It's not really a middle ground if you're not testing your service in the same conditions as in production environment.
If you're not testing integration with Kafka, and the producer, your service is still lacking integration tests.
Testing classes in isolation with testcontainer is fine. But I observed that with microservice architecture the line between E2E tests and integration tests are blurred.
Microservices can and should be tested from the client perspective.
I agree with this. At work we use both approaches but at different levels of the test pyramid.
To test integration with 1 dependency at class level we can use test containers.
But to test the integration of the whole microservice with other microservices + dependencies we use a test environment and some test code.
It's a bit like an E2E test for an API.
I would argue that the test environment is more useful if I had to choose between the two as it can test the service contract fully, unlike lower type testing which requires a lot of mocking.
But a lot of the question /responses could be trivial cached. No need to run expensive LLM every time for the same basic "how are you today?" prompts, it only has to be cached once.
I'm also wondering if they send data to the Russian Yandex search engine as they have an agreement to have this search engine by default in some countries ?
Oh, salut ! (Romanian "salut" not French "salut", lol)
It's indeed still useful when traveling to those countries that speak these languages. But that's mere few weeks per year. English could have worked anyway as everyone is becoming proficient in English.
As someone fluent in four languages*, I agree. I would even argue that the opposite of an advantage is true. Consider this: it adds unnecessary cognitive load. When trying to think of a word, it comes to you in four different languages, which isn't helpful!
I speak four languages out of necessity, not by choice. When you can focus on fewer languages, your proficiency in them improves. Although I can speak four languages, I always feel as if I'm lacking a certain level of expertise in each one. I wish I only needed to speak one language, saving my mental capacity for other things. Constantly juggling languages doesn't help.
The main benefit of knowing multiple languages in everyday life is eavesdropping on people in the street speaking their language, but that's about it.
Moreover, all my friends from my country also speak four languages. Unfortunately, I don't hear of people from Moldova faring much better than others.
*My mother tongue is Romanian, but everyone in Moldova also speaks Russian (due to the Soviet past). At school, I learned French and later studied in France. I picked up English mainly through computers and the internet. Now, I'm in the Netherlands and need to learn another language, but this one is proving slow to learn. I don't feel any advantage in learning a new language either.
I would gladly trade Russian and French over knowing Dutch right now ;o) There are months when I don't speak those two so they are of little use for me anymore.
My point is precisely this: With robust end-to-end encryption in place, there's no need to rely on the trustworthiness of the backend. Unfortunately, Telegram lacks this feature, making it untrustworthy.
Even with Telegram's encryption, messages can be compromised through a straightforward SIM swap. This means that their encryption is essentially irrelevant since messages can be read without needing an encryption key from the client.
I recommend checking out Moxie Marlinspike's Twitter thread on this topic for further insight. You can find the link I previously shared in another thread.
? You may still find the dump of messages online. Is this enough of a proof for you?
Something that wouldn't happen if those officials were using WhatsApp or another app that has E2E encryption by default.
The argument regarding "source code" is misleading and not entirely relevant. It's worth noting that Telegram's backend is also closed source, yet its supporters often overlook this fact.
Decompiling and inspecting mobile apps is relatively simple, so if there were any issues with the WhatsApp client, they would likely have been uncovered already.
As for Telegram, its messages are stored in plain text on their servers, and it doesn't offer default end-to-end encryption. This means that if Russian secret services were to gain access to Telegram's backend, they could easily read all the messages.
Therefore, when using Telegram, it's important to be aware that its administrators have the ability to read all of your messages.
Be cautious when using Telegram for important matters.
I recently examined a situation where confidential messages from high-ranking Moldovan officials were leaked through Telegram. Unlike WhatsApp and Signal, which offer end-to-end encryption by default, protecting your messages even in case of a SIM swap, Telegram does not offer the same level of security. A SIM swap or a breach in their system can lead to message leaks.
Despite advertising themselves as a "secure messaging" platform, Telegram lacks default end-to-end encryption, making it less secure than its competitors.
>WhatsApp backs up your encryption key to Google Drive by default, meaning it's far from end-to-end encryption.
This is a lie[1]. If you don't enable backups yourself, you loose your messages.
You can enable E2E encryption for your backups.
WhatsApp is vastly superior to Telegram in terms of E2E encryption.
Telegram can read users messages on their servers and they are not even trying to tell their users to enable E2E.
I wonder how accurate those numbers are about Edge. As 79.48% of desktop users in Moldova are on Windows 10 and Windows 11. [1]
Microsoft Edge is the default web browser on Windows 10, Windows 11. [2]
Meaning at a huge amount of population will see Yandex when they search for something at least for the first time. Unless they install another browser immediately or change the default search engine.
And yes, I wasn't expecting to see my inquiry deleted on their forum. I'm posting again without the screenshot. In case they didn't like what Yandex returns as results (which is weird, as it is their "business partner").
I'm also very humbled by the support of the hacker news community. As a long time lurker, it warms my heart a lot to see so much support. I hope it reaches Microsoft.
Microsoft signed a deal in 2015 to set Yandex as the default search engine in several countries close to Russia. The article mentions "Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Ukraine". The list is not exhaustive, as I know about Moldova and Georgia. https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-partners-russias-ya...
The list includes Ukraine! I've tested Edge with Ukraine as a Region on my MacOS, and it no longer appears to set it to Yandex.
But it still does for several other countries. Which includes Moldova. Moldova is a country that Russia has repeatedly threatened.
While advanced users may try and remove Yandex as default, non-tech savvy users likely leave the defaults.
Meaning Microsoft Edge shares data with Russia by setting Yandex as a default search engine for their users, which is really bad.
Please upvote this story to give it visibility. Many thanks!
Hard no. Have you tried activating encryption in personal chats?