Wow that's super interesting to know. So its still got some resistance, but a lot less than I thought. Thanks again for sharing!
Thank you for such a long and detailed post! I indeed did not know about things beyond the SIM, and I didn't know about the extra details about the country codes either. That is extremely interesting to me.
With the phone spoofing though, does that mean two factor with a phone number is basically useless? If I had authentication based on a MAC address, it would take seconds to break it. But I think, and sure hope, that auth based on phone numbers is more secure.
I think your domain name answer -- that for the most part computers didnt need them -- is a very satisfying answer.
If I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that right now the network doesn't have an exhaustive table of IP addresses to physical locations. It has a cache, and a hierarchy, and the path to a location of the IP is fluid.
But a system where every device could be directly contacted/identified like a Sim card, would effectively require a complete table of "what network is device ABC at". A table that is updated every time the device changes network connections. It would be like trying to change domain name to point to a different IP address.
The problem is, updating a domain to point to a new IP takes hours or days not seconds, so doing that every time a phone changes WiFi is not practical.
Is that a good summary?
Finally :D thank you so much!
So basically VOIP is "cheating" because its not actually handled by the network directly, the phone company pays for always-online servers, and phone(s) reach out to those server every time they change networks, in order for servers to be able to route calls to them.
Which also means! it is possible to do the same thing for computers, but it requires having
- A static IP
- An always online server
- The device needs a daemon that tries to connect to an always online server, and authenticates itself
- That server needs to manually reroute traffic (through a VPN or some other means) from the static IP address to the device, wherever it might be
Which also explains why general network providers wouldn't want to create the infrastructure. Even if universal addresses were given to each device, which simplifies DHCP and address-leasing, and shortens time it takes to handshake with the network, all of that is less of a cost than the infrastructure needed track of devices as they change networks. (And that's on top of ISP's being slow to change from the legacy approach of local networks and desktops).
^ which is more the conversation I wanted to have but didnt really get with this post.
Thats a sizable edit!
Yeah 😅 I didnt want it to be this complicated of a question, but I didnt see how else to explain that current addressing systems don't meet the same need as a phone number.
You're right it depends on the definition of phone number, and I edited the original post to try and be more clear that I meant the phone number including the country code and area code.
If you're talking about something other than country/area code though, then that's news to me.
Thats a valid solution, thanks for saying it!
I think it is good to note this requires either having another system at home or in the cloud to host the VPN right?
This I'm interested in, because its at the edge/limits of my knowledge when it comes to domains and cellular networking.
Are you saying if cell phones had a larger address space, let's say 32 digits base 10, and every device was given a cell phone number, it would overwhelm the existing infrastructure?
Fair, I could have said fully qualified number, including country code.
And also fair, instead of saying a MAC could be edited, I should've said each phone number has one global owner, while each MAC address could have many owners.
Corrections have been made 👍
AFAIK a static IP does not fix that. If I'm wrong, which is possible, I'd be very happy to find that out.
AFAIK static public-facing IP addresses are limited to a physical location. It would work if my laptop never left my house but as soon as I take it to the airport its no longer accessible. People who try to connect to the static ip would just get a message saying the address timed out.
I can send a message to the IP address but AFAIK the message won't get to him because he will almost certainly have a new address when he connects to the airport WiFi in the new city.
Cool, I'll have to look that up!
I can get VOIP calls behind a NAT without cell service. I'm asking how is that possible. Is the router somehow part of the same AP as cell service?
I was wrong, I didnt realize ipv6 was 128bit. Still stuff like IPFS and git hashes are larger than 128bit to prevent collisions so there is a precedence for using larger address spaces when not having address reuse.
Yep, and I can verify my phone number didnt change when roaming, people could still call me.
The IP doesn't persist across network hops (cell tower to cell tower) and the MAC address doesnt have one verified owner. A phone number is both verified having one owner and persists across network hops.
Even paying for a static IP its not like a phone number which is discoverable behind a NAT without extra router configuration.
Yes I'm sure. Try changing the number to 911. Phone numbers only have one owner, MAC addresses may have many owners.
Sure, I'll change the title to say "phones have unique phone number (b/c sim cards), why don't computers have an equivalent?" I didnt mean one phone == one phone number.
