@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

irenes

@irenes@mastodon.social

You are all dreams and we are happy to know you, as you are nice dreams. We are an asexual autistic trans-feminine plural system with a label collection.

We compromise with legibility only so far as to say the following: Technology Director at Internet Safety Labs; ex-Google information privacy expert. 🏳️‍⚧️🍁

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

jonny, to random
@jonny@neuromatch.social avatar

Do any infosec people ever feel like they have their shit "secure," like I understand this system well enough that for all practical purposes this shit wont be pwned, or is the whole thing that you can only bracket off security as like "if these conditions are true, I wont be pwned in these ways"

irenes,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@jonny you've seen our thing about vulnerability, we think

irenes,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@jonny https://cohost.org/ireneista/post/218422-vulnerability

irenes,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@jonny yes, absolutely. that makes a ton of sense. it didn't come up in the piece, but we do save many of our inner feelings for the people we care about.

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @lzg oh.

    aeva, to random
    @aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

    do you think there's regular spooders in the zelda games or does link sometimes find a skulltula in the shower

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @aeva since you mentioned "spacing out" we would like to mention that music and meditative practice have both helped us to have fewer fugue states and flashbacks in the shower. no idea if that's helpful to you, but thought we'd say it.

    futurebird, to random
    @futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

    Sometimes over on formiculture, the premiere ant-keeping discussion forum, parents show up and post because their kid is keeping ants and Something Has Gone Wrong. These are some of the most cryptic and unintentionally hilarious posts on the site.

    Title: Random shoots from ant sandwich?
    Post: "My son bought an ant farm. It contained a box a tube and a sandwich. He started with lasius Niger ants these died. We bought some fire ants. Now there are shots."

    I have SO MANY questions. 1/

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @futurebird and thank you for answering the many questions we had after the first one, lol

    pathfinder, to Autism
    @pathfinder@beige.party avatar

    @actuallyautistic

    I have often said, and largely it's true, that I'm fairly open about being autistic. There are a number of reasons for this, but mostly it's because I feel that it's important to be as open as I can be. That by doing so I am hopefully opening people's eyes to the fact that autistic's can be anyone, the bloke they stand next to in the pub, the one they work with, the person they've known for so many years. That we can be any age and anyone.

    But, to put this in some context. I live in a smallish town and have done so all my life. For various reasons I am quite well known. I am also male, and single and old enough and secure enough in my life not to give a damn any more. So the risks for me being this open aren't the same as they would be for others. A fact and privilege I am very aware of. I have also masked in a way that, I think, is possibly different from others. I found a way to be essentially myself. To highlight the aspects of myself that were acceptable and submerge the elements that weren't. In other words, I didn't really try and hide the weird, only the true depth of it. So the leap from "it's Kevin" to "it's Kevin and he's autistic" doesn't appear to have been that great for a lot of people.

    Having said this, though, it is still not easy. Dropping the mask is hard when you're not sure what is actually mask and what isn't. The internal masking, the ways I learnt to hide so much from myself, is perhaps the easiest, if not the most painless. But the external mask still has so many elements and not all of them are easy to forgo, or even possibly be part of a forged mask any more anyway. Maintain a way of being and doing something for over 5 decades and really where's the difference between you and it?

    Much has been said though, about the effort of maintaining a mask over a long period of time. The effects it can have on us. The way the drain of it is more and more likely to lead to burnout. The way that restricting our natural movements and behaviour is harmful, especially in the long run and to our mental health. And I certainly don't argue with any of this. I can feel that strain, the cost of it for me. I also can't help thinking about how much of my aches and pains, the injuries I carry, the growing infirmities, aren't just age related, but caused by how much I've stifled and restrained my body from moving naturally over the decades and the cost of that.

