Hacker News: pastage

New comment by pastage in "France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins"

pastage — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:57:26 +0000

The concept does not really exist it is a Windows thing. You could call Puppet or other config managements group policies, but Linux is not a monolith so it is more organic.

New comment by pastage in "German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function"

pastage — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 12:13:08 +0000

You are not required to accept anything other than digital ids. So from experience, whatever demands euid has will be what is required to identify you.

New comment by pastage in "Running Tesla Model 3's computer on my desk using parts from crashed cars"

pastage — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:06:05 +0000

There are about 3000 deaths per year in Sweden attributed to position from cars, and 300 physical accidents. So it is a really big issue, but it is almost impossible to make people understand that their car use and modification mains people.

Modified cars can release 1000x more polution, on streets with 800 daily cars that will have an affect.

New comment by pastage in "Running Tesla Model 3's computer on my desk using parts from crashed cars"

pastage — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 08:59:25 +0000

Agrred, but it is remote root access is the danger, they already have root access to the physical dangerous things.

New comment by pastage in "PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading"

pastage — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 07:50:31 +0000

Youtube is doing it though, and more site will follow. I need better AD blockers, but I do not see an easy way to block streaming, WASM and canvas.

New comment by pastage in "What’s on HTTP?"

pastage — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:31:45 +0000

There is some kind of middle ground here.. My first HTML file still renders like it did on Mosaic. The HTTP server I used back then still works today 35 years later without maintenance. I do agree that HTTPS is a simple solution but there is too much cargo cult around it. Honestly I do not see the use to maintain everything published if you follow sane practices.

EDIT: I have 15 year old things at work that do not compile, you have to maintain it for sure, biggest problem is cryptography. I am not sure that unstable tech should be part of the application ever.

New comment by pastage in "Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies"

pastage — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 07:15:34 +0000

No. My point is not that something costs more than something else.

Look at a city and the traffic there we know that everything can either feel empty with only a ~8% decrease, or be completely gridlocked with a ~8% increase. Small adjustments in what we spend money on has a great effect. Being destructive is the easiest way to show this. If you bomb a hospital, does that cost ten million USD for the bombs or one billion USD to rebuild and handle loss of quality of life.

New comment by pastage in "Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies"

pastage — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:19:20 +0000

I am very sure the west sacrificed a lot of wellbeing because of the vast amount of money spent on war. Peace time was great.

New comment by pastage in "Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked"

pastage — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 18:03:26 +0000

The issues are orthogonal, depending on how you define things. I do not trust your system at all, how can you make it observable?

New comment by pastage in "What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable"

pastage — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 18:01:40 +0000

This is the point #1 in the article, the need for better sampling methods. You do not get that easily.

New comment by pastage in "Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked"

pastage — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 17:35:50 +0000

I am wary to continue this, because you post unrelated tidbits and opinions.

My opinion is that opaque financial markets only benefits people with lots of money and power. Financial privacy is important here in Sweden, but having the net worth and income as public records has worked for us the last 250 years. I do not know where you come from and what society you live in. I do sense fear in your posts and that is usually a personal feeling. It might be different for us since it has been ingrained for so long.

I am talking from experience in our safe society (fact). Which obviously has severe flaws (opinion).

New comment by pastage in "Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked"

pastage — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 12:56:26 +0000

In Sweden the most useful and supported way means that you need this.

1. An identification approved by the EU. You get this from the national Police. (A government agency)

2. An SSN which is your birthday and four extea digits. E.g. 1212121212 is a valid "PNR", you get this from the Tax agency

3. A bank account (you need 1 and 2)

4. A patched Android or iPhone.

5. The BankID a app from a company owner by the banks in Sweden.

6. A Certificate downloaded from your bank to you BankID App

7. A PIN to Protect the key in you BankID App.

8. Normal internet connection.

9. A camera on your phone to read QR code on Service Provider webpage for session initionation

When you sign something the app will send lots of metadata to "the Identity Provider" (BankId), e.g. how much root you have on your phone, if you run known malware, your current ip, and your phone HW info. This is used to calculate a score that you as a "service provider" (i.e. banks, government, companies) can choose to ignore (they usually do)

When you as a Customer either sign in or sign you will see a document that you sign maybe "I give you 100SEK", and who you sign that to. You enter you pin or use biometric to aprove.

(Was this better than an LLM.. Yes)

New comment by pastage in "Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked"

pastage — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 12:38:08 +0000

You will not find any reputable source for those statements, sure maybe as opinions. This is the issue here we are talking about facts. I have been able to look up this information for as long as we had a government in Sweden, and it works.

Financial privacy is a complicated subject, could you perhaps agree that there is a use for transparancy?

New comment by pastage in "Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked"

pastage — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 12:09:09 +0000

> why not include medical data as well?

It is usually those with little power that suffer when you do that, and those with a lot of power that suffer from financial openness. I ask this in the most naive way possible I think the Pandora Leak was a good thing, do you not agree?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_Papers

New comment by pastage in "Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked"

pastage — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:26:57 +0000

You can start a signing process saying you are who ever owned that certificate. E.g. if you call someone. You can not use those signatures to gain access, and it is rather in phishing.

New comment by pastage in "Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked"

pastage — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:22:13 +0000

Signed documents can be as simple as an ID of the transaction, a statement in text, PII data that identify what you sign, or a store of larger PDF files for download and verification. We do not know. I base this on how signing works technically in Sweden.

CGI is not the only supplier of these services.

New comment by pastage in "Specimen Gallery – CC0 transparent specimen PNGs organized by taxonomy"

pastage — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:48:07 +0000

Should bee wings be transparent? (Let the perfect be the enemy of good) You should have a source/url on the upload form of the image already exists somewhere.

https://specimen.gallery/taxa/43

New comment by pastage in "Specimen Gallery – CC0 transparent specimen PNGs organized by taxonomy"

pastage — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:43:21 +0000

These look very nice thanks, hope it can be expanded. Interesting I wonder how does web devs handle transparency? There must be a better way than pngs.

New comment by pastage in "Roblox is minting teen millionaires"

pastage — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:59:43 +0000

I believe it just enables and validate the bigger actors. I do not know where the line should be drawn, if gambling is ilegal you build an illicit trade, if it is legal that trade just become more evil.

We should be careful with gambling especialy when CEOs are talking about it and only caring about the legal frameworks.

New comment by pastage in "Roblox is minting teen millionaires"

pastage — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:07:42 +0000

We can mince his words. In the end anyone who organize gambling for profit is scum. If you do it for charity I know form experience it is massively profitable, but.. I am not sure it is worth it for society.