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leevlad

147 karma · joined October 9, 2015

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leevlad··on Crypto.com accounts had unauthorized withdrawals
In this case you set the anti-phishing code in your account settings (arbitrary string). Then they include it in all email comms (in the top right of the email body). So if you get an email from what looks like "Crypto.com", but with a different anti-phishing code - then you can be certain that it's phishing.
leevlad··on Improving first impressions on Signal
Fair. And I think I know what you're referring to.

Yes, they do upload your contact list, but I believe there's a prompt at setup time that allows you to opt out? It might even be an OS-level prompt to the tune of "Signal would like to access your Contacts". Not 100% sure on that one as I haven't set up a brand new Signal installation in years.

It's done to help their user acquisition. It uploads your contacts to match against other contact lists and let you know who's on Signal. I recall seeing a blog post explaining how they are doing it in a fully encrypted way, possibly using Secure Enclave (? though I think the 2021 version of that would probably involve ZK proofs/homomorphic encryption of some kind, and I hope they put some time into that).

I don't recall ever having to set a PIN specifically for that. And besides, a 4-6 digit PIN would be a terribly insecure way to "encrypt" anything server-side :) But yes, that would be a shame if it were the case.

leevlad··on Improving first impressions on Signal
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe your comment is misguided.

The PIN is a security option that prevents a SIM-swapping attacker from registering a new device under your phone number unless they know the PIN. You can opt out of it (and it might be opt-in to begin with). You can also easily opt out of PIN reminders. Both of these options are in Settings -> Account.

As for server state - my understanding is that Signal attempts to be zero-knowledge overall, but they definitely store some state on the server. I believe it's encrypted using your private key that's not backed up to the server. Setting the PIN does not change that.

Server state comment aside, it seems your main complaint is about a pop-up PIN entry UI that can be opted out of? I get that it might seem annoying, but it feels like a fairly weak criticism of a messaging platform, certainly not one that should warrant an impression that Signal is "on the way out"?

leevlad··on Firefox Multi-Account Containers
A few more usecases that I've added to my workflow since discovering container tabs:

* Work/personal separation

* Multiple AWS accounts

Also, I am very impressed with how well they're integrated into Firefox. For example, opening a link in a new tab will preserve the container. CMD+Shift+T will restore a recently closed tab and remember its original container. I really like the color coding too.

leevlad··on Firefox Replay
Curious to hear what's missing. I do some light front-end work (css/react) and have been fully on Firefox for about a year. Haven't looked back.
leevlad··on 16-inch MacBook Pro
How do you like pasting a TAB into your text editor/terminal every time you want to switch windows?
leevlad··on 16-inch MacBook Pro
I have lost responsiveness in both my CMD key and the E key. Apple agreed to replace the front panel of my MBP for free, so at least there's that.
leevlad··on Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit
One can only dream. It was so far ahead of its time, and I still consider it superior to any smartwatch out on the market. I have mine from 5 years ago that still works great. We need more products like this.
leevlad··on Firefox 70
I do a moderate amount of ReactJS dev, and FF has been excellent. I barely noticed the transition from Chrome to FF when it came to my workflows.
leevlad··on NordVPN confirms it was hacked
I'd keep in mind that cloud providers have well-known IP blocks that can sometimes be rate-limited by various internet sites/services, primarily to combat botting. You might inadvertently get caught in the IP range that's being actively rate limited by e.g. Instagram. YMMV.
leevlad··on iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs
This kind of comment indicates how effective the marketing/media kool-aid has been. Having paid very close attention to how both systems work (and having used both iOS and Android extensively in recent months), I don't think I'd necessarily declare either of these platforms a clear privacy champion.
leevlad··on Firefox 69.0 Released
Pretty sure it's keyed on your email alone. Not sure where you saw anything about passwords.
leevlad··on MITM on HTTPS traffic in Kazakhstan
Wow, if only everyone was as smart as Kazakhstan and figured out that this super awersome Security Certificate was "an effective tool" to protect the entire country's information space. And I've been wasting time with strong passwords, 2FA, E2E encryption, full disk encryption, etc. /s
leevlad··on Is Firefox better than Chrome? It comes down to privacy
He's fairly active and popular on Twitter, and is opinionated about cryptography, blockchain, etc.

https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green

leevlad··on Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
The infotainment system in my 2017 CX-5 often freezes on cold startup. There is no way to dismiss the "Warning" screen (which takes up the whole screen), even by pressing the "Dismiss" button. Just have to wait for it to go away on its own. I've had the backup camera freeze fully, which seems like a safety hazard. A few times, the whole system failed to initialize too, which forced me to pull over at the next gas station, and "power cycle" it by fully turning my car off and starting it back up again.