    But, as much as this is motivating and helping me to learn to unmask, there is, of course, the other side of the coin. I didn't learn to mask on a whim, it wasn't for laughs and giggles. I was the outlier, the strange, voiceless kid, who came within a hair's breadth of being institutionalised. I was the one who had to learn how to fit in and above all be safe. For that is what masking allowed me to do, at least as much as it could. And this, for those of us who are older, is perhaps one of the major problems with trying to unmask. It's very possible that one of the very reasons that allowed us to live so long without realising we were autistic, was that our masks worked too well. Not just in hiding us, but in allowing us to fit in, in so many ways, if not obviously in all.

    And certainly for me there is a deep functionality in the way that I mask. It allows me to behave and to communicate with others in ways that they are comfortable with and understand. Not so much with set scripts, but more a menu of available options, of both body language and speech, that have proved to be viable and effective. It has allowed me to exist in their world and even though I'm essentially a foreigner to it, in ways that don't make that so obvious. But start dropping the mask and that illusion is quickly shattered and then it becomes a lottery how people react. Confusion, rejection, aggression, hate and dismissal. All of these I have experienced and even trying to explain that I am autistic, rarely makes matters better. In fact, it's more likely to make them double down on the necessity for me to do it their way.

    For that is what mostly happens. Try not to speak and they insist that I do so. Be too weird in my movements and the most random of strangers will suddenly be up in my face over it. Try to be myself and have to watch the reactions and atmosphere change. Because the simple fact is that most people don't like having to do any of the work or put in any of the effort required to bridge divides, especially if they know, or suspect, that you are more than able to make it so that they don't have to. It will always be up to us, for so many of them. I'm not saying that this makes them bad people, although some of them are, just human and with perhaps too much on their plates already. Extra effort is sometimes hard to justify or find for a lot of people

    But all of this simply makes unmasking even more difficult for me. It's hard and not always practical to forgo the functionality of it. And also the safety of it, the reasons why I began to do it so long ago. That difference is still so often a target for so many people, not something to be understood, but attacked and taken advantage off and age doesn't make any difference to that. Even as an older white male, I have to take that into account. The fact that unmasking simply isn't always safe, in so many places and ways.

    So will I ever manage it? Will I ever reach the point of being truly open and maskless? The way I want to be. Given my age and how much of it is ingrained and, by now, a part of me. How much safer and easier it can simply make my life, I have to admit that I'm not sure. Let's just say that it's still a work in progress and a hope as much as a dream.


    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @pathfinder @actuallyautistic extremely thoughtful. thanks so much for sharing.

    gavi, to random

    I’ll be honest elements saturation of matrix as more or less the default matrix client does not help matrix at all. I literally thought matrix was like a business thing instead of something meant to be used by everyone because of elements confusing ass website

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @gavi it's also the case that there's a lot of practical problems which the team considers to be "solved", because they focus only on the official client

    they're getting better at accountability over the years, we do give them credit for effort, it is forward progress and we very much hope they succeed in their goals (we mention this because we seem to frequent the same social media spaces, heh...)

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @gavi but like, everyone we know uses a different client from everybody else

    which is great! it's really nice that that's possible! that was always the goal and it's really great that things are there

    but it means that "solved" problems linger for years

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @gavi the thing about focusing on developing protocols, rather than apps

    is that it doesn't work if you do it like a corporation

    you have to back out a layer of abstraction and understand that you are responsible for the health of the entire ecosystem

    and that, furthermore, you do not control most of that ecosystem

    grimalkina, to random
    @grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

    It is IMPOSSIBLE to answer many of the things that the general public puts in front of social scientists and demands that we solve. Particularly when you work on social topics, people will ask you questions like: why is my boss mean, why doesn't government work, why am I sad.

    When you build foundational theory it's too broad. When you do specific investigations it's too narrow. When you take some breather to talk technical shop you're accused of only talking to scientists and being unfeeling.

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @grimalkina ouch, yeah

    irenes, to random
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    it's really quite a condemnation of voice-assistant UI that we have to memorize the names of all the lights and stuff

    there's no way to even ask it "what things can you turn on" or anything like that. you have to get that information from somewhere outside the UI.

