Hacker News Reader

kotaKaton OpenAI agent hacked Australian government website, PM says

So why exactly is Sam letting his creation run around groping and assaulting the open Internet without consent?

kotaKaton Can the US Build a DJI? A Teardown of Two DJI Drones

I’m sure we could, but Skydio chose to build only for the government as soon as they took the axe to DJI, ensuring that nobody could get a US built drone.

Thanks, Adam Bry.

kotaKaton macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage

without a reddit account:

... can you also force Siri off by using Screen Time controls? I noticed that in the Screen Time menus, "Content and Privacy" restrictions can be toggled on. From there seems to be an additional "Siri" menu that lets me change the allowed Siri version from Siri Classic to Siri AI as well as options to turn off the global writing tools/assistance (which turns off the annoying Siri bubble on every textbox now).

I suspect forcing Siri off via those controls would work easier than using Low Data Mode or trying to force Siri to disable via language selection.

kotaKaton Samsung is expected to more than double output of its HBM4 and HBM4E DRAM

It's treated the same way as any other generic shipment of cargo, really. It's fine throwing $20 million in one truck.

Security is an issue, though, these are treated as a high value load and typically would be followed by unmarked, plain clothes armed security guards tailing around the truck. (That's how Apple often does warehouse deliveries of trucks full of iPhones. It wouldn't surprise me if there was going to be some rolling lead soon following some trucks full of Duos...)

kotaKaton Raspberry Pi blocks changing RAM chips

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761

If someone gets updated in the wild (like this person did without realizing they had a counterfeit board), they'll fail to boot.

kotaKaton Raspberry Pi blocks changing RAM chips

But bricking retroactively in the field is a bad move, and sends even more anger and RMA requests back towards parties.

https://github.com/therealdreg/ftdibrick

Pepperidge Farm remembers the FTDI driver bricking.

kotaKaton Raspberry Pi 5 EEPROM update now blocks manual RAM upgrades

I think what's giving me more concern is: what if the Pi is embedded in a device and the manufacturer doesn't realize the supply chain got tampered with?

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761

One EEPROM update and suddenly you brick the board. It's like the FTDI bullshit. You're going to end up snaring legitimate users that didn't know they had illegitimate boards.

kotaKaton Porsche puts wireless EV charging into production

And the funny thing is China's already picked up the dropped torches elsewhere; Xiaomi's going to be launching a robotic arm for your garage by the end of this year to plug in for you. Tesla gave up on their charging tentacle, but, wellp.

https://carnewschina.com/2026/06/13/xiaomi-unveils-home-char...

kotaKaton San Francisco Onion Futures Company

i cannot wait to give people the gift of onion futures.

kotaKaton The Story of FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8

There's... not really a story here. Dave's just trying to hawk his task manager nee registry cleaner once again.

https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/attorney-general-s...

He keeps floating on all this old inaccurate Microsoft lore to con the kids these days into thinking he knows what he's still talking about, but... no.

kotaKaton Dropbox's Jan 1st 2027 terms of service

Not the first time Dropbox bros kicked kids off a platform.

Mission SF Soccer remembers.

kotaKaton San Francisco Onion Futures Company

I would like the ability to:

1: have a QR code to 'claim' a key (eg, so I can print the future out onto a card and hand it to someone) and

2: have the QR code allow me to claim multiple keys at once (eg, to allow me to sell multiple onions in one QR coded 'bag' of keys).

Getting some ideas on how to sell some onions locally. Maybe even an onion kiosk. Put cash in, get onions later. Or an arbitraged webfront to sell the onions via.

kotaKaton Second Circuit Allows Government to Search Electronic Devices at the Border

It probably depends how pissed off you made the officer at the border if he just wants to thumb through some recent text messages and photos to see if you're doing Crimes or if they're gonna go take it to the Cellebrite UFED in the backroom and dump it out.

In other words... whom (or what) was perceived to have pissed in the CBP officer's Wheaties this morning? We'll never know what grudges he holds to make his decision.

kotaKaton OpenAI discloses six new AI safety incidents

Sam can’t keep his hands off his sister or the competition, now can he?

kotaKaton PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

All Sony had to do was give us a path forward to run our own code on the PS5.

But I guess Sony being a gatekeeper wasn't a gatekeeper enough for certain regulatory agencies.

kotaKaton Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

Bonus points: https://fccid.io/X4GS06009/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-8...

"Page 17" in the document shows a spicy little chip.

https://www.quectel.com/product/kg100s-amazon-sidewalk-modul...

