4RealFreedom (u/4RealFreedom)

4RealFreedom commented on Jimmy Carter has died washingtonpost.com/obitua... · Posted by u/gkolli

Reagan's entire administration was swamped in corruption and scandals. People really don't remember just how many investigations, charges, and convictions there were. People only remember Iran-Contra and the hostage crisis; it was so much worse. Reagan even cheated in a televised debate; someone stole Carter's notes and gave them to Reagan.

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

Ronald "Small Government" Reagan ballooned the national debt by 160-180%, depending on who's counting. That's higher than any other president by a massive amount: https://www.data-z.org/library/imglib/National-debt-growth-b...

Then there was his disassembling the national mental healthcare system with no substitute, causing a national crisis - and in a real case of irony - getting shot by a mentally ill person who should have been committed.

Then there was him ignoring the AIDS epidemic because it only seemed to affect gay people.

Then there was him coming down with Alzheimer's with symptoms cropping up during his first term, according to his own son and video from his debate against Mondale. At some point the country was effectively being run by Nancy Reagan and her astrologist. Hell, there's hot mic footage of her telling him word for word what to say to the press...

4RealFreedom · a year ago

"That's higher than any other president by a massive amount" - Any modern president. Abraham Lincoln had a 2859.40% increase. Martin Van Buren had a 1458.32% increase. We've had quite a few over 200%.

4RealFreedom commented on Ticketmaster’s attempt to game arbitration services fails blog.ericgoldman.org/arch... · Posted by u/hn_acker

karmonhardan · a year ago

Except Valve, for their Steam service. But that's only because someone realized that you could Zerg rush them with arbitration claims, whose fees they were obliged to pay (since their ToS forced users into it). Their only option that wouldn't be massively disruptive financially, in that case, would be to agree to a settlement with the arb representatives. So, now, you're only allowed to sue Valve, in a specific court of their choosing.

4RealFreedom · a year ago

I'm pretty ignorant about these kinds of things so how does this work? If Valve can specify the court to be used couldn't the company always choose something like Alaska or Hawaii where it would be difficult to show up?

4RealFreedom commented on California fails to track its homelessness spending or results, a new audit says calmatters.org/housing/ho... · Posted by u/wslh

reocha · a year ago

The only real effective solution to homelessness is to give homeless people houses and then extra support, other solutions (whilst having some beneficial effect) aren't sufficient.

However the concept of a homeless industrial complex has essentially been pushed and overblown by right wing think tanks with significantly worse solutions.

4RealFreedom · a year ago

24 billion dollars for 184,000 homeless people (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development estimate). That's 135k per person. Where is the money going if not the homeless industrial complex?

4RealFreedom commented on 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress techdirt.com/2024/08/21/8... · Posted by u/speckx

aurizon · a year ago

In a party based assembly(UK, Canada) the party leader tells each party member how to vote = the party line. Members can not vote against the party = out. In the US assembly(Congress and Senate) each members votes as he/she wishes. In all houses the votes(hands) are visible. This turns a vote into a currency. A lobbyist can see he gets what he has paid for and the 'bag' is passed. Every US voter has what both the Senate and Congress do not have = a secret ballot. Why? = $$$ How to fix = 2 votes, a secret ballot AND a show of hands, the secret ballot carries. There is no longer a cause/effect monetisation link. The lobbyist will see his paid for vote by show of hands pass, but lose by secret ballot = fully deniable as a member can say is was not me that wavered. Ever hear the squeals of hundreds of stuck pigs? That will happen. I wonder if the Supreme Court can interpret the current laws to ensure a secret ballot?

4RealFreedom · a year ago

Why not keep everything transparent and make lobbying illegal? I know neither secret voting or making lobbying illegal will ever happen but it seems like you're just putting a bandaid on an issue without regard for the consequences. People that vote for representatives like to know how they vote. Why even have the theater of a transparent vote that does nothing?

