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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • Skype won’t be supporting anything at all very soon.

    What happened with Vonage is something that could happen with any kind of instant messaging, including things like Discord.

    With everything directly addressable (not just static addresses, but directly addressable), an IM/VoIP service can simply connect to the recipient. No servers are necessary in between, only routers. That doesn’t work with NAT (CG or otherwise), so what you have to do is create a server that everyone connects into, and then that forwards messages to the endpoint. This is:

    • More expensive to operate
    • Less reliable
    • Slower
    • A point for NSA eavesdropping (which almost certainly happened)

    This is largely invisible to end users until free services get enshittified or something goes wrong.

    Yes, it’s only tangentially related to static addresses, but it’s all part of the package. This is not the Internet we should have had.

    And at least in the US (in single family homes) its crazy unlikely that your router is behind any NAT

    Your router has NAT. That’s the problem. CGNAT is another problem. My C&C: Generals issues did not have CGNAT.


  • . . . nobody at home actually runs VOIP . . .

    Plenty of people used Skype and Vonage. Both were subverted because they have to assume NAT is there.

    . . . quick game servers don’t need static . . .

    But they do work better without NAT. That’s somewhat separate from static addresses.

    My old roommate and I had tons of problems back in the day when we tried to host an Internet game of C&C: Generals behind the same NAT. I couldn’t connect to him. He couldn’t connect to me. We could connect to each other but nobody outside could. It’s a real problem that’s only been “solved” because a lot of games have moved to publisher-hosted servers. Which has its own issues with longevity.




  • frezik@midwest.socialtoSelfhosted@lemmy.worldPlex now want to SELL your personal data
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    15 days ago

    “Hashed emails”. Besides the fact that they can match up a hash from one source to a hash from another source to link them to the same person, emails often have enough predictability to break the hash. Assuming they all end in “@gmail.com”, “@outlook.com”, or “@yahoo.com” will get you the vast majority of emails out there. Unlike a good password scheme, people don’t shove a lot of random data into their email addresses.




  • I also started with GTA V in the last few years. I sometimes describe it as an interactive movie rather than a game.

    That’s not meant to be insulting. It’s a very well told story with perfect social satire. The characters are excellent. If you judge it the way a movie is judged, it’s very good. The one thing is that the story should have finished with the big three-way shootout instead of Franklin’s choice. Otherwise, very well put together.

    As a game, though, it’s mid. There are several mechanics where they teach you to do a thing, but it never comes up again. Money is no longer a limitation after the first heist is done. Owning a business isn’t likely to be profitable for the length of a likely playthrough.

    I accepted most of the morally questionable stuff. It comes with the series, and you’ll either have to accept it or not play. It’s balanced out with obvious social satire; it’s aware that this is not how people should act in real life. It’s a game for mentally mature players who understand that none of these are good people. That mental maturity doesn’t necessarily come with age.

    However, I drew the line at the paparazzi storyline. Just felt too sleezy. The FIB torture bit also came close to me, but in-game, even Trevor didn’t feel comfortable with that, and he’s a monster.

    Only other part I skipped was that damn yoga bit. Glad the game let you skip it while still progressing, because I don’t know what it wanted me to do.

    I’m a little surprised it got so many 10 out of 10 reviews at launch. I guess the draw distances are impressive for a game that worked on the Xbox 360, and it uses those draw distances for important artistic effects. It makes it feel like a real city. But there are bugs that prevent progression years after release (albeit with workarounds most of the time), and some of the mechanics are bolted on. It’s a 9/10 movie and a 7/10 game that averages to 8/10.





  • It’s generally one piece of software, a browser extension, that works for all. Even mobile apps are often just webpages with extra steps, so the code base is the same.

    The underlying storage must be encrypted the same way on each.

    Yes, there are still potentially issues. I’ll come back to what I said at the start: passwords are a bad system in general, all methods for handling them are flawed, but password managers have the fewest flaws.




  • Yeah, that’s going to be a terrible system. The human brain isn’t capable of keeping track of enough entropy to create a secure password system.

    More generally, it’s a big red flag when anybody thinks they can make a better system than publicly available and verified systems. You’re not capable of that, I’m not capable of that, Bruce Schneier is not capable of that. No matter how smart you are, you missed something. That’s why I didn’t need to know a single detail.