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tdons

461 karma · joined December 24, 2017

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tdons··on Ask HN: How do we know Signal or Telegram don't store our data on their servers?
I imagine it's non-trivial. I think it would involve (in case of iOS):

1. downloading the binary

2. jailbreaking the phone to extract the binary (pretty sure this is necessary on iOS)

3. check the version of the binary, then compile the original sources of the version

4. ??? compare the two binaries, this is likely the most difficult part, they won't be identical because of things like codesigning (and build flags, timestamps, ...)

I know noone that does this.

tdons··on Steam's login method is kinda interesting
https://www.security.nl/posting/34165/%22Beveiliging+ING+mob...

> "Het authenticatie protocol ziet er goed doordacht uit. Er wordt niet vertrouwd op SSL of TLS. In plaats daarvan gebruikt ING een extra encryptielaag waarvoor het wachtwoord wordt afgesproken via het SRP protocol. Ook genereert elk mobiel device een eigen profileId en een public/private sleutelpaar", merkt Van den Berg op.

In English:

> "SSL/TLS isn't trusted, instead, ING uses an extra encryption layer the password of which is negotiated using SRP. In addition, every mobile device generates an own profileId and a public/private keypair"

Assuming SRP refers to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protoco...

tdons··on Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump
Christopher Hitchens (a Brit, can we still call them European?) would disagree with you. If you have a few minutes, check the beginning of this talk [1] about free speech. He treats the exact "fire" example at the very start of the talk :-)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY

tdons··on Tips for on Call Engineers During the Holidays
I speak from experience, unfortunately :)
tdons··on Tips for on Call Engineers During the Holidays
However... it can also trigger new behaviour because programs / services run for longer than normal because deployments aren't being refreshed as frequently as normal.
tdons··on Generating Cryptographically Secure Random Numbers with Coins and a Cup
The Von Neumann extractor mentioned in the article is interesting.

There are other approaches too. I once implemented an algorithm to remove unknown bias from a bitstream in a streaming fashion. According to the paper I used their result was theoretically optimal. Check it out: https://github.com/tdons/deskew-bernoulli

tdons··on A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever
Define 'secure'?
tdons··on Sharrows, the bicycle infrastructure that doesn’t work and nobody wants
I refuse to believe that people care more about the monetary and legal consequences of killing another person than the moral aspect.

Hypothesis: Dutch drivers are more careful around cyclists primarily because everyone rides a bicycle themselves. Knowing what it's like riding a bicycle in heavy traffic makes you a more careful driver.

tdons··on Sharrows, the bicycle infrastructure that doesn’t work and nobody wants
You primarily watch out because you don't want to kill someone else.
tdons··on Sharrows, the bicycle infrastructure that doesn’t work and nobody wants
It works in Houten, The Netherlands [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houten

Come visit!

>The design principle of separating cycling and walking from car traffic has been pushed to the limit. Houten is unique in this. Cycling comfort and safety are extremely high (optimal), even by Dutch standards. A large network of bike paths makes it convenient to cycle to various destinations and within the town the bike is the most popular means of transport. > The city of Houten is known as, nationally and internationally, and in growing interest from home and abroad, as the worlds best practical example for bicycle friendliness. A growing number of groups with politicians, developers, designers and students visit cycling city Houten for study purposes and inspiration.

tdons··on Wall Street Begins Trading Water Futures as a Commodity
I remember hearing about Michael Burry [1] also looking into aquifers and future water shortages.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Burry

> Burry has focused much of his attention on investing in water, gold, and farm land. Burry has been quoted saying "Fresh, clean water cannot be taken for granted. And it is not—water is political, and litigious."[20] At the end of the 2015 biographical dramedy film The Big Short, a statement regarding Burry's current interest reads, "The small investing he still does is all focused on one commodity: water."[20]

tdons··on Java is better than C++ for high speed trading systems
An iron man is a triathlon, you are looking for steelman!

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/steelman

tdons··on Salesforce is in talks to buy Slack
I didn't believe the 22 MiB download but it's true. 156 requests and 26 MiB with an empty cache.

Oh my.

tdons··on Building Your Color Palette
Stripe has (what looks like) a great tool to help with this:

https://stripe.com/blog/accessible-color-systems

It'd be fantastic if they could open source it, are there any Stripers here that could nudge the right people? :-)

tdons··on Dutch journalist gatecrashes EU defence video conference
What's more depressing is that this official has GMail open. How ridiculous is that? Which defense minister outside of the USA uses Google Mail? After Snowden, really?

I want to facepalm so hard right now.

tdons··on Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main
The intransigent minority [1] strikes again.

Perhaps the tech community should grow a spine and stand up to the minority that demands these sort of changes. That is: if the tech community /really/ doesn't want them, which (to me) is unclear.

