News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by hypfer on Saturday October 25, 2025 @08:00AM (#45703189)
Business in this case means a clear transactional mindset. And you do get paid, just not in cash. You push your brand, your credibility as a security researcher and all that. You earn social credits and reputation.

And that is why you tried to hook people to watch your talk.

I bet the talk is good. Great, even. But this (maybe even not conscious) transactionality just does not belong in that space. HN, for example, is a much better place for it.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by braincode on Saturday October 25, 2025 @08:13AM (#45703284)
> And that is why you tried to hook people to watch your talk.

Hook people? Hey, it's not *THAT* good of a talk. I'm not even a security researcher myself, but thanks for the street cred ;)

I see your points, let's agree to disagree on some of them but overall, thanks for sharing your thoughts over here, good intellectual sparring.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by fgbarben on Saturday October 25, 2025 @08:21AM (#45703331)
Is this entire account just performance art?

"I Pretended To Be The Most Insufferable Maintainer in Open Source and Everyone Hated Me For It"?

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by hypfer on Saturday October 25, 2025 @09:38AM (#45703794)
Yes. I am not a real person.

In fact, no one but yourself is. You are the hero here. You see through it all. Thank you, hero, for finding that out and saving the city.

You win +37XP

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by fgbarben on Saturday October 25, 2025 @10:09AM (#45704047)
If I donate $100 to your ko-fi will you stop bullying me?
Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by hypfer on Saturday October 25, 2025 @10:15AM (#45704087)
ngl that's a good answer.

You've nailed it. It is clearly deliberate but also could be the result of a markov chain and it sits right in the middle.

I like that. Good art, thanks.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by DonHopkins on Saturday October 25, 2025 @05:03PM (#45706934)
Eeeeh, two out of ten... Boring, derivative, and juvenile; you're just a sad drab light weight whiney troll. You can't hold a candle to the colorful iconoclastic brilliance of Netochka Nezvanova's performance art.

Her artfully crafted non-existence is baked into her name, her avant-garde software engineering is brilliant and groundbreaking, and she even has a Wikipedia page, a Salon.com article, and numerous ArtsyFartsy LitCrit analyses written about her legendary trolling.

You could do better by taking some advice from Melania Trump, gold-digging meme-coin-rug-pull-endorsing transactional trophy wife of the biglyest troll in the universe: "Be Best".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Best

>Be Best is a public-awareness campaign first promoted by First Lady Melania Trump. It began in 2018 and continued until 2021. Its initial focuses included youth well-being and combating cyberbullying; the initiative's scope was expanded to include combating revenge porn during her second tenure as first lady.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22352276

>Bravo! If you enjoyed that anti-Max performance art trolling, but thought it wasn't spectacularly hyperbolic and sociopathic enough, I recommend looking up some of the classic flames on the nettime mailing list by Netochka Nezvanova aka "NN" aka "=cw4t7abs", "punktprotokol", "0f0003", "maschinenkunst" (preferably spelled "m2zk!n3nkunzt"), "integer", and "antiorp"! [...]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netochka_Nezvanova_(author)

>Netochka Nezvanova is the pseudonym used by the author(s) of nato.0+55+3d, a real-time, modular, video and multi-media processing environment. Alternate aliases include "=cw4t7abs", "punktprotokol", "0f0003", "maschinenkunst" (preferably spelled "m2zk!n3nkunzt"), "integer", and "antiorp". The name itself is adopted from the main character of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's unfinished novel Netochka Nezvanova (1849) and translates as "nameless nobody." [...]

https://www.salon.com/2002/03/01/netochka/

>The most feared woman on the Internet: Netochka Nezvanova is a software programmer, radical artist and online troublemaker. But is she for real?

>For someone who does not exist — at least the way you or I do — Netochka Nezvanova has a fearsome reputation. She’s a gifted computer programmer and polemicist, an artist and a pain-in-the-ass, a critic of capitalism and fascism, as well as a capitalist and a marketer. [...]

https://anthology.rhizome.org/m9ndfukc-0-99

>Netochka Nezvanova was a massively influential online entity at the turn of the millennium. An evolution of various internet monikers, among them m2zk!n3nkunzt, inte.ger, and antiorp, Nezvanova has collectively been credited for writing a number of early real-time audiovisual and graphics applications. She was also a prolific and divisive presence on email lists, employing trolling as a form of propaganda and as a tool for creative disruption—though, at times, users adopting the moniker also engaged in harassment and other destructive behaviors. [...]

