5 ms·

I'm not puzzled, at all. In fact, I'm puzzled that your puzzled. What's hard to understand about maintaining radio silence? Does no one understand that keepin

I'm not puzzled, at all. In fact, I'm puzzled that your puzzled. What's hard to understand about maintaining radio silence? Does no one understand that keeping your mouth shut, and not accidentally blabbing packets across the network is ALSO a security posture? Anyone between you and The Mother Ship now has a shiney new target to MITM payloads at. Why do you hate freedom?

srtjstjsj 11y ago
Not blabbing packets across the network to a security provider, while blabbing packets across the network to many other hosts, is not a security posture. If you want radio silence, exit the program
- wonkaWonka 11y ago
  Pah! I laugh at that answer. So, you mean to tell me that I'm not allowed presume that I might actually be in complete control of the machines my program is holding conversations with? Is that what you're saying?
  - gpvos 11y ago
    If you want to be in complete control, you need to understand the complete source code. Otherwise, you at least need to trust whoever wrote the software you're using.
    - wonkaWonka 11y ago
      Things like this may represent a violation of trust, depending on who you are, where you live, and who you perceive your adversaries to be.
      - jo909 11y ago
        I guess nobody is happy that chromium opens a undocumented network connection to transfer unknown data. But the biggest problem is that we don't (yet) _know_ exactly why and what is happening. Fortunately we can understand it by looking at the code, and somebody will do that. Then we can discuss if this was a violation of trust, a simple error, a useful feature etc.
chucknelson 11y ago
> In fact, I'm puzzled that your puzzled. Obligatory *you're :)
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
> Why do you hate freedom? Um, this isn't reddit. Out of all of the snark you posted you had one, tiny, possible point about creating a vector for MITM attacks but since the connection is over TLS it's not much of a concern at least at the moment plus I'd imagine they would sign such things (but I don't know for certain). So I guess good job at taking your only point and surrounding it with nonsense which is always downvoted on HN.
- abritinthebay 11y ago
  > Um, this isn't reddit. It's way more reddit than it used to be. It happened to Reddit, it's already almost completely happened here. This place is basically a decent subreddit in culture now. Kind of sad.
  - jnbiche 11y ago
    Just curious, how long have you been around? Your current username is less than a year old. Because based on my impressions as someone commenting or lurking here 5+ years, HN has experienced a significant uptick in quality over the past year or so. I see many older commenters making the same type of observations. And Reddit-like comments are consistently downvoted here. EDIT: Removed "Of that there's no question." from my statement about comments being consistently downvoted, since clearly that's not true.
    - gareim 11y ago
      I've noticed the opposite. I see more jokes than before and they don't seem to be downvoted when I'm around. The jokes aren't even clever; just low reaching ones just like on reddit.
      - jnbiche 11y ago
        Can you cite one, please? I'd like to see an example of a comment considered to be Reddit-like that isn't downvoted on HN to diminished visibility.
coldtea 11y ago
>What's hard to understand about maintaining radio silence? What's hard to understand about the fact that "radio silence" is a desirable trait in war (and that in certain circumstances only) -- not in desktop software, and even less so in one whose PRIMARY PURPOSE is connecting to thousands of addresses everyday? And that, being up-to-date with the latest security patches, including for users who would otherwise wouldn't bother to install is better for everyone involved?
- fixermark 11y ago
  I would assume that step zero of "maintaining radio silence" isn't "launch an application which has as its raison d'être making connections to other machines over a protocol that was never architected to be stealthy in the first place."
- wonkaWonka 11y ago
  If I'm consistently reprimanded for not maintaining an up-to-date system against potentially hours-old zero day vulnerabilities, then pardon me for the mistaken perception that I'm not perpetually under attack. Having to assume that I am always at risk of being attacked is known as being placed under "siege mentality" and yes, it is a symptom of war. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_mentality
  - mynameisvlad 11y ago
    Unless you personally are constantly under attack by exploiters using hours-old 0-days (which, let's be honest, you wouldn't be as a personal user; there's far more high value targets than you), then you're not "consistently reprimanded" for not keeping your system up to date to fight these 0-days.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    The whole idea with auto-updates is that you are neither reprimanded nor worried about "maintaining an up-to-date system" -- the browser is. You just enjoy your browsing being automagically always update with the latest available patches... Comparing the situation to "siege-mentality" etc is taking a far-reached association so far that it's not even on the solar system anymore...
user_0001 11y ago
>Why do you hate freedom? They're probably a cheese eating surrender monkey and don't realise the good you are doing by trying to force your skewed version of "freedom" on to them
dang 11y ago
Please don't conduct flamewars here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10433068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10433068 and marked it off-topic.

