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melville_X

HN member
Joined
Tue, Apr 29, 2014, 4:47 PM UTC
HN karma
77
Public activity
23 items

About melville_X

security researcher, systems deconstructor, programmer.

https://twitter.com/melville_x

Recent public activity

  1. comment
    Comment #8362614

    I mostly disagree with arguments to rationalize the sale of exploits, they create a massive power balance towards bad actors, but we have to be honest with ourselves, and like drug…

  2. comment
    Comment #8362569

    Governments are almost always the market for zero-days. Private security companies also buy them, but guess who their primary market is? Look at FinFisher's customer list. There is…

  3. comment
    Comment #8362543

    Agreed. Most people I know look at him with amusement. He's hardly an idolizing figure, besides some alright books about past exploits long ago.

  4. comment
    Comment #8352044

    Same with Canada... 5 years for contempt of court if you refuse to reveal password.

  5. comment
    Comment #7824853

    That's why VPNs exist. A VPN without an external DNS service is pretty pointless if you're concerned about ISP snooping.

  6. comment
    Comment #7819951

    A good free alternative is Comodo (8.26.56.26), I trust them slightly more than Google and they have security features such as malware detection. http://www.comodo.com/secure-dns/

  7. comment
    Comment #7806181

    France temporarily made undercover police work illegal until the mid 2000s. That would be an interesting study. But either way, there are obvious risks in this type of law enforcem…

  8. comment
  9. comment
    Comment #7806107

    Yes that's the definition of entrapment as interpreted by American courts. Very challenging for lawyers to use as a defense. Which is exactly why law enforcement loves using inform…

  10. comment
    Comment #7805617

    For anyone who wants to see a preview of Sabu's entrapment of anonymous members, one of his chat logs were leaked: http://cryptome.org/2012/09/sanguinarious-sabu.htm > Why is an in…

  11. comment
    Comment #7795175

    This is a good reason for all of us to keep switching away from GMail. It benefits us all via network effects.

  12. comment
    Comment #7757415

    I'd support a software focused Bitcoin foundation, not a politically focused one such as the current one. Somewhat like Linux foundation but more decentralized by design.

  13. comment
    Comment #7737079

    http://torrentz.eu/search?f=ISAMBARD+KINGDOM+BRUNEL

  14. comment
    Comment #7733837

    /switching bags/switching pants/switching jackets/ Happens all the time. I almost never forget my smartphone somehow.

  15. comment
    Comment #7729861

    I fought the urge to want a GUI for Tarsnap and hand-wrote cronjob scripts that I'm very happy with now. It was part of the fun. Definitely non-ideal for everyone but I recommend i…

  16. comment
    Comment #7686071

    The NSA uses Fedora as their standard laptop distro. There will definitely be influence on Fedora from that direction.

  17. comment
    Comment #7685967

    Most important is this line which demonstrates not only does the attacker need to social engineer a user, it has to be done via a vulnerable website: > The patch of this vulnerabil…

  18. comment
    Comment #7685948

    From the Q&A: > Covert Redirect is based on vulnerability Open Redirect. An open redirect is an application that takes a parameter and redirects a user to the parameter value witho…

  19. comment
    Comment #7685777

    Topiary aka Jake Davis from Lulzsec had funnier and more tasteful writing than this. HN back in their defacement days always commented on the quality of the writing. This sounds a …

  20. comment
    Comment #7675589

    Great point. They federal level infrastructure is pretty far from having that capability at the moment. As long as systems like one linked in the article are coming, the only natur…

  21. story
  22. comment
    Comment #7674048

    They cherrypicked a few out of thousands and Silk Road was a tiny tiny percentage of the drug market. What will happen when they are 10x the size? Will that type of law enforcement…

  23. comment
    Comment #7673967

    The point is that hunting people down protected by TOR and privacy laws in the postal mail system, one of the few practical privacy laws left, is still technically possible, yes...…