Axon not only includes a cell modem... they're on Amazon Sidewalk, baby.

https://coverage.sidewalk.amazon/

kotaKaton Garbage Trucks Now Have AI Cameras to Score Your House and Clock Code Violations

Difficulty: your property insurance company is just flying drones and paying for HQ satellite photos anyways to hit you up from that angle, too.

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/iteam-insurance-company-...

With how police helicopters now have all that whiz-bang tech to overlay addresses and streets on the images and identify properties from the air, it'll just be a matter of time before code enforcement throws a couple hours on the police heli for some 'inspections', too.

kotaKaton Show HN: Hacking a $20 4G wireless hotspot into a texting device

I did some funny software porting on one of those dongles. At one point, I had it connected to a battery pack for power, joined onto my home WiFi for LAN/WAN access... and had the stick running the Open5GS cellular core stack, allowing my CBRS LTE base station to serve users on an in-home private LTE network by connecting to the cellstick over WiFi for management. (No, the stick's own cellular modem wasn't being used here at all. Just scavenged compute for the tiniest LTE core!)

So... so cursed.

kotaKaton When Google Cuts Off Access: Poland and the World

> On September 1, 2026, between 15:49 and 15:53, I sent six messages from my private Gmail account to a total of 107 different addresses: 99 media addresses, four public authorities, two Anthropic addresses, and two private addresses. They were complaints about Anthropic, the maker of the Claude assistant and Claude Code tool, which had disabled services I paid for and answered my complaints with a bot.

... Eeeeeesh. 99 media addresses, and I guarantee at least several of them probably smacked the "report spam" button to the massive email they've been CC'd on.

kotaKaton San Jose officer used Flock to help relative track domestic violence victim

Fun fact: More officers have gotten in trouble, arrested, or fired for misusing Flock Safety (YC '17) products than there are transgender athletes in sports.

kotaKaton Volkswagen Just Built an EV That Can Go Nearly 900 Miles on a Charge

> Why don't we just build high speed electrified rail

Good luck convincing all those Americans the rail line has to run through their property to freely give up the right-of-way. You're already dead in the first few hundred feet of rail when the first person says "fuck off, no" and starts challenging your eminent domain.

kotaKaton Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

Mix of. Large metros they'll use their own staff to install, rural Americana they'll use Dish's OnTech division. Dish realized they have an entire 'trained' workforce of cable/dish techs that they can put to other technical use, so they pushed into more managed hands tech services.

https://www.ontechsmartservices.com/

I noticed a more prominently branded "OnTech" van roaming around my rural slice of life that had a smaller Dish brand logo on it that seemed to be more of that side of the business.

kotaKaton I Added a Non-Wi-Fi Mitsubishi AC to Home Assistant

DR stands for "didn't realize"; the first time it happens you just run back to the drawing board and add some safety boundaries on it.

So... just make sure the automation only becomes available from ~6 AM to 8 AM. ;)

kotaKaton Kenyans Did College Students' Homework for Years. Then A.I. Arrived

> I literally had to retake trigonometry, while simultaneously being advanced into pre-calc, because my teacher saw that I aced the exams, but said I had to do the homework.

I loved one of my early math teachers that caught that out in his statistics. If you started to slip down the slope of "great exams and no homework" he'd reach out and give you an offer-in-compromise to change your grading to exams-only, with the compromise that you can only attain a maximum of a B grade to be fair to those that complete the exams and homework in the course.

I took my B.

kotaKaton Feeling Sad about AI

Coward. Post on your real account.

kotaKaton US diesel hits record $6 a gallon on Iran supply shock

(None of it was possible. We haven't gotten the purported DOGE dividend, or tarriff refunds. Though the $500 Obamacare 'refunds' are in the works and the soldiers all got some $1776 bonus... and everyone's suddenly privately funding the Trump accounts as a bribe to him, I guess.)

kotaKaton US diesel hits record $6 a gallon on Iran supply shock

Don't forget the $5000 DOGE dividend, the $2000 tariff refunds, the $500 Obamacare refunds, and the thousands+ in Trump Accounts!

(But $10k in student loan relief? That's Socialist!)

kotaKaton The first drink-driving conviction may have happened in London

As once before said: If they didn't want you to drink, John Deere wouldn't have put a cupholder on it. C'mon, that's entrapment!

kotaKaton ESP32 Bit Pirate Hardware Hacking Kit with Web Tools That Speaks Every Protocol

also needs a "Show HN" tbh

kotaKaton Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

When they show up to the depot and get their bus assignment they get a slip with the PIN (IIRC), otherwise they can call dispatch back up, identify themselves, and be given a reset remotely. (https://www.cleverdevices.com/products/secure-bus-access/)