Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights • Hacker News Board

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#121

Post by ButlerianJihad » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 6:54 AM UTC

no_multitudes wrote: post #28

It seems like you got bored halfway through and had an LLM write the second half of your post? You know there isn't a minimum length for blog posts, right? You can just stop writing.

Publish a blog post https://www.comptia.org/en-us/resources/ce/choose/renewing-w...

  You can earn one CEU for each blog post of at least 500 words...

How to earn CEUs https://www.hcca-info.org/certification/continuing-education...

  ...Publish a compliance related educational blog post (minimum 400 words).

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#122

Post by matkoniecz » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:00 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #51

bitwize wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple TV has a search function that allows you to find a film or series irrespectice of whatever service it's on, and launch the appropriate app to play it.

Some times I read these mental gymnastics comments about piracy being easier and wonder if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like an Apple TV. I think the services part they really dislike is just the part where your credit card gets charged when you click the buy or rent button. Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a setup where you can play fi…

> Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a setup where you can play files on your TV is an order of magnitude more work.

Not really, decent chunk of my MP3 collection is abandoned media not sold literally anywhere at all. Or was never published in public in the first place.

> if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like an Apple TV

no, as I am not interested in Apple's walled garden, and so far I have not used any of their devices or products

(OK, I used Mac for about one hour helping neighbor to fix their printer, and I tested Mac-specific bug on website for hour or two)

> I think the services part they really dislike is just the part where your credit card gets charged when you click the buy or rent button.

Not in my case, I regularly try to buy MP3 that are in my collection already but I have not paid for them.

It costs me mostly in time to find them and create accounts and pay for them and deal with various hoops. Far more than it costs me in actual payments.

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#123

Post by matkoniecz » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:09 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #95

matheusmoreira wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> presumably you pay for the source material I do. Multiple times, even.

Okay great. Then can you acknowledge that when everyone else is talking about piracy, none of us are talking about you? You are the 0.001% of pirates, but you make assertions here like all pirates are high minded people who are secretly actually paying for the content and are only interested in some extra video quality. That describes such a vanishingly small number of pirates that it’s meaningless in the broader dis…

> but you make assertions here like all pirates are high minded people who are secretly actually paying for the content and are only interested in some extra video quality

you are replying to comment "I do. Multiple times, even."

Not a native speaker, but as far as I know in English "I" in this context refers to a single person, specifically someone writing this referring to themselves.

If anything you made assertions referring to general population and it is quote easy to guess that "Some times I read these mental gymnastics comments about piracy being easier and wonder if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like an Apple TV." will have nonrepresentation on HN.

> when everyone else is talking about piracy, none of us are talking about you?

piracy-related laws often miss exemptions for cases like this

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#124

Post by Helloworldboy » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:11 AM UTC

deyiao wrote: post #32

It's unfortunate that the final few years of the fastest AGI progress happen to coincide with a global surge in nationalism, polarization, and mutual hostility between human groups. That raises a disturbing failure mode: under intense conflict, an AI could learn that exterminating some groups of humans is a justified or even desirable objective. Once that principle is accepted, the step to concluding that exterminati…

[dead]

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#125

Post by mopsi » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:21 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #51

bitwize wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple TV has a search function that allows you to find a film or series irrespectice of whatever service it's on, and launch the appropriate app to play it.

Some times I read these mental gymnastics comments about piracy being easier and wonder if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like an Apple TV. I think the services part they really dislike is just the part where your credit card gets charged when you click the buy or rent button. Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a setup where you can play fi…

  > Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a setup where you can play files on your TV is an order of magnitude more work.

It's not 2003 anymore. If "navigating torrent sites" is your idea of piracy, then you should certainly check out the so-called arr-stack of software that searches online sources for wishlisted items, downloads them, equips with metadata and subtitles, and presents for viewing or listening without any user input, based on predefined preferences.

Apple TV and other commercial offerings are a steaming pile of shit in comparison and I can't imagine people like the CEO of Apple watching stuff off Apple TV and not a proper arr-stack setup. It's like eating McDonald's every for every meal when a chef is readily available. Why would you do this to yourself.

