Hacker News
1Google flags Immich sites as dangerous
- Google's Safe Browsing service incorrectly flagged all Immich.cloud websites as dangerous, blocking user access with warning screens. The issue occurred when Google crawled preview environment URLs from GitHub and mistakenly identified them as deceptive sites. Despite successful appeals through Google Search Console, new preview environments continue triggering the same false positive flags, forcing Immich to move preview sites to a separate domain.
Public suffix list recommendation
Users suggest adding domains hosting user content to the Public Suffix List to prevent entire domains from being flagged when subdomains are compromised. However, this requires understanding complex domain policies and maintaining centralized lists, leading to criticism of web engineering as "duct tape solutions."Google's monopolistic control
Discussion centers on Google's excessive power to unilaterally block websites through Safe Browsing, affecting businesses with no recourse or transparency. Users call for internet bill of rights, antitrust enforcement, and criticize the lack of due process when domains are falsely flagged.Development hosting best practices
Technical advice emerges about never hosting test environments as subdomains of production domains to avoid cookie issues, email reputation problems, and security flags. Users debate whether this is developer negligence or Google's overreach in blocking legitimate preview environments.
2US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
- The US State Department has removed an online portal that allowed reporting of alleged human rights violations by foreign military units supplied with American weapons. The Human Rights Reporting Gateway was the only public channel for organizations to report abuses by US-armed foreign forces. Critics say this violates the Leahy Law requiring the government to facilitate receipt of such information. Cases submitted included alleged excessive force by Colombian security forces during 2021 protests and planned reports on Israeli forces in the West Bank. The removal is part of Secretary Marco Rubio's State Department reorganization that has eliminated human rights monitoring offices and resulted in widespread layoffs.
Questioning media accuracy and bias
Commenters debate whether the article accurately represents the situation, with some suggesting it may be biased reporting focused on US allies like Israel. Discussion includes calls for independent journalism and raw sources to verify claims.Constitutional and legal enforcement breakdown
Users express concern that with a "servile congress" there are effectively no laws constraining the executive branch, as the President can fire oversight officials without consequence, leading to a breakdown in checks and balances.Military culture and complaint systems
Discussion centers on Pete Hegseth's policies to eliminate "frivolous complaints" and "walking on eggshells" culture in the military, with debate over whether this empowers leadership or reduces accountability for misconduct.
3Trump pardons convicted Binance founder
Presidential pardon power abuse
Discussion centers on constitutional reform needs for pardon power, with calls for congressional review or complete elimination. Comments note abuse across multiple administrations but emphasize Trump's unprecedented scale of corruption and transactional pardons.Wealth inequality in justice system
Users highlight the stark disparity between how rich and poor criminals are treated, with wealthy offenders like CZ receiving pardons while poor drug dealers face harsh penalties or extrajudicial killing.Corruption and money in politics
Comments suggest pardons are being sold for financial gain, with references to kickbacks and transactional nature of recent pardons, indicating systematic corruption in the current administration.
4VST3 audio plugin format is now MIT
- Steinberg has released VST 3.8.0 SDK with significant changes including a new MIT open source license replacing the previous proprietary licensing model, support for MIDI 2.0 with new interfaces IMidiLearn2 and IMidiMapping2, preview Wayland support for Linux contributed by PreSonus, VSTGUI 4.15.0 update with new Task Concurrency API and grid view layouter, documentation updates reflecting the new licensing, and various bug fixes and improvements to examples and helper classes.
Yamaha's ethical business practices
Users praise Yamaha for consistently doing "the right thing," including saving Korg from financial trouble, returning Sequential brand rights to founder Dave Smith, providing long-term driver support for decades-old products, and maintaining high build quality across their instrument lines.Competition from CLAP format
Discussion centers on how the newer CLAP audio plugin format is driving VST3's open-sourcing. CLAP is praised as simpler and better designed, with growing adoption among developers, while VST3's complexity and COM-based architecture are criticized.Technical implications of open sourcing VST3
Users discuss how this change will benefit audio developers by removing licensing barriers, enabling better cross-platform compatibility, and potentially simplifying the complex plugin ecosystem that currently requires multiple formats (AU, VST, AAX).
5Accessing Max Verstappen's passport and PII through FIA bugs
- Security researchers discovered a vulnerability in the FIA Driver Categorisation website that allowed them to escalate privileges to administrator level through a simple HTTP request manipulation. This gave them access to sensitive information including F1 drivers' passports, resumes, password hashes, and personal data including Max Verstappen's information. The vulnerability was responsibly disclosed to FIA who took the site offline and implemented a comprehensive fix.
Security practices and data retention
Discussion about poor security practices at FIA, including unnecessary retention of sensitive documents on live servers. Debate over whether post-breach criticism is fair, with some defending that security should be top priority when handling PII, while others argue against "post-hoc finger pointing."Legal risks of security research
Concerns about potential legal threats when conducting unauthorized security research without explicit bug bounty programs. Examples from Germany show researchers can face legal consequences, leading to discussion about operating anonymously vs. responsible disclosure.Technical aspects of the vulnerability
Focus on the mass assignment vulnerability discovered through JavaScript analysis and PUT request manipulation. Discussion includes praise for FIA's quick response time and technical details about the exploit method used by the researchers.
