jinzo

I'm running some instances on Hetzner Cloud, the oldest is ~5 years old, only recently had 2hr or so downtime, other than that - without any problems. And we are talking the cheap ones.

I did have a problem with their dedicated server almost immediately after spinning it up. Noticed that NVMe is broken, and support went like:

- 16:28 -> I contacted them

- 16:36 -> Their first response

- 16:44 -> I sent them SMART data

- 16:48 -> They acknowledged that the NVMe needs replacing and asked me if I consent to that (and loosing of the data that was not already lost -> but running RAID so no problems there)

- 16:52 -> I agreed

- 17:30 -> NVMe was replaced and server booted

I don't have too much experience with hosting providers on that level, but that was freaking impressive response time from them. So a happy camper as well :D

EDIT: Formatting

one of my points is, that I do not trust that pricing. In my experience the pricing ranges on Alibaba were very wild and often used as an incentive for you to contact them. And after some back and forth you got a 'real' offer. Taobao (or aliexpress in the west) on the other hand, usually contained 'real' prices. Can't say for sure for that listing(s), but I would take everything on that links with a grain of salt.

I mean, he is either trolling a bit or has a very simplistic view of buying niche equipment from Alibaba. It's far from click and collect (eg. pricing, export/import/transport) and that's even before you get up and running. Either way, from my experience (with a lot more simpler stuff), the thread does not represent the reality of procuring stuff from Alibaba.

This is offtopic (as it has nothing to do with the linked blogpost) but it's even worse. At the tail end of 2019 I went to China for a few weeks, I created a WeChat account at home without any problems. As soon as I stepped into China it got locked and I needed someone with a WeChat account to verify me. They can only verify (I think?) 3 new accounts per year, and 6 accounts that got locked out for whatever reason. This is (from my perspective) even worse than requiring ID for SIM etc. It links people together and I'm sure it brings some repercussions to the people that verified you if you make trouble down the line.

It was very fascinating to see, a near total domination of WeChat everywhere and relatively very hard onboarding for new accounts. Contrary to the west where most of services seek to streamline onboarding as much as possible - I guess that becomes an anti feature when you have total monopoly and _everyone_ has a WeChat account. I think it's a very effective (and very dystopian) form of control. P.S: Signal worked without any problems for me, even on a Chinese SIM (one "trick" to go around most of the GFW was buying a HK SIM in HK. Works across china and has a lot less blocks, but for various reasons I got a China SIM too).

This is 'just' aggregating the APIs the car manufacturers already expose (for their own apps or 3rd party) - without any additional hardware/direct car integration. So I don't think it's directly comparable.

I tested out the Renault reverse engineered API and BMW Cardata -> each one of them has it's (major) downsides. Especially unfortune for BMW Cardata, which is an official product that had a lot of downtime and really irregular data updates (at least for older cars).

So hats off to the Telematica guys for trying to bridge all this together.

They invested US$100 million (and currently that's around US$50 million). The next bond payment (2023 note that they are trying to buy back now) is due in January and that alone is US$800 million. So, their investment should yield really high returns for it to even make a decent dent into the first bond.

From all the fanfare around them, I was sure they had to invest more. But after looking up the numbers, this looks like a publicity stunt more than any serious investment. Also 20% adoption when it's mandatory to support it, is quite interesting too.

Yeah, a (relatively) weird mesh of train and trucking technology - for sure will have it's uses, but I would guess for most of the long freight trains are then a better option?

Yes, on average every 8 hours, so battery capacity needs to be at least that (probably by a bit of a good margin). And then just the rest stops need to be retrofitted with 100s of charging points that charge this capacity in time (and all at the same time). Semis in Europe are used for long haul.

This will probably replace the last mile delivery for the foreseeable future, baring some drastic shift of cargo to rail.

I used Kaitai for parsing and reverse engineering a binary format that does have some documentation but it's mostly wrapped in a lot of legal mumbo jumbo. Total novice to parsing binary files, looked very intimidating, but with Kaitai IDE I was able to pick it up quickly and had some wonderful results. It has some limitations (already mentioned here), but still very powerful tool. There is a (relatively small) community active on the gitter.im Lobby that was very welcoming and helpful when I got stuck at a problem.

