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Patterns in the Void
Personal blog · blog.patternsinthevoid.netsecurityphilosophy
Patterns in the Void is a personal blog at blog.patternsinthevoid.net about security and philosophy. Since 2014, 24 different Hacker News readers have linked it 27 times, most often “The Forest for the Trees”. The last post was in 2020, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (19) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for its posts on the allegations against Jacob Appelbaum and the FBI harassment of Tor developer Isis Agora Lovecruft, plus guides on hardening Thinkpads and Android.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 19 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The Forest for the Trees7 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2016-06-15
- FBI Harassment6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2016-05-04
- Replacing a Thinkpad X60 Bootflash Chip3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-05-08
- The CCC: Men Who Hate Women2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-12-26
What Hacker News says?
What about "up-playing" rape? In an account of one of Jacob's assaults[0], the victim wrote: "he was rubbing my clit and rimming the edges of my vagina" and then below she wrote according to German law this is rape with a maximum of 10 years in prison. Was this torture and worse than murder? [0] https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees....
Comment linking /the-forest-for-the-trees.html
on ““But he does good work.””Submitted FBI Harassment as a story · 284 points
HN discussionI think they meant the authors name is Isis: https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/author/isis-agora-lovecru...
Comment linking /author/isis-agora-lovecruft.html
on “FBI Harassment”Submitted CVE-2016-5696 and its effects on Tor as a story · 64 points
HN discussionhttps://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-ccc-men-who-hate-wome...
Comment linking /the-ccc-men-who-hate-women.html
on “34th Chaos Communication Congress Live Streams”Submitted Replacing a Thinkpad X60 Bootflash Chip as a story · 52 points
HN discussionOriginal source: https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11631329
Comment linking /fbi-harassment.html
on “FBI Harassing Core Tor Developer, Demand Meeting, but Refusing to Explain Why”Submitted The Forest for the Trees as a story · 27 points
HN discussionNot the last time I went down this road hardening a Thinkpad, see Step 6 at [1] (not my site). I haven't bothered with any smartphones yet, so I can't speak to what they tend to use for a mic. But if I carried one I'd definitely rip out all the voice coils and rely on a pair of headphones w/integrated mic for voice comms to mitigate potential for eavesdropping. [1] https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/replacing-a-thin…
Comment linking /replacing-a-thinkpad-x60-bootflash-chip.html
on “Apple's T2 chip will prevent hackers from eavesdropping on your microphone”Submitted The CCC: Men Who Hate Women as a story · 23 points
HN discussion> And other similar and very recent account of the US gov harassing Tor developers: > https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html It could be noted that the core Tor developer (@isislovecruft) who wrote that post has also spoken out against Appelbaum.
Comment linking /fbi-harassment.html
on “Statement by Jill Bähring Regarding Jacob Appelbaum”Submitted Teufelsberg (2015) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> "When I flew away for an appointment, I installed four alarm systems in my apartment," Appelbaum told the paper after discussing other situations which he said made him feel uneasy. "When I returned, three of them had been turned off. The fourth, however, had registered that somebody was in my flat - although I'm the only one with a key. And some of my effects, whose positions I carefully note, were indeed askew.…
Comment linking /fbi-harassment.html
on “Statement by Jill Bähring Regarding Jacob Appelbaum”Submitted Implementing As-Safe-as-Possible, Misuse-Resistant Cryptographic Libraries as a story · 2 points
HN discussionFrom the top of her original article: > I had already been in the process of moving, permanently, to Germany, and had retained a German immigrations lawyer several months prior to these events. [1] It's not like she just impulsively thought about Germany and left that week. Yes, it was a catalyst, but it seems to me that she was already on the fence, ready to leave. She even said she was waiting for her visa approva…
Comment linking /fbi-harassment.html
on “ Tor developer dodges FBI, leaves US”Submitted Pretty Bad {Protocol,People} as a story · 1 points
HN discussionNo, they told Isis's lawyer explicitly that they'd run around him and do so by approaching Isis in public[1]. Doing that would require them to have some basic idea of Isis's movements and the willingness to wait to set up an ambush. Given that, it's not unreasonable to suspect they're attempting something shady and that Isis is quite smart not to simply "trust us." There is no reason to trust law enforcement that wa…
Comment linking /fbi-harassment.html
on “ Tor developer dodges FBI, leaves US”Did you miss the link to http://jacobappelbaum.net/ where the rest of the testimonies are collected? Or read any of the other blogposts on the subject like this one? https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.... It isn't a single 'open blog'. Alison is a widely respected member of the infosec, internet freedom and librarian communities.
