i propose the following benchmark task that i think can serve as a baseline of whether these local automation systems can really save time:
starting with a bare ubuntu desktop system with plenty of RAM and CPU, setup three ubuntu VMs for secure development and networking skills learning (wireshark, protocol analysis, etc etc):
one ubuntu “virtual” desktop to simulate a working desktop that an end-user or developer would use. its networking should initially be completely isolated.
one ubuntu server to simulate a bastion machine. route all “virtual desktop” traffic through this “bastion”. it will serve as a tap.
one ubuntu server to serve as edge node. this one can share internet access with the host. route all bastion traffic through the edge node.
use this three vm setup to perform ordinary tasks in the “virtual desktop “ and observe the resulting traffic in the “bastion”. verify that no other traffic is generated on or from the host outside of the expected path virtual desktop -> bastion -> edge.
i claim this is a minimal “network clean” development setup for anyone wanting to do security-conscious development.
extra credit: setup another isolated vm sever to act as the package manager ; ie mirror anything to be installed on the “virtual desktop” onto this package server and configure this server as the install point for apt on the “virtual desktop”.
i doubt an AI can set this up right now. (i’ve tried)
no ties to my other accounts would be ideal from my perspective
i understand that it’s easier to get a stronger “trust” signal by being more invasive
but hopefully the product will be so valuable that users will value their accounts as assets (like on hn) that they won’t want to compromise with bad behavior
The problem is authors will sign up for fake accounts to vote for their own books, so having an email with each account is a big trust factor that helps us a bit.
i love that meme which shows three identical paper clips in a row but one is upside down relative to the others which is a minute difference. the caption reads “chaos German style”
this carrier approval to move esim problem is more generalized on modern “smartphones”. unless you opt in to cloud providers holding your data there is no easy way afaik to migrate your authenticator apps to another phone. and a host of other authentication/authorization data is tied to the device in an opaque way. don’t get me started on apple’s unpredictable model of sending 2fa to some other “trusted” device which means tou never know what tou need to bring with you.
> unless you opt in to cloud providers holding your data there is no easy way afaik to migrate your authenticator apps to another phone.
You could self-host Bitwarden/Vaultwarden, or something like that.
> don’t get me started on apple’s unpredictable model of sending 2fa to some other “trusted” device which means tou never know what tou need to bring with you.
I think they send 2FA to all supported devices on one's Apple account?
i just ran into a situation activating a new device in which apple were trying to send to a device i had forgotten to “properly” remove from that icloud account.
and also another situation in which the 2fa code would flash on the remote device and disappear in a fraction of a second. i eventually captured it with screen recording but every time i did it the code was not accepted.
my conclusion: apple had silently ruled that i would not be allowed to activate using that particular icloud account. no idea why. i tried a different one and things went through ok.
that’s good to know thanks but creates more special cases to manage if i just want to backup my stuff so i can manually recover when i need to (on lost device say).
if you do read french, proust’s “in search of lost time” (vol 1) is a lot more accessible and enjoyable than my high school teachers made it sound years and years ago. it even contains a depiction of what a learned engineer should be like.
maybe we’re inching towards rule by law vs rule of law by making things so abstruse that you need a multiyear education to understand what is allowed, when and where.
perhaps it then becomes a matter of policy to periodically reformulate the law so it is compact and understandable and illustrated with examples for the general public. i wonder if llms will be able to do this reliably ever.
what a charming time it was when that generation discovered a bunch of stuff that now undergirds daily life:
“
Dijkstra always believed it a scientist’s duty to maintain a lively correspondence with his scientific colleagues. To a greater extent than most of us, he put that conviction into practice. For over four decades, he mailed copies of his consecutively numbered technical notes, trip reports, insightful observations, and pungent commentaries, known collectively as “EWDs”, to several dozen recipients in academia and industry. Thanks to the ubiquity of the photocopier and the wide interest in Dijkstra’s writings, the informal circulation of many of the EWDs eventually reached into the thousands.
“
random sample of a trip note in which he is in ited to consult on a project that he thinks ought to be killed:
Nonetheless, Prof. Baurer was not a loser. According to some sources he contributed to the invention of the notion of "stack" and "software engineering" among other things.
> ... cannot be expected from the average programmer
Ha! He had to deal with the political B.S. of well-spoken self-important people who spend excessively long and write excessively long code/proofs getting accolades over those that just get things done in the best way! I feel for him!
Good read. Completely off topic: He traveled by sleeper train and mentioned that he slept reasonably well and very well on the return trip. In the beginning of my career I made nearly the opposite trip to Brussels by sleeper to a completely useless lobbying/networking event with little tangible content. Often sleep in sleepers is not very good. But on the return trip I only wake up when the train had already stopped at my destination and had to get off very hastily.
Not only CS was more fun without AI slop, but traveling, too ;)
i really appreciated the paper and as someone who has spent many years deciphering what the author calls 17th century-style proofs am completely aligned with the objective and the method. i personally find myself doing a version of what the author proposes (in private notes) to make sure i understand proofs i read in books or papers.
even so it would have been timely, useful, and relevant to include a comparison to proofs in lean by comparison to TLA+ even though it is not Lamport’s personal project.
starting with a bare ubuntu desktop system with plenty of RAM and CPU, setup three ubuntu VMs for secure development and networking skills learning (wireshark, protocol analysis, etc etc):
one ubuntu “virtual” desktop to simulate a working desktop that an end-user or developer would use. its networking should initially be completely isolated.
one ubuntu server to simulate a bastion machine. route all “virtual desktop” traffic through this “bastion”. it will serve as a tap.
one ubuntu server to serve as edge node. this one can share internet access with the host. route all bastion traffic through the edge node.
use this three vm setup to perform ordinary tasks in the “virtual desktop “ and observe the resulting traffic in the “bastion”. verify that no other traffic is generated on or from the host outside of the expected path virtual desktop -> bastion -> edge.
i claim this is a minimal “network clean” development setup for anyone wanting to do security-conscious development.
extra credit: setup another isolated vm sever to act as the package manager ; ie mirror anything to be installed on the “virtual desktop” onto this package server and configure this server as the install point for apt on the “virtual desktop”.
i doubt an AI can set this up right now. (i’ve tried)
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