HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

laurencei

1,745 karma · joined June 2, 2012

Always working on a few things here and there :)
submissionscomments
laurencei··on Airbnb’s Money-Laundering Problem
Money laundering is not always about stolen cards though. It is sometimes about turning dirty money into clean money and getting it legally into your hands.

So you can buy pre-paid VISA debit cards with cash though. Or you could open a fake bank account, put the "illegal" cash there under a false name.

Then "cycle" cash through AirBnB.

Clean cash on the other side in your name.

laurencei··on Honda system confused by Alonso taking Pouhon flat
The reliance on "major throttle" to determine track position seems strange, especially when you consider unknown variables are possible.

For example, if a marshall flags a yellow, you might pull off the throttle at an unexpected location.

Same as when racing - if another car breaks (for whatever reason, including crashing) - your "inputs" are going to be very different, so this could easily trick the computer into thinking it is not in the right position?

laurencei··on Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine
IMO what is really clever about this is that it is a "sales" video - except you dont realise you are being sold to until the end, by which time you've enjoyed the video so much, the pitch at the end is reasonable.

And you've shown what the value is long before I asked myself the question "how much" - which I usually ask early in the process - but not here.

At least that is how I found it... great work.

Would be interesting to see conversion figures for something like this.

laurencei··on Giving up on Venture Capital raising
FYI - I'm reading it now without a LinkedIn account? Not sure why you are getting a wall?

Try an incognito session maybe?

laurencei··on Mailit, A Tiny REST API to Send Emails
I used to use MailCatcher - but I've switched to MailHog[0]

Similar to MailCatcher, but it is built with Go so you dont need to compile etc - it just runs. I find it easier to install.

[0] https://github.com/mailhog/MailHog

laurencei··on App sizes are out of control
The problem is it's not really in Apples interest to get app sizes smaller.

Larger apps means you have more "need" to upgrade your phone to the latest version with more space, power, speed etc.

laurencei··on Dell XPS 15 9560 Review
I had the exact opposite experience. I cant fault my XPS15 9560. No issues, very fast, no crashes.
laurencei··on Our Copyfish extension was stolen and adware-infested
> Every time you're about to paste your password, glance at the url bar.

Actually - I disagree with this. You can no longer "glance" at the url bar to determine if you are on the right domain due to Unicode chars if you clicked a link.

The only safe way is to type the url yourself into the browser.

If it is a long link - then at least typing the base domain, and pasting the "rest" is probably safe?

laurencei··on Flush times for hackers in booming cyber security job market
What are some realistic salary ranges for people in this field?

And is it largely on site work, or is it more common as a remote consultant?

laurencei··on On Password Managers
I have 1Password and I love it.

But my biggest fear that I have is; if my laptop was ever pwned in some way, due to some noval 0-day etc - is that everything stored in 1Password could be compromised. But more importantly - the hackers would have an address book of banks, servers, databases etc that I have access to.

I dont know if there is a solution - but I feel it is like putting all your eggs in one basket.

laurencei··on CSS and JS code coverage in Chrome DevTools
I wonder if it is a bug perhaps?
laurencei··on CSS and JS code coverage in Chrome DevTools
My vague recollection of the Google event where this was first announced (was it late 2016 or early 2017?) - was it was going to "record" your site usage for as long as you were "recording" - and give the report at the end.

But this now sounds like a coverage tool for a single page?

Does anyone know if it can record over multiple pages and/or application usage (such as an SPA)?

laurencei··on Life Is About to Get Harder for Websites Without HTTPS
I use LetsEncrypt on a load balancer without issue.
laurencei··on Ask HN: What do you listen to when you code?
I love this Spotify list: https://open.spotify.com/user/ruhin94/playlist/0bG1EMQkukEeO...

Over 22 hours of powerful movie, game soundtracks.

Gets updated with new songs all the time.

laurencei··on Hackers Are Hijacking Phone Numbers and Breaking into Email, Bank Accounts
> If I use a 2FA app like the Google one and lose my phone, I need to have the codes ready.

It is a trade off. You either want difficult access if you lose your phone (via printouts) - or you want quick access (via SMS).

I dont think you can realistically have it both ways.

Having a "slow" method to retrieve a major access to your accounts seems to be the safest method, especially when you are likely to rarely use your phone.

