Matthew Garrett

https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59

Former biologist. Actual PhD in genetics. Security at https://aurora.tech, OS security teaching at https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu. Blog: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org. He/him.

Blog: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/
Signal: @mjg.59

Public Key

npub1jpfx7gvwn68l9rw8def53lkljwg0yv7fn99tqdzxyn68k29p8gmq9qvqhj

NIP-05 Address

mjg59_at_nondeterministic.computer@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsfq5n0yx8farlj3hrku56glm0e8y8jx0yejj4sx3rzfarm9zsn5dsp9ahfc

Author Public Key

npub1jpfx7gvwn68l9rw8def53lkljwg0yv7fn99tqdzxyn68k29p8gmq9qvqhj

Show more details

Last Notes

2024-09-04 09:08:10

Why clone a yubikey when you can simply steal it and leave an identical looking one that just doesn't work and the user is just going to be confused for a bunch of time without realising that someone else has their 2FA token now

2024-09-02 09:14:07

I appreciate the modern world where sending my lawyer an email containing nothing other than 👍is an entirely reasonable thing to do

2024-09-02 02:37:37

My enthusiasm for Fediverse remains massively constrained for one very simple reason: when I click on someone's post I don't see all the replies unless I click a different button, and if I click that one it becomes much more difficult for me to reply to any of the replies, and I am *not* going to reply to anything without checking that I'm not repeating something someone has already said so I simply don't reply

2024-08-31 03:35:05

Rust advocates should demonstrate the viability of the language by replacing an entire kernel. One that meets accepted architectural goals. One that is at the core of the free software movement.
Rewrite Hurd in Rust, you cowards.

2024-08-24 00:06:18

Trying to do this all from first principles, so:
* A freedom-respecting computer should never prevent a user from running software they want to run
But also:
* A safety-respecting computer should never allow someone other than the user to run software that acts against the user
There's no inherent conflict here - the user should be allowed to run whatever they want, someone who isn't the user shouldn't. But how do we tell the difference?

2024-08-22 08:53:29

What the fuck is SBAT, why did it break your dual-boot setup, it's not strictly my fault but if you need a scapegoat whatever: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/70348.html

2024-08-15 17:45:30

This is certainly some use of language
https://nondeterministic.computer/system/media_attachments/files/112/967/279/246/211/024/original/ab33f2d55adc231b.png

2024-08-14 16:34:43

Nobody should have to agree to a commercial entity's terms of service to access state services or participate in democracy

2024-08-14 02:36:56

Also sigh the convenient 4 pin connector that I guessed was UART turns out to be to power the board in a jig and well let's just say I've learned my lessons and ordered another USB-serial converter

2024-08-14 02:35:14

- reply

Look at this shit. Just horrifying.
https://nondeterministic.computer/system/media_attachments/files/112/958/037/222/365/362/original/a349f68d0d30197b.jpg

2024-08-14 02:28:54

Cursed PSU that's fixed 12V but has a USB-C connector

2024-08-12 21:14:58

Dealing with incorrect information turning up in ID verification checks - other than Equifax, Experian, Transunion, and LexisNexis, is there anywhere else I need to get fixed?

2024-08-11 21:41:25

"Hacker News discusses dating" is *not* something I needed to see

2024-08-01 03:44:08

- reply

They have no publicly posted security contact. I ended up paying for a month of Linkedin Premium to message their head of Trust and Safety, and was originally pointed at a HackerOne program that had a ToS link that 404ed (it's now marked as "Program not live"). I was finally given a non-public email address, and provided details. I received no feedback until I queried the status and was told it was fixed. In fact, they'd fixed the specific issue but not the general category of issues.

2024-08-01 03:41:01

Anyone using the Feeld dating app should be aware that it performs client-side filtering - returned responses that are marked "Status: HIDDEN" will be invisible in the UI but visible in the UI response. I reported the original and most egregious example of this over 90 days ago and that was fixed, but there's at least one remaining case where data is leaked that shouldn't be.

2024-06-04 13:31:19

The "Recall can't record DRMed video content" thing is because DRMed video content is entirely invisible to the OS. The OS passes the encrypted content to your GPU and tells it where to draw it, and the GPU decrypts it and displays it there. It's not a policy decision on the Recall side, it's just how computers work.

2024-05-31 22:21:24

Just got handed yhis
https://nondeterministic.computer/system/media_attachments/files/112/538/029/191/264/503/original/29b8d4599823e836.jpg

2024-05-30 20:40:37

Probably more useful than a real Cybertruck
https://nondeterministic.computer/system/media_attachments/files/112/531/968/840/899/540/original/ece738922d1e1a72.jpg

2024-05-30 14:57:46

Fucking hell what will they DRM next
https://nondeterministic.computer/system/media_attachments/files/112/530/622/146/863/600/original/43e8066386184693.jpg

2024-05-29 17:53:47

Adverts with utterly terrifying auras
https://nondeterministic.computer/system/media_attachments/files/112/525/649/468/925/855/original/1d835ad0bc446ae8.jpg

2024-05-29 16:56:05

Discovering that buying anything in Tottenham Court Road still involves a bizarre degree of negotiation but at least I now have a PSU

2024-05-17 10:15:10

Yeah Twitter is fine
https://nondeterministic.computer/system/media_attachments/files/112/455/895/794/751/971/original/ab9cc6f75d04ef42.png

2024-05-03 09:45:10

STOP DOING HARDLINKS
INODES WERE NOT MEANT TO EXIST IN MULTIPLE DIRECTORIES
YEARS OF FILES yet NO REAL-WORLD USE FOUND for being in more than one directory
Wanted to reference files from more than one directory anyway? We had a tool for that: it was called "SYMLINKS"
"Yes please give me FIFTEEN paths that this file resolves to" - Statements dreamed up by the utterly Deranged
"Hello I would like different permissions on this file based on path" They have played us for absolute fools

2024-05-02 08:46:37

I'm sure this is general knowledge but anyway: never enable SSH agent forwarding by default if you log into any systems that you don't trust 100%. It gives whoever has root on that system the ability to log into anything else your SSH agent can connect to. Either explicitly pass -A or add host entries to ~/.ssh/ssh_config to enable it for the scenarios you need it.

2024-04-20 23:21:54

- reply

We did a release called Schrödinger's Cat and that was probably what killed release names because it turns out the problem wasn't the umlaut it was the apostrophe and the sheer number of things that didn't handle single quotes properly

2024-04-20 23:19:43

- reply

We also went to extreme lengths to get Fedora 10 codenamed Cambridge purely because that was what the Red Hat 10 codename was going to be before the Fedora/RHEL fork meant there was no Red Hat 10

2024-04-20 23:18:10

We shipped a Fedora release called Beefy Miracle I do not understand the Uwubernetes complaints at all

2024-04-11 00:16:49

"Is a TV show that makes use of hackertyper.com a derivative work of the Linux kernel" -- the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate,

2024-04-09 21:06:20

Twitter just doing a "redirect links in tweets that go to x.com to twitter.com instead but accidentally do so for all domains that end x.com like eg spacex.com going to spacetwitter.com" is not absolutely the funniest thing I could imagine but it's high up there

2024-03-28 07:42:35

Huh the Steam Deck apparently doesn't have Platform Secure Boot enabled so alternative firmware is theoretically possible (although AMD's current approach to providing AGESA for modern CPUs probably makes that an extremely difficult problem?)