Kiran Jonnalagadda Profile picture
Full stack human. Or, as per autocorrect, full 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘤𝘬 human. Also at @jackerhack@mastodon.social and @jackerhack.bsky.social
May 6, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
Nothing is wrong here, despite what the screenshot says. I have deliberately blocked Twitter's Home feed to save myself from doomscrolling.

I am now accepting accusations of tech elitism because ordinary people don't know how to save themselves from Twitter's bad product design. But fear not, you can also benefit by following these complicated steps.

1. Open twitter.com in Chrome Android, use Menu > Install App

2. Get AdGuard Pro from adguard.com/en/adguard-and… (NOT Play Store). Sideload required. Pro license required.
May 6, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
Thread on how CoWin has been automated for vaccine slot bookings (you'll need to open the tweet and scroll up for context). Warned yesterday that CAPTCHAs are hostile to users and are not a solution to bot automation.
May 6, 2021 7 tweets 12 min read
@TamannaInamdar @rssharma3 @I_RajivSinha @chandrarsrikant @AyushmanNHA @ETNOWlive @umanghome The API change yesterday breaks this code in a small way. The developer is holding off on releasing a fix because he doesn't want it abused. However, it's straightforward process:

1. To test websites, techies use this software: selenium.dev/documentation/… @TamannaInamdar @rssharma3 @I_RajivSinha @chandrarsrikant @AyushmanNHA @ETNOWlive @umanghome "WebDriver drives a browser natively, as a user would, either locally or on a remote machine using the Selenium server, marks a leap forward in terms of browser automation."

As you can see, it can automate the entire process of clicking around the website to book a slot.
May 2, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
Dropped into a couple of Spaces. Both times someone commented that a Blue Tick has arrived, and addressed me with a "sir". 😯

The only reason I have a badge is because something happened five years ago. No one even remembers what.

But the more interesting thing is… My timeline is awash with blue ticks. Twitter's algorithmic timeline buries all the people I actually care for. I have to remember to switch to latest tweets first, and then still check a lot. It's a painful way to keep in touch. Some people have voice. Others don't.
Apr 30, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
Data leaks left, right and centre, data leaks every other week. 🌊 We're all affected.

But what do tech companies themselves think about the privacy of their users? We surveyed 130+ companies. Here is what we learnt. Many insights here. ✨

hasgeek.com/PrivacyMode/pr… Take this, for example:

Q: What do you do when your company has an ‘oops’ moment?

A: 🤷

hasgeek.com/PrivacyMode/pr…
Mar 29, 2021 11 tweets 4 min read
The MobiKwik leak is real. Here is what the dump had for me. One of those credit cards was valid until a couple weeks ago, and I don't recall authorising MobiKwik to save it. Companies that lie like 👇 ought to be taken to the cleaners. Check for yourself here (requires Tor). It's under heavy load and timing out, so you may need to come back later.
Mar 12, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
Placed a test order on AliExpress to probe the ban. Item has arrived. I'm very pleased with myself. More testing ongoing, should have reliable results in several weeks. Method 1: ask seller if they can ship to India, even though you've placed an order from a different country. May or may not work.

Method 2: use a package forwarder in a different country. The trick is to find a reliable one. (Tests ongoing.)
May 31, 2020 9 tweets 3 min read
⚠️ Aarogya Setu is not open source. We got a press release and some random code to keep the public distracted. The released code is not for the app that everyone is using. ⚠️ While the released code may indeed be for *some* version of Aarogya Setu:
1. It is not the version you're using. We have no idea what is different.
2. Developers are ignoring reports of serious vulnerabilities.
3. Actual development is elsewhere in a closed source repo.
Sep 23, 2019 8 tweets 3 min read
I went to the Bangalore General Post Office today to enquire about a parcel that's been stuck in transit since July. It's somewhere in there. One customs official was valiantly opening everything to determine the tax on all the $1 and $2 trinkets people order from AliExpress. Each of those bags contains parcels from the landing ports of Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. Anything that arrived in the past few weeks hasn't even been recorded as having arrived. They're months behind on the backlog. Here's a sample. Chennai to Bangalore took June to September.
Jan 23, 2019 20 tweets 11 min read
Out of an abundance of caution, I have changed my phone number at three banks where I have accounts. This has utterly broken UPI for me. The UPI ecosystem treats phone number as primary identity. A new number means you're a new person. The situation is tragi-comic. SBI let me change phone number online. It sent OTPs to both old and new numbers, and once I keyed them in, I was done. This is shockingly efficient given what follows.