You could also give a copy of the printouts to a family member or close friend, who you could ring if you were remote.

laurencei··on Hackers Are Hijacking Phone Numbers and Breaking into Email, Bank Accounts
Most major providers like GitHub, Google etc allow you to create "recovery" codes - so you can do a one-off login without 2FA using the code.

I've started getting a recovery code for each of my major accounts, printing it out, then literally putting it in a safe.

laurencei··on Stripe Sigma
> We’ve already written the queries for the most useful reports for different types of businesses: From computing MRR to ARPU to analyzing the payment methods your customers prefer...

This would have to be worrying for companies like Baremetrics, ChartMogul etc.

Obviously it is not 100% the same - but the ability to quickly get MRR, ARR etc would solve many peoples main pain.

laurencei··on Ask HN: What website monitoring tools do you use?
https://eyewitness.io
laurencei··on Abusing Gmail to get previously unlisted e-mail addresses
I see companies trying to solve a similar issue on their password reset forms. They ask you to enter an email address - then give you a reply "if that email exists, we have sent a password reminder there".

The problem is these sames sites have a self-signup, using a unique email as your login. So you can already find out if an email address is in use or not.

If you've going to 'leak' the data one way or another, dont sacrifice UX for the sake of it.

laurencei··on Chrome 59 has cross-platform headless support
Can anyone confirm - would this work with a Flash/SWF application? i.e. could I use the headless mode to interact with the Flash Application to run some commands and retrieve the output?

I tried googling around but didnt find much to say either way...

laurencei··on DigitalOcean deleted their production database, is down again
There are two separate current issues.

SFO2 is offline.

Cloud API panel was having issues before that and affects all regions.

laurencei··on DigitalOcean deleted their production database, is down again
Not sure if related - but currently the entire SFO2 region is down (I am one of many people affected).

Has been down for around 7 hours.

https://status.digitalocean.com/

laurencei··on How ski lifts are installed: Vail's new Chair 5 (2011) [video]
Medical helicopters usually have a firing bolt/cuter that the pilot controls.

In the event there is a risk to the helicopter due to the winch operation (such as the line becoming stuck in some tress below) - the pilot has the ability to cut the cable to ensure the helicopter is not compromised.

laurencei··on Official list of phoned-home info revealed by Microsoft
Is there a place where people have put together a conclusive list/script to remove/turn off as much telemetry as possible?

I've seen various lists on reddit, HN etc - but they all seem to have different bits.

Perhaps a GitHub Gist that can be crowdsourced to help people ensure they get every single hidden option turned off?

laurencei··on Apache Server Status for ask.com
So apart from the fact this should be there; how did someone find this in the first place?

From my quick looking around - it seems that Apache has "/server-status" as a module - so you could hit all domains via a bit and see if any have it turned on?

laurencei··on Office365 users shared hundreds of sensitive docs publicly through docs.com
I dont understand why docs.com even has a search bar in the first place?

Apart from a "direct link" - who would want to go to docs.com and search for a topic?

I've been able to find lots of interesting documents searching for some medical, business and financial terms. There must be thousands if not tens of thousands of sensitive documents available...

laurencei··on UnCSS: Remove unused styles from CSS
Starts around the 18min mark in the video.
laurencei··on Spammers expose their entire operation through bad backups
Is it a "pawn" though? Your email address in their database does not necessarily mean your security has been compromised - just that your on a spam list somewhere?
laurencei··on How Uber could end up as Silicon Valley's most spectacular crash
I don't get the constant hype around self driving cars. Sure - they will be revolutionary when they get here - but the reality is they are years and years away at best.

We have autopilots for planes, that can effectively take off, fly, and land a plane. We've had that technology for quite a while.

So why is not common place for planes, at least cargo planes with no passengers? Surely companies like UPS, FedEx etc that have a large fleet of cargo planes that fly around the US and the world would have significant cost savings?

Why do we feel a car is easier to autopilot than a plane?

And when the car autopilot technology does get here - why does Uber feel it will benefit them more than Lyft? As soon as it is available - you'll just have Uber style copy cats with "on demand" vehicles? What benefit does Uber have at that point?

laurencei··on A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them
What is more interesting about that statement is how did he learn that fact? Possibly some help from the inside? Or some other method...?
← PreviousPage 4 of 9Next →