Top all-time · #6152
Inane Observations
Personal blog · yingtongli.me/blog · on HN as RunasSudosecurityprogramming
Inane Observations is a personal blog at yingtongli.me about security and programming. Since 2021, 12 different Hacker News readers have linked it 12 times, most often “Reverse engineering software licensing from early-2000s abandonware”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for posts on hacking e-readers, such as Kobo SSH access and SD storage upgrades, and on reverse engineering software licensing from early-2000s abandonware.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Reverse engineering software licensing from early-2000s abandonware2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-08-29
What Hacker News says?
Yes completely. I have both an old Kindle Paperwhite 2nd Gen I think and a Kobo Clara. The kindle 'lives' in the car and the Kobo at home so I always have something to read. I use Calibre to sync to both. Rather than directly accessing Amazon from the Kindle I download bought books to my PC then strip the DRM - so I can read the same book on both the Clara and Kindle. See: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools I'd sa…
Comment linking /blog/2018/07/30/kobo-rego.html
on “Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more”Submitted Reverse engineering software licensing from early-2000s abandonware as a story · 307 points
HN discussionKobos make good eink tablets for hacking. Run an easily editable linux. e.g. https://yingtongli.me/blog/2018/07/30/kobo-ssh.html
Comment linking /blog/2018/07/30/kobo-ssh.html
on “I bricked then recovered my reMarkable 2”Submitted Reverse engineering software licencing from early-2000s abandonware – Part 1 as a story · 4 points
HN discussionVery nice. I'm up to part 2 ( https://yingtongli.me/blog/2021/08/29/drm5-2.html ) and I had a thought. The SEH pattern (PUSH 32bit address then RET) should be identifiable with a plugin, and a code flow override should fix the decompilation. I wonder, did you try this, and did it help fix the Ghidra decompilation?
Comment linking /blog/2021/08/29/drm5-2.html
on “Reverse engineering software licensing from early-2000s abandonware”Submitted Python re-implementation of Cryptomator encryption scheme as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOh hey, I'm the author of the post! Happy to chat about any aspects of it. This project is a spiritual successor to an earlier project reverse engineering a gaming DRM system, so if you enjoy this post you might enjoy that older one too: https://yingtongli.me/blog/2018/11/16/drm1-1.html
Comment linking /blog/2018/11/16/drm1-1.html
on “Reverse engineering software licensing from early-2000s abandonware”Submitted Investigating and disabling hard-coded certificate pinning on Android as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYou could likely customize Osmand to do this. The announcements are assembled using JavaScript and it is straightforward to add a new script. https://yingtongli.me/blog/2020/01/25/osmand.html does it to customize something else.
Comment linking /blog/2020/01/25/osmand.html
on “Designing for Voice User Interfaces”Submitted Pdf-segmented: Foreground segmentation with JBIG2 for improved PDF compression as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAlso voting for Kobo. I have a Clara I just use for reading books. Really nice device and the price is good too. I've never connected mine to the internet. I just use it as a giant USB stick with a screen. Not that I've needed to, but you can take it apart and increase the storage too! https://yingtongli.me/blog/2018/07/29/kobo-sd.html
Comment linking /blog/2018/07/29/kobo-sd.html
on “Ask HN: Best Open E-Reader?”Submitted Into the Abyss and Beyond – Sub-sub-subparagraphs as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
