HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

kkirsche

576 karma · joined November 3, 2014

Hey!

My name is Kevin, and I am a cybersecurity developer and penetration tester for an ISP, developing tools such as DDoS Mitigation solutions, security evaluation tooling, vulnerability management tools, and much more. I enjoy building complex projects comprised of front end, back end, and various integrations, as it pushes me to stretch my design, programming, and architecture skills.

The thoughts and opinions I express on Hacker News are my own, and I look forward to having great discussions with the community.

submissionscomments
kkirsche··on Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)
Great resource for anyone interested in this. It’s really enlightening: https://pomb.us/build-your-own-react/
kkirsche··on Tests aren’t enough: Case study after adding type hints to urllib3
It’s the most demoralizing aspect as even just typing the standard library online documentation and examples (such as Emil autoname example) would be extremely valuable.
kkirsche··on Git Command Explorer
Git everyday’s web version: https://git-scm.com/docs/giteveryday

Git tutorial’s web version: https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial

kkirsche··on Tricks I wish I knew when I learned TypeScript
“Type aliases and interfaces are very similar, and in many cases you can choose between them freely. Almost all features of an interface are available in type, the key distinction is that a type cannot be re-opened to add new properties vs an interface which is always extendable.” …

“For the most part, you can choose based on personal preference, and TypeScript will tell you if it needs something to be the other kind of declaration. If you would like a heuristic, use interface until you need to use features from type.” https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/2/everyday-type...

kkirsche··on SSH Tunneling Explained
I’d highly recommend using the ProxyJump directive in your ssh configuration file to avoid the need to track which host goes where manually.
kkirsche··on GitHub Advisory Database now powers NPM audit
Your company may care about it. Endpoints are as common a vector for attacks as the server is. As a penetration tester, I’ve used DoS vectors before to make a developer think they needed their password to kill an app, and stole their credentials to then breach their other assets. If you think the server is all that matters, you are a good target in my eyes.
kkirsche··on GitHub Advisory Database now powers NPM audit
It’s not actively harmful. No one is forcing you to do anything. If your team sets the standard as no security issues that’s a team workflow issue not this. Information is information. What you do with it is your choice.
kkirsche··on Show HN: Safari Web Extension that redirects AMP
Good for you but looks like a rip off of AMPlosion.
kkirsche··on Git-cliff – Generate changelog files from the Git history
I was with you till the last line. Npm and Poetry are fulfilling the same role of external dependencies, what am I missing here?
kkirsche··on Rust programs written entirely in Rust
I don’t know it’s current status but either PyOxidizer or Nuitka are the two Python compilers I’d look to for that. It is full of trade offs, but to an extent that’s many dynamic languages like Python (said as a Python developer)

https://nuitka.net

https://github.com/indygreg/PyOxidizer

kkirsche··on Git-cliff – Generate changelog files from the Git history
I use build type with scope of the package manager. For example:

build(poetry): update alembic dependency to 1.7.0

kkirsche··on I Helped Destroy People: disillusioned FBI agent leaked documents
Worked for me. Maybe view limits or something
kkirsche··on iPhone 13 to support LEO satellite communication
I think this is more likely incorrectly understood leaks. Similar to what occurred with the Nintendo Switch OLED. My guess is the chips and whatnot the iPhone will use will support this but Apple won’t enable it in the software.

I believe this is equivalent to fm radio capabilities in some of the iPhone chips