I can't recommend it enough, even (or especially)if you are a novice. It looks daunting, but I found it surprisingly nice.

I have a somewhat related experience with DCB/premium SMS-es. I run a relatively small-but-not-trivial amount of IoT devices that communicate over GSM/2G. For that end I'm using a local GSM carriers "IoT SIM" cards/packages. A year or so ago we started noticing DCB/premium SMS charges on our account and that was super weird, as we know what our devices are capable and what not. First month it was a device or two, so there was a possibility someone stole our SIMs and is using them in regular phones or what. But next month, a lot more SIMs had these charges. We compiled our case, sent it to our contact at the carrier and the fees/charges were quickly dropped/refunded. All is well, it happens - weird but ok.

But a month or so ago we were tracking down some other issues and requested detailed connection logs for 2 of our SIM cards. And what do we find there? DCB/premium SMS charges. It looks like they are just filtering them out from our invoice and not charging them to us, but some backend system somewhere is still processing those fees.

So it seems like this whole DCB thingy is way more unregulated as one would think. Now I'm really interested how the charges even started appearing on our SIMs, why they did not resolve them at the source and how many people get their money stolen that way and they don't notice a few EUR here and there (fees were around 1eur in our case).

Interesting stuff.

I checked the Hiber [1] IoT Solutions (mentioned in the article) that are mostly focused on Asset/Vehicle/Machinery tracking. Even tho their message focuses (among other things) on how cheap they are - I have to disagree. Maybe if they find someone that truly needs global connectivity where 2G/NB-IoT/LTE-M can get pricey, but then someone needing that probably has quite a big purchasing power. Also their claims of easy install and productivity/uptime gains (without a CAN module, as they don't offer it currently) are very much PR speak and don't work like that in reality (I run a tiny asset/vehicle tracking business). Really not seeing how they are even close to being competitive in this space - or able to provide value added solutions later on. There are niche tracking solutions which are a lot better fit than what they are currently offering/focusing on. Something like yacht tracking, you know, where satellite connectivity is actually needed. But what do I know, maybe I'm wrong.

Also looks like you have to sign a 5 year contract, very optimistic from them.

Generally thinking the IoT and satellite connectivity (at affordable, non Iridium level, pricing) have it's uses. But for general vehicle/machine tracking where you usually have power, need to extract data from the machine anyway (for real insights), a plain old (or even better new NB-IoT/LTE-M) cellular connectivity will (generally) be plenty.

[1] - https://hiber.global/

Cellebrite made a splash some time ago that their tools can extract Signal messages from the (unlocked?) devices. The claim was " Cellebrite can now break into Signal, an encrypted app considered safe from external snooping, it claimed." [1] And I guess that did not sit too well with Moxie :)

[1] - https://securityboulevard.com/2020/12/signal-app-crypto-crac...

Yeah, something similar happened to me @ Scaleway (so, the part before the rebrand/merger/whatever they did). Incredible price increase for my usecase. Even with the limited 25% discount, it grew out of hand. I'm in the process of migrating to Hetzner, but unfortunately some stuff is IP tied and it takes some time to fix everything.

Even before that, the constant changing of plans for Cloud was anoying. One of the reasons I chose Scaleway was because they promised easy upgrade/increase of resources as I needed it on the VPS. But then they discontinued the line I was using and I had to create a completely new one anyway. Then I had to move that one to the higher priced models again. A lot of fuss for something I would just like to keep running as long as possible with as little involvment.

I know this will probably get buried, but from what I read and understand you still need to notify your users that you are using essential cookies and provide a list of what cookies are essential, why they are essential and what's the TTL? You do not need consent or button click, but there has to be a notification?

From what I understand, the photos uploaded up to that time will not count toward the used space even after that. So only newly uploaded photos will start counting toward the usage.

Oh as I just remembered one thing that I forgot to add in the other reply - ofc I agree with most of your reasoning here. But I think that (regarding emissions) we need to find a better way to test/confirm this. As I believe you should be able to modify stuff you own.

