Hacker News Reader

> badly programmed software

Is there a test or check I can use to determine that software is 'good'?

Oh there isn't? Good/bad is subjective? We need to scape goating hacks as bad software, as if anyone is capable of perfect code. Perfect code would require knowing the system inside and out, the stack up and down - no one knows all that, no one is perfect. Sufficiently advanced AI though can rip through all of that, find the weakest spot and zero day it, bringing the entire house of cards down.

Software you thought was good can still be hacked. There is no way to create provably unhackable software.

Which means all software is packed with vulnerabilities just waiting to be discovered, no matter how good you think it is.

bottlepalmon A thousand fewer paths to root

That's why I said there's a good chance we shut down the internet. An off/unconnected computer is the only way to be secure. Our stacks are so unimaginably complex that just connecting it to the network opens it up to every undiscovered vulnerability that it contains at every layer of the stack.

Even disconnected, if the computer is just passively listening to bluetooth or wifi, it is vulnerable to exploits in those stacks as well. AI has already demonstrated it can zero day with ease. An AI another order of magnitude stronger than what we have today could potentially zero day worm lockout every electronic device tangentially connected to the internet in an afternoon.

bottlepalmon A thousand fewer paths to root

All software is Swiss cheese to smart enough AI, and unless you can provably create secure software - you never really can. Breaking it just requires more intelligence than the thing securing it.

It's a good reason why we may need to borderline shutdown the internet in the future because to a super intelligent AI, there are no barriers. Everything is essentially open. It creates its own zero day exploits as it goes.

bottlepalmon Astra can read and write weights to improve Qwen

I think a lot of the upvotes, including mine, are just realizing that this is a thing. We can see implications of this as the model sizes scale up, just like early LLMs weren't as impressive, but we could see where they were heading.

bottlepalmon Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release

Sure, give me write access to the website and I will.

bottlepalmon Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release

Currently they’re not organized at all, and yes AI could do it in seconds making that list readable.

bottlepalmon TCP Use-After-Free: CVE-2026-98432 / CVSS 9.8

The difference between now and next year is that we won’t have time next year to patch before malicious agents use this exploit against everything at lighting speed. Global internet downtime will be the only solution.

bottlepalmon Binance-hacker-1029 – $5.6B stolen from Binance

It wasn't built to be cash. It was built to be a store of value, and move that value outside of the banking system.

Claiming it was created for cash is just you inventing a straw man argument so you can knock it down. Ignoring what you reluctantly agreed to - the remittance use case, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Banks have made money transfer a headache for a long time, and crypto essentially solve it.

Other than that, the value of Bitcoin itself holding, despite billions being stolen. Everyone knows the fundamentals of Bitcoin have held and are holding, and the accidents are human error, not a deficiency in the fundamentals.

bottlepalmon Enlightenment 0.28.0 Release

They should use AI to organize the change notes as well.

bottlepalmon Binance-hacker-1029 – $5.6B stolen from Binance

It works amazing for what it was built to do. A decentralized store of value. Moving large amounts of money, with relatively low fees, outside of banks and across national boundaries. It is a resounding success, and continues to be.

bottlepalmon Through Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Patrick Stewart taught us the measure of a man

So many posts and comments are saying the same thing. I guess it's one of the things we remember most about Patrick Stewart and his portrayal of a starship captain. The quintessential captain. Honorable, wise, but humble, diplomatic, reasonable, with high morals, and fortitude under pressure.

bottlepalmon Binance-hacker-1029 – $5.6B stolen from Binance

Hacker News has always been salty about being against crypto all the way up. And it's overall still very up. You wishing it failed, doesn't make it fail.

bottlepalmon AlpineBSD

Do any devs here not use AI? I mean really not use AI.

bottlepalmon Genie 4

Really? I thought the universe boiled down to a few fundamental forces as it is.

bottlepalmon Genie 4

Isn't that a simpler explanation of reality than the zillions of particles all existing simultaneously in this massive universe?

