For a lot of code, I switched to generating code rather than using 3rd party libraries.
Things like PEG parsers, path finding algorithms, string sanitizers, data type conversion, etc are very conveniently generated by LLMs. It's fast, reduces dependencies, and feels safer to me.
I understand it can be difficult to label, and there's an inconveniently large grey area here, but there is a difference between plain vibe-coded software and software built with AI under the control, direction and validation of a developer.
The distinction is probably not very important for small applications, as nobody cares if a minor script or a one-shot data processor has been vibe-coded, but for large applications it surely matters in the long term.
Just found about this skin market/casino thing, and also that my teenage son purchased a skin for 100€, but is still pretty excited and happy about it because «its real value is around 700€».
I am still processing this information.
Most people have no sense of security. They say yes to strangers if asked to plug in a USB device on their laptop. When I said no in the train to someone asking to plug their device "for charging", I was definitely the bad guy.
Just find anything plausible, for backup storage, or say, to share family photos with grand parents but it does not work on my home wifi because my ISP is blocking ports, whatever.
In the early 2000s the video field was flooded with fast paced releases of new codecs and new codecs versions, and there was codecs implementation to downloads right and left, and people were bundling them and releasing them with names sounding like a warez group. It was a little crazy to watch a video at the time.
This was mitigated by vlc and mplayer, two video players that integrated most codecs as fast as they could, and it was a breath of fresh air. You just started them and any video would play, no codec issue anymore.
MPlayer has not been updated for some times, and traction was lost, but VLC, although looking a bit old on the UI-side (and a little buggy on ARM Windows) is still here and is solid when someone just wants to watch a video on any platform.
The same thing exists on Windows, developers have to code sign their binaries. It's even worse in my experience because you have to use a token (usb key with cryptographic signing keys in it) and that's impractical if you want your ci/cd to run in a datacenter. At my company we had a mac mini with a windows VM and a code signing token plugged in just for the purpose of signing our macos and windows binaries.
Another solution that is not mentioned in the article is that users of both macos and windows should be able to easily integrate the certificate of a third-party editor, with a process integrated in their OS explaining the risks, but also making it a process that can be understood and trusted, so that editors can self-sign their own binaries at no cost without needing the approval of the OS editor. Such a tool should ideally be integrated in the OS, but ultimately it could also be provided by a trusted third-party.
The main issue with this article is that it claims to be about anonymization, but reject HMAC because it's not reversible, and promotes IPCrypt because it is.
Except that if it's reversible, it's not anonymization, it's pseudonymization.
Happened in France too. It was put in place in the late 70s, and ended in 2020. Called the «numerus clausus» (closed number, in latin) and it restricted the number of medicine students allowed in the country every year.
The number of students fell by 50% between 1980 and the mid 90s: 8500 new students/year in 1972, 3500 in 1993.
Of course, now the number of doctors in France is far from enough for an aging population, in every specialty and it will take at least a decade to improve. It's not uncommon to have 1-year waitlists for ophthalmology appointments, and several weeks or even months for dermatology.
Or maybe just read the commits between now and a reasonable date far enough in the past so that if there is some hostile code injected before that point in time, then at least you will share the walk of shame with a lot of people and you can play the sound of "who could have guessed?"
Even is the AI bubble does not pops, your prediction about those servers being available on ebay in 10 years will likely be true, because some datacenters will simply upgrade their hardware and resell their old ones to third parties.
But how can it be a problem? Working on a project just for fun is totally valid. Is this not «Hacker News»?
For the record, this is the definition of being a hacker by Stallman: «Being a programmer doesn't mean being a hacker: it means appreciating playful cleverness. Now, you can program without being playfully clever and you can be playfully clever in other fields without programming.»
1. I say both somewhat 50/50. I say SSL instinctively, and TLS when I think about it and remember we don't say SSL anymore. It's been like that for around 10 years now, before that I'd only say SSL.
2. I started programming professionally in 1998 and I'm in my early 50s.
I have a similar experience with providing users with excel files, but would also like to add that in a lot of business, the number 1 competition for a web application is the good old excel file (or its modern cloud version), and it's sometimes a challenge to beat.
To be fair, the non-geographical definitions that excludes Britain, actually only excludes Britain because Britain excluded itself of the European Union in 2020.