Best of 2015

The blog posts Hacker News loved most in 2015. 473 posts.

Security & Privacy
181

The God Login

I graduated with a Computer Science minor from the University of Virginia in 1992. The reason it’s a minor and not a major is because to major in CS at UVa you had to go through the Engineering School, and I was absolutely not cut out for that kind

185

Facebook Sponsors Let's Encrypt

We’re happy to share today that Facebook is the newest Gold sponsor of Let’s Encrypt. Facebook has taken multiple important steps to support and advance encryption this year, and we are glad to see Let’s Encrypt as the latest example. According to Alex Stamos, Chief Security Officer at Facebook, “Making it easier for…

195

Backdooring JavaScript using minifier bugs

In addition to unforgettable life experiences and personal growth, one thing I got out of DEF CON 23 was a copy of POC||GTFO 0x08 from Travis Goodspeed. The coolest article I’ve read so far in it is “Deniable Backdoors Using Compiler Bugs,” in which the authors abused a pre-existing bug in CLANG to create a backdoored…