Hacker News: luke727

New comment by luke727 in "Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools"

luke727 — Sun, 17 May 2026 16:19:36 +0000

I think that's a silly argument, but even if we accept it at face value 1) VPN usage is difficult to detect and 2) bad actors are still going to use VPNs. This line of thinking removes privacy from good actors while doing nothing to address security concerns from bad actors.

New comment by luke727 in "Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent"

luke727 — Tue, 05 May 2026 20:12:51 +0000

The majority of comments seem to think this is not a big deal. Not surprising from this crowd, but disconcerting nonetheless.

New comment by luke727 in "Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent"

luke727 — Tue, 05 May 2026 20:07:43 +0000

Where does this line of thinking end? What couldn't be construed as part of the software?

New comment by luke727 in "Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic"

luke727 — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 12:59:15 +0000

"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."

New comment by luke727 in "The Onion to Take over InfoWars"

luke727 — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 16:56:14 +0000

It's just a domain name. The Onion taking it over does virtually nothing to impact Alex Jone's reach.

New comment by luke727 in "The Onion to Take over InfoWars"

luke727 — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 07:10:29 +0000

Not to mention Alex Jones is still up and running elsewhere spreading his nonsense and hawking his merch. So it's a cute gag, I guess, and gets the Sandy Hook families some money, but doesn't really change the status quo.

New comment by luke727 in "At long last, InfoWars is ours"

luke727 — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 04:32:49 +0000

> “The goal for the families we represent has always been to prevent Alex Jones from being able to cause harm at scale, the way he did against them,” said Chris Mattei, the lawyer who argued the Connecticut families’ case in court. The deal with The Onion promises “to significantly degrade his power to do that.”

But the deal doesn't do that. Alex Jones has other websites where he's spewing his nonsense and hawking his merch. Maybe it feels good to get his major brand name, but it is largely inconsequential in limiting his reach.

New comment by luke727 in "At long last, InfoWars is ours"

luke727 — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:06:31 +0000

Maybe it's just me but I don't see much humor in this. His brand and assets may have been liquidated, but he's still doing his show and it remains popular. The only people who really won in this saga are, as usual, the lawyers.

New comment by luke727 in "System76 on Age Verification Laws"

luke727 — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:59:10 +0000

You should look into what's actually happening in other countries before blaming it on "the U.S. nanny state". The rest of the Anglosphere makes the United States look like a Libertarian utopia. I live in the United Kingdom, and brother - this is who they are. I assume Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are similar. There are real problems re: "think of the children" in the United States, but if you think "the U.S. nanny state" is bad then you have no fucking clue how bad things could be.

New comment by luke727 in "The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection"

luke727 — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:38:38 +0000

No. There are significant numbers of real people who genuinely support this type of thing. Dismissing it as "bots" or a "false narrative" leads to complacency that allows this stuff to pass unchallenged.

New comment by luke727 in "An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened"

luke727 — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 13:24:34 +0000

Name: PETER BRIGHT

Age: 45

Race: White

Sex: Male

Release Date: 08/11/2028

Located At: FCI Elkton

New comment by luke727 in "Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass"

luke727 — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 18:07:33 +0000

The problem is that this is too tedious for most people. There's a reason centralization is popular.

New comment by luke727 in "Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass"

luke727 — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 13:06:12 +0000

I meant that it's not a solution for users looking to avoid similar intrusions. When alternative platforms get big enough they'll be faced with the same legislative burdens. Of course there are decentralized options, but one of the primary attractions of these centralized services is that everyone's on there.

New comment by luke727 in "Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass"

luke727 — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:26:46 +0000

The frustration aimed at Discord et al is largely misplaced. I'm sure these companies don't mind gathering extra data about their users, but the primary impetus for age verification is government legislation. Moving to alternative platforms is not a long term solution because it's attacking the problem from the wrong direction.

New comment by luke727 in "So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?"

luke727 — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:57:30 +0000

Neither does the average politician, so where exactly is the impetus for changing the law going to come from?

New comment by luke727 in "So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?"

luke727 — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 21:54:31 +0000

I'm not sure there'd be much of a difference because the British people are broadly speaking a rather paternalistic society.

New comment by luke727 in "So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?"

luke727 — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:53:52 +0000

While I agree with this in spirit, here in the UK both major parties along with the public at large generally support these types of laws.

New comment by luke727 in "This is not the future"

luke727 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 16:28:47 +0000

> The idea that AI is anything less than paradigm shifting, or even revolutionary is weird to me.

Actual AI? Sure. The LLM slop we currently refer to as AI? lol, lmao even

New comment by luke727 in "Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders"

luke727 — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 05:44:38 +0000

> Office products are bastardized with copilot buttons everywhere.

They put copilot in notepad. NOTEPAD.

New comment by luke727 in "Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today"

luke727 — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 21:06:34 +0000

Unfortunately they went along with it initially but at least they came to their senses in the end: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardFilters/issues/216586