>"I have not been thrown off a mailing list. I have been illegally transformed into a yellow flower. A young girl one day found me, and with half closed eyes whispered: Perfection, Today you've peered in my direction." —Netochka Nezvanova, m9ndfukc.0+99, 1999.

>As hacker or net prankster, Nezvanova was incredibly intentional in her actions. As a software writer, she was both an abstractionist and a progenitor. [...]

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by matheusmoreira on Saturday October 25, 2025 @11:11AM (#45704498)
> And you do get paid, just not in cash.

> And that is why you tried to hook people to watch your talk.

I gotta wonder if whoever you banned really deserves this. I think there's a world of difference between an individual just sharing something they worked on and a corporation spamming your channel for profit.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by hypfer on Saturday October 25, 2025 @11:22AM (#45704601)
Sure, but the action is still incorrect and that's why the reaction was removal.

Deserving sounds like a punishment, but it's just action => reaction. Attendance privilege was misused so it was revoked for a while.

I get where you're coming from, but the question there always ends up "where is the line?"

The answer in this case makes it simple. The line is crossed the moment transactional self-promotion happens.

No surprises for anyone. No discussions about which groups might be allowed to do so and why. A simple "no transactionality full stop".

Btw, most bans in my space expire after a while, because I do believe that people can and will change, but, as per the CoC, there is also another way to appeal a ban.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by matheusmoreira on Saturday October 25, 2025 @12:00PM (#45704850)
> The line is crossed the moment transactional self-promotion happens.

I understand where you're coming from now. I was confused at first because I make a conscious effort to differentiate this from commercial advertising.

I think it's only natural for people to want to share their work with peers. I agree that sites such as this one are the appropriate places for posting such things. I just hesitate before calling it advertising which has much darker connotations.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by Raptor75 on Sunday October 26, 2025 @03:21AM (#45709763)
> but, as per the CoC, there is also another way to appeal a ban.

massive lie here, people who get banned cannot contact you in private because they are blocked both on TG and on GH

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by hypfer on Sunday October 26, 2025 @03:55AM (#45709896)
I see that you're back to your old self, Stefan, after for a moment it almost looked like you've dropped it and moved on.

Will you ever move on? You do know that what you want is for me to stop being me and that is something I simply cannot do, right? This can't be fulfilling, especially given it's a reaction to once being part of the in-group.

As a fellow adult, I would really wish for you to somehow make peace with this fundamental incompatibility.

It is probably me. I am incompatible with the world. You're okay the way you are.

What else can I do other than putting up many, many warning signs?

__

Anyway.

Lie is a very strong word you're using there. What is true is that I'm certainly not providing a high-speed instant path to achieve that, but just because there isn't a large neon arrow pointing at a high-speed industrial conveyor belt, doesn't mean that there wouldn't be a set of stairs close by.

Finding those stairs and bothering to walk up is in itself another filter in the spirit of the CoC and the appeal process. Essentially, selecting for caring and bothering instead of "needing to fix this one thing to get back on track".

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by Raptor75 on Sunday October 26, 2025 @05:35AM (#45710381)
> doesn't mean that there wouldn't be a set of stairs close by.

sure, force people to create various accounts on various other social media just to follow an inexistent appeal process.

>back to your old self, Stefan

there is no old self. I never stopped working in the background, collecting and publishing information, encouraging people to discuss various features they could build, giving visibility to the people who do, and taking care of the people you ban, especially the ones who were highly confused about what happened.

> You do know that what you want is for me to stop being me

Not at all, you continue doing you. I know you cannot change - ironic since this is one failing you berated me for. But don't expect me to stop highlighting the inconsistencies of your actions and words, especially when these help people come to terms with your treatment of them on your TG groups.

> Will you ever move on? ... given it's a reaction to once being part of the in-group.

