developer2 (u/developer2)

developer2 commented on The Perils of M1 Ownership eclecticlight.co/2021/07/... · Posted by u/ingve

mikl · 5 years ago

I think rendering stolen devices useless is also on the feature list. iPhone theft has become super rare, because a stolen device is neigh-impossible to activate and thus has little to no resale value.

developer2 · 5 years ago

This has already been a thing for Macs as well for many, many years. If you boot into recovery mode, there is a menu option to add a Firmware Password. You cannot access recovery mode or enter the boot selection menu without providing that password, which means a thief cannot reinstall any operating system or boot from a Linux thumb drive.

When you add a Firmware Password to a Mac, you get a long recovery code as a fallback safety in case you lose/forget the password. Apple, if provided with proof of purchase for the serial number being inquired about, can create a bootable USB stick with a certificate generated using public/private key crypto for which Apple holds the private keys.

I suspect much of this newer functionality acts as a replacement for the Firmware Password, giving more options and making it a bit more well-known.

developer2 commented on Risk Assessment of GitHub Copilot gist.github.com/0xabad1de... · Posted by u/g_p

wpietri · 5 years ago

Nope. That's like saying, "I might let a machine write the docs for me."

Good tests are documentation that a computer can verify. Because they explain the meaning of parts of the system, they contain information not available in the code. If you try using ML for test generation, you'll have the same problem you do with GPT-3 prose: it might look plausible at first glance, but lacks coherent meaning.

You'd also end up with one of the problems common in big test suites: poorly factored tests that end up being the sort of expressive duplication that is a giant drag on improving existing code. ML is nowhere near advanced enough to say, "Gosh, we're doing the same sort of test setup a bunch; let's extract that into a fixture, and then let's unify some fixtures into an ObjectMother.

For people looking to get the computer to do the work of catching more things with less burdensome test writing, I suggest taking a look at things like Hypothesis: https://hypothesis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

developer2 · 5 years ago

> one of the problems common in big test suites: poorly factored tests that end up being the sort of expressive duplication that is a giant drag on improving existing code.

I feel like you just described every developer/codebase where mock testing is stupidly enforced. Where every single unit test mocks every single indirect object. 98% of the testing code is just exhaustive setup and teardown of objects not being tested by each test, and then a bunch of conditional checks to ensure that every deeper/indirect method is being called exactly the right number of times with exactly the right arguments and returning exactly the right value. Almost all of the test code is just hacking mock objects. The actual purpose of each test is buried so deep that it's impossible to even understand the business logic being applied.

I hate evangelical "mock testers" with a passion.

developer2 commented on People Staring at Computers kylemcdonald.net/psac/... · Posted by u/BayAreaEscapee

easton · 5 years ago

Note that (based on that article), you can disable iCloud Backup and leave Messages in the Cloud enabled, which results in your messages being backed up but the key to decrypting them not being backed up. IIRC, this also results in the key your device uses to decrypt your messages being regenerated so Apple can't go into your backups and pull it out.

I disable iCloud Backup because there isn't much that is useful in there that isn't under one of the other checkboxes (Photos is separate, Health is separate, Messages is separate), so my messages should be safe?

developer2 · 5 years ago

Yes, you've got it right.

developer2 commented on People Staring at Computers kylemcdonald.net/psac/... · Posted by u/BayAreaEscapee

mjhagen · 5 years ago

> Or that Apple stores a copy of every message I have sent to a loved one with my phone on their servers.

Unencrypted, for them to see?

developer2 · 5 years ago

The encryption/decryption keys for your iMessages are stored with Apple, and are accessible to them. If you have iCloud Backup enabled, Apple–and thus law enforcement–can in fact decrypt them.

A while back, Apple was aiming to transition to store iMessage backups using a more secure method; ie. the same method that some other content such as Health data is stored, which uses encryption keys derived using local info such as your macOS or iOS password. The FBI requested Apple not to make this change, and Apple complied.

