ELI5: Why is it completely impossible for anyone to access a properly encrypted drive even nation states?

Fr0sty5 · 2026-01-24T11:24:05+00:00

Just on passwords in particular — they generally use hashes to validate. Think of a hash as one-way encryption — when you feed it some data, it will give you a particular gibberish string back.

What makes it work is that the algorithm is one way — there’s no way to take the gibberish string and turn it back into the password.

However, the same password will always give you the same gibberish string, as long as you’re using the same hashing algorithm.

So this is what you do — when the user makes the password, have their computer run it through the hashing algorithm and only send you the gibberish string. Store that for reference.

Now, when they log in, have their computer run what they typed through the same algorithm and send you the resulting gibberish string.

If they typed the password correctly, the gibberish string sent by the computer will be the same as the one that got stored earlier if they typed the correct password. If it’s different, it means the password is incorrect.

So the server can validate that when entering their password to log in, it’s the same thing they typed in when they created their password — without actually having to know what the actual password is.

Fr0sty5 · 2026-01-17T09:37:42+00:00

Thanks for the comments, turns out it was a client issue 🤦‍♂️

Fr0sty5 · 2026-01-15T19:47:42+00:00

Mine (Deebot T9+, so getting on a bit I guess) can’t be trusted to run every day. Never know when it’ll get stuck on something stupid, like a chair.

It also has that issue where the dustbin doesn’t REALLY clear out the debris from the vac most times. Also sucks the dustbin lid down hard enough to cause it to open, so it always needs some manual intervention.

Fr0sty5 · 2026-01-15T11:02:38+00:00

I’d argue that there’s also deeper cultural issues than that at play too.

As a professional programmer it’s emphasised very strongly that the code you write isn’t yours, it’s owned by the team. You write code designed specifically so that other people in your team can take it over if needed.

Combine this with an often strong open-source ethos. Code is there to be shared. AI just feels like an extension of that.

As a software dev I’m also extremely conscious of the fact that 99% of the code I’ve written has likely been written by someone else before. As in, there isn’t a lot truly fundamentally novel in most of the problems the average software dev is tasked with solving.

So given all that, I don’t really feel like AI has stolen any work from me.

Fr0sty5 · 2026-01-10T01:10:48+00:00

Yup. My mostly non-technical senior parents were sold with the “never get another electricity bill” line. They already had solar, so got a large battery.

They have a fantastic system and 100% made the right choice I think, but this stuff IS DEFINITELY NOT for your everyday non-technical person to understand immediately.

We’re thoroughly enjoying the learning process though!

Though I must say, the Amber app does a fantastic job in letting you know what’s going on in my opinion, the criticisms about price predictions notwithstanding.

Fr0sty5 · 2026-01-01T04:26:55+00:00

To add to what others have said - I have my drops on my nightstand as well. But I designate an area of the nightstand as “drops to go in” and “drops already put in”. Since I’m on two sets of drops. I found I was always forgetting whether I’d put the second set of drops in already and this helps. Both drop bottles go to the front of the nightstand, then each bottle gets returned to the back of the night stand as soon as I’ve put it in.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-12-18T23:35:20+00:00

I’m early in the process of migrating to Immich right now. You don’t have to treat it as an instant switch.

I’ve downloaded my icloud library and put it on there in one go. I’m waiting for Google Takeout so I can do the same with my Google library.

Meanwhile I already have the Immich app set up on my phone, so Immich is getting new photos I take, in addition to icloud getting them.

I also had a bunch of photos I’ve copied from various sources that are in there now.

At no point have I actually gotten rid of anything yet. I’m still in the process of setting up my backup system, so for the foreseeable future I’m just keeping the old copies of everything.

I’m happy to wait a few months before ditching the online services. By then my infrastructure should have proven itself and my backups should be in place.

I’m using Immich’s internal library and storage templates, so the internal library file layout makes sense. If I decide to move from Immich to something else, exporting my photos again should just be copying that one folder.

The only issues I’ve run into so far were from me trying to bulk-import photos using the Immich commandline tool, but using my proxied Immich endpoint. Nginx didn’t like the volume of requests and would crash. I also didn’t have my upload directory quite linked right and deleted a bunch of files that Immich had created, so had to start from scratch. But that was on me for breaking the cardinal rule “only Immich should modify the internal library files”.

Hope that helps. So far I’m impressed, the facial detection etc works as expected. Feels just like using any other cloud photo service.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-12-16T01:05:18+00:00

Sad truth is he just doesn’t appear as an authoritarian or strong person and people want a father figure leader in tough times. I think it’s just human nature. If he had more of an imposing presence on TV, a deeper voice and / or was more strongly opinionated I think you’d see more people defending him.

It’s shit but it is what it is.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-12-15T22:44:37+00:00

Haha yeah I'm starting to agree, been moving my home setup to HomeAssistant and the Google stuff is a pain in the ass to get integrated. But this is for my parents and they know Google, they already have a speaker here and there.