But I just remembered regarding certification - BMW is selling official performance/tuning kits (Sometimes called M-Performance tuning kit), where you get a whole new ECU with more power (and maybe some other parts, but nothing major for sure). And now I really wonder how is the legality of that. And also adds another point, that there are valid and reasonably safe tuning options.

I can guarantee you that there are some notable counter examples to your theory. I can tell you that manufacturers (BMW, VW,...) found out that it's a lot cheaper to manufacture the same physical engine and just limit it in software for different 'levels'.

BMW E90 series for example, from around 2008 onwards the 116d and 118d have exactly the same engine (per BMW part numbers mind you) but a different power output, even 120d only has one part difference (the ones with N47 engine that is). On VW part, new-er VW Caddy and VW Transporter with diesel engine option(s) have the same physical engine (in the model year) with widely different power outputs -> because they differentiate it for different segments via software.

And even moving from that, because of regional rules in NL for example, the cars with up to 140HP are prelevant and ofcourse VAG is not making a new engine just for NL, they limit one of their exsisting ones.

So yes, I believe that cars like this can be safely tuned without _any_ significant unwanted consequences for the longeviety of the engine/car. Mostly because the maps/factors can be adapted from their siblings with more factory power.

Regarding the black smoke/soot - no I believe that this is a (very) bad tune or something physicaly wrong with the car. It could be that they removed the DPF/EGR for some reason or something like that. But this is a whole other can of worms.

I really wish to know where you live that the quality of chip-tunin is so bad.

In developed world (EU), the owners are accountable for their vehicles. Including emission controls. But the problem is on the enforcing side, from the people actually doing the enforcing to the (un)avability of appropriate measuring devices that are able to detect the prescribed levels.

EDIT: As I saw that you are from AT. You do know that your country has a reputition of 'hardcore' car modification checking at the inspection? :D But yeah, I noticed several problems with that and your system of 'we will just let every mechanic certify the cars'.

But it is firewalled (between OBD port and the car, between internal buses,...). I won't say it's sufficiently locked down, but as we recently saw - not even Apple got that completely right - but there are several layers of protection(s) on the various communication bus-es and computers. At least on European Manufacturers.

I agree that this needs more hardening, but reading this comments one would get an idea that a 12 years old kid with a 10EUR dongle can hack any car. When in reality, stuff is a lot harder to do.

It's not that easy and it's getting harder with each new car platform. But on the other end, some of the sensors are basic and will always be suspectable to false inputs. But don't worry, maybe it looks easy -> but it's not.

Only the really basic data (mostly related to emissions) and connector is standarised. Even the pinout of the connector (apart from the power supply and ground) differs quite a bit between manufacturers. The level of integration needed for actually driving the car is far from a standard. Not even that, most of the new cars have specific gateways which firewall the car electronics from the OBD port.

TL;DR: Apart from really basic data and physical connector, everything else is (ever more increasing) walled garden. With new VWs and Fiats requiring online connection for even most basic operations - so even if you know the protocol, you have to unlock it online (See VW SFD and Fiat SGW)

Yeah ofcourse I did - the only thing that makes the whole experiance bearable. Without it, I don't know how anyone would do dev stuff on a Mac. It has pleanty of good software, but not including FileZilla (because of bundled crapware). Cyberduck cask is just the official one bundled, so I guess still the nag-screen-preventing-shutdown.

Have you tried using cyberduck? The Official download (and I just did a quick search and did not find a fork) prevents shutdown with a donation nag. I also threw a quick look at the list, no FTP clients there.

Almost exactly a year ago I got a brand new Mac Book Pro 13" from my company (everyone else has it, so why not). It's unix, so better to use that than Windows (Linux was not really an option). For the price, performance and reliability are laughable. It was already in repair for the peeling keys issue - the warranty process was nothing to gloat about (no Apple Stores around here, just some official repair partners it seems). Not what I expected from an expensive piece of hardware, thank god I did not pay for it.

