@rysiek@mstdn.social
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

rysiek

@rysiek@mstdn.social

Hacker, activist, free-softie ◈ techie luddite ◈ formerly information security and infrastructure at https://isnic.is/ and https://occrp.org/ ◈ my opinions are my own etc.

(he/him)

profile image: drawing of a head and shoulders of a cat-person, in a space suit.

banner image: long-exposure photo of a large tent, brightly illuminated from inside, looking as if it is made of lava

#foss #libre #privacy #infosec #fedi22

(public toots CC By-SA 4.0 if applicable)

🇪🇺 🇵🇱 · 🇧🇦 🇮🇸 · 🇺🇦

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

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

"TESCREAList" is the new "cryptobro"

/via https://nitter.net/xriskology/status/1655965412285202440

rysiek, (edited ) to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

I am going to moderate a panel at .

Can the promise of safe, equitable community-run platforms be fulfilled?
https://re-publica.com/de/session/can-promise-safe-equitable-community-run-platforms-be-fulfilled

> Much has been said about the toxicity and wanton disregard for safety displayed by the major social media and other corporate-run platforms.

> Community-run platforms exist, some becoming household names and gaining immense popularity, but upon closer inspection they, too, struggle with creating safe, equitable spaces. Can we do better?

rysiek, (edited ) to telegram Polish
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Czy jest bezpieczny?
(nie, nie jest)
https://oko.press/komunikator-telegram-bezpieczenstwo

> Na stronie internetowej komunikatora znajdziemy informację, że „wiadomości są silnie szyfrowane”. Podobnie Telegram promuje się m.in. w mediach społecznościowych.

> To mocno sugeruje, że wiadomości wymieniane za pomocą tego komunikatora są dostępne tylko dla ich nadawców i odbiorców – i że nikt poza nimi nie może odczytać. Takie szyfrowanie nazywane jest „end-to-end”.

> W kontekście Telegrama jest to jednak mylące.

1/🧵

rysiek, to TeslaMotors
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

We interrupt this program to bring you this important announcement:

🚨 Constantly attention-seeking man-baby billionaire said something dumb. 🚨

It is highly unlikely that this piece of news will change anyone's mind about anything at all.

However, we can at this time predict that some people might get outraged and thus click on our article. And in the end, that is what matters.

In other breaking news tonight:

  1. water is wet;
  2. bears shit in the woods;
  3. Pope is, in fact, Catholic.

rysiek, (edited ) to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Edit: looks like it got suspended! 🎉 Thanks to @aurynn for heads-up.

Holy fsck newsie.social is platforming Newsmax?!
https://newsie.social/@newsmax

Screw that with a cactus!

@jeff you really think this is okay?

rysiek, to fediverse
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Looks like / corners of the are going to get some real-life testing of their moderation tools and procedures, and of their general community resilience. :blobcateyes:

https://the-federation.info/platform/73
https://the-federation.info/platform/184

[click: "Active last month"]

For anyone running or moderating a Lemmy or KBin instance:

  • brace for impact
  • make sure people, esp. BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled folks, are listened to when they flag problems
  • remember: it's okay to close down registrations!
rysiek, to fediverse
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Hey anyone heard of IFTAS before?
https://about.iftas.org/

Trying to figure out if they're solid and for real.

Thanks!

rysiek, (edited ) to fediverse
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

How many #Fediverse accounts/alts do you have?

#Threadiverse (#Lemmy/#Kbin) counts.
#Pixelfed counts.
#Mobilizon and #PeerTube all count! If it federates, it counts.

:boost_ok:

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

A few days ago @ward tooted about how it's somehow "AI art", but if it's human-made, inexplicably it's just "content":
https://easymode.im/notes/9s9fhdg8jh3gi3h7

His toot has been living rent-free in my head ever since.

I had ranted a few times before how "content" is a corporate-y way to devalue art. How "user-generated content" is a term designed to make it easier to deny the significance (not just monetary) of the amazing stuff people create online.

Contrasting this with "AI art" is jarring, and spot-on. 👀

rysiek, (edited ) to bluesky
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

It occurs to me that is so decentralized and open that one can't even link directly to posts there without having an account. It's literally a garden more tightly walled than :birdsite: !

People put up with it, of course, because it's not a "login-wall", but "oh that's just how the protocol works!" Completely different thing! 🤣

And who designed the protocol, one wonders? :thinking_fierce:

rysiek, to fediverse
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Mastodon instance: <goes invite-only>
People: Mastodon will fail! This is unacceptable! Bad UX! They don't want us there! 😠

BlueSky: <is invite-only>
People: 😍 Can I haz?.. 🥺 Notice me senpai! Such elite! Many professional! :blobaww:

🤣

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

With "AI-generated content" all over the place, perhaps more people will get it why I objected and continue to object to using the term "user-generated content" for anything, anywhere, ever.

It's people, not "users."
It's created, not "generated."

And often it's just as creative as any "serious art."