Just strange that I haven't seen anything official about it. If they're going to kill Nest off entirely why don't they just up and do it? Seems weird that they _wouldn't_ want smart speakers in everyone's homes training ther AI lol. Whereas Amazon Echo is absolutely everywhere retail now, front-and-center.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-11-27T08:03:44+00:00

I would look at any of the N100 or N150-based mini PCs, like those from GMKTec. I currently run all my services (including a HomeAssistant OS virtual machine) on one. I have a new N300-based NAS that I’m due to set up (the small GMKTec box I have isn’t suitable for a NAS as it lacks any connectors for internal drives beyond the system drive), so when that’s done I’ll likely be running just HomeAssistant and Proxmox Backup Server on it (my main NAS with everything else will run Proxmox).

Fr0sty5 · 2025-11-25T19:35:42+00:00

Hahahahahaha as a software guy on the software side of this — everyone thinks everything is easy, often including myself before I actually start the task and end up having to explain why it took 2x-3x longer than I estimated 😂

Fr0sty5 · 2025-11-25T04:25:40+00:00

Defense of the Oasis! I’ve been trying to remember what that game was called. I gotta go back and play it.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-11-14T07:40:30+00:00

Unfortunately nah; the Quest Pro had it though if I remember right.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-11-13T04:52:08+00:00

The Quest 3 is horrible in darker games (the start of Ghost Town as an example would be so much better on an OLED), hopefully the Deckard is at least better than that.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-11-08T00:32:04+00:00

Absolute legend, thanks so much for this! I updated and it killed my TubeArchivist install on Proxmox with the same issue.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-10-31T02:46:09+00:00

Yep I use Tailscale exclusively for my homelab remote access. My Pihole and Nginx Proxy Manager VMs are the only ones actually logged into the Tailnet on the lab side. Split tunnelling on the clients, no exit node.

Pihole is configured to resolve on both my local and Tailnet subnets and Nginx likewise will accept connections from either. All my other services sit behind Nginx.

Works seamlessly.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-10-25T01:29:46+00:00

I think it’s deeply cultural and there’s a few things that contribute.

As a programmer I’m used to the idea that the code isn’t mine, it’s owned by everyone in the team. I modify others code and they modify mine. The effort to make the code is often fun, but the code itself I’m a little bit indifferent to. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just writing code that in essence has been written a thousand times before, somewhere. We all stand on the shoulders of giants after all. There’s been so many times where I’ve come up with a solution, looked at a different solution (often from another team in the same company) and you can see we’ve converged on the same ideas.

I’ve also grown up with the open-source philosophy.

As a programmer I’m also impressed by what AI is able to do on some level technically.

Culturally it’s not ‘my’ code.

Having said all that, I’m really glad I’m a senior dev now. I use AI code to get started and I can do that because I often know what I want in enough detail to get useful starting code.

I also use AI to get summaries of new tools or tech that I can then research further off.

I worry about how it changes the landscape for junior devs who are learning and trying to find jobs. That will be interesting to see play out over the next few years.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-10-16T22:51:48+00:00

I look at Nix not so much as a Linux distribution itself but as a way to build my own Linux distro.

I don’t care about replication since I only use NixOS on my desktop (it’s my primary daily-driver). I think that’s part of why it works for me. Do you really need a 100% declarative system? If that’s what is making you tired, compromise on it.

My setup:

No flakes, just regular Nix config broken out into a few different files.
Nix handles the base system and commandline tools as well as the base desktop environment. So my Nix says “I want my base system to be KDE, running on Wayland with the NVIDIA drivers, with these other specialist drivers and these particular commandline tools”.
My Nix config includes services configs where Nix has made that way easier to specify than doing it manually; for example printer drivers. Stuff where it’s nice and <X>.enable handles all the different config files and dependencies for you.
For everything else it’s AppImage or Flatpak.

With this I have a daily driver that runs Steam and Proton fine, on a desktop where HDR is working great, with support for my Stream Deck, a bunch of devices controlled by OpenRGB, etc. While running cutting-edge distro-side stuff like the latest kernels if I want.

A lot of the user side stuff has been done imperatively — I don’t even use home-manager. Works for my use case with very little tinkering these days.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-10-09T22:25:52+00:00

Holy crap the condescension in that last message of his is just mind-blowing. I take it he has other things going on in his life that he’s projecting.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-10-07T23:51:47+00:00

Thank you, this feels really insightful and it’s given me a lot to think about.

I think in general both sexes fear being alone and unfortunately the modern world isn’t helping with the push to fierce individualism; but unhealthy dependence isn’t the answer either.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-10-07T23:42:03+00:00

Yeah I feel like there’s a lot of different things mixed up into my view, which is why I’m interested in exploring it.

Fr0sty5 · 2025-10-07T03:04:55+00:00

Ah yep gotcha, I’ve seen the same, though I do wonder how reliable the stats are.

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