Hacker News Reader

commandersakion New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

I was once able to prove a MAC scheme was insecure by allowing ciphertext to be rearranged while in a dream; this was a cryptography exercise.

commandersakion A Gopher Meets a Crab

Have you tried? Give it a shot and see for yourself.

commandersakion Copy Fail

Yeah I think maybe it loads the module on demand. The problem is I've upgraded my kernel many times in the last 122 days which wipes out the running or last installed kernel modules directory. I'm guessing if I had my running kernel modules directory it would on demand load and I'd get root.

commandersakion Copy Fail

Tried this on my arch VPS which has a few users that hasn't been rebooted for 122 days.

Got:

    OSError: [Errno 97] Address family not supported by protocol

I guess AF_ALG is not part of the Arch Linux LTS kernel?

Edit:

Looks like on Arch you have to go out of your way to have this enabled.

    $ zcat /proc/config.gz | grep CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API
    CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API=m
    CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_HASH=m
    CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_SKCIPHER=m
    CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_RNG=m
    # CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_RNG_CAVP is not set
    CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_AEAD=m
    # CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_ENABLE_OBSOLETE is not set
    $ uname -r
    6.12.63-1-lts

commandersakion Framework's new Linux laptop is selling faster than its Windows one

Pretty sure they've sold out globally that they need to make more due to surge in demand.

We'll find out more during quarterly earnings at the end of the month.

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/16/macbook-neo-demand-surg...

commandersakion Framework's new Linux laptop is selling faster than its Windows one

People considering the Neo aren't thinking they're being constrained by a mobile SoC when it performs just as well as M1 with a slightly reduced core count.

The fact that they're selling incredibly well is a testament to that.

commandersakion Framework's new Linux laptop is selling faster than its Windows one

Mate, it'd smoke the FW12 especially when it comes to energy efficiency and heat. Also FW12 has a fan.

commandersakion Framework's new Linux laptop is selling faster than its Windows one

The macbook neo is pretty repairable. Getting parts might be an issue though.

commandersakion Framework Laptop 13 Pro

Tried once, not very fond of my FW 13" Intel 13th Gen 2. Mac superior in both hardware & software.

commandersakion Framework Laptop 13 Pro

Blah why do they insist on those full height arrow keys.

commandersakion Why is IPv6 so complicated?

Stomping your foot angrily at ISPs and Internet facing entities to adopt a protocol noone cares and/or getting governments to intervene because you've exhausted all your options and progress is stagnant is not a transition plan, that's a hail mary.

commandersakion Why is IPv6 so complicated?

Yeah the at least 25 years thing is a cop out. The IPng committee specifically chose the protocol that didn't have a transition plan, and today still doesn't have a transition plan.

I expect we're going to plateau with adoption for a long while now. 50% adoption is meaningless if it doesn't tangibly make a dent in the IPv4 exhaustion problem.

commandersakion Reflecting on my own strange year at Uber

This reassures me that I am much better off working in a company without HR.

commandersakion Wacli – WhatsApp CLI

What about data collection, metadata, other third parties

How does any of that result in Meta reading your messages?

commandersakion Apple update looks like Czech mate for locked-out iPhone user

This really should be escalated to the point where Apple engineers build a one-off / custom iOS so that this person can unlock their phone and change their passcode. I'm sure this is in the realm of possibilities. It is such a bad look.

commandersakion Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

The VM limitation is only for macOS guests, otherwise I can spin up as many VMs as I like, which is no different to doing so in Linux (since it cannot run macOS VMs).

commandersakion FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

“We learned that specifically on iPhones, if one’s settings in the Signal app allow for message notifications and previews to show up on the lock screen, [then] the iPhone will internally store those notifications/message previews in the internal memory of the device,” a supporter of the defendants who was taking notes during the trial told 404 Media

Doesn't indicate this is an issue when you have it set to preview when unlocked.

commandersakion FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

We send the messages in notifications. So the OS can keep them. Turns out Apple was doing that. There is an option you can turn on to prevent that. It is off by default.

At least on my iPhone the default is to preview messages only when unlocked [0]. This user went out of their way to show previews in a locked state which meant it was vulnerable by digital acquisition without unlock code.

[0] https://files.catbox.moe/3gwjoy.png

commandersakion FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

I posted this elsewhere and I said this in my post, but the default setting is actually not the insecure one: https://files.catbox.moe/3gwjoy.png (supposing that previews are stored encrypted when locked which is what the 404media passage implies and nothing to say to the contrary).

This user went out of their way to show previews on the lock screen, that is an OPSEC failure, even if you do not consider the acquisition of the messages digitally.

commandersakion FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

According to my setting screen the Show Previews setting is "When Unlocked (Default)".

Screenshot of notification settings page: https://files.catbox.moe/3gwjoy.png

commandersakion FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

So I wonder about this. The quote from the 404 media article [0] is:

The default setting appears to be to only show notification preview when unlocked. Will that notification still be stored unencrypted in notification storage or is it in an encrypted store because it will preview after unlock?

It makes sense that any notification that previews on the lock screen would be unencrypted (including the case where it is encrypted but the encryption key is adjacently stored).

This all reads to me that this was a user induced OPSEC issue and Signal had the right defaults.

[0] https://archive.is/bSQhD#selection-619.0-622.0

commandersakion IPv6 is the only way forward

Is this some kind of attempt at gaslighting? If IPv6 gave tangible relief, then IPv4 today would not be an important mainstay of the Internet. I recommend you read the article I posted, and see how different things could have been, and how completely botched IPv6 rollout has become, that it is just not taken seriously except by some die hard cultists and mobile/telco (which can be done because they pretty much get full configuration of your networking stack).

I guarantee, we will be having this same exact discussion 10 years from now. And then so on, and so on.

commandersakion IPv6 is the only way forward

The key difference, you don't do dual stack, you can incrementally roll it out and get tangible relief, unlike IPv6.

The point is less about the technology proposed, but the point that there could be an interoperable version of a next generation IP and IPv4.

IPv6 did the braindead thing and completely threw out the idea of transition and interoperability for a clean slate. We're paying for it many decades later.

Also, rather than regurgitate a comment, perhaps you should read the article, because that comment misunderstands what is being proposed and thus completely missing the point.

commandersakion IPv6 is the only way forward

Support nightmare for ISPs.

commandersakion IPv6 is the only way forward

This recent article begs to differ: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47352236

commandersakion A cryptography engineer's perspective on quantum computing timelines

Is that even a rebuttal? Seems like just a dismissal without any substance. I expect in 10 years the predictions will be wrong, kind of like Y2K all over again.

commandersakion A cryptography engineer's perspective on quantum computing timelines

RemindMe! 3 years "impending doom"

commandersakion Randomness on Apple Platforms (2024)

I think that /dev/u?random being implemented by Fortuna is actually incorrect, and the macOS manpages are wrong. My understanding is that it is using a NIST DRBG, there's a Craig Federighi tweet somewhere confirming this.

See: https://crypto.stackexchange.com/a/72221

commandersakion Apple at 50

Same, OSX was the only OS that worked with me when I was legally blind.

commandersakion Is BGP safe yet?

I think the test for BGP is Safe is when we stop using it and instead use SCION: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCION_(Internet_architecture).