Of course, tech robber barons want to make it seem like it's some undetermined grey goo, "content" to be mined and filtered and "engaged with", instead.

rysiek, (edited ) to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Which one is worse and more of a red flag? :thaenkin:

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

I don't think people appreciate what "abstractions are leaky" means in practice.

The higher in the stack, the more layers of leaky abstractions a piece of software has to deal with.

Ignoring them means weird errors and unexpected behaviors as assumptions break down. Working around them means maintaining random workarounds.

The higher the abstraction level the more workarounds there are to maintain and weird errors to contend with.

"Let's move to the browser" means "more of these, please". 👀

rysiek, (edited ) to affinity
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

If you're a graphic designer, and able to, now is a good time to consider financially supporting some FLOSS tools. 👀

Sure, most are nowhere near the closed-source tools as far as usability and functionality is concerned.

But this keeps happening. We had the same kind of conversations a while ago when Figma (almost) got acquired by Adobe.

And it will keep happening until there are truly viable FLOSS tools in this space.

Canva acquires design platform
https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/press/newsroom/canva-press-release/

rysiek, (edited ) to infosec
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

When you're pondering, covered in cold sweat, how to deal with the whole .zip clusterfsck…

When you're trying to wrap your head around possible new attacks or old ones that are going to now be supercharged because of .zip…

When you're wondering at night, tossing and turning, how to explain to your org the difference between .zip and .zip…

…take solace in the fact that some accountant somewhere is tallying up the profits.

https://icannwiki.org/index.php?title=.zip&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile
> The applicant is Google

rysiek, to Iceland
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Find someone who hugs you the way this first winter storm of the season hugs Iceland.

rysiek, (edited ) to devops
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Hey folks, if one already has an on-prem self-hosted instance, what would be the simplest, sanest on-prem / self-hostable CI/CD system to deploy along with it? :blobcateyes:

Asking for a friend. The friend is me. :blobcatcoffee:

Yes, I know of GitLab, Gitea, and so on — I am stuck with BitBucket on this one, so I am asking specifically about ways to get a CI/CD pipeline thingamabob working with the BitBucket instance I have.

Thanks! :boost_ok:

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Note to self: I need to be more careful with boosting toots that do not have properly set language. :blobcateyes:

Also, I really wanted to use the phrase "more care with boosting toots" in a serious message. :blobcatcool:

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

I had lived in Bosnia, where memory of Srebrenica is still fresh and painful.

Watching what is happening in today is chilling to the bone to me.

Apparently people are being moved to the Stepanakert airport. It is not clear how Azerbaijani forces will define "civilian population" vs. "separatists".

Five or ten years from now we will start hearing about mass graves there of men and boys over 15, and we will be asking ourselves "how did no-one see that coming."

rysiek, (edited ) to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

New blogpost!

Things I'd like more people to understand in 2024
https://rys.io/en/169.html

Here’s a list of a few rules of thumb I find particularly helpful to keep in mind when thinking about and discussing complex politics- and society-adjacent topics.

In no particular order:

  • Explanation is not a justification
  • Hanlon’s razor
  • A system’s purpose is what it does
  • Life is not a zero-sum game
  • Two things can be true at the same time

🧵/1

rysiek, to webdev
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Hey , say I was writing a service worker that can fetch resources from multiple different sources (say, IPFS, or alternative endpoints, or…) that might not be the origin.

Even though there are many sources, there is always a chance that any given request eventually fails — after trying several of them.

What HTTP error code should the service worker return to the client if the request does fail?

It feels like a 4xx error. But which one? Or should I come up with a new one? 🤔

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Gah, an account that posts photos with alt-text being just "-". 🤦‍♀️

This is why we can't have nice things.

Look, if you don't have the spoons to add alt-text, that's fine — we all run out of spoons sometimes — don't add alt-text. :blobcatcoffee:

And if you can't be arsed to add alt-text, whatever, you do you, don't add alt-text. 🙄

But adding a random character or a filename as alt-text just so that the "[ALT]" label shows up on your images is really extremely shitty. :blob0w0:

rysiek, to telegram
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Here we go again:

Telegram’s peer-to-peer SMS login service is a privacy nightmare
https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/25/telegrams-peer-to-peer-sms-login-service-is-a-privacy-nightmare/

sigh

Stop using . Seriously.

Telegram uses confusing language to pretend it is end-to-end encrypted by default. It is not — you have to enable that separately for each chat, and it only works for one-on-ones, not groups.

Telegram's protocol design is sus af (that's a technical term), and that's putting real people in real danger:
https://www.pwnallthethings.com/p/russia-is-spying-on-telegram-chats

rysiek, to infosec
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

So wait building all these "secure" chat apps on a browser engine packaged in a thin layer of UI, with its insane number of dependencies and the gigantic, immense attack surface that this entails, was somehow a bad idea?

Who knew! Who could have foreseen this! Shocking, really.

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