@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

ben

@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk

I'm Ben and I'm rubbish at writing bio's.

I'm a general geek, who's core skillsets boil down to trouble-shooting and reverse engineering.

I mostly talk about #Tech, #Monitoring, #SoftwareDevelopment, #Privacy & #Security

If you want to send messages encrypted with PGP, you can find my key in the links below.

My Toots auto-delete after a month (https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/opinion/arguments-for-and-against-auto-deleting-mastodon-toots.html)

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

markstos, to privacy
@markstos@urbanists.social avatar

I got this email today from Google that I can "now managed my saved addresses."

A careful reading is that now Google is going to be sharing my home/work and other addresses across all their services (YouTube, Android, Maps, Gmail... ) and putting them in a central location.

It's hard to say if I already agreed to that of if they are now announcing m location is going to shared more as "feature".

#privacy #google

18+ revk, (edited ) to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

At this point, I don't even question Labour policies. They will have a shit load that is bad or stupid, I am sure.

All politicians are problematic. But at this stage, after so many years of so much shit, I have to say "things can only get better".

And I say that as someone that is running a company, with many staff, and many taxes to pay, knowing I have to seriously consider tax changes that Labour may bring to my personal detriment.

The country needs change, any change!

CCC, to random German
@CCC@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Society needs to guard against facial recognition becoming normalised! It's not just retailers who turn to the technology, people are also approached by police: Misidentified by facial recognition tech https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-69055945

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Enshittification intensifies, reaches the Internet of Sex Toys. https://wandering.shop/@zip/112503471246126866

revk, to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

This bloody one touch switching stuff has taken me nearly a week now, annoying. But working out how it will impact the ordering process. Essentially it makes it worse! More steps, more info to provide. All to save someone ceasing some other type of service by themselves. But getting there.

What worries me is the ease of “slamming” and I gather we won’t be able to stop slamming from losing side any more, which is worrying.

interpipes,
@interpipes@thx.gg avatar

@revk I have said from the outset that the fix for this was Ofcom doing something that would actually help consumers like insist it is as easy to cancel broadband as it is to sign up (i.e. tell Virgin to stop being shithouses), and for bonus points the banning of anything over a 30 day term to get rid of 'introductory pricing' with loyalty penalties.

Edent, to privacy
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

🆕 blog! “Book Review: Understanding Privacy - Heather Burns”
★★★★★

Heather Burns has an absolutely deft way of turning the sometimes-dull world of digital privacy into entertaining, informative, and actionable prose. Too many of these sorts of books end up being a list of woes and end with "someone should do something, I guess?". Understanding Privacy is different. A…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/book-review-understanding-privacy-heather-burns/
⸻
#BookReview #privacy

kyle, to foss
@kyle@kylerank.in avatar

Burnout in the FOSS community is real, and I'm glad that it's something that is being talked about more in blogs and conferences. There is a different flavor of burnout and emotional toll when you are sacrificing for a cause you believe in (especially in FOSS where people are often working for free or at below market rate). Working for a cause you believe in brings the highest highs when things are going well, but the lowest lows when they go badly.

mintyfresh, to Cat
@mintyfresh@mastodon.social avatar

Cat herding dogs back into the house

Cat herding dogs back into the house

funkybuddha, to privacy
@funkybuddha@mastodon.green avatar

Incredible article for those interested in their in the . Long read, juicy details I didn’t know:

https://mullvad.net/en/why-privacy-matters/going-dark

Kurt, to random
@Kurt@mstdn.social avatar

The Google AI isn’t hallucinating about glue in pizza, it’s just over indexing an 11 year old Reddit post by a dude named fucksmith.

image/png

CountBinface, to random
@CountBinface@mastodon.world avatar

It’s meant to be.

mhoye, to random
@mhoye@mastodon.social avatar

As always, domestic abuse is the flagship infosec threat model, the one where the victim has the least resources, the least recourse, where they're closest to immediate physical harm.

That this industry has failed at and mostly abandoned the idea of even pretending to try dealing with a threat model that's difficult and unprofitable and mostly hurts women is not news, but this new Windows Recall feature is next-level professional negligence.

kde, to microsoft
@kde@floss.social avatar

In view of the latest news coming out of Microsoft...

Yeah, KDE's Plasma doesn't do that either. Your stuff is safe.

https://kde.org/distributions/
https://kde.org/hardware/

@kde

jonty, to random
@jonty@chaos.social avatar

Whoever is absolutely blasting "Things Can Only Get Better" outside Number 10 while Sunak tries to announce a general election deserves an award

jonty,
@jonty@chaos.social avatar

Full marks to the British weather. Top work. A+++ would watch a terrible prime minister get soaked again.