[1] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

tdons··on A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack
It's in an image so you can't text search :)

https://media.wired.com/photos/5fa04a3d8239757e365803ec/mast...

Bottom right under 'additional information'.

I had heard that the AT wasn't as well graded, but I wasn't aware the difference was this big, thanks!

tdons··on A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack
The police poster mentioned "was only able to hike 10 miles a day".

Makes me think it's health related, 10 mi / day is absolutely abysmal for a normal thru hiker. Most aim to do that amount by 10 in the morning...

tdons··on What ORMs Have Taught Me: Just Learn SQL (2014)
Thanks for the corrections, suggestions, and comments everyone!

@twic Thanks for the correction. Didn't know this wasn't a Hibernate but instead a Spring Data feature :-)

@watt You're right, I could've added an offset/limit. Wasn't the main point though (readability was).

@vitro Depends on the approach, but it won't be done /for you/, the mapping is a manual step (grab field X, etc.).

@piokoch, nice suggestion. Of course in the real world we work in teams and some people will prefer this ;-)

tdons··on What ORMs Have Taught Me: Just Learn SQL (2014)
So much this. ORMs? That way lies madness. For example if you use Hibernate in Java you can end up writing stuff like this:

  interface MyRepository {
    Page<SomeObject> findEntitiesByIdAndCreatedAtAfterOrderByCreatedAtDesc(int id, Instant after, Pageable page);
  }
This abstracts away executing a query along the lines of: select * from entities where id = $1 and created_at >= $2 order by created_at desc

I'll take the latter any day.

tdons··on When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook
"Hans de Zwart" would be correct in Dutch yes. In English it'd be similar to "Hans the Black"

We also have variants that we insert between first and lastname: 'van' (from), 'van de' (from the), and many others.

tdons··on I built a lay-down desk
This reminded me of wall-e. Sorry.
tdons··on Facebook says it may quit Europe over ban on sharing data with US
Bye.

Take WhatsApp and Instagram offline in Europe while you're at it :-)

tdons··on CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
An auditor was fooled while he was in the room watching while the ceo downloaded bank account statements (pages 10/11 of https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1317641...):

  d. As  part  of  its  due  diligence  process,  the  Audit  Firm had an employee
     (the “Auditor”) conduct a physical site visit at NS8’s offices in Las Vegas,
     Nevada.  The Auditor was directed by a more senior Audit Firm employee to have
     someone from NS8 log in to the online portal for each NS8 bank account, display
     the current account balance, and download monthly bank statements for fiscal
     year 2019.
  
  e. Based  on  my  interview  with  a  member  of  the  NS8 finance department
     (“Finance Employee-1”), I have learned, among other things, that on or about
     March 11, 2020, Finance Employee-1 and ROGAS met with the Auditor in ROGAS’s
     office.  The purpose of that meeting was for ROGAS and Finance Employee-1 each
     to log into the online portals for the bank accounts to which they had access
     (for ROGAS, the Revenue Bank Account) and download monthly account statements
     for the Auditor.  During that meeting, Finance Employee-1 logged into the online
     portal for the Expense Bank Account -- to which  Finance Employee-1  had  access
     -- and  downloaded  monthly  account statements.  Finance Employee-1 understood
     that ROGAS was doing the same for the Revenue Bank Account during the meeting.
  
  f. Late in the evening on or about March 11, 2020, the Auditor  emailed  another
     employee  as  follows:    “Attached  please  find the bank statements and
     screenshots that I observed [Finance Employee-1] and Adam [ROGAS] download this
     afternoon.”  Attached to  that  email,  among  other things,  were  the
     Fraudulent  Bank  Statements for the Revenue Bank Account for the period from
     January 2019 through February 2020.
tdons··on Use long flags when scripting (2013)
You can comment using a hack; check this out:

  command `# a comment` \
    --longopt1 `# another comment` \
    --longopt2 arg \
    argument
tdons··on The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange
It's funny how indifferent everyone is about this. If you read about atrocious events that happened in history you often wonder why nobody stepped up.

And here we are, things like this are happening in 2020 and almost nobody cares. Almost all of us choose comfort and a frictionfree life over morality when it comes down to it.

tdons··on Assange Hearing Day 7
Might makes right, èh?

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

tdons··on US sanctions International Criminal Court officials
Isn't there also a law on the books in the US that permits 'exfiltration' of a captured US citizen from The Hague if it were ever to come to that?
tdons··on Pathological Lying: Theoretical and Empirical Support for a Diagnostic Entity
I've made a conscious effort to stop lying after reading https://samharris.org/books/lying/

Can recommend, it feels great.

tdons··on USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System
The same argument applies to the internet at large. Shall we move back to filing cabinets because that makes data leaks more difficult?

I'm sure that at some point we'll crack the electronic voting nut. But yeah: it's scary and the stakes are high. Then again, we've fixed electronic banking and that runs pretty nicely without many problems -- right?

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