R
Radian
radian.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Ivan Krstić, a security engineer and former OLPC security head, writes on security, finance, startups, and technology.
What HN saysCommenters link his Porsche short squeeze post as a clear explanation of short selling, along with his brain-enhancement and OLPC writing.
31HN people shared it
18linked it in comments
17stories submitted
745story points
12 years agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1How Porsche hacked the financial system and made a killing (2009)9 people · 586 points · first shared 2009 · 92 comments on HN
- 2Sic Transit Gloria Laptopi (harsh words about OLPC from the project's ex-security officer)4 people · 14 points · first shared 2008 · 2 comments on HN
- 3Botox for the brain: enhancement of cognition, mood and blunting of unwanted memories3 people · 14 points · first shared 2009 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Ivan Krstić on Languages and Security3 people · 10 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 5On technology startups2 people · 5 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 6Van helsingfors2 people · first shared 2008
- 7Nicholas Negroponte's sweet nonsense omelet1 people · 57 points · first shared 2009 · 11 comments on HN
- 8First OLPC deployment: now it's real!1 people · 19 points · first shared 2007 · 15 comments on HN
- 9The New Yorker on mind hacks1 people · 17 points · first shared 2009 · 3 comments on HN
- 10Why OLPC Security Chief just resigned1 people · 13 points · first shared 2008 · 4 comments on HN
- 11Ivan Krstić: Will Google fulfill the promise of WinFS? (Good discussion of Google's datastore)1 people · 6 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 12Fear and loathing at the Customs desk1 people · 3 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 13No yin for Jerry Yang1 people · 1 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 142009 05 111 people · first shared 2009
- 15Homepage1 people · first shared 2012
What HN people wrote when they linked it
wmf · 2012-02-17
Or Apple could have sandboxed unsigned apps by default instead of telling you to trash them. Too bad they don't have any sandboxing experts[1] on hand....
[1] http://radian.org/
knieveltech · 2010-06-14
The article linked below describes Porsche's short squeeze and contains one of the best explanations of short selling I've come across to date.
http://radian.org/notebook/porsche
asciilifeform · 2009-06-16
Required reading:
(1) http://radian.org/notebook/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/brain-botox.pdf
(2) http://yarchive.net/med/nootropics.html
(3) http://yarchive.net/med/lifestyle_drugs.html
No. 3 is for understanding why most of the prominent naysayers in the field don't have your best interests in mind. No. 1 and 2 will educate you about what substances are available and what trade-offs their use entails.
jcl · 2009-05-26
It's funny... To hear Ivan Krstic's story earlier this year, Porsche had made a brilliant financial coup:
http://radian.org/notebook/porsche
kn0thing · 2008-05-19
All the proceeds are going to OLPC with the request that they stop shipping with Windows :)
On a more serious note and in case you're wondering, yes, I'm [feeling rather conflicted](http://breadpig.com/blog/?p=32) with all the recent charges against OLPC.
I'm chatting with [Ivan](http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi) about a potential alternative organization, but I also don't feel great about changing the recipient after folks had already started bidding... (thoughts?)
gabriel · 2008-05-18
I recommend everyone go read the source essay by Ivan Krstić, rather than someone's commentary on it. See here: http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi
prewett · 2014-11-16
Do you have a link? It sounds interesting, but I think you might be confusing the Porsche short-squeeze of Volkswagen stock [1]. I'm thinking that if Kraft bought 90% of the world's chocolate, Hershey would also be in trouble. Besides, I would assume that these companies have delivery contracts already in place for several years.
According to everything I found, what happened was that Kraft's price was too low and they did not want to be part of Kraft's low-growth conglomerate strategy. Once they discovered Kraft was actually planning on abandoning that strategy, they they polled shareholders about what price they would be willing to accept, and Kraft offered slightly more than that. [2]
[1] http://radian.org/notebook/porsche
[2] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1cb06d30-332f-11e1-a51e-00144feabdc0.ht…
hosay123 · 2014-10-24
Blatant clone of a vastly more concisely written (read: not padded using a thesaurus) article by Ivan Krstic
https://radian.org/notebook/porsche
sp332 · 2011-04-20
Here's a nicer one. http://radian.org/notebook/startup-process
daliusd · 2010-12-06
I think that was this way through all history:
* Main achitect of pyramid in Egypt was buried together in it(bad that I can't find link to that)
* Quite interesting story of Denis Papin (http://radian.org/notebook/boatmen-and-cyberlaw)
* Here is list in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Murdered_scientists (while not all of them were killed because of their work)
blasdel · 2010-02-13
I'm glad this wasn't another PR stunt about mobile phone viruses -- we don't live in that particular William Gibson novel. Pics here: http://radian.org/notebook/van-helsingfors
I do wonder what the chain of hardware issues is that's causing their interference problem. Perhaps the phones all use SoC designs where the CPU, modems, and possibly RAM are all on one die -- would that allow extreme WiFi / cellular noise to flip bits?
illumen · 2009-05-14
Linux does have something like Bifrost - and better stuff. OLPC uses linux.
Newer versions of windows also have a very advanced security model.
OSX is the weakest current OS, and one of the easiest to exploit. There's a number of ways you can crash and exploit it... it's just too easy.
It's funny that Ivan was blasting apple for having a very weak OS. http://radian.org/notebook/nils2own Not his own work, but someone he has associated with found the various exploits.
Considering how much damage he did to OLPC by writing bad things about it, apple would do well to hire him... just to stop the bad publicity. I can't wait to he quits... it'll be very entertaining.
ableal · 2009-05-13
In Ivan Krstić's own words ( http://radian.org/notebook/2009-05-11 ):
I moved to California and joined the local fruit vendor
(Read the short post, contains MIT and PyCon ;-)
jkkramer · 2009-05-13
Krstić's talk on OLPC was what convinced me to donate to the project a couple years ago. His leaving and subsequent writings[1] left me feeling suspicious of OLPC. I'm glad to hear his expertise will be put to good use now and am looking forward to seeing the fruits of his labor.
[1] http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi
smanek · 2009-04-25
Why not link to the actual articles, instead of a blog that adds little original content?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/04/27/090427fa_fact_talbot?cur…
http://radian.org/notebook/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/brain-botox.pdf
alecco · 2008-10-31
(A better link: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/103008-morris-worm.html )
When my friends and I got our hands on the source code of the worm it took us a while to understand it. It was ahead of anything else we had seen before and it sure pushed a few of us towards computer security. And it served as an early wake up call for sysops, something the Windows camp for example got too late.
Now virus and worm researchers have strong and careful methodology. Something particularly interesting today is mobile phone security research performed on Faraday cages:
http://radian.org/notebook/van-helsingfors (scroll close to bottom.)
rms · 2008-06-02
A lot of people left... it's not just the switch to Windows, but the switch to Windows is symbolic of other failures of the project.
http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi
ilitirit · 2010-06-14
Related:
http://radian.org/notebook/porsche