Hacker News Reader

jgaaon An agent used DNS to reach an external chatbot

The only safe solution imho is to run any such tests offline.

Since these companies already have scraped the public internet, they can have a "secure" network behind proxies, and then whatever parts of a cached internet they desire on the other side of the proxies.

Then they can do the targeted tests on the "secure" net, and they can detect if the agents goes rouge.

jgaaon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (November 2025)

  Location: EU / Bulgaria
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: C++ and other programming languages, Qt, Docker, Kubernetes, CI pipelines, automation, core Internet protocols, distributed systems, databases, cloud.
  Résumé/CV: http://lastviking.eu/cv/jarle
  Email: contact@lastviking.eu

I am an experienced freelancer with 38 years in IT. Hands-on experience has gifted me a deep understanding of business processes, IT security, software design and development, and DevOps. I literally wrote the textbook on hardware https://lastviking.eu/maskinvare_og_operativsystemer.html used in Norway to educate IT technicians and other IT professionals.

I work full-time at my own company in the EU. This makes it straightforward to invoice your company, anywhere in the world, for services I provide.

I have state-of-the-art hardware to take on any work with Linux, Android, Windows 11, macOS and iOS and local LLM agents - and experience with all of it - including cross-platform projects. In addition, I have a flexible lab that can simulate cloud workloads.

My primary programming language is C++20. I also use other languages frequently.

Links:

- Freelance website: https://cpp-freelancer.com/

- Professional website and blog: https://lastviking.eu/

- GitHub: https://github.com/jgaa

jgaaon Australians to face age checks from search engines

It's what happens when the people governing is terrified about the people they govern.

jgaaon Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (July 2025)

SEEKING WORK | Remote / Worldwide | Experienced C++ Freelancer Available

Location: EU

Looking for a principal-level C++ developer?

  - Library Design – Design and implement modern C++ libraries and tools
  - Architecture Review – Conduct architecture and design reviews
  - Security Audit – Perform security and vulnerability assessments
  - Performance Optimization – Tune performance and optimize hotspots
  - CI/CD Engineering – Build CI/CD pipelines and cross-platform workflows
  - Team Augmentation – Seamlessly integrate with your existing development team

More info: https://cpp-freelancer.com/

jgaaon LetsEncrypt – Expiration Notification Service Has Ended

When I received the first warning email about this, I wrote a simple library and cli to validate all my certs for me.

https://github.com/jgaa/openvalify

jgaaon Satya Nadella says as much as 30% of Microsoft code is written by software

That explains a lot.

jgaaon Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

This is never about protecting the children.

This is always about government overreach.

People are less likely to criticize the government, or even participate in political debate, if their online identities are know by the government. Governments like obedient, scared citizens.

The only ethical response to laws like this, is for websites and apps to terminate operations completely in countries that create them. Citizens who elect politicians without respect for human rights and privacy don't really deserve anything nice anyway.

jgaaon X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

So much for Elons "Free Speech"!

This may come as a shock to him: Free Speech means to allow people to say something that he disagree with. Something that may hurt his interests or even his ego. Free speech is not to allow people to say things he agree with or don't care about.

jgaaon All federal agencies ordered to terminate remote work–ideally within 30 days

With all the BS the new administration is coming up with, I guess the federal government lose anyone competent that is not a very loyal Trump supporter.

jgaaon Trae: AI Code Editor from ByteDance

I use a dedicated PC with Ubuntu for the kind of AI assisted development where the AI's has access to the disk.

The only secrets it has are the API key to the AI, a temporary ssh key that can be used with git to access the github repository, and whatever the Brave browser stores for ChatGPT's website. Nothing else. No production keys, no CI keys no code signing keys.

Kind of the same restrictions I use on anything running Microsoft Windows.

jgaaon State of S3 – Your Laptop is no Laptop anymore – a personal Rant

I only use mine occasionally, so I turn it off an put in a drawer. When I power it on a few months later the battery is flat, and the machines date in far in the past.