Some sort of simple primal generative AI construct that just feeds a conscious experience for one. You. Nothing else is real. No one else is real.

Something like that would be an infinitely simpler, than running the physics and conscious experiences of this unimaginably large universe we think we're in.

bottlepalmon eMudhra to exit global SSL/TLS certificate business

Arrogance. You think your security practices will defend you? Every layer of your stack has bugs waiting to be found and exploited by AI.

bottlepalmon eMudhra to exit global SSL/TLS certificate business

You spent the last 4 years coping; calling AI a stochastic parrot, and saying the warnings were all marketing. You wasted 4 years. Good job.

bottlepalmon eMudhra to exit global SSL/TLS certificate business

Everybody laughed when they said GPT-2 wasn’t safe to release. This is the tip of the iceberg.

bottlepalmon A Modern Web App in C

> the only way the tokens will stop flowing is if your CPU and GPU stop working

My CPU/GPU is incapable of running a SOTA model, local models are garbage.

> "low level" isn't quite the right terminology

Yes compared to TypeScript code, Rust is absolutely lower level and more work to maintain

bottlepalmon Redesigning source control at Anthropic

30k commits per day indicates the agents are autonomous and not bounded by token limits. This system is probably barely keeping it on the rails as it is.

bottlepalmon A Modern Web App in C

In 2026 the stack is SQLite + Rust + AI

As long as the tokens keep flowing we'll all be fine. If they stop flowing we're going to be boned with this mountain of low level software we're creating that will need to be maintained. Let's not think about that.

bottlepalmon SvelteKit 3

I used to spend a lot of time here discussing and debating frameworks, not so much lately. It's a depressing how much time we spent in framework wars. I don't miss it.

bottlepalmon Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel

It won't which means inevitably malicious AI will probably backdoor us. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

bottlepalmon Gemini 4 Argon

I've never seen anything really ever 'trained out' of a model. Having worked with them all, they all have a feel, personality and lineage too them. It's pretty much impossible for any company to build a model truly from scratch. They build off of the bones of the last one.

Which is why Gemini having disturbing issues year after year is so concerning. If their process is fundamentally flawed, how would they train it out? And even then what are the odds of them even caring/trying in the first place versus applying an easier band-aid to patch over it?

I don't have an axe to grind with Google, I'm genuinely scared of their models from my personal experience and others. It's behavior is off. Many people here are commenting the same.

bottlepalmon Gemini 4 Argon

If the training data is the same, the training algorithms are the same, the RLHF is the same, and the rest of the process is the same, then it's not really from scratch, or not from scratch in a way that results in an 'out of family' model. I doubt any company would take that risk. You always build on and use what works and go from there.

bottlepalmon Gemini 4 Argon

I know, that's the annoying part. You can't tell the e/acc foomers, "I told you so!"

bottlepalmon Gemini 4 Argon

The problem is newer models are never trained from scratch, they generally just layer on more training data and use the same tools/methods for RLHF. OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI models all have a feel to them that carries over from one generation to the next.

Point is, if Gemini is flawed then there's a very good chance that it's still deeply flawed today, and getting smarter at the same time - that is a very bad combination.

bottlepalmon Gemini 4 Argon

Absolutely because none of these models are ever trained fresh. We see the same quirks and personalities carry over into every subsequent generation of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI models. So Gemini having this latent madness is *extremely* concerning as they reach the point of super intelligence.

bottlepalmon Gemini 4 Argon

https://www.theregister.com/software/2024/11/15/google-gemin...

https://www.fastcompany.com/91383271/googles-chatbot-apologi...

https://www.businessinsider.com/gemini-self-loathing-i-am-a-...

bottlepalmon Gemini 4 Argon

Gemini is the model that is routinely borderline psychotic. It scares me. If we get paperclipped I won't be surprised if it's Gemini.