With VOIP I can get phone calls even without cell service, even behind a NAT. My question is why is the network designed in such a way where that is possible, but I can't buy a static address that will persist across networks endpoint changes (e.g. new wifi connection) such that I can initiate a connection to my laptop while it is behind a NAT.
no need for an endpoint to be directly exposed
If I were an engineer in the past, trying to send a message back to an endpoint (e.g. a server response) I would've reached for everything having a static IP, same as the EID system with phones, instead of the DHCP multi-tier NAT type system with temp addresses.
I'm all but certain they didnt do it for privacy reasons at the time.
Why doesn't every computer have 256 char domain name, along with a private key to prove it is the sole owner of the address?
Edits: For those technically inclined: Stuff like DHCP seems unnecessary if every device has a serial number based address that's known not to collide. It seems way more simple and faster than leasing dynamic addresses. On top of that with VOIP I can get phone calls even without cell service, even behind a NAT. Why is the network designed in such a way where that is possible, but I can't buy a static address that will persist across networks endpoint changes (e.g. laptop connecting to a new unconfigured wifi connection) such that I can initiate a connection to my laptop while it is behind a NAT.
- Yes, it would be a privacy nightmare, I want to know why it didnt turn out that way
- When I say phone number, I mean including area/country code
- AFAIK IP addresses (even static public ones) are not equivlent to phone numbers. I don't get a new phone number every time I connect to a new cell tower. Even if a static IP is assigned to a device, my understanding is that connecting the device to a new uncontrolled WiFi, especially a router with a NAT, will make it so that people who try to connect to the static IP will simply fail.
- No, MAC addresses are not equivalent phone numbers. 1. Phone numbers have one unique owner, MAC addresses can have many owners because they can be changed at any time to any thing on most laptops. 2. A message can't be sent directly to a MAC address in the same way as a phone number
- Yes, IMEI is unique, but my laptop doesn't have one and even if it did its not the same as an eSim or sim card. We can send a message to an activated Sim, we can't send a message to an IMEI or serial number
- I make websites
- If someone is banned twice (two accounts) I want it to take them more than 5min and a VPN to make a 3rd account
- I'm okay with extreme solutions, like requiring everyone to have a Yubikey-or-similar physical key
- I really hate the trend of relying on a phone number or Google capcha as a not-a-bot detection. Both have tons of problems
- but spam (automated account creation) is a real problem
What kind of auth should I use for my websites?
Often we dig our own grave making people "defend" their opinion. Instead of winning them over, we push them to become more and more entrenched in their opinion as they build larger mental defenses against the challenges we present. So I want to hear from you:
How do you avoid putting people on the defensive? (Even though those people had a strong alternative opinion)
What was a time where the opposite happened; all the facts were there, but absolutely no one was convinced by the talk?
I feel like solarpunk has a lot of obvious-once-seen ideas and powerful "ahh-ha" moments. But if we can't convince others to take a glimpse from our perspective, not much benefit will come from it.
JSON and YAML work great for passing data between languages.
However, sometimes, I have a pure function like y = mx + b, that I would like to pass between languages (for making plots).
What operators should be available? I think jsonnet's standard library(skip to the math operators) is the perfect example of a useful set of operations that could be shared across basically all programming languages. The operations would take/return json values rather than working with language-specific data types.
My question is does such a language exist already?
Close candidates:
- Dhall and jsonnet are pure languages that generate json. But AFAIK they can't actually serialize pure functions. They can only use pure functions as a shorthand for generating json. I want to actually save/send functions over the wire.
This might be a limitation of Lemmy or voyager, but is there some option for me to "watch" or "subscribe" to a post and be notified of new comments?
Especially relevant to asklemmy since occasionally I see a post before there's any answers.
I'd like a small group with strict/well-defined meeting times that has a coach/conversation-conductor to keep topics on track. I feel like it would work really well if advice was given/received by others with ADHD, while having a leader do stuff like
- make sure 1 person doesn't dominate the conversation
- keep meeting notes
- call/text people who miss a meeting
- follow up with people who said they were going to do something
But I've never really heard of such a system.
I've found at least two online services, but I don't really know if they're worth trying. I'm curious on your opinion and/or if any of you have tried something similar.
There's "Study Hall" which I'm not sure is what I'm really looking for https://adult-study-hall-by-adhd-rewired.mn.co/sign_up?plan_id=230880
Then this site seems to have good coaching https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37252231
If a human posted every 5 min, got 0 upvotes for 20 posts straight, we would ban them for spam. If bots would limit themselves to posting once a day, or once a week, and only post the top-voted non-duplicate post of that timeframe, it would be a dramatic improvement. For once, we might actually see real-lemmy posts along side bot posts, instead of the community being exclusively bots (or 99% bot posts) or exclusively Lemmy users.
