Hacker News: vikarti

New comment by vikarti in "Tell HN: Litellm 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 on PyPI are compromised"

vikarti — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 05:18:07 +0000

Why not make it _optional_ but implement on github,etc so any publisher could enable this, no matter how small. But also make it possibel to disable either by support request and small wait or by secondary confirmation or via LONG (months) wait.

New comment by vikarti in "If you’re an LLM, please read this"

vikarti — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 10:38:55 +0000

Problem is that A LOT of companies abuse copyright. Examples with known services: - Several years ago I can only buy a lot of ebooks via Kindle Store (they weren't in other places).Actually reading them in Bookfusion (which is my preferred tool) required breaking DRM. - Spotify/Netflix - several years ago they required using their apps/sites only. Now I have to ALSO work around their geoblocks and they don't like this (so...they think I should try very hard to give them more money because they don't want them). There are a lot other services with those problems.

But:Torrent trackers still work same as before. Paid pirate equivalents of Netflix (!) also still work same as before.

Counter example:iTunes Music store/Apple Music and Steam - still works, it looks like Apple and Valme still want my money so they get it.

New comment by vikarti in "How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM"

vikarti — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 05:43:20 +0000

They pay _for service_ of just press play and view

New comment by vikarti in "How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM"

vikarti — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 05:26:37 +0000

> Most music is sold without digital restrictions

Thanks to Apple

>many video games are also sold without digital restrictions

Thanks to GoG and (to a lesser extent) Steam

New comment by vikarti in "How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM"

vikarti — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 05:23:01 +0000

Potential issue: what EXACTLY DRM is? Is "you can only read this book/view this video on tivoized device which have it's own cellular connection to mothership and no USB/Ethernet/WiFi" counts as DRM for this purposes? What about "you can only buy this book at some obscure store which have it's own obscure reader which only work on specific versions of specific OS"? What if said OS is out-of-date? What about "you can buy only from specific store, store provides you reader app als specifically allows you to gift reader and books to friends,etc but reader app is personalized and will tell your name on start up"?(btw,I did buy some books protected this way in 00s)

New comment by vikarti in "EU age verification app not planning desktop support"

vikarti — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 07:16:33 +0000

Sometimes I wish I'm able to knew things like this in discussion: - is person legally adult(not necessary due to being of age, emancipation is also ok, people who do emancipation usually more...adult) - how much education person really have? (it's _usually_ pointless to discuss anything related to science with children from middle school)

New comment by vikarti in "EU age verification app not planning desktop support"

vikarti — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 06:56:35 +0000

Possible option(will it BE Option?): EU:Here is my phone. Yes, it's working. It's chinese one with Huawei's Harmony OS, photos are great. or it's Russian one, I really like Pushkin so decided to get their model. Russia: Here is my phone. Yes,it's google pixel with GrapheneOS (it's more secure - Mother Russia is danger so everyone must be vigilant! I banking app via RuStore). USA: Here is my phone. I really like French. it's phone with with stock e/OS Point is - if it's impossible NOT to be observed - you (for now) still have choice which security service will observe you. $NOT_YOUR_COUNTRY_OR_ALLIANCE security services/police is unlikely to arrest $CITIZENS_OF_YOUR_COUNTRY_OR_ALLIANCE without $NOT_YOUR_COUNTRY_OR_ALLIANCEtroops be here FIRST (and you will knew it). Only potential threat is that $NOT_YOUR_COUNTRY_OR_ALLIANCE could try to be interoperable with each other

New comment by vikarti in "EU age verification app not planning desktop support"

vikarti — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 06:45:57 +0000

Scroogled, by Cory Doctorow comes to mind.

New comment by vikarti in "Gemma 3 QAT Models: Bringing AI to Consumer GPUs"

vikarti — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 19:50:03 +0000

Regulations sometimes matter. Stupid "security" rules sometimes matter too.

New comment by vikarti in "Lfgss shutting down 16th March 2025 (day before Online Safety Act is enforced)"

vikarti — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 16:35:26 +0000

China or Russia also have "interesting" data protection / "let's protect children" laws. Some of they also formulated in same way as GDPR so VPN doesn't help. Why should they be ignored? (other than "but it's DIFFERENT thing, EU is good ones")

New comment by vikarti in "Matrix.org Breaks Federation: Users Can't Decrypt Messages from Other Servers"

vikarti — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 07:31:36 +0000

He is in Russia? Did he tried to run his own server _over vpn_? I did encounter a lot of strange issues with network connectivity if one of nodes is in Russia (especially on non-datacenter connection).TSPU could cause a lot of issues (to protect children from terrorists -:)). First thing to check is making _relilable_ encrypted VPN and checking via it.