4RealFreedom commented on Ask HN: Why don't banks render numbers as PNGs instead of using HTML? · Posted by u/4RealFreedom

al_borland · a year ago

I often login to my bank to copy an account number when I need it. I don’t like to rely on typing it correctly. This change would kill that. Sure, I could use OCR on the image, but that isn’t 100% perfect, like a text copy is.

They will also likely just come up with a small tweak on the scam if there is a change like this. I’ve watched some of the videos where they pull up a command prompt and run a script where the user is entering the amount to transfer into the CLI. When they type the amount the scammer slips in an extra 0 before the user presses enter. If someone is going to fall for entering their info into a strange black box with text, they will fall for literally anything. The scammer could simply delete the image on the page so the balance doesn’t show and say there is a bug… or delete the image and replace it with text, even if it looks off, the type of person being targeted won’t catch it.

4RealFreedom · a year ago

I don't think we need to do it for every number. Account number, for example, could still be HTML. Balance could be converted, though.

The harder we make it for scammers, the worse it is for them. I'm not claiming this is fool proof - scammers might be able to generate a png on the fly and inject that as the image like solrdev mentioned in another comment. They would still need to match background colors or possibly jump through some other hoops. The more work we make them do, the more likely the are to mess up. It also makes it more obvious to the person being scammed.

In terms of deleting the image and inserting text instead, I've tried it and it's hard to make it look good quickly. You also see instant feedback of the missing element and then the text coming in. It's a cue that something isn't quite right.

4RealFreedom commented on Ask HN: Why don't banks render numbers as PNGs instead of using HTML? · Posted by u/4RealFreedom

tonetegeatinst · a year ago

Probably accessibility reasons. Even ancient browsers or obscure browsers support text. Their is a non zero chance a browser wouldn't support the image format, or the image might not scale across different screen sizes. Also iirc their was some vulnerability that used a image format so that's also a issue to think about.

Finally, text makes web scraping/parsing much easier, and even ignoring that text is smaller than any image format.

4RealFreedom · a year ago

Couldn't alt-text be used to address accessibility?

Web scrapping shouldn't be a requirement of personal banking websites. Am I missing something here?

4RealFreedom commented on Ask HN: Why don't banks render numbers as PNGs instead of using HTML? · Posted by u/4RealFreedom

solardev · a year ago

That's probably a content security policy or CSS thing. Just tried it on a site (not HN, because of content security) and it worked fine.

4RealFreedom · a year ago

Wouldn't banks have content security setup?

4RealFreedom commented on Ask HN: Why don't banks render numbers as PNGs instead of using HTML? · Posted by u/4RealFreedom

solardev · a year ago

That's probably a content security policy or CSS thing. Just tried it on a site (not HN, because of content security) and it worked fine.

4RealFreedom · a year ago

I've tried a few different sites and I can't make it happen. I'll keep trying.

4RealFreedom commented on Ask HN: Why don't banks render numbers as PNGs instead of using HTML? · Posted by u/4RealFreedom

solardev · a year ago

If they already control your browser, they don't have to edit the HTML and fake anything. They can just transfer money to themselves from your account...

If they wanted to edit the HTML for some reason, it's trivial to just use their own image or replace the <img> with their own text.

The prevention for this isn't to render texts as image, but not to screen share your computer with random people online, much less hand mouse control over to them while you're logged in to your bank. If it's some elderly person doing this or the such, you should really teach them better or they'll get scammed from much less esoteric threats :(

4RealFreedom · a year ago

If you're interested, I would suggest watching some Kitboga. I don't actually know anyone that has had this happen but there are plenty of stories around the internet. I will try doing some img replacement with my own text and see how it works out.

4RealFreedom commented on Ask HN: Why don't banks render numbers as PNGs instead of using HTML? · Posted by u/4RealFreedom

stop50 · a year ago

Then how do access people with vision problems the website? Afaik only the banks in Germany use FINTS for banking

4RealFreedom · a year ago

Had to look up FINTS. You are right about accessibility.