I've moved on a long time ago from your in-group of sycophants. I laugh when I see them posting on other social media attacking someone they deem doing something against your philosophy, and cry remembering that I was once one of them.

But funny saying I should move on, since you clearly haven't given your last release notes, and still publishing and pointing to your slanderous post. for that reason my reply on reddit is still highlighted and pinned.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by hypfer on Sunday October 26, 2025 @06:28AM (#45710625)
Question:

I see that you have a lot of energy to fight for what is right and that's great!

Have you considered directing that at the vendors? Any vendor. Roborock, Dreame, Ecovacs, whoever.

These are those responsible for why you are still being forced to engage with me in some way. And you have a clear paid customer relationship with them. They must listen.

Imagine how great it would be if my whole project would become entirely irrelevant, because there is a proper vendor solution with paid commercial support and without some weird ideological Hardliner.

That to me sounds like the ultimate win. It would even side-steps me completely, stripping me of all my undeserved autocratic power.

Instead of fighting over a tiny cake, what about making that cake much, much bigger? Just some food for thought.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by Raptor75 on Sunday October 26, 2025 @06:56AM (#45710739)
Interesting you should say that, considering apparently you just banned someone who is doing just that.

IN any case, that is why we created the discord which is open to all kinds of Robot modding, Valetudo being only a small part of it.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by hypfer on Sunday October 26, 2025 @07:34AM (#45710914)
Thanks btw. The prior question of mine looks like I knew it all along, but in reality it only came to me because I was challenged here.

There was a large gaping hole in the docs that has now been closed: https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/so-youve-been-banned.ht...

I genuinely think that this is a good addition and it wouldn't exist without your input. I just wish there would be less pain attached to all of this.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by Raptor75 on Sunday October 26, 2025 @08:15AM (#45711145)
Glad you got something positive out of the interaction.

Yes, any pain we could without.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by brazukadev on Sunday October 26, 2025 @07:57AM (#45711031)
I never heard about valetudo before (are you Brazilian?) but kudos for the way you handle the open source harassment. I'll use this link as an example/reference for future discussions here in this forum.
Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by Raptor75 on Sunday October 26, 2025 @08:16AM (#45711154)
Who is harassing who exactly? All I see is people posting their experiences, both positive and negative, of the particular piece of software that was linked.
Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by brazukadev on Sunday October 26, 2025 @10:16AM (#45712081)
it is free software, mate. You have no rights besides using the damn software and source code.

Btw you are the harasser. Just do what you should have done long ago, disengage, move on.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by Raptor75 on Sunday October 26, 2025 @12:52PM (#45713311)
that's where you're wrong "mate", we absolutely have every right to speak out against abuse. and abuse is a regular occurrence where this software is involved. Just look at the controversy a mere posting here has brought up. This happens almost every time the software is mentioned. Just another example is here - https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1ngn3jy/comm...

Also "mate", there is no harassment here. By his own words, the dev does not want people to use his software. So the more people we warn, the less people he has to interact with, which is a net gain for him. We're doing him the biggest favour.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by brazukadev on Sunday October 26, 2025 @04:05PM (#45714797)
You are harassing him and every person you contacted thinking you are helping them. Seriously, move on. If you guys were from the same country, I'd recommend him going to the police. People like you are dangerous.
Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by Raptor75 on Sunday October 26, 2025 @04:40PM (#45715031)
Actually it's been discussed, and it's him breaking German law on multiple occasions.

That includes his attempt to dox me above.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by deepscanner on Monday October 27, 2025 @03:48AM (#45718347)
Nobody is harassing him, people are talking, and people are free to talk about a person who was abusive, it's something called communication. Something you're not used to in that Telegram group.

At this point it's the opposite of harassment, people are actually saying how he should be avoided at all costs and how it's painful to deal with him.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by Azelphur on Sunday October 26, 2025 @12:58PM (#45713371)
First off disclaimer, I'm one of the people Hypfer has banned/abused, I'm also a friend of Raptors.