Mazda punches far above its price in terms of driving dynamics and interior quality, but I think their infotainment system is plain garbage and they should be absolutely ashamed of such poor quality.

leevlad··on Switch from Chrome to Firefox
I'm using latest stable FF release as my main dev browser. Sourcemaps are supported just fine. For my usecases, I can hardly tell the difference between Chrome devtools and FF devtools. YMMV
leevlad··on AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
I've been wearing my AirPods at the gym since I bought them (~1.5 years) and haven't had a single issue. And I sweat a lot during my workouts.
leevlad··on An update about Redis developments in 2019
To be honest, the top level comment in this chain reads a bit like an attempt at a plug for FoundationDB than a legitimate criticism of Redis. You could s/Redis/<literally any other DB>/g
leevlad··on Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands
Would you care to expand on what pushed you to do that? Was it purely reliability, or were there other factors involved?
leevlad··on Open Source Messenger App for Android – Real-Time Messaging, Voice and Video
I'm not a heavy multimedia user, but Signal's Mac and iOS apps have been working wonderfully well for me and my friends.
leevlad··on If 5G Is So Important, Why Isn’t It Secure?
Wheeler's past history doesn't invalidate the article's lack of substance.
leevlad··on If 5G Is So Important, Why Isn’t It Secure?
I was hoping to see at least some hints as to why the security of 5G is flawed in its current state. The only argument I seem to parse out of this is what you stated.

Note that the author is Tom Wheeler - former chairman of the FCC. It does seem to be a 100% political piece rather than anything to do with the tech.

leevlad··on We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
I don't think that's feasible, to be honest.

I'd imagine that you would want to look for evidence of a double spend as that's the most likely goal of a 51% attack. But then the blockchain must have up-to-date knowledge of likely double spend targets (such as exchanges, OTC desks, etc), and be able to algorithmically and deterministically prove malicious intent with high certainty. Only then will you be able to maintain consensus and prevent unnecessary or accidental forks.

But since this is all open-source anyway, it would only be a matter of time before a slightly more sophisticated attacker read through the updated consensus algorithm and figured out how to game it. And so the cycle continues.

In truth, the only real strategy for mitigating attacks in PoW blockchains is hash power. It has proven to be very effective if you have enough of it (see BTC), and looking for other 51% resistance measures isn't really that productive unless you start from the ground up and rebuild the consensus mechanism on a different paradigm (e.g. PoS, which is still unproven afaik).

leevlad··on We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
I think it's just not worth the time. What do you do when you've successfully run a 51% attack? You go on an exchange and double spend the money, which means you have to maintain the 51% attack for longer than min # of confirmations for this currency on said exchange. And even after that, most exchanges (in NA at least, can't say much about intl) require KYC.
leevlad··on We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic
Because it's an eventually consistent system. If what you proposed was implemented, you could end up with a fork that would never get reconciled.
leevlad··on Firefox 64 Released
Anecdotally, it seems to be flying through pages it used to struggle on when I last tried it (~version 60). Tab switching seems faster too, but I haven't had enough time to put it through its paces yet. Fairly promising so far, though!
leevlad··on Firefox desktop market share now below 9%
Firefox has noticeable delays and scrolling performance issues on OSX. I have a top of the line macbook from last year, with i7, 16GB RAM, etc. But even on that it's sluggish and stuttery. I've tried all sorts of performance tweaks, beta/nightly builds - nothing really makes it as snappy as Chrome or Safari. So, unfortunately, I have to go back to those.
leevlad··on Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue
I don't know if that's really a problem. When a AAA title that I want to play comes out, I will buy it regardless of what launcher it comes through. I'll download the installer straight from their site if that's what they want to do.

I think having something like Steam is great primarily for discovery and ratings.

leevlad··on Show HN: Sublime Merge – A Git client from the makers of Sublime Text
After years of clicking cancel as a student, I was more than happy to shell out the full amount for a license after my first paycheck. Don't think I would've stuck around if the free versoin was gimped in any way.
leevlad··on Ask HN: Why are cheaper hosting services like OVH not very popular?
To add to many other valid points others have provided, OVH is a discount provider and they use second-hand / refurbished hardware at their data centers to keep costs low. I used to manage hundreds of servers on OVH and found that their hardware failed much more frequently than even us-east-1 on EC2. Most common issues were memory and disk related failures. A few times, their techs tripped over a power cord that took a few of our racks down, and they used to have frequent issues with network connectivity (I believe it's gotten better since).

On top of it, you will find that they cut costs on some of the less obvious things. For example, one day we found that their vRacks are not redundant, so a failure in one of them caused hours of downtime of our intranet.

As far as customer support - our account manager was always very helpful and understanding.

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