@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.

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

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

@ianbetteridge @GossiTheDog

Discoverability is quite a huge point too. You might notice a keylogger (because your AV eventually gets a new signature and catches it).

Will you notice that recall has been turned back on?

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

@ianbetteridge @GossiTheDog That's something at least.

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

@ianbetteridge @GossiTheDog

I guess the problem, for them, is that if they made it abundantly clear it's running (e.g. by turning the desktop red or pop up a notification periodcally), it'd put users off using it.

I'd argue that's probably a sign it's not a great idea to have it, but YMMV.

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

@ianbetteridge @GossiTheDog

Without recall, they can only really do so going forwards.

The addition of Recall means every part of the last 3 months of your activity is now in scope and in one easily accessible place and format.

Being compromised now and future activity being at risk isn't great, but at least provides a window of opportunity to spot it.

Being compromised and having everything you did for the last 3 months at-risk is a pretty big escalation IMO

ben, to Youtube
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

Cheeky fuckers.

have deployed Javascript that delays video load if the user is using

https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/17z8hsz/youtube_has_started_to_artificially_slow_down/

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : has an Honesty Problem

In which (with the inadvertant help of ) attempt to try and screw me out of nearly £500 after someone in Amazon's delivery chain stole our order

Note: I'd greatly appreciate it if people could boost the ever-living hell out of this one to try and stop the next victim from happening

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/opinion/amazon-parcel-contents-get-stolen-and-then-amazon-tries-to-keep-payment.html

Edent, to webdev
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

🆕 blog! “I can't use my number pad for 2FA codes”

This has to be the most infuriating bug report I've ever submitted. I went to type in my 2FA code on a website - but no numbers appeared on screen. Obviously, I was an idiot and had forgotten to press the NumLock button. D'oh! I toggled it on and typed again. No numbers appeared. I […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/04/i-cant-use-my-number-pad-for-2fa-codes/
⸻

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

@JohnJBurnsIII @Edent My other current bug-bear is things like credit-card forms that won't submit unless the javascript has seen an update event for each field.

So you have your password manager fill in the card details, only to have to go into each file, make a change and revert it.

Validate the content not what you think I have or haven't done...

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New post: Spending an Afternoon in the Sizewell Control Room Simulator

I'm a bit late in writing something, but @popey, @8none1, @sil got to spend an afternoon in the operations training centre at B power station

T'was an awesome afternoon

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/an-afternoon-in-sizewell-b-control-room-simulator.html

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : Automating a with

We recently got a wifi-enabled hot tub. Some enterprising soul had already created a HA addon to work with it, so I set about implementing , and .

Amongst other things, it now starts heating automatically if there's plunge pricing on Agile

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/automating-our-hottub-with-home-assistant.html

Edent, to business
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

🆕 blog! “Is it rude to make a profit from your friends?”

You're in a restaurant with a group of friends. The waiter won't let you split the bill, so you offer to pay for it on your card and have your friends send you their share. How much would you charge them for that service? That sounds absurd, right? OK, you might agree to split the […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/is-it-rude-to-make-a-profit-from-your-friends/
⸻

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

@Edent IMO there are 2 ways to think about it to make it more palatable:

  • The profit enables you to do the next thing - i.e. people are contributing towards the next fun thing you'll do (which might be beers that night)

  • Give a predetermined %age of the "profit" to a cause that means something to you

Either one allows you to charge a markup and therefore not undercut someone who does rely on profitable prices for an income, whilst continuing to enjoy what you're doing

ben, to bot
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

In the last 90 days, my SSH has wasted 13 years of time

Some of the connections that escaped during that time had been stuck in there for 6 weeks.

China remains the individual top source of bots, though (based on those escaping) US and Russian bots tend to stick for the longest.

