FirstToKnow: December 2021

Ask HN: How did my LastPass master password get leaked?
607 by gregsadetsky | 325 comments on Hacker News.
Hi, I've just had a bizarre thing happen and wanted to see if the HN community could come up with some theories as to what happened. LastPass blocked a login attempt from Brazil (it wasn't me). According to an email I received from LastPass, this login was using the LastPass account's master password. The email doesn't look like it's a phishing attempt. What troubles me is that the master password was stored in a local encrypted KeePassX file. I can imagine that someone has my KeePassX file and the (completely different) password to this file. If that's the case, I'm in a world of hurt. But are there any other possibilities? Is the email from LastPass accurate i.e. was the login attempt actually using my master password? Is there some LastPass extension installed on some computer still having a valid auth token allowing them to login as me to LastPass..? I'm really confused, and scared. Thanks for your help. P.S. The LastPass account had 2FA set up, but I was able to simply remove it (since I didn't have access to the token anymore). That's scary too -- what's the point of a 2FA you can remove...?? --- Update: - the email was truly not phishing -- the same information regarding the login attempt appears in my LastPass dashboard. I also talked to LastPass support over the phone, and they confirmed seeing the same information. - There are 2 separate users in the thread below confirming that the same exact same thing happened to them, from the exact same IP range as me. Either the 3 of us had the same malware/Chrome extension or somehow had our master passwords compromised...? Or...? Is this a LastPass issue?

New best story on Hacker News: A New Coefficient of Correlation

A New Coefficient of Correlation
564 by malshe | 143 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: All the giant companies used ffmpeg (2020)

All the giant companies used ffmpeg (2020)
545 by tosh | 180 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work
542 by sandworm101 | 115 comments on Hacker News.
I made a similar post last year at this time and, again, I am in my office on Christmas morning. There are a few days every year that really show which jobs are vital and which can be left aside for a day. I started my car this morning (-32, -40 with wind chill). On my way to work I drove past a hospital and a care home, both were manned. The dairy farm had its lights on. A cop with his flashers drove past me on the way to some emergency. The macdonalds drive-through was open too. I had to be at work by 0600, but I was relieving someone who had been sitting in another office since 1800. On my computer were the same dozen emails I get every morning, each from someone else who drew the short straw. There aren't many of us on HN that work weekends let alone Christmas morning, but If you too are sitting in a dark office remember that all across the world are millions of other people working the truly important jobs.

New best story on Hacker News: Tell HN: Microsoft forks MIT licensed repo, and changes the copyright to them

Tell HN: Microsoft forks MIT licensed repo, and changes the copyright to them
524 by mkdirp | 193 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas
740 by mattowen_uk | 202 comments on Hacker News.
Hi, my Christmas is solitary this year, no family or friends. I'm not even having a Christmas dinner. I'm not sad about this, though. It's just the way it is. What I wanted to say is, if you are in the same situation, you are not alone. So have a virtual hug from me.

New best story on Hacker News: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
509 by throw0101a | 408 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Wish HN: Happy Holidays

Wish HN: Happy Holidays
762 by rcarmo | 189 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Entire website in a single HTML file

Entire website in a single HTML file
542 by jaytaylor | 281 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
500 by simonebrunozzi | 191 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Street Fighter II paper trails – allocating sprite space by hand

Street Fighter II paper trails – allocating sprite space by hand
530 by krajzeg | 74 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter
507 by bale | 389 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell
580 by folli | 613 comments on Hacker News.
It seems this question hasn't been asked for some time, so I'd be interested hear what new (and old) ideas have come up.

New best story on Hacker News: How to draw S-curved arrows between boxes

How to draw S-curved arrows between boxes
546 by alex_stoddard | 48 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Regulators Shut Down Lending Platform (YC Alum) LendUp

Regulators Shut Down Lending Platform (YC Alum) LendUp
533 by boeingUH60 | 463 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: AWS appears to be down again

AWS appears to be down again
539 by riknox | 389 comments on Hacker News.
Console is flickering between "website is unavailable" and being up for my team. This is happening very frequently just now, reliability seems to have taken a hit.

New best story on Hacker News: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
523 by ignitionmonkey | 189 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: TinyVG: A challenger to the throne of vector graphics

TinyVG: A challenger to the throne of vector graphics
503 by todsacerdoti | 165 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: The Big DevOps Misunderstanding

The Big DevOps Misunderstanding
503 by WolfOliver | 303 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone

An iframe from googlesyndication.com tries to access the camera and microphone
542 by authed | 269 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Test your product on a crappy laptop

Test your product on a crappy laptop
515 by dredmorbius | 302 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: CCPA Scam – Human subject research study conducted by Princeton University

CCPA Scam – Human subject research study conducted by Princeton University
476 by ColinWright | 328 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
570 by edge17 | 132 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Bottles: GUI front end to run Windows software on Linux

Bottles: GUI front end to run Windows software on Linux
559 by 1_player | 180 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China
536 by baylearn | 573 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Apple Helps Asahi Linux

Apple Helps Asahi Linux
536 by CraigJPerry | 172 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation
607 by paulpauper | 804 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
605 by shankarro | 323 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Tokio Console

Tokio Console
712 by hasheddan | 102 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg
735 by DrHilarius | 341 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
697 by h2odragon | 680 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS
687 by cwaffles | 218 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Pelosi defends stock trading by lawmakers. ‘We are a free-market economy’

Pelosi defends stock trading by lawmakers. ‘We are a free-market economy’
583 by tiahura | 491 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Tqdm (Python)

Tqdm (Python)
678 by manjana | 146 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround
618 by beezle | 465 comments on Hacker News.

New best story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
622 by ConfessionTime | 434 comments on Hacker News.
I have been working as a software developer for almost two decades. I have received multiple promotions. I make decent money, 3x - 4x my area's median salary, so I live a comfortable life. I have never been fired or unemployed for more than a few months total over my entire career. Through most of that time I have averaged roughly 5 - 10 hours of actual work a week. I'm not even discounting job related but non-coding time as not work. There are literally days in which the only time I spend on my job is the few minutes it takes to attend the morning stand-up. Then I successfully bullshit my way through our next stand-up to hide my lack of production. No one has ever called me out on this and my performance reviews range from mediocre to great. I'm generally a smart person. I went to a top 30 university, but it's not like I'm a genius or I'm coasting off connections made while getting a Harvard education. I wouldn't consider myself an abnormally talented developer. I often don't understand the technical details other engineers discuss in meetings. I have probably bombed more tech interviews than I have passed. All my jobs have been between 2-5 years so I'm neither finding a place to stagnate or leaving before anyone could judge my production. It feels like I am in the middle of the bell curve in terms of career success. So what gives? Are most of us secretly lying about how much we are working? Do people regularly run into coworkers like me during their career and simply ignore it because they find it too awkward to criticize them? Have I just been incredibly lucky and every boss I have had is too incompetent to notice? Do I have imposter syndrome and I am actually a 10x developer whose laziness makes them a 1x developer? These questions have kept popping up in my mind over the last year. Remote work during the pandemic has allowed me to finally be honest with myself and stop pretending I am working when I am not. I want to know if I was the only one pretending.