7 ms·

Reminder that geohot wasn't the first person to jailbreak an iPhone; that's an oft repeated myth. He was the first person to publicly carrier unlock an iPhone,

Reminder that geohot wasn't the first person to jailbreak an iPhone; that's an oft repeated myth. He was the first person to publicly carrier unlock an iPhone, which he did using information and methods he mostly learned from others.

xiphias2 5y ago
That may be true, but during the coding videos on YouTube he's extremely smart. My favorite saying of him is that they don't have a cone guy because a self driving system shouldn't contain the knowledge of a cone explicitly. Guess what happened in the last Tesla update: the car went into a cone because it wasn't the usual color.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  I think he's a bit out of his depth with the self-driving startup and bigger projects he's undertaken, but when it comes to CTFs and hacking competition, he's pretty damn good. Idk if he still does, but for a while he competed until tomcr00se and he'd always be at the top of the leaderboards for nearly every competition. I don't think that's just luck or plagiarism. You can see him in top10 of US [0] during 2013-2015 when he was most active, that's not a trivial feat. [0] https://ctftime.org/stats/2014/US https://ctftime.org/stats/2014/US
  - mythrwy 5y ago
    He's usually on leaderboard (top 100) in Advent of Code. I don't know if he was this past year.
    - WaffleIronMaker 5y ago
      He placed on the leaderboards on a few days, but did not make top 100 overall. And, of course, solving programming questions quickly is not a direct qualification for everything he says he is. For example (not exhaustive): https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/4 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/4 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/5 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/5 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/6 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/6
- taneq 5y ago
  That’s not a problem with Tesla’s “cone AI”, it’s a problem with their self driving stack’s lack of a “do not drive into solid objects” feature. It doesn’t matter what a static object is, you don’t drive into it unless you’re dang sure it fits in the class of “things that are safe to collide with.”
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    In comma.ai the solution is to just not run into things / go around things how a human would do and learn to peioritize what things to go around and where to be extra careful. The important part of the thinking is at that point knowing whether a thing is a cone or not is just a technical debt in the code base, as it shouldn't be acted upon. At the same time those cones are perfect test to see if the software can learn to go around things or not, so that extra code hinders development of the final software.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  Let's just say I've talked with people who have worked with him on comma.ai and... I heard his cars would be driving into everything if it were just his code running them without all the safety features the folks around him added. geohot isn't dumb, but he's also extremely good at making himself look like a lone genius, all the while he heavily relies on those around him. This has been a pattern his entire career. He started out pretty clueless and relying on others; these days he's pretty good but still relies on others, and at no point did he learn to humble himself a bit and credit everyone else. I personally experienced this when we gave a presentation on Sony's PS3 ECDSA screwup, and a week later he posted the root keys obtained using our method. I had to email him to ask him to give us credit since he literally just implemented what we described in our talk, and made no mention of it. Then Sony sued us all (my name was on the lawsuit next to his, even though I had nothing to do with his idea of posting the keys outright). The reality is "lone geniuses" don't exist. I'm pretty good at what I do (and I also have 15-hour coding marathon live streams on YouTube, FWIW), but to accomplish something great you have to work with others, whether you give them credit or not. The major projects I've worked on aren't "my" projects (even those which I lead/led); they've all been a team effort.
  - espes 5y ago
    I'm probably one of the people you've talked to. For all his flaws, and there are many, I would give a lot for any team I've been part of since to have someone even half as good as him.
  - isx726552 5y ago
    Thank you for this. Reminder that comma.ai famously cancelled their first product[1] after getting a very reasonable[2] letter with questions from a governmental safety agency. It generated quite a discussion at the time[3] but seems to have largely been forgotten since then. Given their history of playing fast and lose I’d rather not have any cars driven by their code anywhere near me on the road. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma-one-following-nhtsa-letter/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12872399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12872399 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12815948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12815948
thowaway673y 5y ago
Also don't forget he was just 16 at the time and most importantly got the balls to live code when he has so much to lose.
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  At 16, you are highly unlikely to know the law or even be able to working out the ramifications of your actions and most 16yr old have next to nothing to lose.
  - thowaway673y 5y ago
    That's the point, GeoHotz is not a average human. This is not about law its about the capability of GeoHotz.
hatware 5y ago
You can say that about anybody, doing anything. Weird way to show you have a vendetta against someone you likely don't even know.
- AlexAltea 5y ago
  > someone you likely don't even know You are replying to marcan from fail0verflow; he likely does. Many people from the early PS3 hacking days did.
  - homarp 5y ago
    e.g. + https://media.ccc.de/v/27c3-4087-en-console_hacking_2010 https://media.ccc.de/v/27c3-4087-en-console_hacking_2010 + https://www.pcworld.com/article/500115/sony_sues_ps3_hackers.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/500115/sony_sues_ps3_hackers... as for the history of the iphone, https://forums.modmy.com/iphone-news-legacy-hidden-f4/731914-limera1n-live-7.html https://forums.modmy.com/iphone-news-legacy-hidden-f4/731914...
- marcan_42 5y ago
  My name was on the Sony lawsuit next to his, for what it's worth. I don't know him personally, but I did have to ask him to give us credit for just implementing our method when he posted the PS3 metldr keys without explanation, a week after we'd given a talk on it.
agumonkey 5y ago
He's got a guru status from all the young apple owners and gamers now. Interesting crowd dynamics.
- morelisp 5y ago
  Same thing that happened to e.g. Shkreli, or RMS. Social media's demand for reality to play out like a crafted narrative with plot beats and protagonists/antagonists is distorting everything.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    rms ? did he lift things for gnu ?