Apple runs a great PR game when they talk about privacy, but the reality is nowhere near the same. Some things are fully encrypted so that Apple cannot decrypt, while other things are not safe to store with them. iMessage falls into the latter bucket.

Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

developer2 commented on Ask HN: Have you found a good desk chair? · Posted by u/DamnInteresting

developer2 · 5 years ago

For anyone looking to buy Steelcase brand new, it's worth knowing that the warranty for the fabric component depends on which series of fabric you choose from. The hardware components are all covered for 12 years, while the choice of fabric can land you the same 12 years… or as few as 5 years. The fabric options can be researched in advance[1]; find the matching swatch name/id, and check the bottom of the "Material Characteristics" tab for the warranty.

[1] https://finishlibrary.steelcase.com/

developer2 commented on Show HN: macOS HNReader Application github.com/mattrighetti/H... · Posted by u/mattrighetti

developer2 · 5 years ago

Hmm? From https://developer.apple.com/xcode/swiftui/ :

> Xcode includes intuitive design tools that make building interfaces with SwiftUI as easy as dragging and dropping. As you work in the design canvas, everything you edit is completely in sync with the code in the adjoining editor. Code is instantly visible as a preview as you type, and any change you make to that preview immediately appears in your code. Xcode recompiles your changes instantly and inserts them into a running version of your app — visible, and editable at all times.

developer2 · 5 years ago

Aha, what I was looking for was the "Library" popup, which allows drag-and-drop of new components onto the canvas. Now I understand; this latest iteration of Xcode has the code <-> canvas being bidirectional, so using the library or canvas inspector just edits your code anyway! Interesting. I'll have to run through some docs and tutorials to see if I can finally pick up macOS/iOS app development.

developer2 commented on Tailwindo: Convert Your Bootstrap CSS to Tailwind CSS awssat.com/opensource/tai... · Posted by u/wilsonfiifi

austingulati · 5 years ago

I bought Tailwind UI has a mostly backend developer and I couldn't be more happier with it so far. It really saved a lot of my time in building my MVP, well worth the cost.

Although, I guess I don't know for sure until I start to test the product. But the development at least has been a blast.

developer2 · 5 years ago

I'd be willing to pay, but it's not clear what is included. For an initial look before paying, I downloaded a pirated copy. It only contains the components' html (and alpine, react, vue) snippets, with no extra documentation. If I were to pay for a license, would I get access to log into an account that has a full component browser with examples and extended documentation? If so, can all of that be downloaded as an offline copy, so that it will still be available to me if/when the Tailwind UI product/site is discontinued? Losing access to that important piece of the product would be unacceptable; I suppose I could curl a mirror of the authenticated portal if necessary.

The "simplest" button apparently contains the following ridiculous number of css classes, which is not the kind of css composition I'm a fan of. It may be the most flexible in terms of customization, but it's a nightmare to mentally parse and maintain. I would not want to manage a code base where nearly every html tag looks like this. :/

<button type="button" class="inline-flex items-center px-2.5 py-1.5 border border-transparent text-xs font-medium rounded shadow-sm text-white bg-indigo-600 hover:bg-indigo-700 focus:outline-none focus:ring-2 focus:ring-offset-2 focus:ring-indigo-500"> Button text </button>

developer2 commented on Show HN: macOS HNReader Application github.com/mattrighetti/H... · Posted by u/mattrighetti

Delphiki · 5 years ago

There is no way to create the UI visually in SwiftUI, only programmatically. I find SwiftUI substantially easier to write than Swift or Objective-C, and feel like it actually requires less use of Xcode's functionality than either of its predecessors.

developer2 · 5 years ago

Hmm? From https://developer.apple.com/xcode/swiftui/ :

> Xcode includes intuitive design tools that make building interfaces with SwiftUI as easy as dragging and dropping. As you work in the design canvas, everything you edit is completely in sync with the code in the adjoining editor. Code is instantly visible as a preview as you type, and any change you make to that preview immediately appears in your code. Xcode recompiles your changes instantly and inserts them into a running version of your app — visible, and editable at all times.