Regarding the general software experience, even after a year of constant use, I can say that for me personally, a half-decent Linux distro has a lot better usability. I still don't exactly get how Finder works (when does it show me the list view, when the broken folder view with a unnecessary scrollbar - as there is enough space to show all of the icons), the whole app ecosystem is a shock, where it's normal that basic tools (like FTP Client) cost 50EUR or come crippled (Like FileZilla). It's a horrible feeling coming from OSS world.

One UX example I like to show to people is, that on my Ubuntu based home laptop, after connecting Logitech mouse, I get it's battery indicator automatically integrated in the same place with my laptop (and other) batteries. Smooth, no-frills. Something that "the most user friendly system in the world" lacks. And I could go on and on and on... At first I was thinking that it's just the change and I will get used to OS X, but looks like this ain't happening.

I like the touchpad and screen, but I mostly use external screen and mouse anyway.

> PHP's raison d'être remains its ease of getting an instance running on a webserver. But with fewer people self-hosting these days, that has become less an advantage. And even for those who do self-host, the advantage is becoming narrower as other languages have made it easier to distribute their web applications.

And if you are doing something moderately complex/serious/modern you probably need/want composer anyway - because uploading all of the million files via FTP is cumberstone (let's not even get into the versioning/modern deployment practices). Then you are at shell already and not that far away from other language deployments.

I got back into web development in the last year or so. Previously I did mostly Python/Django and then 5 years of something unrelated to dev. Now I'm working in a fairly typical PHP/Wordpress mixed joint, and now I understand why PHP has the bad rep - because it allows/tolerates/even encourages bad practices (and beyond the usual "shoot yourself in the leg" we can see in other popular/common languages). And I guess that is one of the reasons why a lot of libraries/plugins/php code out there is simply bad. For example: Seeing heavy mixing of PHP code and HTML output in 2020 is a horrible sight for me (and it's waaay to common in what I saw).

Of course you can write good code in modern PHP, but you can write really bad stuff too - more (at least imho) than in other popular languages. And then the whole ecosystem "drags you down" and gives PHP a bad rep -> but I don't think it's totally undeserved.

On a similar note, this actually compelled me to try Rust/something similar instead of just going straight back to Python (which I still love tbh).

> the greatest concern to centralized systems like Signal is not ease of use, its censorship and de-platforming. In China, Signal servers are outright banned. No servers, no secure communications.

Funny thing, one of the only western apps that worked without a fuss in China (with Chinese mobile internet) was Signal. I did not test many others, but WhatsApp/Viber/... were blocked.

I am not 100% happy with Signal, but it is one of the best solutions currently available for my constraints. And even if I don't agree with some choices they make, I can at least understand why they made them. Hopefully they can continue improving and evolving.

The Linux kernel contributions link doesen't have a year, so I don't know if something changed. But the last time I checked this, they were "top" contributor for one quarter/some time because they basicly dumped all of their HyperV support into the kernel and after that they disappeared from the kernel contributors lists almost compleately. A quick google shows the latest Linux Kernel report by Linux Foundation from 2017[1] with the numbers, and they are not even there. It could be that some Microsoft employees are doing work on the kernel without attribution back to Microsoft, but generally speaking I think it's safe to say that the only contribution to the Linux Kernel from Microsoft was HyperV support quite some time ago.

Not saying that they didn't change their ways, but they are a long way from proving that this is not another EEE cycle. Not to even mention "breaking even" on the damage they did directly (and deliberately) to open source effort.

[1] - https://www.linuxfoundation.org/2017-linux-kernel-report-lan...

No, not programming keys per se. But re-sync RF part of the already coded key, so you can unlock it with a push of a button.

Also, I have quite a problem with dumping entire storage (EEPROM parts for example, that contain SKC/PIN). Also, my experiance is that getting that info from modern ECUs is not that straightforward/there aren't many (in some cases any) tools to get it.

But on the other hand, on modern cars that is not nearly enough to get the car started. As OP pointed out, Simos18 was quite conveniently hacked, but that's far from the only ecu family. And usually they aren't hacked as easly/quickly. For example, all that Simos18 "easy" hacking can be done once you have IGN ON, if you have IGN ON it's probably easier to just code a new set of keys, than it is to flash new FW on all related and needed computers.