jech (u/jech) - Readit News

jech commented on Thoughts on Go vs. Rust vs. Zig sinclairtarget.com/blog/2... · Posted by u/yurivish

kanbankaren · 14 days ago

30 years in C/C++ here.

Give an example of UB code that you have committed in real life, not from blogs. I am genuinely curious.

jech · 14 days ago

> Give an example of UB code that you have committed in real life

    struct foo {
        ...
        atomic_int v;
        ...
    };
    
    struct foo x;
    memset(&x, 0, sizeof(x));

jech commented on German conservatives block Chat Control bsky.app/profile/markus.r... · Posted by u/jech

jech · 2 months ago

“We, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, are opposed to the unwarranted monitoring of chats. That would be like opening all letters as a precautionary measure to see if there is anything illegal in them. That is not acceptable, and we will not allow it.”

Reported by Patrick Breyer, <https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/citizen-protest-halts-chat-...>

jech commented on The Digital Markets Act: time for a reset blog.google/around-the-gl... · Posted by u/zdw

crowbahr · 3 months ago

But also the EU wants to add chat control so they can read all your encrypted messages so maybe you _dont_ want them to have a say in how Android safeguards work?

jech · 3 months ago

The EU is not a single person. There are some people among the EU elites who fight for an open Internet, and some who want to control the Internet. They are not the same people.

jech commented on The Digital Markets Act: time for a reset blog.google/around-the-gl... · Posted by u/zdw

andreasmetsala · 3 months ago

First time I hear about this funding. Where can I apply?

jech · 3 months ago

I only know of one project which is reserved for free software, it's NGI0 <https://nlnet.nl/NGI0/>, which is going to be cut in 2027 <https://edri.org/our-work/european-commission-cuts-funding-s...>.

However, most other EU programmes do allow and even claim to encourage free software companies to apply.

jech commented on Orange Pi RV2 $40 RISC-V SBC: Friendly Gateway to IoT and AI Projects riscv.org/ecosystem-news/... · Posted by u/warrenm

leoedin · 3 months ago

The big ecosystem of SBCs confuses me a bit. Who is buying these?

The work required to build an actual secure, maintainable product on top of an SBC is so big that you'd surely never use one of these. The hard work is all in software. You need a supplier with product lifetime guarantees and a known SoC manufacturer.

If you're a hobbyist, unless you really don't value your time you'd be much better served buying an x86 PC or a Raspberry Pi for whatever project you've got. Any money saved buying one of these would be completely negated by the extra time taken to maintain it.

So who's the target market? Are there products out there built on these? Or are they mostly just shipped straight into desk drawers? How many of these do they actually ship?

jech · 3 months ago

> The big ecosystem of SBCs confuses me a bit. Who is buying these?

They make decent home servers, unless you need fast storage.

jech commented on Introduction to GrapheneOS dataswamp.org/~solene/202... · Posted by u/renehsz

strcat · 3 months ago

LineageOS, iodé and /e/ are in a much different space than GrapheneOS. They greatly reduce the privacy and security of the Android Open Source Project rather than greatly improving it. They do not provide current privacy/security patches or keep all of the standard protections intact, let alone providing similar privacy and security enhancements to GrapheneOS.

https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm is a high quality third party overview comparing them with a focus on privacy and security.

CalyxOS was not a hardened OS either, it just didn't roll back privacy and security quite as much as LineageOS.

> The long-term hope is for a non-Google Linux system with all of Android running in a sandbox (something like Waydroid), but that's not ready for everyday use yet.

GrapheneOS is a non-Google Linux distribution. Google heavily contributes to the Linux kernel and is responsible for a massive portion of the security work upstream. The same goes for LLVM, GCC and many other projects. If you have an issue with using lots Google code including as the biggest driver of security in these projects, you're going to need to avoid Linux too.

Waydroid uses an ancient Android releases and largely disables the privacy and security model. Android apps running in Waydroid are much less sandboxed than in the standard Android app sandbox. It's not a sandbox for running Android but rather a partially working way to run an insecure fork of Android on top of a less private and secure non-Android distribution at a huge cost to privacy and security. It's not a good approach and moving to a much less private and secure OS is not progress in those areas.

jech · 3 months ago

> LineageOS, iodé and /e/ are in a much different space than GrapheneOS.

They have different priorities, granted.

> They greatly reduce the privacy and security of the Android Open Source Project

That's going to depend on your threat model. Many people don't feel that having an unlocked bootloader is a significant threat.

> GrapheneOS is a non-Google Linux distribution. [...] If you have an issue with using lots Google code [...]

https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1964561043906048183

Even you seem to agree that we're relying too much on Google's goodwill.

jech commented on Introduction to GrapheneOS dataswamp.org/~solene/202... · Posted by u/renehsz

pandemic_region · 3 months ago

Then list the other options, please.

jech · 3 months ago

LineageOS is just fine if you have a well-supported device. If you need to run proprietary apps, you'll need MicroG (which runs just fine as a user application) and the Aurora store.

Unfortunately, now that CalyxOS has died, the other choices are all forks of LineageOS (Iodé, /e/). The long-term hope is for a non-Google Linux system with all of Android running in a sandbox (something like Waydroid), but that's not ready for everyday use yet.

jech commented on iPhone Air apple.com/newsroom/2025/0... · Posted by u/excerionsforte

piskov · 3 months ago

People get old. Old people cannot see small text. Big text requires bigger screen to fit.

One could argue that a lot of 50-ish people have pro max with iphone 5-ish screen estate.

Small screens ain’t gonna happen

jech · 3 months ago

> Old people cannot see small text.

The old people you know need a better optometrist. (Hint: progressive lenses.)

jech commented on iPhone Air apple.com/newsroom/2025/0... · Posted by u/excerionsforte

qafy · 3 months ago

I have an only esim since the iPhone 11 was released.

Pros:

- Super easy to get esims while traveling. e.g. in Mexico i downloaded an app while still in the airport and paid $5 with apple pay and instantly activated a 1 month esim.

- You can have multiple esimss. With physical sims you are limited to the physical number of sim slots on your phone, usually 1 or at most 2. With esim there is no such restriction.

- More secure. esims can't be cloned (e.g. sim swapping attack) or simply removed from a stolen phone like physical sims.

Cons:

- If you get a new phone, you cant just pop your physical sim in. You need to go through your provider to transfer, which requires calling them and verifying your identity.

I actually dont see this as a con really, I see this as a security benefit. Since I only get a new phone every 3-4 years, the 20 min on the phone it takes to transfer is not a significant burden.

jech · 3 months ago

> If you get a new phone, you cant just pop your physical sim in. You need to go through your provider to transfer

Which, at least with my provider, you cannot do while roaming. So if I break my phone while travelling, I cannot access my online banking until I get back home.