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    the challenge that command-line interfaces have always had that is mostly solved with GUIs is that it's the tyranny of the blank page: you could do anything, so you are the one responsible for figuring out what you want

    voice assistants are like command lines in this respect... but it's even worse because there's not any sort of manual or anything to learn about it from

    gvwilson, (edited ) to random
    @gvwilson@mastodon.social avatar

    Starting to wonder if AI is like spreadsheets: for every programmer pointing out flaws and deficiencies, a double dozen people are using 'em to do something they find useful. 1/4

    Added: please see https://mastodon.social/@gvwilson/112265751571981599 for clarification.

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @gvwilson for what it's worth, we definitely have known people who use them in ways that wind up being helpful

    mostly they seem to be able to do that because they do understand the limitations, and how to get value out of it without asking it to do things it can't do

    grimalkina, to random
    @grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

    Reading a paper about how controlling for the amount of time people are willing to spend on a task pretty much knocks out a huge amount of the task's supposed predictive value and uh 😬 persistence/motivation/ability to spend effort sure is a wild unmeasured confounder on a LOT of things

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @grimalkina oh. well. as somebody who is willing to spend time on stuff, that feels nice to hear. sucks for everyone who tries to measure people though.

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @grimalkina would you be willing to share the citation btw? we wound up discussing this elsewhere and it would be helpful

    irenes, to random
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    a friend: do you recognize this piece of music?
    us: well, it's piano. if you go spend ten years becoming proficient with piano, it would probably come up at some point.

    this has been Friday Afternoon Ineffective Search Strategies with Irenes. thank you for listening.

    mcc, to random
    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar

    When I think about the security of a computer system, I have a specific scale I rate it on:

    1. The US government can crack it OR the government of China can crack it (equivalent)
    2. The government of Israel can crack it
    3. My friend Kristin could crack it
    4. The government of Russia can crack it
    5. A nation-state not listed above can crack it
    6. A well-qualified single infosec professional could crack it
    7. I could crack it
    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @mcc @inthehands @dangillmor that certainly explicates the layering of your threat levels. it is a thoughtful list!

    exador23, to ai
    @exador23@m.ai6yr.org avatar

    When +972Mag revealed that Israel was using an called Lavender and trained on faulty data to decide who is or isn't a militant, and another one called Where's Daddy to track them until they were home to kill the whole family, many folks here rightfully wanted to know who was providing the servers and computer infrastructure for that.

    Time Magazine now has at least part of the answer: & https://time.com/6966102/google-contract-israel-defense-ministry-gaza-war/

    The Israeli Ministry of Defense, according to the document, has its own “landing zone” into Google Cloud—a secure entry point to Google-provided computing infrastructure, which would allow the ministry to store and process data, and access AI services.

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @exador23 this is what we expected based on past activism around this topic, but it's very very good to have it confirmed and reported on

    the company absolutely should not get away with this

    astrid, to random
    @astrid@fedi.astrid.tech avatar

    affine type system? im sure it is

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @astrid lol

    irenes, to random
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    somehow we've been around here long enough that the word "toot" is starting to sound normal

    verge, to random
    @verge@mastodon.social avatar

    Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/11/24127545/discord-suyu-sudachi-server-shutdown-account-ban

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    for anyone who hasn't figured out why it matters whether the platforms we congregate on are corporate ones

    please remember that corporations tend to have zero-tolerance policies for criticism of the status quo

    irenes, to random
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    oh

    that's quite saddening :(

    http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5587

    whitequark, to random
    @whitequark@mastodon.social avatar

    i find it really interesting that many well-regarded, smart, experienced in the relevant domains people fundamentally seem to not be able to agree with each on whether assembly is typed or not, which seems like a relatively speaking yes or no question at first glance, and is sometimes treated as such when talking about other related topics

    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @whitequark meanwhile we just go link people to research on proof-carrying code and http://www.cs.cornell.edu/talc/

    not that it's practical as yet, but we're idealists...

    ChloeCat, to random

    can't believe i actually have "how to save and quit vim" on my search history now

    • posted by Chloe
    irenes,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @ChloeCat sorry, it's reflexive

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