srtjstjsj 11y ago

Not blabbing packets across the network to a security provider, while blabbing packets across the network to many other hosts, is not a security posture. If you want radio silence, exit the program

wonkaWonka 11y ago
Pah! I laugh at that answer. So, you mean to tell me that I'm not allowed presume that I might actually be in complete control of the machines my program is holding conversations with? Is that what you're saying?
- gpvos 11y ago
  If you want to be in complete control, you need to understand the complete source code. Otherwise, you at least need to trust whoever wrote the software you're using.
  - wonkaWonka 11y ago
    Things like this may represent a violation of trust, depending on who you are, where you live, and who you perceive your adversaries to be.
    - jo909 11y ago
      I guess nobody is happy that chromium opens a undocumented network connection to transfer unknown data. But the biggest problem is that we don't (yet) _know_ exactly why and what is happening. Fortunately we can understand it by looking at the code, and somebody will do that. Then we can discuss if this was a violation of trust, a simple error, a useful feature etc.

chucknelson 11y ago

> In fact, I'm puzzled that your puzzled. Obligatory *you're :)

BinaryIdiot 11y ago

> Why do you hate freedom? Um, this isn't reddit. Out of all of the snark you posted you had one, tiny, possible point about creating a vector for MITM attacks but since the connection is over TLS it's not much of a concern at least at the moment plus I'd imagine they would sign such things (but I don't know for certain). So I guess good job at taking your only point and surrounding it with nonsense which is always downvoted on HN.

abritinthebay 11y ago
> Um, this isn't reddit. It's way more reddit than it used to be. It happened to Reddit, it's already almost completely happened here. This place is basically a decent subreddit in culture now. Kind of sad.
- jnbiche 11y ago
  Just curious, how long have you been around? Your current username is less than a year old. Because based on my impressions as someone commenting or lurking here 5+ years, HN has experienced a significant uptick in quality over the past year or so. I see many older commenters making the same type of observations. And Reddit-like comments are consistently downvoted here. EDIT: Removed "Of that there's no question." from my statement about comments being consistently downvoted, since clearly that's not true.
  - gareim 11y ago
    I've noticed the opposite. I see more jokes than before and they don't seem to be downvoted when I'm around. The jokes aren't even clever; just low reaching ones just like on reddit.
    - jnbiche 11y ago
      Can you cite one, please? I'd like to see an example of a comment considered to be Reddit-like that isn't downvoted on HN to diminished visibility.

coldtea 11y ago

>What's hard to understand about maintaining radio silence? What's hard to understand about the fact that "radio silence" is a desirable trait in war (and that in certain circumstances only) -- not in desktop software, and even less so in one whose PRIMARY PURPOSE is connecting to thousands of addresses everyday? And that, being up-to-date with the latest security patches, including for users who would otherwise wouldn't bother to install is better for everyone involved?

fixermark 11y ago
I would assume that step zero of "maintaining radio silence" isn't "launch an application which has as its raison d'être making connections to other machines over a protocol that was never architected to be stealthy in the first place."
wonkaWonka 11y ago
If I'm consistently reprimanded for not maintaining an up-to-date system against potentially hours-old zero day vulnerabilities, then pardon me for the mistaken perception that I'm not perpetually under attack. Having to assume that I am always at risk of being attacked is known as being placed under "siege mentality" and yes, it is a symptom of war. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_mentality
- mynameisvlad 11y ago
  Unless you personally are constantly under attack by exploiters using hours-old 0-days (which, let's be honest, you wouldn't be as a personal user; there's far more high value targets than you), then you're not "consistently reprimanded" for not keeping your system up to date to fight these 0-days.
- coldtea 11y ago
  The whole idea with auto-updates is that you are neither reprimanded nor worried about "maintaining an up-to-date system" -- the browser is. You just enjoy your browsing being automagically always update with the latest available patches... Comparing the situation to "siege-mentality" etc is taking a far-reached association so far that it's not even on the solar system anymore...

user_0001 11y ago

>Why do you hate freedom? They're probably a cheese eating surrender monkey and don't realise the good you are doing by trying to force your skewed version of "freedom" on to them

dang 11y ago

Please don't conduct flamewars here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10433068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10433068 and marked it off-topic.