I would tell the bot creators myself, except I don't know how to get in contact with them. Is there a consistent way to contact a bot creator?
I plan to speak to my city council about creating a tool library, where citizens use their existing library card to checkout tools. To make the idea a bit more robust, I'm also planning to require citizens deposit something as collateral when checking out a tool.
However.
I live in Texas (I love Texas). Thankfully my city council is receptive, but I know they're going to need compelling evidence before approving something like this.
So, if you guys have any advice, or examples, particularly of this kind of system working in the US, I would love to hear about it!
I plan to speak to my city council about a tool library, and literally have citizens use their existing library card to checkout tools. To make the idea a bit more robust, I'm also planning to require citizens deposit something as collateral when checking out a tool.
However.
I live in Texas (I love Texas). Thankfully my city council is receptive, but I know they're going to need compelling evidence before approving something like this.
So, if you guys have any examples, or advice, particularly of this kind of system working in the US, I would love to hear about it!
Introduces the programming language Numbat and its type system
Cyberpunk themed rooms are pretty common, but I don't want to limit solarpunk discussion to just rooms; It could be as big as getting your city council to add a greenway, or as small as finding a nice desktop wallpaper. I'd like to hear about it. I'll start off with a few of my own:
- I got a sunlight alarm clock; best decision I've ever made. The minimal design of this one is great except for one thing; you have you take 5 min to drill a hole in the dead-center of the speaker to kill the alarm noise. It's the only way to disable the sound. I'm sure there's other good options as well.
- A couple years ago I got an EcoFlow battery with a small 100W solar panel. I mention it specifically because, unlike other batteries, the EcoFlow was extremely repairable, while also having top of the line specs (at least a couple years ago). I still haven't hooked up the solar panel to the grid, maybe next year.
- I know plants help a ton, but you're going to have to get plant tips from someone else. Maybe someone will have some fake plant recommendations for me.
- String lights and LED strips work wonders, both indoors and outside. Higher quality string lights (the lights are close together, bulbs are usually brighter and classic-looking) are quite a bit better than the cheap amazon ones, but even the amazon ones add atmosphere. Combine them with cheap timer-sockets and outdoor light sensor sockets to make a nice automated system.
- I know it's kind of weird to consider going somewhere as part of a "theme" but I haven't found a farmers market that wasn't nice community. Last week I got an IRL side quest; one of the vendors heard I was going to visit the other market location and asked if I could bring a jug of sweetener to his counterpart there. Sometimes the people are them most important part of a theme, so I recommend participating in a market.
- For transportation, there are some truly great e-options as of late. It's $300 for a cheap-but-good electric scooter on Amazon. I've also got an overpowered e-bike (Onyx RCR) and even at $4000 it's cheaper than a couple years of a car insurance and gas. Silently zooming with the confidence of being able to charge it off a solar panel is a really pleasant feeling.
- Finally I've recently attended my first city hall meetings, and it's been shocking how helpful the city staff is. Absolutely nothing like the DMV or national politics. For example, I was told about a "SeeClickFix" app, and it has been great for getting street lights fixed.
It's not much, but that's all my tips.
Got any string lights of your own to show off? or maybe some watering systems, or plant tips? I wish we had an r/battlestations equivalent
TLDR; do you know of any general purpose languages that can also compile a function to some representation of AND/OR gates (or NAND gates, or whatever)?
Edit: actually any algebra/formal-logical system is also fine (not just boolean algebra).
Yes, a A LOT of additional info is needed, like defining how input/output is defined, and I am interested in how those would be specified. I'm not interested in printing an actual circuit, just the boolean-logic level. And I'm mostly asking because I feel like most compilers can't generate a clean/mathematical representation from their AST. There's AST to IR, there's hard-coded optimizations on the IR, and then there's hard-coded mappings from the IR to assembly, but at no point (AFAIK) is the code turned into a algebraic/logical system where something like De Morgan's Law can be applied. And that seems really sad to me.
So you could say my real question is: what compilers have a strong logical/algebraic internal representation of their own AST?
Maybe something like Haskell or Prolog do this. The Wolfram Language almost certainly does but it's closed source.
I know, this isn't a keyboard post, but lets be real, if there's any communities that would know/care about programable foot pedals it would be this one.
