Fair!

So for sure, everything you said is correct. One compiler, the push to rewrite software (This one I do 100% agree with, I do write Rust, but for greenfield stuff, it’s not really useful to rewrite working, stable, secure software, in Rust). Security work isn’t mutually exclusive, and what agencies do elsewhere doesn’t represent what it doe here.

I guess my best argument here is that I don’t think Lunduke cares about what he claims, I think he’s a right wing propagandist that looks for any reason, no matter how small, to push controversy and pull people to his blog to make money.

So yeah, you’re right, security wise it’s not a nothing burger, and is suspicious. Though I will still say that even though the Rust evangelists have rightfully been told to back off a bit, there’s lots of companies that have decided to rewrite a lot in Rust.

About this issue:

The self-replicating back door is a… real stretch of an argument. This is the kind of things that governments and billion dollar corporations think about. It’s (one of) the reasons the Apple has maintained it’s own programming languages. Big tech agencies often house their own compilers and make their developers use it (even if it’s just a copy of the open source ones) to ensure that if a compiler is compromised, they can continue working on it under their own direction. Also, if Germany could get a self-replicating compiler vulnerability in a compiler, it would hit much harder and further to just attack GCC, which is the main compiler for 90% of c code, which is 90% of the infrastructure of software (Yes, many of those language libraries you use, use C underneath, or at least, their compiler is written in C).

Furthermore, this is a problem for any language that only has one compiler, and a second implementation of rust has been in the works for gcc for awhile (gccrs I believe). Also, there’s many many places where there’s a push to move C code to Rust to increase security, this isn’t ‘wierd’.

There are so many other problems to consider before going down this route. supply chain attacks, trust verification, code signing, all these come in play way before this. Plus it’s not like Germany owns rust, they can’t necessarily inject a compiler issue into rust the way Lunduke argues.

The real issue is that most security vulnerabilities are caused by things Rust seeks to fix, use-after-free and double-free causing crashes that can be taken advantage off by a clever malware writer. Writing in Rust is (a slow and somewhat painful way of) making software more secure, not less.

About the agency

Additional note, this govt agency (and I’m no fan of Germany’s govt necessarily, but just to note) has given millions to many open source projects. Let’s encrypt, pypi, yocto, the openprinting stack, activitypub (you know, from the fediverse, how this platform runs…). They’ve also recommended languages other than Rust for projects too.

About Lunduke

He’s a racist transphobe maga hat wearing techie (keeps the hat hidden, also don’t know if he’s actually a fan of trump, but he’s an alt-right conspiracy theorist). I’m “passionate” about talking about him because I followed him for a number of years, now kinda regrettably (we all make mistakes, it’s best to learn and move on, but still, this one hurt, I was a big fan for awhile).

He used to live in Portland, Oregon, and during the pandemic, he moved away because the city had become something that he “didn’t like”. That was when the city started to show its real anti-fascist and anti-Trump sentiments. That was also when the whole anti-police movement happened in Portland and Seattle.

I became suspicious of him after that, and then he basically said that he didn’t want to talk in public about the things he actually wanted to talk about, but that you could pay him money to subscribe to his journal and he would actually discuss those topics. He then left YouTube on his other channel and, I think, left the Lunduk Journal channel, but later came back for a video once in awhile.

I found some of his writings that were public and non-paid, and he talked about anti-trans topics, gender-neutral bathrooms, and things like that. He has a big enough base that he can pretty much single-handedly create controversy. Although he’s a big Linux fan, he’s a massive critic of all the diversity, equity, and inclusiveness that the field tends to promote.

He really fuels the conspiracy that “the left” is the worst part of technology. He wants to make technology seem like a right-wing thing. He’s been denouncing the fall of Linux for a while now, mostly because he thinks the developers of Linux are too woke.

Efficiency problems aside (hopefully R1 keeps us focused on increasing efficiency while still being useful), I find it super useful when you set a pattern and let it fill it out for you.

On a side project, I built out 10 or 15 structs and then implemented one of them in a particular pattern and I just asked it to finish off the rest. I did like 10% of the work, but because I set the pattern, it finished everything else flawlessly.

For the military, I’m sure this is a cost-cutting measure. I’m guessing they get to fire some people And make the rest of them work double time, but with AI assisting them.

