phigcch's comments

phigcch | 2 years ago | on: Ask HN: Did you encounter any leap year bugs today?

According to the Intranet, it was everybody's birthday yesterday.

phigcch | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: Which startups have the most interesting pivot stories?

Comrod (https://www.comrod.com/about/company-history/) is one of my lesser known favourites.

Started out making steel and fibreglass fishing rods in the 1950s. Pivoted to making high-performance antennas in the 1960s. This move makes a lot of sense when you think about it, but most people's initial reaction is surprise.

phigcch | 5 years ago | on: Schnorr confirms paper is his, claims it “destroys RSA cryptosystem”

Without experimental data to back it up (e.g. implementation and benchmarks), I'd consider this claim veeeery dubious - regardless of who it came from.

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, and in this case it would be easy to provide such evidence - by cracking appropriately-sized challenge primes in a transparent way that can be independently verified.

On the other hand, the theoretical approach in the paper is quite complex and hard to follow - even for professional cryptographers.

phigcch | 5 years ago | on: Backdoorer the Xplora: Bugs in smart watches for kids

Blogpost with technical background: https://www.mnemonic.no/blog/exposing-backdoor-consumer-prod...

phigcch | 5 years ago | on: Undocumented backdoor that covertly takes snapshots found in kids’ smartwatch

Additional technical background is available in the following blogpost: https://www.mnemonic.no/blog/exposing-backdoor-consumer-prod...

phigcch | 6 years ago | on: Out of Control: How consumers are exploited by the adtech industry

See also previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22043209 (edit: NYT coverage of the same report)

phigcch | 6 years ago | on: Grindr and OkCupid Spread Personal Details, Study Says

Link to full reports and release: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/side/new-study-the-advertising...

Twitter threads: https://twitter.com/finnmyrstad/status/1216988370632695809 https://twitter.com/maxschrems/status/1216954710248259585

phigcch | 6 years ago | on: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

There's a nice research article from 2016 by doctors in northern Norway about resuscitation of frozen patients:

“Nobody is dead until warm and dead”: Prolonged resuscitation is warranted in arrested hypothermic victims also in remote areas – A retrospective study from northern Norway

J. Hilmo, T. Naesheim, M. Gilbert https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030095721... (open access, CC licence)

Same hospital and team that treated Anna Bågenholm (mentioned in other comments, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_B%C3%A5genholm), and I guess that case is part of the study.

phigcch | 6 years ago | on: Which answer in this list is the correct answer to this question? (2017)

In the same vein, there's the classic infamous self-referential aptitude test. http://faculty.uml.edu/jpropp/srat-Q.txt

phigcch | 7 years ago | on: Peter's Evil Overlord List (1996)

Not to mention the 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the U.S. Army: http://skippyslist.com/list/

phigcch | 7 years ago | on: NSA encryption plan for ‘internet of things’ rejected by ISO

Better article from April when this story first broke. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/25/nsa_iot_encryption/

The standardization of Simon and Speck has been an ongoing fight within ISO/IEC JTC1 SC27 WG2 since 2014 or so, but looks like it's finally game over for now.

phigcch | 8 years ago | on: The mysterious case of the Linux Page Table Isolation patches

Interesting to note that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_page-table_isolation was created on December 29th.

phigcch | 12 years ago | on: Poor developer estimates, a.k.a. guesstimation

I find that the most precise approach is usually to make an estimate based on experience, and then multiply it with either e or Pi.

phigcch | 13 years ago | on: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

It is actually quite amazing what it is possible to survive. The hypothermia "record", so to speak, was broken shortly after this article was written. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_B%C3%A5genholm http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/12/cheating.death.bage...