Hacker News: lilsoso

New comment by lilsoso in "The privacy nightmare of browser fingerprinting"

lilsoso — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 17:45:17 +0000

Thanks for the browser recommendations.

I switched to the Mullvad browser. The other recommendation, LibreWolf, provides the following warning on install which scared me away: "Warning: librewolf has been deprecated because it does not pass the macOS Gatekeeper check! It will be disabled on 2026-09-01."

New comment by lilsoso in "[dead]"

lilsoso — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 21:57:15 +0000

The article is light on details of the substance of these lectures. While I couldn't find the referenced lecture, the following lecture might be similar:

Hoover Institution: Apocalypse Now? Peter Thiel on Ancient Prophecies and Modern Tech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqHueZNEzig

New comment by lilsoso in "Did the HHS Just Explain Autism?"

lilsoso — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 15:20:43 +0000

Could you kindly support that statement and explain why you feel that way.

New comment by lilsoso in "Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah"

lilsoso — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 05:01:05 +0000

To dismiss him as being “devoid of information” is lazy and cheap. He had scholars on his team shape his message.

New comment by lilsoso in "Burner Phone 101"

lilsoso — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 16:14:09 +0000

You can buy prepaid SIM cards with cash, and without hassle, in the US as well.

You can do this in many countries, I believe, as well as online through services offered in exchange for crypto.

You didn't define where "here" is for you. Mexico is a better option than the US because the retail price of a SIM card with a number and service is around 50 pesos (maybe lower).

New comment by lilsoso in "Burner Phone 101"

lilsoso — Sun, 24 Aug 2025 22:28:04 +0000

In Mexico you can buy prepaid SIM cards with cash, and without an ID, at convenience stores such as 7-11 or Oxxo.

New comment by lilsoso in "Ruby on Rails Audit Complete"

lilsoso — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 17:30:16 +0000

> Is this actually a problem you see? I'm going on 15 years in the industry and haven't seen any issues training people up on a new language in just a couple months.

Some years ago the largest company using Elixir in the US, or at least on the west coast, abandoned Elixir because they couldn't find enough developers.

Yes. The adoption is poor despite the loud voices.

New comment by lilsoso in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (February 2025)"

lilsoso — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 03:21:06 +0000

No, they're going 20-something mph in perhaps a 20mph zone: the author stated kilometers per hour.

New comment by lilsoso in "Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads"

lilsoso — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 18:47:48 +0000

Would be interesting to know how much data leaks on a new iPhone with some of the iOS privacy settings enabled and a handful of popular apps installed (WhatsApp, Instagram, Google Maps, Uber, etc).

And then if you use a commercial VPN with DNS ad-blocking enabled, how much more does this help?

New comment by lilsoso in "Marc Andreessen on Biden administration targetting tech founders"

lilsoso — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 19:21:51 +0000

I added a response to this question in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42254263

New comment by lilsoso in "Ask HN: Have You Been Debanked?"

lilsoso — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 19:15:34 +0000

Marc Andreessen mentioned what's called "Operation Chokepoint 2.0" in relation to many tech founders being debanked. In the crypto industry you can find many examples of this, however they're often not so public. Here's an instance from the entrepreneur Sam Hamidi-Kazemian:

'Kept quiet about this for almost a year out of fear but since I'm in good company with @tyler @cameron @brian_armstrong @elonmusk now.. Last December, I got a call from JPM saying "we have to close anyone's account that we know their primary source of income/wealth is crypto. This is directly from the top from Jamie. I'm really sorry."

I had a close relationship with my banker so I assume 99% of people wouldn't even get that kind of transparency/explanation. Wanted to add my own name to the debanked OCP list @nic__carter. It's real. It happened. Hopefully now it will soon be over.' -- https://x.com/samkazemian/status/1861956394079101391

Furthermore, this phenomenon affects not only founders but is common to retail investors. Try cashing out seven figures to your bank via a crypto payment rail and see how the bank reacts. If you get close to a successful crypto investors you can find many cases. However, this crowd often stays quiet: revealing that you're a high net worth individual, particularly in crypto, can be a security risk so these stories are shared in private chats amongst individuals of the same status.

