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Bypassing disk encryption on systems with automatic TPM2 unlock

Published: 2025-01-17 | Origin: Hacker News

The article discusses the vulnerabilities associated with automatic disk unlocking using TPM2 and systemd-cryptenroll or clevis. It highlights the ease with which an attacker can decrypt a disk if they gain physical access to a machine, particularly due to weaknesses in verifying the LUKS identity of the decrypted partition. Many setups allow an attacker to exploit filesystem confusion by inspecting the initrd files in an unencrypted boot partition to learn how the system decrypts the disk. By recreating a LUKS partition

Is the world becoming uninsurable?

Published: 2025-01-17 | Origin: Hacker News

The author raises concerns about the increasing uninsurability of risks, particularly in relation to climate change impacts like hurricanes and wildfires, drawing from personal experience as a homeowner who can no longer secure hurricane insurance. There's a notable rise in global risks, and media headlines underscore this trend, suggesting an emerging era characterized by extreme weather and related catastrophes. The insurance industry's response to soaring losses—through premium increases, coverage reductions, and exiting certain markets—highlights the reality behind these risks, which are

Some things to expect in 2025

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: Hacker News

LWN.net is a subscriber-supported publication, encouraging readers to buy subscriptions to sustain its operations. The article discusses several notable developments in the Linux kernel ecosystem anticipated for 2024 and beyond: 1. **Extensible Scheduling Class (sched-ext)**: This feature allows the loading of CPU schedulers from user space using BPF programs, fostering innovation in scheduling ideas. By 2025, it is expected to be more widely available in distributions, leading to specialty schedulers for specific applications like gaming and

Learn Yjs Interactively

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: Hacker News

Learn Yjs is an interactive tutorial series designed to help users build realtime collaborative applications using the Yjs CRDT library. The tutorial begins with the fundamentals of Yjs and explores techniques for managing state in distributed applications, including an explanation of CRDTs and their advantages. It addresses common challenges in collaborative app development and presents solutions to avoid them. The series includes explorable demos and code exercises, allowing users to see Yjs in action. The current page features a collaborative example where multiple users interact

Solving the first 100 Project Euler problems using 100 languages

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses a personal project where the author aimed to solve the first 100 Project Euler problems using 100 different programming languages. The journey began in March 2024 and concluded in January 2025, with the author taking several breaks along the way. They reflect positively on the experience, considering learning new programming languages to be a valuable use of time. Additionally, they emphasize the importance of feedback and provide a link to their documentation for more information on available qualifiers.

Starship Flight 7

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: Hacker News

The Dragon spacecraft, during its flight to the International Space Station (ISS), conducts a series of burns to progressively position itself closer to the station. After executing final docking maneuvers, it pressurizes the vestibule and opens the hatch for crew ingress. Initially, the Falcon 9 rocket launches the Dragon into orbit, where the two stages separate. The second stage accelerates Dragon to orbital velocity, after which Dragon performs system checks and initiates maneuvers to align with the ISS. It

Any reason for this behavior of the new `it` keyword in Ruby 3.4 ?

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: /r/ruby

The provided content appears to be a binary data representation of a PNG (Portable Network Graphics) image file. It begins with a header indicating the PNG format (IHDR), followed by various chunks that contain essential information about the image, such as its dimensions, color depth, and data compression. Unfortunately, since this is binary data, it is not directly interpretable into a human-readable summary without specific decoding or rendering of the image itself. If you have a particular aspect or question regarding the PNG file,

Computer Science Papers Every Developer Should Read

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: /r/programming

The article emphasizes the significance of reading computer science research papers for modern software engineering, highlighting their role in shaping technologies used today, from algorithms to databases. It argues that engaging with these papers can deepen understanding of software development concepts, promote critical thinking, and offer insights into future advancements. The author plans to outline essential research papers across various categories, including system design, distributed systems, data storage, modern infrastructure, and computer architecture. Despite the benefits, the article notes that many developers do not engage with academic

Bunkers in Albania

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: Hacker News

Albania is home to a vast number of concrete military bunkers, averaging 5.7 per square kilometer, built under Enver Hoxha's regime from the 1960s to the 1980s as part of his "bunkerization" strategy. Over 750,000 bunkers were constructed across the country, but they were never used for their intended military purpose and became a financial burden, diverting resources from addressing housing and infrastructure needs. After the fall of the