For the working people, it’s another argument that you can point to to get people radicalized :D

Yeah they all do that to each other. Pretty standard practice actually.

The big deal is the low cost, and using weak GPUs, to train a comparable AI.

Trumps gonna be Trump though. Embarassing to live here.

Yeah, unfortunately we’ve known that for a while.

There were actually some Google employees that protested this, and they’ve all been fired, of course.

A note about those queues.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the difference between policy and material conditions. The USSR wouldn’t have had queues (or very long queues) if they were a rich country like the United States. Any socialist country that is rich would have plenty of materials that nobody would ever have to wait in line (at least not a long line, no longer than in current day USA)

Of course, under socialism, certain excesses would be limited, but at the same time, if your country literally already had what it needed because of the overcapacity built by capitalism, then under socialism, basically all needs would be met very easily.

I need to do some more reading by other people on this topic because I’m no expert, but it makes sense to me.

These people have no fucking shame. It’s like they explained what American social media is to a T and then they were like, “but China actually”.

Thank you, comrade, for your thoughts and insights into this. I am someone who did think that left spaces are infighting too much and right spaces are unified. As I’m sure is common.

But between your post and a couple of comments, I think that is something I should reconsider.

The public shaming of politicians does seem to be different, however. And that does put out an aura of unity. But of course, looks are deceiving. And I can’t stand hanging out in right-wing spaces, so I’ve never witnessed the internal turmoil myself.

Literally me haha

Jesus Christ.

Queue the parenting quote.

If China was doing this the west would call it genocide.

He was hiding in a bush presumably waiting for him to come by or something and Secret Service saw his gun pointing out of the bush and shot at him.

Pretty pathetic in my opinion.

They even admitted that there’s a lot of dense cover around and he’d basically be invisible if he didn’t stick his gun out.

I fell for it. But OMG that was hilarious.

Neat, but nanotubes have been around for a long time now. The problem has always been scaling up, which this article mentions is still an issue, sigh.

Although, the 86% connectivity of copper seems relatively low, I think with higher quality nanotubes, it would be higher than copper, right? I’m stretching my memory a bit. I feel like I haven’t read about manotubes for a number of years. The high strength they mentioned later in the article, sounds the same as I’ve heard before. A well-formed nanotube braided properly should be basically the strongest rope we’ve ever made.

Good on ya SFSU

This is basically the last argument I made to my family before we stopped talking about politics

They were like hey, you seem to be going down these propaganda rabbit holes. But here’s what I believe. And I’m like yeah, I know what you believe. I believed it for 35 fucking years too, I’m the one that did more research and changed my mind, You all don’t even know the definition of socialism, let alone communism!

At that point, I decided that, yeah, I’m talking to brick walls. I’m not going to do this anymore. They’ll have to research it themselves.

I’d laugh, but this was too real :-(

I rode my bike to my urban campus for three years and then to a couple of jobs outside in the nearby area for two more. I miss those days so much.

Even though while I was there, I always felt like it was a pain in the butt and a compromise. I was kind of a sweaty guy, so it’s much easier if I have a shower to go to in the building that I arrive in, but many buildings around me did, so that wasn’t a problem. I’ve also learned some people just ride slower and don’t need to shower haha.

The weather in my area can be cold but not super cold and very rarely snow. But I would always obsessively look at the weather and make sure that I was prepping properly.

When I finally moved away and got a better car and started driving more, I thought I was living more privileged. But for whatever reason I always missed biking and I didn’t understand why.

Once I learned about the no car movement I realized that when biking in an urban environment, everything else about my life besides my commute was so much easier, and my commute was only a little bit harder than driving. There are ways I could have made it even easier so honestly that wasn’t even that bad.

It’s one of those things that you have to experience it to understand but once you do you realize that micro mobility is way more convenient for getting around. Then, without massive parking lots, massive 6 lane straods, massive department stores, massive front yards, things aren’t too far away from each other.

With the exception of the front yards, all of those things just exist to facilitate the car. Like, without the car, you don’t need those things, and then every other form of travel becomes easier. But with those things, only cars become viable. It’s kind of crazy.

allows states to enforce laws that replace faithless electors

Ah, yeah that’s a whole 'nuther problem. Comes after the initial problem of actually getting those 270 in their seats and to vote in unison.

all for the FBI to assassinate the candidate

Damn, that’s true. so many problems with that idea haha!