I agree with you that open source developers face harassment, I've seen it happen myself. But, in this case, things are the other way around. Hypfers behavior is awful, there are threads full of of people on reddit that Hypfer has been rude / abusive to. There's an entire discord server with 85 members and counting, the majority of which have been on the receiving end of harassment and just want to talk vacuum modding. Don't believe me? search "site:reddit.com hypfer" on Google and start reading, there's piles of it. Running an open source project does not entitle you to abuse people. There's no other open source project that I can say "just chuck site:reddit.com <developers name> into Google and start reading, you'll find them harassing people."

Of course, I'm also a victim. They accused me of gaslighting them, told me I was stupid, banned me and then spent days after ridiculing me in the Telegram group with thousands of members. I saw screenshots likening educating me to taking a 4 year old to university, and another saying something akin to "I pity the spouses of the people I've banned here", while also playing the "woe is me" card claiming that I asked them to implement HTTPS support when I explicitly stated the opposite. This stuff is extremely clear harassment. To be clear, I did nothing to provoke this behavior, I was asked why I thought HTTPS support on the robot was a good idea, I explained, got banned because Hypfer didn't agree. Hypfer then wrote a FAQ on the subject. Any engineer well versed on the topic would tell you the majority of the stuff in the FAQ entry is wrong.

Since my ban, I've learned that my story is a common theme, users will join the telegram for support and ask questions, only to be abused, banned, and then publicly ridiculed for days afterwards. Even more clear cut things like "Docs say that if X happens I should ask on the Telegram group, I did and immediately got banned". I've received countless messages from users who have been on the receiving end of this harassment.

This situation makes for a terrible example of harassment open source developers face, because in this specific case, there's more harassment towards the users than from them. If you want a nicer example, I'd suggest going and looking at the Jellyfin devs or something, they definitely receive their fair share of unwarranted shots from users.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by brazukadev on Sunday October 26, 2025 @04:07PM (#45714807)
Stop creating accounts to post here, don't join this madness. We don't need you to save us from the creator of this software. Move on!
Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by deepscanner on Monday October 27, 2025 @03:45AM (#45718333)
Let the guy speak his mind, I am extremely thankful for his post.
Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by brazukadev on Monday October 27, 2025 @04:56AM (#45718701)
I guess you all were talking all weekend about this post in your own little group of harassers, right? Maybe even some theories about me, for standing against this mob attack?

Seriously, you guys need to move on. This is next level harassment. It's insane that you guys think it's ok to astroturf here. This forum wasn't created yesterday.

Re:Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling lo... by Azelphur on Monday October 27, 2025 @04:27PM (#45725866)
1. Sure, people have been talking about it. The Discord server has 87 members now, the overwhelming majority feel they have been mistreated in some way by Hypfer. Myself included. It's unsurprising that people in that position would talk about this post.

2. You got one mention, Raptor told me you had replied. The groups open, you can take a look and then leave if you want. Nobody is making up theories about you.

3. It's not a "mob attack". Most of the people here were treated badly, which is what drove them to make these comments. The effect cannot precede the cause, that makes no sense. By the same reason, it is also not harassment. Posting about being being treated badly by someone is not harassment or an attack. If you don't want to be known for treating people badly, the solution is to not treat people badly.

4. To my knowledge, deepscanner isn't in the discord. I have no idea who they are.

5. On astroturfing, someone accused me of brigading when this came up on Reddit and I'll say the same thing here as I did there - I don't know most of these people, I didn't tell anyone to come here. I found out about this thread yesterday, and made my first comment at 16:58 on the 26th. Most of the discussion on this thread happened before my comment and before I was even aware of this thread. Again, the effect cannot precede the cause. Nobody on the discord told anyone to post either. However, there is plenty of evidence of Hypfer brigading, you only need to read the dust announce where he writes "Speak up. In your own words. With your own thoughts. Say something." in response to the subreddit creation. This message was read by 9,790 people. This is a super clear violation of reddits brigading rules.

I notice however, that you say "I never heard about valetudo before", but you also mentioned "We don't need you to save us from the creator of this software". I have mentioned in posts on other platforms that I primarily post my experience to protect / warn unsuspecting people about the Valetudo community, but, I said nothing to that effect in my comments here. The only way you'd have been prompted to write that, is if you'd read my posts on other platforms, yet you claim to have never heard of Valetudo ... whoopsie.