JTAG 'Hacking' the Original Xbox in 2023

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: Hacker News

The original Xbox, released by Microsoft in November 2001, was its first entry into the gaming console market. Built with Intel's Pentium III CPU and NVIDIA GPU, the console resembled a basic PC of that era and became an attractive target for technical enthusiasts interested in running unauthorized software and alternative operating systems. Over its lifetime, the Xbox was successfully hacked through various hardware and software methods. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Xbox still serves as a valuable platform for exploring computer security and

The IProgrammer Perl 2024 Review

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: /r/programming

In 2024, significant developments occurred in the Perl community, highlighted by the release of Perl v5.40.0 on June 9, showcasing Perl's resilience and ongoing evolution. This version included new features and improvements, reflecting the efforts of the Perl 5 maintainers team. The Perl and Raku Conference 2024 took place from June 24-28 in Las Vegas, featuring sessions, including one on "PerlGPT," a large language model trained to assist Perl programmers by

JavaCC Project History

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the history and development of the CongoCC Parser Generator, particularly focusing on JavaCC, its predecessor. The author, Revusky, expresses a commitment to honesty while recounting his perspective on the project's history, acknowledging possible inaccuracies that he is open to correcting. The narrative highlights the challenges in tracing the development timeline of JavaCC, particularly before it was open-sourced in mid-2003, when it was managed by various companies and lacked clear documentation. Revusky also mentions communications

No Calls

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: Hacker News

Zeke Gabrielse, the founder of Keygen, initially aimed to build a company free from sales calls, due to his dislike for them as an introvert. He implemented a strict 'no calls' policy but faced challenges as he sought to attract larger customers who typically require less support and help enhance the company’s credibility. Despite efforts to engage in sales calls, such as adding a 'book a call' feature on the pricing page, he found the experience frustrating and unproductive. Gabrielse

Nepenthes is a tarpit to catch AI web crawlers

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: Hacker News

The content describes a software tarpit designed to trap web crawlers, specifically those scraping data for large language models (LLMs). It creates an endless sequence of pages with numerous links that loop back to the tarpit, simulating static files. The tarpit adds intentional delays to avoid server overload while wasting the crawlers' time. An optional feature, Markov-babble, provides nonsensical content for crawlers to scrape, potentially hindering LLM effectiveness. The software is intentionally harmful,

Writing Software Documentation Is Harder Than Coding

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: /r/programming

The article discusses the importance of writing effective documentation, particularly for software tools. It highlights the challenge of accurately conveying information to users, especially when authors forget what it feels like to be a beginner. Key points include: 1. **Value of Good Documentation**: Clear documentation is crucial for team alignment and user comprehension, saving time and reducing confusion. Poor documentation can lead to increased support requests and inefficiency. 2. **Common Pitfalls**: - **Lack of Learning Path**: Documentation

How long does the heuristic cache of the browser actually cache?

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: /r/programming

Heuristic caching is the default behavior in browser caching when no Cache-Control header is specified. Instead of ignoring caching, it allows responses to be cached based on certain conditions. When a response isn't updated for an extended period—that is, up to a year—the client can store it for reuse. The recommended caching duration is roughly 10% of the time since it was last updated; for instance, if a resource has not changed for 10 days, it can be cached for 1 day. This

[Gem] ActiveResource is dead, so made a better one. ActiveCachedResource

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: /r/ruby

The content emphasizes the importance of user feedback and encourages users to refer to the documentation for available qualifiers. It introduces a gem called ActiveCachedResource, which offers a RESTful API with Rails model convention and a caching layer, building on ActiveResource. To install, users should add it to their Gemfile or install it directly if not using Bundler. The setup instructions include running bin/setup to install dependencies, using rake to execute the linter and tests, and accessing bin/console for an interactive prompt

Build a Database in 3000 Lines with 0 Dependencies

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: /r/programming

James Smith discusses the complexities of software such as databases, compilers, and browsers, highlighting that while these systems can be seen as black boxes by users, they are fundamentally just code. He emphasizes that understanding these systems is attainable through simplified learning projects. He cites examples like "C in 4 Functions" and "Crafting Interpreters" that help demystify complex software. Smith shares his experience of building a small database in 3,000 lines of Go to grasp essential database concepts.

I ditched the algorithm for RSS

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: Hacker News

The author reflects on the excessive time spent scrolling through social media despite its negative impact on health. They occasionally find valuable content, making the scrolling feel worthwhile. However, they suggest a better alternative: RSS, a relatively underused technology that allows users to access high-quality content without the distractions and inefficiencies of platforms like Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter, which prioritize engagement over content quality. These social media sites often clutter feeds with low-value posts, prolonging the search for valuable information through a method known

The popular cyber security podcast that turned out to be entirely fake

Published: 2025-01-16 | Origin: /r/programming

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