Tattooed_Mummy, to random
@Tattooed_Mummy@beige.party avatar

If you CBA to go out to vote, or haven't photo id and think you'd struggle to sort it, you can Apply for a postal vote - GOV.UK

I did it today, it's pretty easy. You need a photo of your signature to upload, and know your national insurance number.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-postal-vote

nickbwalking, to UKpolitics
@nickbwalking@zirk.us avatar

Look, I get the importance of symbolism, but Sunak announcing an election while getting drenched as protestors drown him out with Things Can Only Better is the writers of United Kingdom laying it on a bit thick.

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

Fourth of July election in the UK

Season 5 Lol GIF by Real Husbands of Hollywood

GossiTheDog,
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

Somebody is playing the Darth Vader theme and “Things Can Only Get Better” over the PM as, in the soaking rain, he is announcing a General Election.

capital, to random
@capital@scalie.zone avatar

Microsoft recall is fucking insane.

Recall snapshots are kept on Copilot+ PCs themselves, on the local hard disk, and are protected using data encryption on your device and (if you have Windows 11 Pro or an enterprise Windows 11 SKU) BitLocker.

Your doing what? Microsoft wh-

Recall uses Copilot+ PC advanced processing capabilities to take images of your active screen every few seconds. [...]

[...] The default allocation for Recall on a device with 256 GB will be 25 GB, which can store approximately 3 months of snapshots. [...]

WHAT WHY NO ST-

Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. That data may be in snapshots that are stored on your device, especially when sites do not follow standard internet protocols like cloaking password entry.

Microsoft please... th-the tech support scams... think about what happens if this gets bre-

Recall also does not take snapshots of certain kinds of content, including InPrivate web browsing sessions...

Oh, okay I guess that's san-

...in Microsoft Edge.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

It treats material protected with digital rights management (DRM) similarly; like other Windows apps such as the Snipping Tool, Recall will not store DRM content.

Ah, but of course. The DRM is protected...

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

For those who aren’t aware, Microsoft have decided to bake essentially an infostealer into base Windows OS and enable by default.

From the Microsoft FAQ: “Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers."

Info is stored locally - but rather than something like Redline stealing your local browser password vault, now they can just steal the last 3 months of everything you’ve typed and viewed in one database.

video/mp4

GossiTheDog,
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

I've written up my thoughts on the Copilot Recall feature in Microsoft Copilot+ PCs

I think it will enable fraud and endanger users, and is not the sign of a company who are committed to security first.

https://doublepulsar.com/how-the-new-microsoft-recall-feature-fundamentally-undermines-windows-security-aa072829f218

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

Pictured: companies explaining to people why AI is the future.

molly0xfff, to ai
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

back in my day we called this spyware

nixCraft, to random
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

Now, everyone is so furious about OpenAI stealing a beloved celebrity's voice. But what about the many artists, writers/authors, and creators whose copyrighted works OpenAI stole to create works resembling and replacing those people's products? Not famous enough to generate the same outrage, right? At least now, everyone knows how bad Sam Altman is. He thinks he is above the law. I'm glad someone is standing up to this bully and I hope something good come out of it.

danslerush, to apple
@danslerush@floss.social avatar

« Why Your Wi-Fi Router Doubles as an Apple AirTag » by @briankrebs

« Apple did not respond to requests for comment. But in late March 2024, quietly tweaked its policy, allowing people to opt out of having the of their wireless access points collected and shared by Apple — by appending “_nomap” to the end of the Wi-Fi access point’s name (SSID). Adding “_nomap” to your Wi-Fi network name also blocks Google from indexing its location. »

› https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/05/why-your-wi-fi-router-doubles-as-an-apple-airtag/

verge, to random
@verge@mastodon.social avatar

Google’s AI search results are already getting ads https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/21/24161724/google-ai-search-results-ads-test

mikemcquaid, to random
@mikemcquaid@mastodon.social avatar

Homebrew turns 15 years old tomorrow! (20th May 2024).

Join me, Mike McQuaid, Homebrew Project Leader and CTO of @workbrew, and Max Howell, creator of @homebrew and CEO of pkgx, as we reminisce about Homebrew, package management, commercial open source, what we're doing now and answer some questions from folks who join the stream.

Streaming on Twitch and (hopefully) YouTube at 16:00 BST (GMT+1) / 11:00 EST (GMT-4). Links will be provided before the start at: https://workbrew.com/homebrew-turns-15

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