With Apple TV, you can't even do something as mundane was fixing translation errors in subtitles before you show a movie to a friend. You're stuck with what some cheap outsourced translation service came up with. It reduces the owner of the library to a passive mouthbreather who has virtually no control over their experience; can't choose which cut of the movie to see; can't replace an ugly poster with a nicer one; can't edit movie description to remove spoilers; and so on and on. In essence, you're watching someone else's library, and that someone has not put much effort into proper curation to present every item from the best possible side.

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#126

Post by bean469 » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:37 AM UTC

perpetuallunch wrote: post #42

aftbit wrote: post #11

The same argument applies to DRM and piracy. DRM only disadvantages people who want to consume content legally. Only one person has to bypass it (be it through cryptographic or software failings or the good old fashioned analog hole ala telesync) then upload the resulting unencumbered media file to a piracy site. As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it…

Cheaper & easier - not by much. Australia blocks all the good torrent sites, so now I need a VPN, a reputable one. Also need terabytes of network connected storage, and usually I need more and more of it over time. Better and more networking equipment to buy and maintain. Media management and streaming software that works locally and remotely, to (maybe buy) and maintain. Or I can usage discount offers for the variou…

> Cheaper & easier - not by much.

I spent a total of $150 for my entire homelab setup two years ago with not a single investment made since then. Used to pay $80 per month for streaming back then, bet it would be >$100 now

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#127

Post by LtWorf » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:50 AM UTC

perpetuallunch wrote: post #42

aftbit wrote: post #11

The same argument applies to DRM and piracy. DRM only disadvantages people who want to consume content legally. Only one person has to bypass it (be it through cryptographic or software failings or the good old fashioned analog hole ala telesync) then upload the resulting unencumbered media file to a piracy site. As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it…

Cheaper & easier - not by much. Australia blocks all the good torrent sites, so now I need a VPN, a reputable one. Also need terabytes of network connected storage, and usually I need more and more of it over time. Better and more networking equipment to buy and maintain. Media management and streaming software that works locally and remotely, to (maybe buy) and maintain. Or I can usage discount offers for the variou…

If you randomly make up issues and limitations then yes of course it is hard to circumvent those non-existing issues and limitations.

I have to use a free DNS over HTTPS in any case, thanks to my amazing government's censorship (italy), so that's something that needs doing in any case.

There's no need for terabytes. You just made it up.

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#128

Post by yalogin » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 8:02 AM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #76

yalogin wrote: post #71

With these models, what is the moat? Is it the architecture itself or the training data? Why can’t China create these models themselves? It just feels like theater to restrict models. Can someone tell me why I am wrong if I am?

Its the time and the electricity needed to train them. The US sacrificed quite a lot in order to make this happen. We're tolerating a measles outbreak, our economy is in the trash due to tariffs and draconian immigration enforcement. Basically every sector that's not AI has been poisoned in one way or another in order to drive sufficient investment towards AI. If China wants to compete at building the best forefront…

Sorry this is not true at all. O Those are just corrupt, incompetent practices by an idiot who is drunk on power. It has nothing to do with AI. This is not an answer at all. You tried to shove a square peg into a round hole for what reason. I don’t know

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#129

Post by wei_b0 » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 8:14 AM UTC

I'm 27, and I genuinely had no idea what had happened in cryptography 25 years ago. This was a really refreshing and insightful read - thanks for sharing.

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#130

Post by bitwize » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 8:36 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #110

Aurornis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some times I read these mental gymnastics comments about piracy being easier and wonder if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like an Apple TV. I think the services part they really dislike is just the part where your credit card gets charged when you click the buy or rent button. Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a setup where you can play fi…

I would be happy to pay to buy or rent a single show or movie. The problem is that a lot of that content is only available with a monthly subscription. Screw that, those monthly bills eat you alive. I hear that the For All Mankind series is pretty good but there's no way I'm signing up for Apple TV just to watch that. So I'll skip it and watch something else.

And that's the appropriate response to have. If you don't want to pay according to the copyright owner's terms, then you don't watch the show. Not liking the copyright owner's terms for watching the show does not give you the right to steal it.

Yes, I know copyright infringement is not stealing per the technical legal definition. But splitting those hairs is like splitting hairs between pedophiles and ephebophiles: anyone doing it is very likely just telling on themselves as the exact sort of criminal under discussion.