The_Decryptor

A place I worked at did it by duplicating and modifying a function, then commenting out the existing one. The dev would leave their name and date each time, because they never deleted the old commented out functions of course, history is important.

They’d also copy the source tree around on burnt CDs, so good luck finding out who had the latest copy at any one point (Hint: It was always the lead dev, because they wouldn’t share their code, so “merging to main” involved giving them a copy of your source tree on a burnt disk)

deleted by creator

For a while Google let you blacklist domains from search results, fantastic feature so of course they killed it off.

How about a 6.4TB sqlite database?

https://boyter.org/posts/searchcode-bigger-sqlite-than-you/

They’d run afoul of the whole “editing your own article” restrictions.

Surprised me to see replies defending it.

Tarlogic has detected that ESP32 chips, which allow connectivity via WiFi or Bluetooth, have hidden commands not documented by the manufacturer. These commands would allow modifying the chips arbitrarily to unlock additional functionalities, infecting these chips with malicious code, and even carrying out attacks of identity theft of devices.

It’s not a backdoor, it’s a jailbreak. Sounds like they left the debug functionality enabled but just undocumented.

Edit: They’re undocumented HCI commands, that’s the protocol the host (aka CPU) uses to talk to the chip, not a remote device.

Using a PCI screw bracket as a bottle opener

I assume it’d be used for high quality time synchronisation, when you’re running your own time servers.

So you’ve got a system synced to a GPS unit, and sends it’s time to other devices on the LAN via PTP. This would help the system account for latency between the CPU and NIC, I assume.

I take that there isn’t much motivation in moving to 128 because it’s big enough; it’s only 8 cycles (?) to fill a 512 (that can’t be right?).

8 cycles would be an eternity on a modern CPU, they can achieve multiple register sized loads per cycle.

If we do see a CPU with 128 bit addresses anytime soon, it’ll be something like CHERI, where the extra bits are used for flags.

I think CHERI is the only real attempt at a 128 bit system, but it uses the upper 64 bits for metadata, so the address space is still 64 bits.

I think the biggest issue would be a lack of interfaces to the C side code, they’re slowly being fleshed out and each one enables more functionality for the Rust modules.

e.g. the test Ext2 driver a MS dev wrote last year after enough of the filesystem interfaces got hooked up

But even then, I don’t think the maintainers would accept one that replaces the existing C driver, that’d break non-Rust builds and architectures, and that’s a sure-fire way to get Linus on your case. Best you can hope for is one that complements a C driver, and even then I think you’d need a good reason to have two drivers for the same hardware.

Best way forward if they so insist is to refactor small bits without interfering with the existing code-base.

I’m not sure they’re even doing that, I think the policy is that Rust code can depend on C code, but C can’t depend on Rust. So at the moment nothing can actually be rewritten in Rust, it’s only additions like new drivers.

On a more serious note, having a CTO at Microsoft, of all places, jump in on your side is kind of embarrassing.

That comment was from a few years ago and wasn’t in relation to Linux, and the company he co-founded made some pretty useful things (And revealed the Sony rootkit in 2005) before MS bought them.

NTFS was designed back in the mid 90s, when the plan was to have the single NT kernel with different subsystems on top of it, some of those layers (i.e. POSIX) needed case sensitivity while others (Win32 and OS/2) didn’t.

It only looks odd because the sole remaining subsystem in use (Win32) barely makes use of any of the kernel features, like they’re only just now enabling long file paths.

If you think the comments about Rust are bad, you should check out any article about X11/Wayland or systemd.

Qt is overkill if all you’re using it for is to create a window you render into, something like SDL would be better.

Jack Dorsey may have had lofty goals for Bluesky, but he doesn’t even work there anymore.

Which is a point in Bluesky’s favour.

systemd maybe, but people are already running Wayland on FreeBSD and OpenBSD

His personal LLC is called “Excession”, considering some of the plot points in that book I doubt he enjoyed it at all, it’s just “nerd set dressing”.