News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

hkopp

Re:Shades of Blunders on Saturday February 01, 2025 @06:30AM (#42897611)
The notation is really not that frightening, once you get it. Just read the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)

Don't bother with that large table at the bottom.

Re:There is no safe way to use TikTok on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @02:18PM (#39982410)
The title should probably be "Is TikTok safe?" to reduce clickbait.
Re:RZK: Experimental proof assistant for synthetic ∞-categories on Thursday September 28, 2023 @01:38PM (#37692958)
I think it is due to the homotopy type theory book. There is an elegant connection between category theory and type theory. I guess most of the people submitting category theory to hacker news (or any graduate math) just do it to flex and seem clever.
Re:RZK: Experimental proof assistant for synthetic ∞-categories on Thursday September 28, 2023 @12:53PM (#37692356)
I have studied math and was in some lectures about category theory. I still don't get what the project is about and that fact intrigues me.
Re:Tao Te Ching on Thursday September 28, 2023 @12:45PM (#37692213)
- the "shin jin mei" of sen ts'an

- "On Zen" by Daio Kokuchi

- "Shobogenzo" by Dogen. I especially venerate the loose translation (or paraphrasing) by Brad Warner.

The precise mathematical definition of obfuscation and what is considered obfuscation for an average software engineer are two very different things.

In fact, the article is only about indistinguishability obfuscation. What is mostly discussed in this thread is the notion of virtual black box obfuscation (VBB). VBB has been proven to be impossible in the general case (see https://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/PS/obf4.pdf). There are a few special programs where VBB is feasible, such as point functions, but in general in cannot be achieved.

Indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) means that if you obfuscate two programs that compute the same function, then you cannot distinguish them. Or put in different words, if you get two obfuscated programs, then there is no better way than random guessing (except for a factor that is negligible in some security parameter) to find out if they stem from the same original program.

Re:Man beats machine at Go in human victory over AI on Saturday February 18, 2023 @03:22AM (#34845085)
I am much more familiar with the development in the chess world. Since Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997, there was a lot of progress in the development and the architecture of chess engines. Back then, we did not have neural networks. A lot of the strategies of chess engines are now used by chess grandmasters. As an example, the value of the activity of pieces was underrated in contrast to the value of material.

As there are more generations of chess engines than go engines, it would be quite interesting to pull something similar off against them. My intuition is that it maybe works against Leela, as LeelaChess basically uses only neural networks (think alphago but for chess), whereas it should not work with Stockfish, as some parts of Stockfishs evaluation function are still adjusted by hand.

Re:“Invalid Username or Password”: a useless security measure on Wednesday November 23, 2022 @03:23PM (#33724068)
The argumentation is faulty.

Users cannot be enumerated using the login, but using the signup. The author then argues that they should add the user enumeration function to the login.

This is similar to: The door is locked, but the window is open. And then consequently it makes no sense to close the door at all, as an attacker can sneak through the window.

Instead, the window should be locked as well, i.e., it should be impossible to enumerate users with the signup function.

Re:gitignore – A collection of useful .gitignore templates on Wednesday November 23, 2022 @12:40PM (#33722198)
I always use https://gitignore.io.
Re:MD5 Collision with CRC32 Preimage on Friday September 23, 2022 @04:25PM (#32956634)
Note that hashquines, i.e., programs that print their own hash when executed do not depend on the hash function being broken. In fact, they are a fun little exercise.
Re:Full key extraction of Nvidia TSEC on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @02:46PM (#29322386)
The magic to me is that the CPU glitches are caused completely on the software side. With dedicated hardware such as flying probe testers this attack is state-of-the-art afaik. But glitching the CPU only with software, i.e., causing hardware bugs only with software is what really surprised me.
Re:Chu Spaces: A Visual Introduction on Thursday November 11, 2021 @03:12AM (#29185634)
Does everything need to have an application in order to be useful?

What problems does music solve? Do poems facilitate solving some problems more quickly or easily? And if not, are they useless?

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