I'm looking for a USB foot pedal, ideally something clicky-feeling, with decent-resistance, short travel distance. I only need 1 pedal but something with more than one is fine. I don't need anything premium; I'm just browsing amazon I can't really spot the difference between mushy garabage and decent-ish build quality.
Any recommendations?
(Non-USB recommendations are fine; hopefully this post will be useful to others considering a foot pedal)
💾 ✅ A custom ligature font based on Iosevka, because Font Fira is for casuals - GitHub - jeff-hykin/xd-font: 💾 ✅ A custom ligature font based on Iosevka, because Font Fira is for casuals
Its not much, as its a variation on Iosevka, exclusively for programming, and I made it a while ago, but I wanted to see what the community thinks. (I tried including a picture with the post but it failed to upload for some reason)
I'd love to see more open source self-made fonts. Any criticisims on functionality, or recommended changes are welcome.
I couldn't find a post in this community about cameras so I figured I'd make one. Requirements:
- No "sign up" required to record video
- Video is stored locally
- Video is in a non-propriatary format
- Can work offline
Optional/Discussion Points:
- Can wireless connectivity be hardware disabled
- Can auto-update be disabled
- Does the device try to "phone home" if it is connected to wifi
- Disk encryption would be nice but I doubt that'll be an option for anything other than self-hosted stuff
Does anyone know about Lorex (it seems more privacy centered)?
I'm highly technical, so feel free to mention self hosted raspberry pi soltuions as well.
I love a lot of the keyboards on here (especially ones with an integrated track ball) but I'm a poor grad student under deadlines; even most kit-boards are too much of a time sink for me to soldier together.
I know at least some of you like trying new boards all the time. And I'm guessing some of you have one or two daily drivers and then 3 older boards; maybe one that was a prototype build, or a novelty micro-board that was fun to just play with but not use, etc.
I would be happy to effectively fund a new kit/build for someone by buying one of those older (assembled) boards, but I don't know where to look.
Is there any kind of used market, or do you guys have any recommendations?
I would love if someone would write a parody of modern society. Something roughly like this narrative
Setting/Context:
- energy becomes a non-issue (fusion powered cars; extra loud systems)
- cars and highways get so big that people literally start driving their house to work
- ads about "wait in line at the drive through from the comfort of your own home"
- started with rich people getting drivable houses (not RV's or motorhomes; but driveable homes that are branded in a completely different way)
- normal daily commutes of 100miles since everything is so padded out with parking
- instead of owning land, some people just park in "overnight" areas with random neighbors (nobody knows their neighbors)
- speeds are being increased because of the 100 mile daily commute, but it's causing increased accidents (nuclear) which are downplayed; people start padding their portable houses with radiation protection
- Being too poor to afford a high speed portable home means you're effectively barred from registering to vote or perform daily tasks
Then:
- someone (protag) has an idea of just staying parked permanently at his job's parking lot (he works at a grocery store)
- His parking space is 1 mile from the front door of the grocery store so he "invents" the idea of mini-transportation
- He convinces a handful of people to stay parked next to him and stars relying on them for small services (doctor advice, plumbing work, etc)
But:
- the company won't allow any goods or services to be exchanged on their parking lot; those doctor services are illegal
- cooperations band together to mandate no-overnight parkin (or some other better antagonistic thing, this is where my lack of writing skills is apparent)
Eventually:
- (fight-club style expansion) there is a small movement of people planting their houses forming small communities on top of the massive parking lots
- they repurpose their fusion generators
- etc
if you ever browse r/gradstudents its about as depressing as posts on this sub; and if society's most promising students are constantly forgetting they're enough, maybe you did too.
Imagine the following:
- Servers declare a target number of users/posts-per-day (enables programmatically detecting when other people's servers are generally under/over capacity)
- Severs have a recommender list of other servers (whitelist), separate and more exclusive than their non-blocked list
Whenever someone goes to the sign up page, for example, on Lemmy.world, we:
- look at the recommender list
- find the server that is most under capacity
- have a very large iframe with "Sign up for Lemmy (using [under capacity server here])"
- have a small "No, I want to sign up specifically on Lemmy.world" option
AND, as a precaution against maybe-malicious takeovers (e.g. a Facebook server saying it has unlimited capacity and all new users getting forwarded to them) a server can set it's own maximum recommender caps; e.g. "recommended" servers won't be recommended if they're above 10,000 users even if they claim they could handle more.
Thoughts?