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eqvinox

7,964 karma · joined June 18, 2019

https://github.com/eqvinox

https://chaos.social/@equinox

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eqvinox··on So my ISP was hijacking my DNS
sigh

The end result of this will be ISPs dropping all traffic to port 853.

eqvinox··on So my ISP was hijacking my DNS
There's a patch for openssh to use the ldns library and do its own DNSsec validation. A few distros apply it to their packages, though I'm not sure what the current status is. It never got accepted into openssh sadly.
eqvinox··on MS Paint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Reading tea leaves is still reading tea leaves, even if you make an AI do it… (which is what this is, judging by other things I've seen on opencve.io)
eqvinox··on sshole
Yup, that's the way to explain it in order to blame musl.

Here's how to explain it in order to blame openssh:

openssh processes passwords and doesn't want to reveal through timing whether a user has a valid password (or exists at all). So far so good.

What they do if they hit a user with no valid password (i.e. "*") is that they look for another user with a valid password, to use the seed from. A bit weird already, but OK from a perspective of avoiding implementation specifics on seeds and hash algorithms. They know at this point that the result must be to deny access even if the hashed value matches, because that hash is for another user.

So they put the password received over ssh into crypt() with this other user's hashed value to get a seed. And then accept it if it matches, apparently?

Homework: what happens if the password actually matches another user? Can I log in as root if openssh randomly picks my user for the fake salt, and I type my own password correctly?

eqvinox··on So my ISP was hijacking my DNS
No. That's not within the design function of the roots.

It's very much part of the design that roots and caches are separated. The security properties necessary between root and cache (authenticity) are fulfilled by DNSsec, not DoT/DoH (primarily privacy). And most TLDs are DNSsec signed, so this part is in fact OK. (Both give some level of tamper protection, in a different manner though.)

You're probably saying this because you run a local cache directly against the roots. If you need DoT/DoH, you shouldn't be doing that and rather forward your queries to a cache somewhere else.

(To make sure there's no misunderstanding here: DoT and DoH do absolutely nothing to guarantee the data you're getting is what the roots/TLD/owner published. It only ensures you're talking to the cache you think you're talking to. The cache can serve to you whatever it wants.)

eqvinox··on So my ISP was hijacking my DNS
ISPs talk to each other, and people move jobs between them. It's not a uniform community but you certainly get a sense of the general spread of opinions after a while.

There are of course outliers but most people I know in the field care as much about personal rights & freedom as anyone else. Maybe even a small bit more.

eqvinox··on So my ISP was hijacking my DNS
I speak for another RIPE NCC member when I say that that ideology is limited to a very small minority.

Even outside ideology, plain business sense makes ISPs not want to deal with censorship & co. It's work to do that, hence costs money. But there are also ISPs resisting out of ideology and civic duty.

eqvinox··on So my ISP was hijacking my DNS
> DNSSEC failures need to be louder.

Full ACK. As a part of this, DNSsec validation needs to be as close to the client app as possible and reasonable; definitely never off-host. (Caches can do additional validation, but that makes the error reporting complicated.)

corollary: the AD bit should never be relied on on anything actually on the network. Maybe on localhost, but even there it's questionable in UX results.

eqvinox··on So my ISP was hijacking my DNS
Note the linked post is from 2015. But also:

> domain-validated certificates remain insecure

...99% of the internet runs on DV certificates; that's what ACME & Let's Encrypt are at the end of the day.

(You might also note I didn't actually speak in favor of DNSsec, I'm just arguing that running unbound locally without having DNSsec validation enabled isn't particularly useful. I am, generally, in favor of rolling out DNSsec, but it certainly has its problems. It doesn't help against ISP tampering on unsecured domains, for example. DoT and DoH are better against that, if [and only if] you have a trustworthy cache to point them at.)

eqvinox··on So my ISP was hijacking my DNS
The point of running a local unbound is indeed to turn on DNSsec validation. After that, it's the domains' fault for not using DNSsec. But at least your own stuff won't be tampered with, because you use DNSsec on your own domains, right? Right?

:-(

Coincidentally, a bunch of free wifi stuff blocks the root key queries unbound does at startup, resulting in nothing working until you get those records in there somehow (e.g. load_cache).

eqvinox··on The SEC Should Block Anthropic's IPO to Protect the Public
> Public-stock buyer or IPO buyer? The latter tend to be sophisticated.

I absolutely agree. But it's entirely irrelevant, because there's no "must be this (hand gesture) sophisticated to buy IPO stock" rule.

eqvinox··on The SEC Should Block Anthropic's IPO to Protect the Public
They can have as many pages of explanation on it as they want, it doesn't address the fact that they need to be factored into headline numbers. It's the distinction between technical correctness and communicative correctness. It's like surprising and unusual clauses in contracts - those are invalid too if you aren't sufficiently upfront about it.

It's an IPO, the P is public. The information needs to be consumable by the public. The level of knowledge that can be expected of a random IPO stock buyer isn't the same as that of a VC or private fund.

And that's exactly where the SEC comes in. The 1930s went wrong enough, no point in doing a 2030s repeat.

eqvinox··on The SEC Should Block Anthropic's IPO to Protect the Public
I would certainly consider their "non-cancelable spending commitments" misconduct in their financial reporting obligations. The law doesn't seem to be on my side on that though. I don't have enough hubris to claim the law is wrong, but I don't think I'll retract my position either.
eqvinox··on Anthropic's growth just flattened
Right, but a comparison is always one more implicit derivative. If you look at revenue itself, it's growing or shrinking, that's first derivative. So there's one more derivative here than usual?

