[HN Gopher] Did you know you can put a whole game inside of a pu...
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       Did you know you can put a whole game inside of a push notification
        
       Author : ig0r0
       Score  : 149 points
       Date   : 2021-04-10 13:48 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | When they said notifications are the platform of the future, this
       | is what they meant.
       | 
       | It's not desktops, it's not mobile, it's _notifications_.
        
         | vmception wrote:
         | Who said that
        
           | Razengan wrote:
           | They
        
       | elliotkillick wrote:
       | That's interesting. You can also put an entire game inside of a
       | bootloader.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | swen-rekcah wrote:
       | Great. I'd love a little game, but the reality is that if anybody
       | uses this it will just be for ads
        
       | bluefirebrand wrote:
       | Seems like too much code to allow in a notification. Doesn't that
       | seem like it would be just rife with potential exploits?
        
         | JonathonW wrote:
         | These are not delivered along with the notification-- they're
         | provided (client-side) by the application that the notification
         | was sent for. So, while a notification _could_ display dynamic
         | content here depending on the content of the notification (for
         | example, this is the same mechanism as used by Mail on iOS for
         | mail previews) and the preview code should take the untrusted
         | nature of the content into account if it does, it doesn 't have
         | to and it's not any different than running the application
         | itself in terms of security issues.
        
           | lupire wrote:
           | A web browser displayed dynamic content all the time and is
           | considered safe.
        
             | chmod775 wrote:
             | No. Nowadays you should _still_ disable JavaScript as well
             | as video playback in your browser if you want to be safe.
             | 
             | There was a brief period some years ago where browsers
             | looked "pretty safe", but we have quickly backtracked by
             | stuffing JS and browsers full of new APIs that are creating
             | new vulnerabilities.
        
       | djsavvy wrote:
       | Does anyone know if there's a similar API/technique for windows?
        
       | YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
       | Did you know you can put a question mark at the end of a sentence
       | _even on twitter_?
        
         | Minenash wrote:
         | Did you know you can capitalize a proper noun, even on Hacker
         | News?
        
         | nicky0 wrote:
         | OK boomer
        
         | grawprog wrote:
         | Why necessarily at the end? It could have been one of these:
         | 
         | Did you know? You can put a whole game inside of a push
         | notification.
         | 
         | Or maybe even:
         | 
         | Did you know? You can put a whole game inside of a push
         | notification!
        
           | YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
           | Even better.
        
         | startup_boner wrote:
         | punctuation is an obsolete historical artifact in the digital
         | age just like captitalization i would rejoice if text encodings
         | removed them altogether
        
           | reaperducer wrote:
           | Stop clubbing baby seals
           | 
           | http://oddlovescompany.com/wp-
           | content/uploads/2012/09/Februa...
        
           | ShaneMcGowan wrote:
           | why use lot word when few word do trick
        
             | wizzwizz4 wrote:
             | Why so verbose? Concision is sufficient.
        
             | fargo wrote:
             | when you president, they see
        
             | ineedasername wrote:
             | y use lot wrd wn few wrd do trk
        
               | itsDario1 wrote:
               | y use lot
        
           | tobr wrote:
           | Guessing YeGoblynQueenne got the memo about capitalization,
           | given how they spell "Twitter".
        
           | HPsquared wrote:
           | whitespaceisalsovestigialifind
        
           | turnerc wrote:
           | I cannot tell if this is satirical, I hope so.
        
             | [deleted]
        
       | markus_zhang wrote:
       | Just curious is it possible to abuse this for malicious code?
       | Just a thought...
        
         | djrogers wrote:
         | The code isn't delivered with the push notification, it's code
         | from an application already installed.
        
         | jjeaff wrote:
         | If it can be exploited, then it likely has already been
         | exploited.
        
       | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
       | I'd prefer Apple to fix horrible notifications on iOS. Since they
       | broke VoIP background notifications, developers have no way to
       | reliably perform silent delivery of information to device.
       | 
       | For example in a chat app that syncs with desktop you can deliver
       | incoming messages, showing them as alerts, but you can't deliver
       | your own, because you MUST show alert on every push notification.
       | Another use case is removing notifications: once you message on
       | another device, you want to remove notification on iOS as well.
       | With current notifications it is extremely problematic.
       | 
       | (Remaining background notifications in iOS work like shit - and
       | please, do not start discussion that 'it is not needed' - It is
       | BADLY needed, just ask anyone who has developer experience with
       | this wreck)
        
         | tomrod wrote:
         | > Since they broke VoIP background notifications, developers
         | have no way to reliably perform silent delivery of information
         | to device.
         | 
         | Surely you mean _fixed_ , not broken, as absolutely no one
         | should be delivering information silently to a device they
         | don't own.
        
