Hacker News Reader

metildaaon Viasat is aggressively blacklisting Digitalocean IP addresses

Its not hard for them to maintain blacklists, especially since they do not care about network quality.

If I were in your position, I would set up a proxy that appears as http traffic (so you fly under their radar).

metildaaon Viasat is aggressively blacklisting Digitalocean IP addresses

Viasat has likely been sending abuse reports to DigitalOcean, and one too many abuse reports was ignored, resulting in Viasat nullrouting DO's IPs over this continued malicious traffic.

metildaaon "DigitalOcean Killed Our Company"

I drop all traffic from Scaleway, they do not care about abuse coming from their network: https://badpackets.net/ongoing-large-scale-sip-attack-campai...

metildaaon Security Company Building an International Database of Banned Bar Patrons

R Place in Seattle uses an internet connected ID scanning system. Super sketchy, they do not ask consent to scan or answer any questions about how data is handled.

Programs like this will make it much easier to round up LGBTQ people like myself, enabled by shortsighted management of these spaces implementing mass data collection.

metildaaon WhatsApp users will start seeing in-app ads within ‘Status’ feature from 2020

Use Pyre.chat or signal-weechat. There are other options beyond Signal to chat with contacts on Signal.

metildaaon VPN service for hosting public-facing services on non-hosting ISP circuits

Its a GreenValueHost repeat :c

metildaaon Ask HN: Freelancers, how do you deal with clients that don't pay or pay late?

F*ck You, Pay Me! is a great talk on this very topic: https://invidio.us/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

metildaaon VPN service for hosting public-facing services on non-hosting ISP circuits

Alpharacks is super spammy and IMO a bit shady. Do not give them an email address that isn't specific to them.

metildaaon TSMC Says It's Not Impacted by U.S. Ban Against Huawei

I wonder if TSMC will audit Huawei's designs to enforce ARM's license revocation. Presumably TSMC will do so, they have much to potentially lose if IP compliance isn't assured (eg: iPhone SOC manufacturing, Qualcomm chip manufacturing & all the other chips they make for ARM licensees).

metildaaon Building a home NAS on a shoestring budget with the Rock64 SBC (2018)

Yep, the community has done quite a bit of work to mainline support, Mali (old and new) drivers were just recently mainlined.

https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread/17540-early-mainline-image...

metildaaon New $14 esp32 VGA/mouse/keyboard/VT100 computer capable of running micropython

VGA seems to be leaving monitors en masse

metildaaon Opposition to Sidewalk Labs in Toronto

Copper pipe isn't a be all, end all, if anything it can be more damage prone than plastic pipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD5lMITzx_Y

metildaaon Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

Calling is handy to ask what price an item is and whether it's in stock, or order something prepared by the deli or bakery that you want on a certain date/time.

metildaaon New $14 esp32 VGA/mouse/keyboard/VT100 computer capable of running micropython

VGA and especially PS/2 are getting rarer by the day, if anything having extra ram can be handy for fully utilizing all the I/O a board has to offer...

metildaaon New $14 esp32 VGA/mouse/keyboard/VT100 computer capable of running micropython

Why wouldn't you save a few bucks and get a full ARM board that can run mainline Linux? https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32603308880.html

metildaaon SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

People shouldn't be viewed as financially coupled to their parents until 25. Our current system is set up to discourage people from furthering their educations, with exorbitant tuition and fees.

