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Edition #3 · 2026-10-16

C++26 contracts, Libreboot and AdFection

This edition covers C++26 contract support, Libreboot's new UEFI release, and spyware-delivering ad networks.

  1. SecurityHacker News

    Targeted Ads Used as a Pipeline for Zero-Click Mercenary Spyware

    According to a Citizen Lab report, the Controlium platform operated by Discover-Tech was used in zero-click attacks that automatically infected devices through targeted online ads. Confirming infections at Al Jazeera via Candiru spyware, the research shows the company served ads across hundreds of thousands of sites using billions of bidding records. Google and other ad exchanges have disconnected Discover-Tech's access to the ecosystem.

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  2. SoftwareHacker News

    Libreboot 26.10 Released with UEFI Support and Chromebook Integration

    Libreboot 26.10 "Ominous Olive" adds full UEFI support via the MrChromebox EDK2 payload, enabling Microsoft Windows compatibility. The release imports 233 Intel and AMD Chromebook boards from the MrChromebox coreboot distribution and introduces a strict anti-AI AGENTS.md policy file. It sets the HAP bit by default at build time to disable Intel ME.

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  3. SoftwareHacker News

    C++26 Contracts: Introduction to Preconditions and Postconditions

    C++26 introduces contracts via proposal P2900, enabling preconditions and postconditions to be defined directly in function declarations. The new `pre(...)` and `post(...)` syntax makes requirements visible to API readers without inspecting implementations, while offering flexible evaluation semantics such as continuing execution or terminating upon violation compared to traditional assertions.

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  4. SecurityHacker News

    TP-Link EAP770 Access Point Corrupts Downloads and EOLs Itself

    A developer discovered that their TP-Link EAP770 v1 access point corrupted large downloads over Wi-Fi and was end-of-lifed by the vendor before unboxing. Since the vendor shell prevented writing two zeros to a sysfs file to fix the issue, the developer wrote a custom kernel exploit for their own access point.

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  5. SoftwareHacker News

    DEsk: A Skeuomorphic Wayland Desktop Environment for Linux

    DEsk v0.1.2 beta introduces a Wayland desktop environment for Linux featuring a realistic skeuomorphic design reminiscent of iOS 6. Windows are rendered as paper sheets on a wooden desk, notifications arrive via a post box, and system controls are integrated into the desk panel, with installation scripts provided for Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, and Fedora.

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  6. Open sourceLobsters

    Decompilation Progress Tracker decomp.dev Shuts Down

    The decomp.dev platform, created to centralize matching decompilation progress, is shutting down due to bad actors abusing open-source projects by forking them with AI to release half-baked ports and disrupting the community fabric. Recent AI models have advanced significantly in following complex directions and writing permutation scripts for matching decompilation.

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  7. Open sourceLobsters

    Haxy: A Git Forge Storing Metadata in Repos with SSH TUI Support

    Haxy has been released in preview as a new Git forge that stores project metadata like issues and pull requests directly inside the repository and provides a text user interface served over SSH. By avoiding peer-to-peer architectural complexity in favor of federation, the system renders its web UI by displaying the TUI directly in the browser.

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  8. ToolsHacker News

    Steam Client Updated to Beat Epic's New Vibe Coded Launcher Speed

    One day after Epic Games launched its preview V2 launcher boasting faster startup speeds than Steam, Valve pushed an update dropping its cold boot time to 5.23 seconds to neutralize Epic's primary performance claim. While Epic's new client improves on legacy performance, it still lacks community features such as discussion forums and user-written reviews found on Steam.

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  9. ToolsHacker News

    Sygal: Local Conversion Tool for PDFs, Scans, and Web Pages to Markdown

    Sygal is a desktop utility that converts PDFs, spreadsheets, scans, images, and web pages into clean Markdown and structured JSON locally on the machine. By transforming raw layouts and markup, it reduces token counts for AI pipelines by 2 to 7 times while keeping sensitive documents completely offline.

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  10. SoftwareLobsters

    Modern C Conventions: Utilizing C23 Features in Practice

    A developer sharing their modern C conventions detailed how adopting C23 standards allowed them to remove custom macros in favor of [[maybe_unused]] to silence unused variable warnings triggered by [[nodiscard]]. Additionally, C23 zero-initialization syntax reliably clears union members entirely, avoiding previous inconsistencies across compilers.

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