WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution • Hacker News Board

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#121

Post by donmcronald » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:21 AM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #83

An interesting point I don't think I've seen someone make -- people compare the LLM revolution to other technical revolutions. You don't need to worry about skill decay in the same way that you don't know how to bake bread from unprocessed wheat, or you don't know how to build a loom, etc. But local models aside (which no matter the protests from HN, will only be available to the technically savvy few) all of these L…

If they manage to build good memory systems, people will stop keeping personal docs and rely on the “AI” for everything. Imagine 20 years from now when people don’t even have copies of the recipe to bake bread and then you’ll see what the goal is.

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#122

Post by olyjohn » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:32 AM UTC

VertanaNinjai wrote: post #105

rstupek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They started it because the drivers people used to use from hardware vendors would routinely blue screen windows, which made MS look like the reason windows would crash. Hardware vendors are notoriously inept at software.

Í think their point was that Wireguard has no physical hardware, so it’s strange as a software project they’d be forced to go through verification for a hardware program.

It's a virtual network interface. So it's not really hardware, but the computer treats it like it is.

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#123

Post by donmcronald » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

golem14 wrote: post #97

Since the impact of the account is presumably known to Microsoft (through telemetry etc), they probably know when these accounts get turned off, and can mark them in case the owner comes back and tries recovery. Microsoft would not have to automatically and 100% correctly reinstate the account. The goal would be to get high level cases like this one in front of a knowledgable human before the locked account posts ang…

It could be dead simple. Lock the account, but let the owner temporarily unlock it for X days so they have enough time to undergo verification.

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#124

Post by unmole » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:39 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #116

rstupek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They started it because the drivers people used to use from hardware vendors would routinely blue screen windows, which made MS look like the reason windows would crash. Hardware vendors are notoriously inept at software.

> They started it because the drivers people used to use from hardware vendors would routinely blue screen windows, which made MS look like the reason windows would crash. Hardware vendors are notoriously inept at software. But hardware vendors also want Windows licenses to include with their hardware, so it's pretty easy to say "do the hardware program certification if you want the discount" and that's exactly what…

> Why are they harassing the WireGuard developers, who have their own reputation for not being inept at software

I would guess this is just large organizations Seeing Like a State whereby they "seek to force administrative legibility on their subjects by homogenizing them".

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

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#125

Post by donmcronald » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:44 AM UTC

maltris wrote: post #18

LibreOffice, VeraCrypt, WireGuard. 2 questions: Whats next? Is that a pattern?

> Whats next?

I think Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. are happy with the collateral damage caused by false positives and bad product decisions. And the way they implemented this was a bad product decision.

Think about it. If they "accidentally" destroy distribution for small projects that don't have the visibility to make waves, that's fewer possible startups that can eat their lunch. The cynic in me thinks that "at scale", "AI false positives", etc. are just an excuse for them to eliminate small developers.

They don't have to ban them all either. All they have to do is increase the risk to the point where rational people won't take the risk.

There were people that warned not to get into iOS development because it was impossible to guarantee distribution of an app. How do you build things like LoB apps under those circumstances? And who benefits when it's impossible to promise delivery of custom built apps? It favors big companies with the visibility to short circuit the system.

It's asymmetric rules; one set for big companies and another for small developers. I really hope the renewed interest in Linux takes off because it's the last chance we have at holding off big tech from taking over every little aspect of our lives.

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#126

Post by kuzivaai » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:49 AM UTC

The "minimum supported Windows version" ratchet is underrated as a maintenance strategy. I've watched codebases drown in compatibility shims that nobody remembers why they exist. Curious how much of the driver size reduction came from dropping pre-Win10 support versus the toolchain updates.

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#127

Post by donmcronald » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:52 AM UTC

kbelder wrote: post #89

everdrive wrote: post #83

An interesting point I don't think I've seen someone make -- people compare the LLM revolution to other technical revolutions. You don't need to worry about skill decay in the same way that you don't know how to bake bread from unprocessed wheat, or you don't know how to build a loom, etc. But local models aside (which no matter the protests from HN, will only be available to the technically savvy few) all of these L…

It might settle into a situation where cutting edge LLMs are a service, while older and smaller LLMs are self-hosted. So you are not at risk of being cut off, but of being degraded.

I hope you're right. I played around with a bunch of AI stuff recently and that's kind of the conclusion I came to. Use local AI for mission critical stuff, if you're confident in that, and use the SOTA models for reviewing.

Tap the latest general knowledge for asking "could this be improved", but make the improvements with local systems and models. But then the obvious problem becomes finding new data to train the AIs. In my opinion, there's no way their plan doesn't involve stealing from everyone to keep training, so is it really going to be safe to use the cutting edge models at all?

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#128

Post by donmcronald » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:57 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #72

There was a lot of speculation about this issue because readers assumed that WireGuard's was the only account that got locked. There was actually a wave of account locks that happened at the same time. If you only saw one of the headlines you might assume it was targeted or the result of some directed conspiracy, not the result of a widespread process. Microsoft did a (very!) bad job of communicating what was happeni…

> "We worked hard to make sure partners understood this was coming, from emails, banners, reminders," said Davuluri.

Emails are useless given the volume of trivial crap that MS emails about. Banners don't help for systems on auto-pilot. Reminders how?

Break my workflow and let me un-break it when I notice.

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#129

Post by emj » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:59 AM UTC

swisniewski wrote: post #120

How big is the Wire Guard user base on Windows? How often do they ship new versions? My understanding is that: 1. Windows drivers are Attested by Microsoft 2. Windows collects driver telemetry Which means a really good question to ask is: Why are they canceling driver signing accounts without looking at metrics?

"it is only 0.01 promille of our customers" chopping off the long tail.

Re: WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution

#130

Post by donmcronald » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:07 AM UTC

incompatible wrote: post #117

"The comments that followed were a bit off the rails. There's no conspiracy here from Microsoft. But the Internet discussion wound up catching the attention of Microsoft, and a day later, the account was unblocked, and all was well. I think this is just a case of bureaucratic processes getting a bit out of hand, which Microsoft was able to easily remedy. I don't think there's been any malice or conspiracy or anything…

I would guess they realized they missed a notification or warning and feel a bit bad about the whole thing blowing up. Hopefully not though. The fact there were several high profile projects that got caught off guard puts the blame mostly on MS IMO.

I think the reason these things go viral is that a ton of people reading about them can see themselves in the same situation, minus the clout needed to get it resolved. A short term PR crisis is the best we can get, so everyone piles on.

I don't think MS will fix it though. IMO, they're more likely to create a program for open source code signing. That way they can capture all the high visibility projects, get a bunch of goodwill for being philanthropic, and all the small projects that don't qualify are too small to cause a fuss, so they can continue to treat them poorly.