Ask HN: Cheap options for simple landing page?
A WYSIWYG open-source tool in development that does exactly this http://launchaco.com/build/

I think it is currently in alpha but it looks pretty good. The creator posted this on hacker news awhile ago.