marco1

27 ms·

1. 241.▲
   by marco1 12y ago

   I agree that the technology part is not the hardest and a large part of the success or failure is marketing and media issues. But lots of startups have a lot of CRUD and I wouldn't call every technology product that isn't really p
2. 242.▲
   by marco1 12y ago

   Well, the search space is certainly small and thus brute force becomes much easier. But I wouldn't really call this "useless". You can, of course, apply your hashing repeatedly too make brute force slower.
3. 243.▲
   by marco1 12y ago

   Exactly, this is why I hope this app can prove beneficial and I hope that any weaknesses are found by people checking the code. And, of course, the possible risk factors "lies" and "hidden practices" are off the table fo
4. 244.▲
   by marco1 12y ago

   Exactly. Sorry, should have mentioned that. I wasn't really sure how to handle this. The problem is that (a) the app is optimized for phones and (b) it has to ask the user to enter their phone number manually if the device has no telep
5. 245.▲
   by marco1 12y ago

   By the way, to address the problem of guessing your friends' identity: I know this is a critical point in the system and thus I added something to prevent that guessing, of course. However, it's a dirty fix, as it may introduce ne
6. 246.▲
   by marco1 12y ago

   Thank you :) First and foremost, this has indeed been a tinkering project. But now, I think there may be enough potential to put this to a good use. Did you think of anything specific when you referred to "practical use"? Actually
7. 247.▲
   by marco1 12y ago

   Thank you! That's great, criticism is probably most durable and helpful on GitHub, anyway :)
8. 248.▲
   by marco1 12y ago

   Thanks! I hope this open-source project can help so that we all benefit from such openness. And I'm convinced that such software should not be closed-source and in the need for a business model.
9. 249.▲
   by marco1 12y ago

   Of course, you can "securely encrypt" things, and it doesn't matter if this is a phone number. But you're probably referring to the fact that the phone number is used as an identifier and is thus hashed and not encrypted
10. 250.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    Sorry for that! I just wanted to show the connection to a quite recent event, and I actually thought that anybody who knows about Secret already knew that their value is not 100% in their technology.
11. 251.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    I don't think this is a bad decision, but I'm sure that it's not the optimal solution, either. I chose PHP just for the sake of rapid prototyping. I actually planned to rewrite the complete server-side code in Node.js or Go,
12. 252.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    It's important to state that I do care about security here, but I don't care about performance that much.
13. 253.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    You are free to do so :) It's GPLv3, as noted in the repository.
14. 254.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    There is a server secret that is not stored in the database at all and there is a message secret (unique per message) that is stored in each message's database entry. They are combined to the actual key for decryption.
15. 255.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    I've made this open-source so that anybody can check for security weaknesses and report/fix them. And, of course, nobody has to use the app that is already live on Google Play, but you are free to host your own version.
16. 256.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    Thanks! On the GitHub page, there is a link to the app in Google Play [1] and this is where the screenshots can be found. I'm quite sure the app is not really beautiful (yet), so it was an intentional decision not to put up screenshots
17. 257.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    Done :)
18. 258.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    Author here -- feel free to share your criticism and questions :)
19. 259.▲
    Show HN: Faceless – Open-source version of Secret(github.com)

    91 points by marco1 12y ago|59 comments
20. 260.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    Thanks for the link! The advantage of an Android library is, of course, that you don't need to pre-generate the icons on the server.
21. 261.▲
    Show HN: Identicons for your Android app(github.com)

    2 points by marco1 12y ago|2 comments
22. 262.▲
    Show HN: Custom language selection for your Android app(github.com)

    3 points by marco1 12y ago|0 comments
23. 263.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    I started that way, too. I kept sending XML files to users and they kept sending Word documents back to me. There are quite a few competitors -- such as <transifex.com>, <poeditor.com>, <crowdin.net> and <getlocalizatio
24. 264.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    Really? This is from 2008. Can someone confirm this is still true?
25. 265.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    Thank you very much! I've implemented your suggestions (1), (2) and (3). They were of great help! The language code is not in the URL because the project should be platform-independent. My "vision" is to add support for platf
26. 266.▲
    Show HN: Translation platform for Android, free and open-source(localize.im)

    6 points by marco1 12y ago|4 comments
27. 267.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    Thanks for the understanding! By the way, it's not only about not accepting the lifestyle (e.g. coding at night) and thus struggling to keep up with the changes -- it's also not being profitable enough to hire enough people. If yo
28. 268.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    > NOT to take on the entire world and make it all your own problem. Which is exactly what I'm trying. Thank you! It's just that it often seems to me you can't have a proper work-life balance unless you shut your eyes to al
29. 269.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    Exactly ;( And I feel like the more ambitious you are (for yourself and your company), the more you suffer from this problem.
30. 270.▲
    by marco1 12y ago

    I have often had the same thoughts. Personally, I try to keep up with the news and the development in the industry (not just basically, as everyone does a little) because I want to have foresight and vision. A trivial example: Some competit