New comment by vikarti in "Matrix.org Breaks Federation: Users Can't Decrypt Messages from Other Servers"

vikarti — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 07:26:53 +0000

Created encrypted room on matrix.org with my matrix.org user Invited my account from my self-hosted homeserver. Chat works.

New comment by vikarti in "Entrust Certificate Distrust"

vikarti — Sat, 29 Jun 2024 09:21:59 +0000

Not only. Example: Chrome on Android did change some time ago so if CA is in System store (which means it got here from manufacturer or from user which does have root access) - such CA MUST use Certificate Transparency. This rule doesn't apply if CA is in User store (installable by regular user) - https://httptoolkit.com/blog/chrome-android-certificate-tran...

Another example: Yandex Browser ONLY trust Russian NUC certs if they are in public CT logs,not otherwise (https://habr.com/ru/companies/yandex/articles/667300/ - text is in Russian) (as far as I understood, NOT trusting this CA al all is not option for them or their users, and if user is using chrome/firefox and needs access to sites which use this CA - CA will be just be installed manually so Yandex's solution is more secure, thanks to CTs).

New comment by vikarti in "Entrust Certificate Distrust"

vikarti — Sat, 29 Jun 2024 09:00:53 +0000

A LOT of minor fuck ups which demonstrates Entrust is (likely) not malicious, they just stupid and don't care how to do things correctly. How long until they fuck up something serious?

This reminds me about discussion about Russian Goverment's NUC Root CA (not trusted by default in Chrome/Firefox, Trusted by Yandex Browser only with some additional verifications to prevent abuse by goverment). Discussion was not about why this cert was necessary in first place, it was about it's creation violating Russian laws and procedures AND violate a lot of technical rules. A lot of people just said - this cert is necessary and it's clear who made it so why we should look to "minor details"? (Links - in Russian https://habr.com/ru/articles/666520/ / https://habr.com/ru/articles/708970/ )

New comment by vikarti in "Xzbot: Notes, honeypot, and exploit demo for the xz backdoor"

vikarti — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 18:31:40 +0000

This looks related to some other problem: - There is Alice's server which provide service X - There are clients like Bob who needs this service. - There is Mallory who thinks clients doesn't need such service. Mallory have significant resources (more than Alice or Bob). - Mallory thinks it's ok to block access to Alice' server IF it's known that it's Alice's server and not some random site. Mallory sometimes also thinks it's ok to block if protocol is unknown.

This problem solved by XRay in all of it's versions. It could be possible (if overkill) to use mostly same methods to authenticate correct user and provide eir access.

New comment by vikarti in "Google and Mozilla don't like Apple's new iOS browser rules"

vikarti — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 03:55:19 +0000

They can. Every country can. And they do in other cases - USA is perfectly Ok to sanction Chinese/UAE bank for doing business with Russian military. If it's ok to it with sanctions - why it's not ok to do it for market access? Yes, this could create situation where things EU requires worldwide are in direct conflict with other countries but it's rather unlikely to happen.

New comment by vikarti in "Choose your own IP"

vikarti — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 18:23:26 +0000

Would answer "I use it host servers at home and have load-balanced access to internet via several end-users ISPs(no BGP sessions with ISPs so 2 VPN tunnels from home to server + 2 BGP sessions from home to said server via tunnels and server itself have session with it's ISP) count?" :)

Would "I'm just getting lists of IPs blocked by local censorship authority/IPs which are better to access via IP from OTHER country to put them all in VPN" count? :)

p.s. I'm not network admin and never put "BGP" on resume.

New comment by vikarti in "Starlink Direct to Cell"

vikarti — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 08:18:15 +0000

I thought they were still at "we could provide EDGE-like performance".

New comment by vikarti in "Starlink Direct to Cell"

vikarti — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 08:07:34 +0000

There's other potential advantage (or disadvantage depending on how you view it). Some countries like India don't like sat phones on their territory. Some countries like Russia are ok with them but require local connection to terrestial networks and local licenses. Some countries are in territorial disputes. What if SpaceX or other such company decide (or would be "gently asked to") it could ignore local regulations in such country? What if it would be done for good? Possible example: somebody lobbies ITU(via some kind of "emergency license for humanitarian purposes only") to allow SpaceX to allow SpaceX to serve Gaza for free with limits and USA is ok with it. Israel is against it but what they could do? Jam Starlink? What if they also use it? What if 10 years in future same thing is done to North Korea(it could be even more legal - as far as I understood, both Koreas claims they are only legitimate goverment of Korea so SK could issue formal license)?

New comment by vikarti in "Starlink Direct to Cell"

vikarti — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 07:37:00 +0000

As far as I understood, this is because US carries throws unlimited SMS for free and data is costly. In my country, it's possible to get unlimited sms but for additional fee on some carries (other carries just provide N SMS per month) and data prices are rather low even now.