If you had been in the Netherlands, you'd get a stipend of ~$10k per year when enrolling in school, and other countries have similar systems. UBC in Vancouver, Canada generally pays masters students $30k a year, having had a few friends depart to Canada due to said offer.

metildaaon Close to 735k Fraudulently Obtained IP Addresses Uncovered and Revoked

I don't use Scaleway or Online.net, as they're known for ignoring abuse reports. Other hosts like OVH tend to forward abuse reports and deal with repeat offenders, a good middle ground between AWS's draconian policies and Scaleway's.

metildaaon Close to 735k Fraudulently Obtained IP Addresses Uncovered and Revoked

AWS is also overzealous about DMCA notices. If you go to other providers like Scaleway, they'll forward any abuse complaints but you don't have to do anything about them.

metildaaon WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

Or Juniper's constant flow of new CVEs, they are a popular alternative to Cisco that many ISPs use heavily :P

Network security is piss poor, most of these vendors add vulnerabilties atop secure distros (OpenWRT, Debian, etc) and flog it as the best thing since sliced bread.

metildaaon San Francisco Police Raid Journalist's Home After He Refuses to Name Source

So is the vast majority of public documents. That being said, having a record of actions, issues and opinions can be quite useful as these records age.

metildaaon San Francisco Police Raid Journalist's Home After He Refuses to Name Source

It does create a public paper trail of community sentiment though.

metildaaon WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

Huawei's equipment will almost assuredly run anyone's spyware. Huawei uses a medley of ancient, highly vulnerable OpenSSL libraries sprinkled through their basestation code, and apparently they've forgone any kind of version control to ensure an optimally confusing work environment for their development teams: https://hmgstrategy.com/resource-center/articles/2019/04/04/...

Frankly, these products are likely unmaintainable long term without a total refactoring of the codebase, nevermind the abject lack of security.

The trick with these vendors is the codebase will never see serious improvement, as these basestations aren't going to be sold for the next decade, so Huawei will do the bare minimum and shelve support in short order.

metildaaon Signal, a fast, secure and simple messenger endorsed by Snowden

Its seem much less development than pyre.chat, but it is a functional client (tho pictures all end up in a folder when sent your way, as images + ncurses doesn't really work).

metildaaon Signal, a fast, secure and simple messenger endorsed by Snowden

For how long though? Signal Android has repeatedly broken its backup functionality with no warning, it seems the Signal team is not testing this feature regularly.

iOS users are still out of luck on message backup too :c

metildaaon Signal, a fast, secure and simple messenger endorsed by Snowden

There are two Python/Java based clients called pyre.chat and signal-weechat, ram use is much lower than Signal Desktop.

Check out my other comment about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19894385

metildaaon Signal, a fast, secure and simple messenger endorsed by Snowden

What platform are you encountering this on? I have yet to see this behaviour, though Signal Desktop will throw away all its data if the checksum on the database fails (eg: dying SSD/hard drive).

Take a peek at my other comment perhaps, signal-weechat & pyre.chat might be of use

metildaaon Signal, a fast, secure and simple messenger endorsed by Snowden

Check out my other comment about pyre.chat and signal-weechat, perhaps one of them will work for your use case?

Signal does need serious help on the backup/restore process, iOS users are left in the cold and Android backups often fail when one attempts to restore them.

I've followed up on issues on Signal Android about backups being borked (even getting Moxie to fix a bug at one point) but backups are obviously not a priority for the Signal Foundation. Very frustrating, and it has caused my friends and acquaintances to ragequit Signal in some cases.

metildaaon Signal, a fast, secure and simple messenger endorsed by Snowden

Check out https://pyre.chat (pre-alpha) and signal-weechat for a non-electron based desktop client that won't nom all your ram.

https://github.com/thefinn93/signal-weechat

Signal makes for a decent SMS replacement, IMO they have put little effort into being a group chat competitor. Some bots like https://git.callpipe.com/yosl/repost4privacy can make groups more user friendly, but group management is still poor.

Edit: added last paragraph about groups.

metildaaon Open source firmware is important for security

https://social.libre.fi/objects/140ca2e8-addd-4dbb-8e03-8d6a...

Gnome dev ended his contract with Purism over their inept management of the Mastodon instance they are selling accrss to: https://wandering.shop/@KelsonV/102057489260188127

metildaaon Chelsea Manning released from jail with expiration of grand jury

The subpoena Chelsea was served with before release indicates that she will be right back in the same position in short order.