The spikes visible in the graph seem to be primarily driven by Chinese bots

ben, to fediverse
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : Adding a Fediverse Comments Box to a Site

This documentation details adding mastodon-post (by @DavidDarnes) into a static site generated by the Nikola in order to link back to discussion in the

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/documentation/general/embedding-a-mastodon-comments-box-in-a-nikola-site-template.html

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New #Blog: Syncing notes to #obsidian on #Android

My obsidian vault is synced into #Nextcloud but the android app kept letting me down and not keeping my phone's version up to date.

In this post, I talk about using #foldersync to handle syncing between Android and Nextcloud

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/syncing-notes-to-obsidian-android-with-nextcloud-and-foldersync.html

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : News Stopped Syncing My Feeds

In which one of @neil's old posts accidentally DoS'd my feed reader

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/nextcloud-news-stopped-updating-some-of-my-feeds.html

davidho, (edited ) to Hydrogen
@davidho@mastodon.world avatar

Honest question: I measure gases as a career, and I’m always fixing leaks in my instruments*. How do people who push as a home heating solution propose to avoid catastrophic leaks?

*I use Swagelok fittings, the same ones used on airplanes and in industrial settings.

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

@davidho I believe they're suggesting use of a novel sealant: pure, unadulterated hope

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : Heating with Electricity instead of Gas

After we had installed we also moved onto Agile by

This winter, rather than using bottled gas for additional heating, we used electric heaters - this post talks a little about how we approached it, some issues we encountered and the result.

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/heating-with-electric-instead-of-gas.html

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

OK I’m going to float an idea on here. It looks like we won’t be able to cancel a “broadband switch” from losing side. So won’t be able to do “anti slamming”. Shame.

But to switch using OTS you have to have a match on surname (using some fun, and vague, rules for accented characters).

So we could allow customers to set any surname on a line, and use as a sort of “password”.

After all, you can call yourself what you like, and we have to accept changes to personal information.

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

@revk Could make responding to court orders fun too: Between the requested dates, the IP was assigned to Ben DontYouTouchMyFuckingLine of....

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

Yesssssss.... it's finally time.

Get the cunts out.

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.

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

@niloc @interpipes @revk But yeah, it just needs Ofcom to pull their collective thumbs out

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

@niloc @interpipes @revk

> If an end-user never agreed to the switch in the first place, surely the new provider has no basis in law to recover any monies from them

The new supplier essentially claims that the end-user did agree.

Normally that agreement is something really tenuous (like confirming your post-code or even just agreeing to receive "more information").

Those wouldn't stand up in court, but most people likely fold and pay the bills when threatened with that.

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

@interpipes @revk

I'm guessing the lack of protections in the OTS process is probably a symptom of that too - if you were to add a "don't switch" flag that the current provider needs to unset first, you run straight back into the Virgin Media problem.

The whole thing basically boils down to trying to solve people problems with software (which rarely works)

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

> The Metropolitan Police say that around one in every 33,000 people who walk by its cameras is misidentified.
>
> But the error count is much higher once an someone is actually flagged. One in 40 alerts so far this year has been a false positive.

Sorry, do the Met think 1 in 33,000 is a good failure rate?

That's abysmal even before you get onto the false positive rate or before you look at outcomes and realise you may incorrectly deprive someone of their liberty

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-69055945

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

Arguably, this technology should not be in use at all, but with a failure rate that high it definitely shouldn't be on our streets.

But, I suspect vendors are probably pushing to get it deployed (and collect their money) before laws catch up and better regulate it.

And the Met are... well, being the Met.

edavies, to random
@edavies@functional.cafe avatar

Excellent news.

But what have the Tories seen coming that means they don't want to hang on till the autumn?

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

@edavies I'm hoping it's just self-preservation on his part - realising they might have time to replace him before October.

But yeah.... seems more likely they've spotted something and want someone else to carry the blame

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : Troubleshooting a wet passenger footwell on a

This issue's been living rent free in my head for months, but we've finally cracked it.

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/corsa-water-leak-wet-footwell-carpet.html

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