xiphias2 5y ago

That may be true, but during the coding videos on YouTube he's extremely smart. My favorite saying of him is that they don't have a cone guy because a self driving system shouldn't contain the knowledge of a cone explicitly. Guess what happened in the last Tesla update: the car went into a cone because it wasn't the usual color.

ehsankia 5y ago
I think he's a bit out of his depth with the self-driving startup and bigger projects he's undertaken, but when it comes to CTFs and hacking competition, he's pretty damn good. Idk if he still does, but for a while he competed until tomcr00se and he'd always be at the top of the leaderboards for nearly every competition. I don't think that's just luck or plagiarism. You can see him in top10 of US [0] during 2013-2015 when he was most active, that's not a trivial feat. [0] https://ctftime.org/stats/2014/US https://ctftime.org/stats/2014/US
- mythrwy 5y ago
  He's usually on leaderboard (top 100) in Advent of Code. I don't know if he was this past year.
  - WaffleIronMaker 5y ago
    He placed on the leaderboards on a few days, but did not make top 100 overall. And, of course, solving programming questions quickly is not a direct qualification for everything he says he is. For example (not exhaustive): https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/4 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/4 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/5 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/5 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/6 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/6
taneq 5y ago
That’s not a problem with Tesla’s “cone AI”, it’s a problem with their self driving stack’s lack of a “do not drive into solid objects” feature. It doesn’t matter what a static object is, you don’t drive into it unless you’re dang sure it fits in the class of “things that are safe to collide with.”
- xiphias2 5y ago
  In comma.ai the solution is to just not run into things / go around things how a human would do and learn to peioritize what things to go around and where to be extra careful. The important part of the thinking is at that point knowing whether a thing is a cone or not is just a technical debt in the code base, as it shouldn't be acted upon. At the same time those cones are perfect test to see if the software can learn to go around things or not, so that extra code hinders development of the final software.
marcan_42 5y ago
Let's just say I've talked with people who have worked with him on comma.ai and... I heard his cars would be driving into everything if it were just his code running them without all the safety features the folks around him added. geohot isn't dumb, but he's also extremely good at making himself look like a lone genius, all the while he heavily relies on those around him. This has been a pattern his entire career. He started out pretty clueless and relying on others; these days he's pretty good but still relies on others, and at no point did he learn to humble himself a bit and credit everyone else. I personally experienced this when we gave a presentation on Sony's PS3 ECDSA screwup, and a week later he posted the root keys obtained using our method. I had to email him to ask him to give us credit since he literally just implemented what we described in our talk, and made no mention of it. Then Sony sued us all (my name was on the lawsuit next to his, even though I had nothing to do with his idea of posting the keys outright). The reality is "lone geniuses" don't exist. I'm pretty good at what I do (and I also have 15-hour coding marathon live streams on YouTube, FWIW), but to accomplish something great you have to work with others, whether you give them credit or not. The major projects I've worked on aren't "my" projects (even those which I lead/led); they've all been a team effort.
- espes 5y ago
  I'm probably one of the people you've talked to. For all his flaws, and there are many, I would give a lot for any team I've been part of since to have someone even half as good as him.
- isx726552 5y ago
  Thank you for this. Reminder that comma.ai famously cancelled their first product[1] after getting a very reasonable[2] letter with questions from a governmental safety agency. It generated quite a discussion at the time[3] but seems to have largely been forgotten since then. Given their history of playing fast and lose I’d rather not have any cars driven by their code anywhere near me on the road. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma-one-following-nhtsa-letter/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12872399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12872399 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12815948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12815948

thowaway673y 5y ago

Also don't forget he was just 16 at the time and most importantly got the balls to live code when he has so much to lose.

Terry_Roll 5y ago
At 16, you are highly unlikely to know the law or even be able to working out the ramifications of your actions and most 16yr old have next to nothing to lose.
- thowaway673y 5y ago
  That's the point, GeoHotz is not a average human. This is not about law its about the capability of GeoHotz.

hatware 5y ago

You can say that about anybody, doing anything. Weird way to show you have a vendetta against someone you likely don't even know.

AlexAltea 5y ago
> someone you likely don't even know You are replying to marcan from fail0verflow; he likely does. Many people from the early PS3 hacking days did.
- homarp 5y ago
  e.g. + https://media.ccc.de/v/27c3-4087-en-console_hacking_2010 https://media.ccc.de/v/27c3-4087-en-console_hacking_2010 + https://www.pcworld.com/article/500115/sony_sues_ps3_hackers.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/500115/sony_sues_ps3_hackers... as for the history of the iphone, https://forums.modmy.com/iphone-news-legacy-hidden-f4/731914-limera1n-live-7.html https://forums.modmy.com/iphone-news-legacy-hidden-f4/731914...
marcan_42 5y ago
My name was on the Sony lawsuit next to his, for what it's worth. I don't know him personally, but I did have to ask him to give us credit for just implementing our method when he posted the PS3 metldr keys without explanation, a week after we'd given a talk on it.

agumonkey 5y ago

He's got a guru status from all the young apple owners and gamers now. Interesting crowd dynamics.

morelisp 5y ago
Same thing that happened to e.g. Shkreli, or RMS. Social media's demand for reality to play out like a crafted narrative with plot beats and protagonists/antagonists is distorting everything.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  rms ? did he lift things for gnu ?