           | wizzwizz4 wrote:
           | The Apple philosophy is "give users zero agency" - and from
           | that stance, yes, this is a fix. But I remember the days when
           | a computer program was either a game, an extension of the
           | user's will or the BIOS; by _that_ philosophy, this should
           | absolutely be possible. (But computers have been artificially
           | complexified to the point that this isn 't viable.)
        
           | varenc wrote:
           | I'm with you.
           | 
           | Story time: Years ago the Signal app would silently wake up
           | in the background, upload 20MB+ of my contacts' photos, and
           | then shutdown and do it all over again every time I received
           | a silent notification. Due to my membership in a few large
           | groups this was very often. The result was gigabytes of
           | cellar data usage in a week.
           | 
           | Fortunately my experience was rare because I both had a lot
           | of contacts with photos and I ran the desktop app. But it was
           | infuriating to track down and it made me realize that silent
           | wake ups were even possible on iOS. (Or used to be)
           | 
           | I don't know what the right balance is, but I think there
           | should be some middle ground.
        
             | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
             | Fun fact: Apple still allows signal, telegram, WhatsApp and
             | few other high profile developers to use VoIP notifications
             | without mandatory calling up VoiceKit. Because they can't
             | work as smooth as users are used to they work with these
             | new rules for notifications.
             | 
             | So, no, nothing 'improved' in your Signal experience. At
             | least, not yet.
             | 
             | All developers are equal, but some are more equal than
             | others.
        
           | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
           | > as absolutely no one should be delivering information
           | silently to a device they don't own.
           | 
           | That's a very very _very_ shallow thinking. You are
           | advocating to break the internet. You are destroying every
           | internet protocol that ever existed. They _all_ silently
           | deliver information to devices you likely don 't own.
           | 
           | Actually, we wouldn't need these dirty perversions with
           | notifications if we had a proper background mode for apps.
           | Like, you know, proper computers had for maybe 60 years.
        
             | kitsunesoba wrote:
             | > Actually, we wouldn't need these dirty perversions with
             | notifications if we had a proper background mode for apps.
             | Like, you know, proper computers had for maybe 60 years.
             | 
             | It's worth noting, however, that desktop and laptop PCs
             | have a surplus of energy relative to mobile phones, so it's
             | no big deal if there's a bunch of processes running in the
             | background doing their thing... _usually_ , anyway, because
             | on PCs it's also shockingly common for background processes
             | to misbehave and consume far more resources than they have
             | any right to. Point in case, the daemon for my Logitech
             | mouse will sometimes consume 120% CPU for no apparent
             | reason for extended periods if I allow it to run.
             | 
             | I could see an argument for extending background
             | capabilities in iOS while also heavily also reducing their
             | potential for bad behavior, though. For example, allowing
             | apps to run in the background indefinitely, but on low
             | power cores only with heavily capped CPU and memory
             | consumption, along with a new Settings page that shows a
             | list of persistent background processes and gives the user
             | direct control over them.
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | Or, give people easy to use task manager that shows
               | background processes, with big buttons labeled "kill",
               | and "kill and keep down".
               | 
               | Android doesn't have anything like it either. It's my
               | number 1 complaint about smartphone experience ever since
               | I bought my first one: the phone actively refuses to give
               | user insight and control over what's running on their
               | device.
        
               | masom wrote:
               | > Android doesn't have anything like it either.
               | 
               | Uh, it sure does through the applications section. You
               | can see running services, which ones are taking battery,
               | and stop/disable those as well.
        
               | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
               | I agree. User should decide, how he will use his battery
               | power. If an app requires background running, it should
               | be allowed to, with full control over data and battery
               | used. That's all users need.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | figbert wrote:
       | Neil Sardesai is a joy to follow - I highly recommend it. He
       | probably knows more about internal macOS APIs than the devs.
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-10 23:00 UTC)