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The Deathray: A simple way for an untrusted site to freeze a Mac

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Re: The Deathray: A simple way for an untrusted site to freeze a Mac

#111

Post by sersi »

socalgal2 wrote: post #93
zelphirkalt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think a regular user knows how to block a specific website or never click a link leading to it again? And what about the ads people, adding such a thing if you don't load their ads? I think this point of view is making it a bit too easy.

A user doesn't need to know anything other than "when I go to site XYZ.com my computer freezes. Guess I won't go there again" > I think this point of view is making it a bit too easy. It's been 15 years since this was possible. How many times have you heard of this being an issue? Again, it's self correcting. Site freezes machine, user stops going to site. There's zero incentive to do this and tons of incentive to no…

An average user will not know that the site caused the issue. The first time after force turning off the computer, it will restart and reopen all windows causing the computer to crash again. The next time, they might click on the button to prevent reopening all windows and everything will be fine until they opens safari which will cause the same issue. At that point, they'll call whoever is their computer expert user to help them out.

Re: The Deathray: A simple way for an untrusted site to freeze a Mac

#113

Post by Razengan »

socalgal2 wrote: post #88
autoexec wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you. WebGPU has been used to compromise and fingerprint systems. Firefox (and related forks) are usually able to disable this kind of insecure fluff but it'd be nice if other browsers did as well.

WebGPU provides ZERO extra data that wasn't already available from WebGL in 2011. The world didn't end and it's been 15 years

> The world didn't end and it's been 15 years

Maybe it did and you're just hooked up to the Matrix thinking it didn't

Re: The Deathray: A simple way for an untrusted site to freeze a Mac

#114

Post by DrewADesign »

xingped wrote: post #107
socalgal2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A user doesn't need to know anything other than "when I go to site XYZ.com my computer freezes. Guess I won't go there again" > I think this point of view is making it a bit too easy. It's been 15 years since this was possible. How many times have you heard of this being an issue? Again, it's self correcting. Site freezes machine, user stops going to site. There's zero incentive to do this and tons of incentive to no…

I think a lot of HN commenters are way too disconnected from the average person. You're making a big assumption that a user will even connect the dots until the same thing happens multiple times, if even then. The average computer user is extremely bad at connecting cause and effect on their computer. Think of how many times you hear "my computer is broken!" when actually it's something like the printer was unplugged…

> I think a lot of HN commenters are way too disconnected from the average person

This is basically an old-man-and-the-starfish situation for me.

> You're making a big assumption that a user will even connect the dots

If they do, it’s because their wildly inaccurate mental model happened to guess the right answer. What most will think is “I was just browsing the internet and my computer froze.” Maybe they’ll connect it with that notification they just got about renewing their antivirus software subscription. Maybe it will confirm their (probably mistaken) impression that their computer has been “acting weird” since something arbitrary and unrelated happened. And similarly, some people with an accurate mental model will mistakenly assume that they deduced the cause because they’re smarter, rather than having a different focus with corresponding lacking mental models in other areas.

Re: The Deathray: A simple way for an untrusted site to freeze a Mac

#115

Post by concinds »

isolay wrote: post #110

> Just hope that your browser doesn't automatically reopen the same tab when it starts up again Busted. My browser is configured to do just that.

Chrome asks whether to reopen windows if it didn't exit normally. Safari appears to just YOLO it. Don't know about Firefox.

Re: The Deathray: A simple way for an untrusted site to freeze a Mac

#116

Post by LoganDark »

abecedarius wrote: post #63
LoganDark wrote: post #15

Apple Silicon Macs have a lot of GPU problems. I find that after running any significant GPU workload, the entire operating system starts getting super slow until a reboot. Even if the entire process tree that ever touched the GPU has been completely terminated for days.

Sounds like a problem that'd hit anyone running LLMs. I haven't tried on mine so far, but people do talk about ordering a $10k Mac Studio just for that. Anyone else see this? Does the OS version matter?

I don't think I had the issue before macOS 26, but honestly I have no way to tell. I did run into one other HN commenter that suffers from the same slowness problem, but they didn't connect it to workloads, only uptime. I think it was the same issue though.

Re: The Deathray: A simple way for an untrusted site to freeze a Mac

#118

Post by g-b-r »

It freezes a Pixel 10 on Chrome, Webviews and Brave..!

I tried several webview-based browsers, Chrome, and Brave, with them the phone completely freezes (except that the audio keeps going for a bit).

I tested webview browsers because by chance the first place I ran it on was Telegram's internal browser (on which the phone does freeze).

It doesn't do anything on Firefox though, and weirdly enough not even on the Chromium-based Cromite (after enabling WebGL).

I only tried waiting for a few minutes, but it wasn't giving signs of life.

If someone wants to try, keep in mind that to force restart a Pixel you have to press the power button for 30 seconds (during which you might break out in a cold sweat).

Re: The Deathray: A simple way for an untrusted site to freeze a Mac

#119

Post by guidopallemans »

amelius wrote: post #117
isolay wrote: post #110

> Just hope that your browser doesn't automatically reopen the same tab when it starts up again Busted. My browser is configured to do just that.

Unplug your ethernet cable?

Just hope they don't add a service worker to remain functional offline
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