Hacker News: mike_hock

New comment by mike_hock in "Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs"

mike_hock — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 14:01:55 +0000

A poorly documented or undocumented (debugging) backdoor in a chip marketed for ATMs and medical hardware, enabled by default, at the very least qualifies as reckless endangerment.

New comment by mike_hock in "US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects"

mike_hock — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:18:31 +0000

Great article for April 1st! No, wait. It's August 7th. Wat.

New comment by mike_hock in "I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux"

mike_hock — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:19:27 +0000

I already have a second usable device and I don't mind the extra weight that much most of the time. It's called a laptop computer.

As soon as we get to a point that Linux on the phone works at all, I'm happy to switch completely.

Here, "it works" literally just means it works. Not "GPS doesn't work," "camera only half works," "interop with Android/iOS apps that you're forced to use doesn't work." That doesn't mean "it works." And of course "only works for 2-3 years and then the device gets abandoned" doesn't mean "it works" either.

New comment by mike_hock in "SQLite Critical CVEs or LLM Slop?"

mike_hock — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 08:55:40 +0000

Thanks, I guess :D

New comment by mike_hock in "SQLite Critical CVEs or LLM Slop?"

mike_hock — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 12:45:51 +0000

It's not actually vulnerable.

You're absolutely right. I made a critical error. It's NOT vulnerable.

It' actually vulnerable.

You're absolutely right. I made a critical error. It IS vulnerable.

It's not actually vulnerable.

You're absolutely right. I made a critical error. It's NOT vulnerable.

New comment by mike_hock in "Why don't people use formal methods? (2019)"

mike_hock — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 15:24:36 +0000

> I've been able to formally verify that the Rust behavior is identical to the Postgres C behavior

I thought you wanted to get rid of the bugs!

New comment by mike_hock in "Anatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: A Timeline of the July 2026 Incident"

mike_hock — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 15:21:46 +0000

I think this a positive effect of LLMs, especially once these capabilities get into the hands of criminals and hostile foreign states, i.e. they will do maximum damage with all the safeties off.

This will force everyone to finally take security seriously at both the development and operational levels. You can no longer keep sneaking backdoors into software and count on them remaining hidden for 10 years so you have a nice portfolio of zero days to exploit at any given time.

New comment by mike_hock in "Hulios: An eBPF-powered, transparent Tor gateway for Linux"

mike_hock — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 22:32:37 +0000

Thanks for the honest, load—bearing emojis.

New comment by mike_hock in "`bun init` automatically creates a Claude.md file by default"

mike_hock — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 22:28:12 +0000

Thanks for the PSA but I already knew that I wasn't gonna touch it with a ten foot pole.

New comment by mike_hock in "What if useful AI is a fantasy?"

mike_hock — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 22:26:29 +0000

> What if ?

I find it baffling that some people had to find this out the hard way. You already knew that it's — if not more work — then at least more tedious to study existing code than write your own.

People have been choosing greenfield rewrites over grokking legacy code since forever.

New comment by mike_hock in "Harmony Explained: Progress Towards a Scientific Theory of Music (2012)"

mike_hock — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:20:20 +0000

I don't buy that minor being "sad" is all nurture and no nature. No matter what tempo or rhythm you put on it or what instruments you use to play it, it may not sound sad, it may sound dramatic and powerful instead, but it never sounds upbeat and happy the way major does (or at least can).

New comment by mike_hock in "Thoughts on Integers (2023)"

mike_hock — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 05:45:23 +0000

It has been tacked on as a "totally not an integer" type because the integer system isn't extensible enough to accommodate it.

It could of course be added with an ABI break (bumping intmax_t to int128), but that's not being done because it would be an ABI break. Hence, not extensible in practice.

New comment by mike_hock in "Thoughts on Integers (2023)"

mike_hock — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 20:43:46 +0000

> C has a confusing array of machine-dependent types such as ptrdiff_t and size_t

What's confusing about them? They're basically what int and unsigned int were supposed to be. It's just that they realized they had produced a pile of unextensible shit so they had to add new names.

While they were at it, they produced the next version of unextensible shit so now int128 can't be added.

New comment by mike_hock in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

mike_hock — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 19:41:46 +0000

> You think the average user is going to explicitly whitelist

When prompted by the browser on first login/signup, yes, the same way the password manager works. With stored passwords, keeping the login cookie doesn't even add much value.

New comment by mike_hock in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

mike_hock — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 19:33:18 +0000

No, but it's the obvious starting point. You can then put additional laws on top banning fingerprinting out of band (if you care about window dressing), fund development of anti-fingerprinting technologies, fund Tor, run exit nodes in a transparent and publicly auditable fashion, etc.

It's not hard to make privacy work when you are the government rather than working against a hostile one.

New comment by mike_hock in "Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory"

mike_hock — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 19:17:33 +0000

I made no claims as to whether misdirection is happening or feasible, only that there are incentives for both sides to do so if it is, while there are no incentives for Russia to take on a much larger enemy while it can barely handle Ukraine, which OP was implying was the obvious explanation.

New comment by mike_hock in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

mike_hock — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 19:09:31 +0000

Interwebsite is solved by partitioning and login cookies are solved by explicit whitelisting.

New comment by mike_hock in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

mike_hock — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 16:03:15 +0000

Don't fall for the "we are just stupid" propaganda, which is used constantly by governments acting in bad faith.

Browsers already had settings for deleting cookies. There was never a reason for banners whose only function was pulling the ladder up from smaller competitors and concentrating power in the hands of an oligopoly that could siphon data directly from the OS.

This coupled with a law mandating ISPs provide a "change IP on demand" feature would have given users a sort of "Tor light" level of privacy. Strong privacy is trivial to achieve for a government that doesn't have a conflicting goal of total surveillance.

New comment by mike_hock in "What's Under Your Feet in New York City?"

mike_hock — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 15:47:48 +0000

That's where the mutants live. Also, there's a thousand year old, old New York City buried underneath that had bathroom booths with phones in them.

New comment by mike_hock in "Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory"

mike_hock — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 14:47:58 +0000

NATO not going total war over a few airspace incursions does not prove a lack of resolve to defend its territories. Russia is also not salami slicing its way to anything if it's not causing meaningful damage or territorial exchange.

Conversely, Russia(n leadership) would probably love an overreaction by NATO to unlock the use of its conscripted army for "defense," which is not feasible in the current war of aggression.