Hacker News: JaRail

New comment by JaRail in "You can bypass YouTube ads by adding a dot after the domain"

JaRail — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 19:46:12 +0000

When that happens, I usually just do a manual update on my filters. More often than not, someone has already updated it.

New comment by JaRail in "Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019"

JaRail — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 19:41:03 +0000

Worth pointing out then that DDG has a number of shortcuts built-in. If you don't care about passing a query through them, it already works.

https://duckduckgo.com/bang

The most-used is probably !g, which sends your query to google. For wikipedia, it's !w.

New comment by JaRail in "Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019"

JaRail — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 19:35:59 +0000

Even programming questions. If it's something considered popular, you get awful results. Take javascript, I always append "mdn" when I'm trying to look up a language/api detail. Otherwise I'd be sifting through the top ten garbage Q&A or tutorial sites. In the glory days, Page Rank would return reference material first since it was so heavily referenced. But clearly that no longer works in the real world of SEO optimization.

New comment by JaRail in "German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux"

JaRail — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 18:51:03 +0000

Large governments have access to Windows source code.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/securityengineering/gsp

It's more about long-term strategy. China wants full control over their OS. They want features Microsoft would never add. They want support for their own hardware, etc.

New comment by JaRail in "FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality"

JaRail — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 00:58:35 +0000

Correct. The US only had net neutrality on the books for traditional ISPs. However, they were playing relatively nicely to avoid such regulation happening. The mobile arena was fought over data caps and exemptions rather than throttling.

New comment by JaRail in "FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality"

JaRail — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 00:53:04 +0000

Data exemptions are absolutely an example of a net neutrality violation. Similar things, like exempting partnered streaming music services from mobile data plans, have been shot down in Canada.

New comment by JaRail in "Twitter says an attacker used its API to match usernames to phone numbers"

JaRail — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 06:17:27 +0000

The fix was to block the botnets that were scanning millions of numbers and ban the associated accounts. Likely that includes some ongoing threat detection as well. That'll at least prevent scammers from collecting one more account name/number to attempt exploiting.

It doesn't do anything against a targeted attack against someone who has chosen to be discoverable. That's just how search/discovery is intended to work.

New comment by JaRail in "Twitter says an attacker used its API to match usernames to phone numbers"

JaRail — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 06:05:23 +0000

Hiding counts makes it hard to identify imposter accounts and bots. Users need to be able to see account age and counts at a minimum.

New comment by JaRail in "Twitter says an attacker used its API to match usernames to phone numbers"

JaRail — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 05:59:49 +0000

No, it wouldn't work. It only works if people can discover you with the "find people you know from your address book" feature. A deleted number won't match. Or you can just turn it off in your discoverability settings.

New comment by JaRail in "Twitter says an attacker used its API to match usernames to phone numbers"

JaRail — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 05:57:52 +0000

So people don't generate thousands of accounts then sit on them until they want to spam with legit-looking seven year old accounts.

New comment by JaRail in "Twitter says an attacker used its API to match usernames to phone numbers"

JaRail — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 05:55:33 +0000

It's for anti-spam. Preventing people from generating millions of free accounts is valuable.

New comment by JaRail in "Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes"

JaRail — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 21:12:25 +0000

You can check it all you want. That won't change the physics of its dynamically unstable design.

New comment by JaRail in "Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'"

JaRail — Sat, 18 Jan 2020 20:59:36 +0000

Exactly. Using Mars as a second example is basically just doubling down on the "Elon isn't trustworthy" argument. That should be a giant red flag to readers.

New comment by JaRail in "Firefox Multi-Account Containers"

JaRail — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 21:12:13 +0000

Have you considered just creating multiple windows/mac accounts? Since you can switch without having to log off, it's really convenient. I understand partners sharing accounts and such but it's really just a better workflow/experience IMHO.

New comment by JaRail in "Firefox Multi-Account Containers"

JaRail — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 21:03:18 +0000

I use Temporary Containers (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...) to do this. You can customize how you want links handled when they target different domains. It takes some getting used to as there are a handful of options to understand/customize. Plus you can have customizations where you're replacing the current container with a new one which kills off your back button history. Just need to be aware of the quirks. It's definitely still in the realm of power-user UX.

New comment by JaRail in "Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’"

JaRail — Sun, 12 Jan 2020 16:44:06 +0000

Are you sure about that? I don't have Lyft where I live. But, about a year back, I was given a Lyft code for an interview. When I got the code, the instructions made it clear that I needed to register a credit card for liability. I had my account created with my personal credit card and redeemed the code. I thought I was good to go. When I got to the destination city and tried to order a ride at the airport, it said I needed to enter a SECOND credit card for verification. Unfortunately I traveled light and didn't a second card on me.

New comment by JaRail in "Amazon CodeGuru – Preview"

JaRail — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 03:53:00 +0000

Tools like this should be built into your IDE. No developer ever wants automated feedback at the end of the process in a code review.

There are lots of academic ML review/suggestion tools. Those people come to the table with trials and statistics to assess the quality of their results. Amazon probably copied one of those papers, added a rules-engine to recommend their own APIs, and slapped a hefty price tag on it.

New comment by JaRail in "Amazon CodeGuru – Preview"

JaRail — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 03:31:41 +0000

It'll probably generate irrelevant stats on the engineers to send directly to their managers to use against them in their next review.

New comment by JaRail in "The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]"

JaRail — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 02:04:27 +0000

> Why don’t we have the ability to restrict at the OS level which domains an app can send information to?

Ads.

New comment by JaRail in "The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]"

JaRail — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 01:44:30 +0000

Current-gen devices provide an advertising id. It's unique to the device but can be reset to a new random value by the owner in the OS settings.