6What happened to Apple's legendary attention to detail?
- The author expresses deep disappointment with Apple's declining attention to detail over the past 8-10 years, particularly criticizing iOS 26 and macOS for numerous user experience issues. Examples include persistent location permission popups in Reminders, inconsistent search bar placement across apps, broken dark mode functionality, malfunctioning browsers due to WebKit problems, and the problematic "liquid glass" design that makes apps nearly unusable. The author argues Apple has abandoned user experience quality and design consistency.
Apple's declining software quality
Users discuss how macOS has become plagued with security popups reminiscent of Windows Vista, ironic given Apple's past marketing mocking Microsoft. The "Liquid Glass" design update introduced numerous bugs, visual glitches, and usability issues across iOS and macOS.Hardware praise vs software criticism
While many acknowledge Apple's hardware excellence, particularly the M-series chips, users express frustration with software bugs, UI inconsistencies, poor parental controls, and increased system nagging that diminishes the user experience.Loss of company culture and vision
Discussion centers on how Apple lost its way after Steve Jobs' death in 2011, with Tim Cook's leadership prioritizing growth over quality, leading to feature bloat and abandonment of "The Apple Way" of thoughtful, polished design.
7Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
- Google's Willow quantum chip achieved the first verifiable quantum advantage, running 13,000 times faster than classical supercomputers. The breakthrough demonstrates quantum computing's potential for real-world applications in medicine, materials science, and drug discovery through enhanced molecular structure analysis.
Quantum advantage claims skepticism
Users question Google's latest quantum supremacy claims, noting the paper acknowledges Hamiltonian learning hasn't been performed on actual physical systems and quantum advantage claims were de-emphasized in peer review. Many express fatigue over repeated announcements.Verifiability definition confusion
Discussion centers on what "verifiable" means in this context - whether it's simply reproducible results on quantum computers or true cryptographic verification that a classical skeptic could accept. The technical meaning appears unclear.Cryptocurrency vulnerability concerns
Users debate quantum computing's threat to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, with some worried about Shor's algorithm breaking public key cryptography while others note post-quantum solutions are already being deployed and transition timelines.
8AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time
- A major international study led by the BBC and European Broadcasting Union found that AI assistants routinely misrepresent news content across all languages and platforms tested. Analyzing over 3,000 responses from ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity, researchers discovered 45% had significant issues, including sourcing problems and accuracy errors. With 7% of online news consumers using AI assistants, rising to 15% for under-25s, these systematic failures pose serious risks to public trust in news and democratic participation.
Study methodology and bias concerns
Users criticized the BBC study for methodological flaws, including testing outdated models, excluding Anthropic, and focusing on sourcing issues rather than accuracy. Some viewed it as a "hit piece" by threatened media organizations.AI summarization accuracy problems
Multiple users shared experiences of AI producing poor summaries that misrepresent content, with some calling it "random condensation" rather than true summarization. Failure rates varied significantly between models.Comparison to human journalism accuracy
Discussion emerged comparing AI's 45% error rate to human journalists, with claims that humans misrepresent sources 85-95% of the time, referencing the Gell-Mann amnesia effect and academic studies on news accuracy.
9Programming with Less Than Nothing
- A humorous programming story about a job candidate who implements FizzBuzz using combinatory logic and lambda calculus instead of a simple for loop. Despite the interviewer's growing bewilderment, the candidate builds an entire functional programming system from scratch using bird-named combinators, eventually creating an overly complex solution that spans hundreds of lines. The story satirizes both pretentious coding practices and the absurdity of reinventing basic programming concepts.
Combinators as a programming foundation
Discussion of how combinators work as pure functions that don't mutate state, can be combined to create more complex functions, and serve as a foundation for implementing higher-level languages like Lisp on top of basic combinators like S and K.Technical implementation details
Debate about whether combinatory logic is more "bloated" than lambda calculus, how to handle eager vs lazy evaluation in JavaScript, and specific implementation challenges like using Y vs Z combinators for recursion.Interview format and writing style
Comments on the article's satirical interview format being inspired by aphyr's "Rewriting the Technical Interview" series, with discussion about whether such esoteric solutions would actually be appropriate in real interviews.
10Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon
- A 16-year-old student in Baltimore was handcuffed at gunpoint after an AI gun detection system falsely identified a Doritos bag in his pocket as a weapon. Multiple police cars surrounded Taki Allen outside his school, leading to his detention and search before officers realized their mistake.
AI system dangers and false positives
Users express serious concerns about AI gun detection systems creating dangerous situations by falsely identifying objects like chip bags as weapons, leading to armed police responses against innocent students. Many argue the technology isn't ready for deployment.Corporate accountability and responsibility
Discussion focuses on how companies like Omnilert deflect responsibility for AI failures by claiming systems "functioned as intended" while creating harmful situations. Users criticize the lack of accountability when false positives traumatize students.Technology implementation and human oversight
Commenters debate whether these AI systems lack proper human verification, questioning if they're just repackaged open-source models sold without adequate testing, transparency, or human-in-the-loop safeguards before triggering police responses.