Comment linking /the-forest-for-the-trees.html
on “Alison Macrina: I’m one of the people Jake Appelbaum sexually assaulted”Tor developer Isis Agora Lovecruft has just come forward as well, as one of Jake's victims - https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees....
Comment linking /the-forest-for-the-trees.html
on “Alison Macrina: I’m one of the people Jake Appelbaum sexually assaulted”It's not a witch hunt because it's not looking to destroy someone. The end goal is reconciliation, not punishment. In fact the blog post doesn't advocate for any punishment at all. It's hardly us-vs-them when she says that Jake's friends should form a support group for him! Obviously the victims want him kept away from conferences for a time, which is only prudent given the nature of the accusations. It's a little m…
Comment linking /the-forest-for-the-trees.html
on “A New Tor Bridge Authority”Did anyone else click on the image and get redirected to this? https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/static/images/2015/12/car...
Comment linking /static/images/2015/12/card.jpeg
on “CVE-2016-5696 and its effects on Tor”If you like this, you'll also like Peter Stuge's 30c3 talk: Hardening hardware and choosing a #goodBIOS "A commodity laptop is analyzed to identify exposed attack surfaces and is then secured on both the hardware and the firmware level against permanent modifications by malicious software as well as quick drive-by hardware attacks by evil maids, ensuring that the machine always powers up to a known good state and si…
Comment linking /replacing-a-thinkpad-x60-bootflash-chip.html
on “Mission Impossible: Hardening Android for Security and Privacy”The site's audience is going to be technical. She explains how to check the SSL certificate fingerprint here: https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/isis.txt Once you've whitelisted her self-signed cert, you know from then on that you're not being MITMed (for what that's worth in a blog).
Comment linking /isis.txt
on “Replacing a Thinkpad X60 Bootflash Chip”isis agora lovecruft wrote a nuanced post[1] on this. From my outside perspective it's not about Tor but about preventing harm to the community. In the end hacker culture was always about doing interesting stuff and less so about selling or presenting it. Everyone will do fine, I guess. I for one would prefer "bad" talks with lot's of technical merit instead of more show. I don't have an opinion about the accusation…
Comment linking /the-forest-for-the-trees.html
on “Jacob Appelbaum Banned from CCC Hacker Conference”Reading this thread made me very sad. People talking about the ccc that clearly don't have the slightest idea what the ccc is, talking about the "word of god" of the hacker community. sp332 somehow tried to argue against a ruling through a court of law mentioning this post https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.... For the record: The first (and many times the only) place rape allegations should…
Comment linking /the-forest-for-the-trees.html
on “The CCC: Men Who Hate Women”I found the article I was thinking of, turns out it was on the same blog. https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.... After describing the specific allegations at the top, it describes the kind of justice the victims are looking for. I found it very helpful.
Comment linking /the-forest-for-the-trees.html
on “The CCC: Men Who Hate Women”I'm sure other people will add links, it's been a long-running story. But a lot of the people involved on both sides are anarchists of various stripes, who would rather handle things themselves than get the police involved. Edit: well no one else has posted links, so here are a couple. https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.... https://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html
Comment linking /the-forest-for-the-trees.html
on “The CCC: Men Who Hate Women”