I guess the interesting thing would be to look at actual company assets/value rather than revenue; revenue already in itself is a derivative. I.e., contrast their revenue against expenses. Last I heard those numbers are deep red, aren't they?

eqvinox··on Can’t fish Ethernet? Use “invisible” fiber instead
> The SFP+s use the same SC connector used in PON networks, but otherwise use Active Ethernet. I’m not sure if they’re using IEEE standards or are proprietary on the glass, but I’ll assume the latter.

It's actually standards compliant (unless they screwed something up). IEEE 802.3 clause 158: 10GBase-BRx, where x = 20 in this case, at least the ones on the Amazon link say 20km. The 1G/2G support is "bonus" beyond the spec.

You can get them with LC connectors too, which I'd in fact recommend because those are smaller, a bit more precise, and waaaaaay more common these days. https://www.fs.com/eu-en/products/36351.html (note you need a pair of "23" and "32")

eqvinox··on Anthropic's growth just flattened
Growth being the first derivative… so… not particularly desperate?
eqvinox··on With 86% of the words, you might understand only 38% of an anime's lines
A lot of things can be done wrong enough to make them outright silly… doesn't really mean anything about the thing itself.
eqvinox··on With 86% of the words, you might understand only 38% of an anime's lines
In fansub times we used to supply that cultural context as onscreen notes when it was important enough. (In most cases you'd have needed to pause to read them.) Seems to have fallen out of fashion though.
eqvinox··on With 86% of the words, you might understand only 38% of an anime's lines
Err… it's not particularly good methodology to just consider words for Japanese. While it's true that a lot of kanji share pronunciations (and you thus can't identify them from hearing them on their own) you can still get at some compounds from context and "knowing 2 halves". (Kanji are quite frequently used in groups of 2 to form words, and a lot have only one reading when used in this manner. Personally speaking, I really need some context to get anywhere though.)
eqvinox··on Jepsen: ParticleDB 1.1.4
> Strings sometimes turned into eight-bit integers (#37)

FINALLY we know what happened with eMudhra's keys!

(Sorry. Really couldn't resist.)

eqvinox··on Jepsen: ParticleDB 1.1.4
> vendor who feels it their duty to provide color commentary

Honestly? At some point there's a fiduciary-like obligation for it. What ParticleDB delivered is so far past good or bad, it's just straight ugly and then some. It's so poor that, if Jepsen couched it in any way, they'd be implicitly misleading their readers.

eqvinox··on Jepsen: ParticleDB 1.1.4
They probably asked an AI to run the tests against their DB. And the AI said "yeah I ran it, all green!" (except with a lot more words and perfect grammar, and maybe a few section headings and emoji.)
eqvinox··on Jepsen: ParticleDB 1.1.4
Even the PR description reads like it has been generated by an LLM.

What a waste of CO₂.

eqvinox··on Anthropic may not secure investment-grade rating after IPO, Blackstone says
Agree with the 2 siblings: the problem is HN readers at large unable to read it, hence no useful discussion.

I'd also add: from paid online news, I also expect a moderated forum/comment section, with a human to escalate to if automatic/AI moderation fails.

eqvinox··on The Curse of Soldered RAM
Right; I was thinking about upgrades, sorry.
eqvinox··on The Curse of Soldered RAM
Connectors are expensive, high-speed ones particularly. $30 is fine, though it makes a giant difference at what quantity that is. Did you look at a single one or 1k?
eqvinox··on The Curse of Soldered RAM
If you live in Shenzhen, it's a subway trip away. Good repair services elsewhere can do it too. Either way any warranty you have is probably getting called into question after that, even if that's supposed to be illegal in some places (e.g. the US - they're supposed to prove that your modification/repair is what caused the warranty fault, but in practice…).
eqvinox··on Why is AI generated language so hard to understand?
It's an interactive prompt. The model could ask, "how much cooking experience do you have?", provide a short answer using context from that, and then go "do you want more detail?"

I don't think I have ever seen an LLM try to determine what a human's frame of inquiry or related experience / skill level is, though. Might be my new favorite LLM shortcoming.

eqvinox··on No signs of AI payoff outside the tech sector
If it's [or remains] allowed in. The judicial branch is well able to just outlaw it on grounds of safety, trust and reliability. Same for financial auditing, public notaries, ombudspeople, and the likes (i.e. some degree of responsibility to the public, or dual responsibility to the public and a customer/client.)
eqvinox··on New AI Is More Than Twice as Good at Diagnosing Diseases as Doctors
> I am talking about hands off diagnosis and treatments.

There's no such thing. How a medical professional interacts with a patient is a major part of the profession. Some people are shy, some anxious, dismissive, neurotic, ashamed, obstinate, miseducated, … etc.

You need a ton of interpersonal skills in this, particularly at diagnosis time. I might even go as far as saying it matters more than medical book knowledge. If the patient is too shy to tell you about, say, black stuff in their stool, you may never get to apply that knowledge about colon cancer.

Coincidentally, a family member of mine died of basically that. When somebody asks, we half-jokingly say he died of stubbornness. It's actually the truth, kinda.

Doctors doing diagnosis are detectives putting together clues. Ideally, they have the patient's full cooperation and zero misunderstandings. Worst case, they're being unintentionally sabotaged, bridging world views, and hampered by their own prejudices.

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