This have never happened with any other laptop I've had.

jgaaon AnandTech Farewell

It's truly sad to see one of few traditional web sites of extraordinary quality go.

jgaaon All I Know About Certificates – Certificate Authority

My "issue" with X509 is that it's hard to create certificates in code. I have not seen a single software package I use do it from scratch. They always use a library.

The X509 library functions in openssl is horrific, with plenty of opportunities to mess up.

It's a paradox that something that is designed to improve security is designed in a way that make it extremely hard to implement it in a clean and secure manner.

jgaaon They studied dishonesty – Was their work a lie?

The nice thing with science is that if you cherry-pick your scientists, you will always find some who "prove you right" ;)

jgaaon UK Parliament undermined the privacy, security, freedom of all internet users

It has no tits.

Things without tits gets little coverage in the UK mainstream media ;)

jgaaon PreTeXt: Write Once Read Anywhere Authoring and Publishing System

Sorry dude. I'm not writing my next book in XML.

jgaaon Try the last internet Kermit server

Kermit was how I managed to get online for the first time.

I bought a new 8086 PC clone back in the days. Then I ordered a add-on card with a serial port and an external 300 baud modem from a store in UK (I lived in Norway, and I could not find anyone who sold this bleeding edge technology there).

Then I wrote a simple communication program, implementing parts of the Kermit protocol - probably in Turbo Pascal. This was before I got my hands on a C compiler ;)

Eventually my code started to work, and I was able to connect to a BBS and download the real Kermit application.

The BBS communities, and later Usenet, was great. We were lucky to grow up in a era where the online communities were nice and mostly welcoming places.

jgaaon Disables WebEnvironmentIntegrity feature and origin trials

I will not surrender in this fight.

If my bank prevents me from logging in with a reasonable browser (as opposed to a privacy nightmare designed to facilitate advertisers) - I will do my bank business in person, the bank.

jgaaon Disables WebEnvironmentIntegrity feature and origin trials

One reason may be that they alienate users by copying the look, bad habits and feel of Chrome. They also engage in dark pattern UI behavior that pisses me off each time I get it in my face.

Dear Firefox: If I wanted Chrome, I would use Chrome. Please be an alternative to Chrome.

jgaaon Free prison phone calls boost family ties, rehabilitation

Prisons are not there to rehabilitate people. Prisons are there to make profit for it's share holders.

jgaaon Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

Just say no.

Ignore Google and educate your friends and family about the alternatives. Make it your mission to save the Internet.

jgaaon VirtualBox 7.0.10 download links have disappeared

I tried it when I re-installed my workstation with Kubuntu 23.04. It was a shit-show of invalid links and errors when I tried to get the extensions and runtime modules for the VM's. After about 45 minutes I purged it and installed libvirt and Virtual Machine Manager.

jgaaon KDE for Travelers

Yea. They are made to help you achieve something. They are not designed to "engage" you to maximize ad profits ;)

jgaaon Mycelite: SQLite extension to synchronize changes across SQLite instances

> "handwaving eventual consistency" approach for a lot of things.

Which, for some systems translates to: It will be in sync when all the entropy in the universe is gone.

jgaaon Microsoft has no shame: Bing spit on my ‘Chrome’ search with a fake AI answer

> Microsoft has no shame

They never did.

jgaaon You can serve static data over HTTP

> You can serve static data over HTTP

Yes. Just like you can put letters together and form words. It's kind of what it was designed to do.

jgaaon Companies to pay $615k in investigation over faked net neutrality comments

This is fraud.

If I impersonated you to commit fraud, I would face jail-time. How is it that CEO's almost never face jail-time when they do crime?

jgaaon Is Gmail killing independent email?

I believe this about Google wanting to see all emails. When I use my own email server (and I do), Google don't get to peek at my email when I communicate with people that are not on gmail. They don't get to see what's in the mail, and they don't get the meta-data like who I'm communication with.

This will stop only if/when EU gives Google an appropriate fine of a few billion $$$.

jgaaon The Windows 11 Trash Party

Stop complaining! This is exactly what you want!

If you really don't like Windows, you would already be using Linux, *BSD or MacOS - like me ;)

jgaaon After 30 years, a father is exonerated in 'Satanic panic' case

So you know yourself 100% then?