uzero's comments | WingNews

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Avatar: A browser OS with built-in privacy and anonymity

I wrote a clarification about how Avatar is an operating system and about how it runs on a browser at https://discussions.avatar.ai/topic/18/what-makes-avatar-an-... - I hope this clarifies a bit what we are trying to accomplish with Avatar.

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Avatar: A browser OS with built-in privacy and anonymity

We are looking for security experts to double check/triple check/audit our protocol designs.

So if you know your crypto and you are intimately familiar with Alice and Bob, please lend us a hand and take a look at the protocols. Our discussion forum has a special section for security and protocols where you can post your comments.

Thank you!

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Avatar: A browser OS with built-in privacy and anonymity

Everything is encrypted by default. Even Freenet and Avatar are similar at very high-level, there's many differences under the surface.

I wrote more about how Avatar compares to X here: https://discussions.avatar.ai/topic/13/comparison-to-tor-fre...

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Avatar: A browser OS with built-in privacy and anonymity

Not yet but hopefully soon.

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Why I am no longer submitting direct URLs to HN (and neither should you)

And all I can hear is George Carlin http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Privacy And Why It Really Matters

Thanks for the feedback. With a big topics like these it's always hard to draw a line about how much context you provide.

I didn't know using dictionary definitions was a good predictor for the quality of the content but I'll keep that in mind. For me it's just hard to discard dictionary definitions as a tool to convey context when dictionary contain years and years of mental work to compress complex ideas and meanings into sentences that are easy to understand.

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Privacy And Why It Really Matters

I removed the sentence because you're right. I assumed it worked like I said but like always, assumption is the mother of all errors. My apologies for the misinformation and thanks for bringing it up.

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Privacy And Why It Really Matters

It's issued by StartSSL and is valid on all the browsers I have tried the site on. Can you tell me what browser (and version) are you using?

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Privacy And Why It Really Matters

You mean like how AOL anonymized their data? http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/09/your-secrets-live...

The problem with your "choice to share" is that you don't make that choice between whether you share that info or not, you make it between whether this data can come back to haunt me or not. It's a type of self-censoring which is an important goal for any party looking to suppress unwanted ideas.

uzero | 12 years ago | on: Privacy And Why It Really Matters

@dmix, good points. However I want to clarify that the point of the article is to provide my counterargument against Zuckerbergian ideology that privacy is not needed/dead. If you are tech savvy enough to escape G/F dragnet surveillance it doesn't mean that others are and there lies the problem.

uzero | 13 years ago | on: Insanely Great Clothing - Apple clothing line

Must have!

uzero | 13 years ago | on: New Apple Macbook Pro RAM is soldered to the motherboard | Ian Chilton

Yes I know but that wasn't the point. The point is that if I now buy the laptop with let's say 8GB because I think I don't need more than that because all I do is code. After 6 months I get assigned to doing work with BIG databases that easily eat 10GB memory. Now I'm stuck with 8GB because it's soldered and even Apple can't upgrade it.

uzero | 13 years ago | on: New Apple Macbook Pro RAM is soldered to the motherboard | Ian Chilton

My thoughts exactly. But I do think that if I would put over $2000 to a laptop I wouldn't like the fact that I'm not able to upgrade memory after few years. It's ok with devices like iPad but $2000 laptop is a device that you expect to use a bit longer.

uzero | 13 years ago | on: Joost van der Ree creates iOS interface concept

I like most of the ideas but I would love it if more "concept artists" would pay attention to how it would actually work in the whole user experience. This is one of the better concepts but too many times you see these god awful "what I demand from the next version" concepts that have features that would be unbelievable annoying when you actually have to see/use every time you use the device.

uzero | 13 years ago | on: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games

Clang getting some The Verge coverage http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/10/3076307/neal-stephenson-cl... - I hope these guys hit mainstream. I would love it if Neal could pull this off in a big way.

uzero | 13 years ago | on: Where Are All the High-Resolution Desktop Displays?

I have been dying to get a high dpi display ever since I first saw iPhone 4's display but there just isn't anything modern available. There's some really old Viewsonic displays with high dpis but they are from early 2000 so you can guess how good those are from other aspects of display technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_displays_by_pixel_densi... has a good list of current "leaders" in dpi side.

uzero | 14 years ago | on: Storing Passwords Securely

Excellent reading - I spent countless hours researching all this stuff for a project few years back. After my research I came up with very similar protocol than SRP but I find that SRP is a nice POC for both protocols.

One thing I didn't find solution for is keyloggers and other similar attacks. If you look at the whole securing your service as a whole, you have to acknowledge the risk of keyloggers also. Now with Flame, Stuxnet and all the other nice things still in the shadows keyloggers can suddenly become also a risk in a large scale.