kkirsche··on Making reverse engineering tools for DEF CON Quals
That’s actually common in exploit hunting between releases of operating systems as a way of locating the changes routines from a patch Tuesday. Sadly most people I know use VMs and resource intensive snapshots to handle it
kkirsche··on I use Attrs instead of Pydantic
You can tell pydantic not to mutate the field value in its definition when using Field
kkirsche··on Ask HN: Do You Use a Debugger?
Depends. I use debuggers like pdb when I can’t quickly figure something out as it lets me interact with the running state. I’m less likely though in languages like Golang where I haven’t had as easy of a time using one, and have ended up avoiding them often in UI work as I more often end up in frameworks than code I care about
kkirsche··on Nftables 1.0.0 Released
That hasn’t been my experience with large enterprises, but my experience is simply anecdotal so you may be right.
kkirsche··on Nftables 1.0.0 Released
This is huge. The hash based approach makes speed improvements over complex iptables usage very impressive, in its most common implementations
kkirsche··on Git password authentication is shutting down
It may be meant for software developers but has legitimate value in other domains. For example, DigitalOcean has their legal team use it as a way of providing diffs on their terms of service and other policies. This type of use case is where it benefits everyone, in my opinion, to reduce the friction to get started.

https://github.com/digitalocean/tos

There are plenty of text file versioning use cases I think, from configuration files for system administrators to LaTeX papers for science students who could benefit and should have an easy path to using it.

kkirsche··on Implement window.{alert, prompt, confirm} removal from cross-origin iframes
Penetration testing proof of concept XSS code. We commonly use alert to demo that it is executing code. Certainly there are other options, it’s just a common tool for many testers.
kkirsche··on BirdNet – Identify Birds by Sound
Is this a replacement or an augment for the Merlin ID project from Cornell?

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/merlin-bird-id-by-cornell-lab/...

kkirsche··on US companies hit by 'colossal' cyber-attack
I’m not in favor of this. For this to be reasonable, coming from someone who writes exploits for work and fun, you need to define all. Otherwise you’ll be unreasonably putting people in already overcrowded and underfunded jails. Instead of jail, consider a more reasonable and realistic punishment.
kkirsche··on Copilot regurgitating Quake code, including sweary comments
The Decimal class is one way if you roll your own. py-moneyed seems to be a well maintained library though I haven’t used it.

Disclaimer: I only work with currency in hobby projects.

kkirsche··on Avoiding Complexity with Systemd
As someone who wants to learn systemd, even just to understand what I’m stuck with and why it was made, this is the best introduction I’ve found. Does anyone have other resources to help beginners learn how to use systemd efficiently and it’s relationship to Docker?
kkirsche··on Ask HN: Senior engineers, advice for 1 year, 5 year and 10 years of experience
I would add context is key to some forms of code. Yea some things may be sloppy, but they also may have been added at 3 am during an incident. While hopefully these gets cleaned up, sometimes they get forgotten or de-prioritized. Even the best devs can write bad code, so always remember what could of been. It helps, I’ve found, in having empathy for other people’s code
kkirsche··on Apple Is This Close to Turning the iPad into an App-Development Tool
My understanding is it’s not an OS level feature but new features in the not yet released swift playgrounds update.
kkirsche··on Morgan Stanley CEO to NYC workers: Be back in the office by September or else
While I feel strongly about the opinion, I think this is a good thing. As a worker, I’d much prefer a clear message like this so that I know what is expected so I can act and choose whether this fits with me than a let’s try this and see how it works approach, that muddies the waters and leads to fear and confusion.
kkirsche··on Building a WebAuthn Click Farm
I’ve seen it a fair amount in cyber security, especially if you are attacking or leveraging things that the company sells or promotes. Does it work? Anecdotally yes, but that’s not something I would bank on when releasing content that I feel needs a disclaimer.

Realistically, if someone wants to release something questionable, it’s preferable to work with the company prior to releasing it to find the verbiage they want used (similar to how many google GitHub repositories state they aren’t official Google products) and to understand if you will end up in hot water.

kkirsche··on Show HN: macOS HNReader Application
What do you mean by past? Your past interactions, eg lack of ability to engage other users related to things you’ve commented on? “Past” posts? Something else?
kkirsche··on “Great resignation” wave coming for companies
You may be right but this seems extremely presumptuous—how do you know the people will go back vs taking a gap year or other extended hiatus or field change?
← PreviousPage 4 of 10Next →