Another case of added pressure, perhaps in a different vein, can be seen here: https://nypost.com/2024/11/13/business/fbi-seizes-polymarket...

New comment by lilsoso in "How to Use Tailscale VPN to Embrace Remote Work and Explore the World"

lilsoso — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 15:52:36 +0000

Tailscale is not a good option for this (hiding your geo-location from work). As the article states,

'Additionally, in the case of a DERP-relayed connection, if one were to run a “traceroute” on your connection, they would see the public DERP relay server IP address, since it is routing your traffic in the middle. This IP obviously belongs to a commercial/enterprise IP block, but it’s only visible by running a traceroute which is able to see every “hop” your traffic makes. Whether or not your employer’s telemetry would pick up on this is what would determine whether this method would still work for you or not.'

Tailscale is not built for anonymity and contains strange surprises.

New comment by lilsoso in "Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate"

lilsoso — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 19:02:30 +0000

Here's a number of articles outlining the A16z support for Trump:

- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/17/co-f...

- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-16/andreesse...

- https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/16/andreessen-horowitz-co-fou...

Here's a broader article on Silicon Valley support for Trump (potentially paywalled):

- https://www.ft.com/content/e2ffd807-1c18-436c-9f70-2fa7181ac...

- The FT article includes the following names: Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Shervin Pishevar, Keith Rabois, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, Doug Leone, Shaun Maguire, Joe Lonsdale, Jacob Helberg

Please keep in mind that not too long ago vocal support for Trump could get you fired (and still might). Fighting against censorship is important.

New comment by lilsoso in "Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate"

lilsoso — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 03:06:29 +0000

Why am I being voted down for pointing out, validly, that many people disagree? Why the rush to censor?

New comment by lilsoso in "Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate"

lilsoso — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 21:40:10 +0000

Not according to Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz [1], Chamath Palihapitiya & David Sacks [2], possibly Zuckerberg [3], and others. And of course Elon, Thiel. Many such cases.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sNclEgQZQ

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blqIZGXWUpU

[3] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XgWFwVRGcf4

New comment by lilsoso in "Trump injured but ‘fine’ after attempted assassination at rally"

lilsoso — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 02:45:04 +0000

There are four censored comments in that thread that cannot be read along with a few benign downvoted comments. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that at least someone behaved poorly, but this is HN -- the thread is not littered.

New comment by lilsoso in "Trump injured but ‘fine’ after attempted assassination at rally"

lilsoso — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 02:06:38 +0000

[citation needed]

New comment by lilsoso in "The darker side of being a doctor (2017)"

lilsoso — Sat, 13 Apr 2024 21:55:55 +0000

We should enforce rigorous qualifications for doctors. We've relaxed the standards far too much already.

New comment by lilsoso in "OpenVPN Is Open to VPN Fingerprinting"

lilsoso — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 22:28:06 +0000

Thanks, I didn't know that. So if you have a VPN server at home and you bounce through it from a foreign location to a corporate job then perhaps the employer could identify the connection is a relay.

I'm talking about the part of the connection outgoing from the VPN, not the incoming traffic to the VPN, to be clear. I know for example that China can do deep packet inspection and that there are a number of projects to attempt to thwart this technique. But you seem to be saying that the part after the VPN can be identified?

New comment by lilsoso in "OpenVPN Is Open to VPN Fingerprinting"

lilsoso — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 22:15:16 +0000

They can determine a connection to their network is through an OpenVPN server even if that server has a clean/normal IP address? Is there some otherwise basic tell that the host is running a VPN server? Could Palo Alto Network also identify say a different VPN server, such as Wireguard?