simplenomad, 3 months ago to random

Speaking of spam, when it comes to email spam, mainly what I deal with running a mail server involves me forwarding the full message with headers to abuse@gmail.com (where 99% of my spam comes from) and cc-ing in all of the associated spam addresses. I nicely ask gmail admins to deal with this, and then tell the spammers to "fuck off and die in a fire". Because I am a mature adult.

simplenomad, 3 months ago to fediverse

Hmmm, every server I'm getting spam from has a new user in their public directory named yqqwe, and each one of these users is following mastodon_admin_yggwe on a single-user instance mastodon.tinynews.org. One can look at the 924 followers of this admin and they all are named yqqwe and they are all on servers I've been getting #spam from. #fediverse #moderation #administration

simplenomad, 3 months ago to random

Jeez lots of spam blocked/reported this morning. ‘Twas rare before, but the past couple of days though, damn.

Thebratdragon, 3 months ago to linux

ok techfolks looking for advice here.

Looking to put Linux on my currently windows machine.

Have used it in the past but not for a few years (opensuse).

Not looking for high end gaming, but do graphics and cad work, as well as writing.

Any advice on distros and envoironments.

#Linux

simplenomad, 3 months ago to random

I saw someone recently talking about how when they were young, there weren't school shootings and whatnot. I'd say that yes, things have increased in the number of events, but I do remember being shot at as a kid on a school trip. Yes, I was on one of the buses back in 1975 although not one of the injured. It did happen, just not as frequently.

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/05/19/archives/highway-sniper-fire-a-puzzle-in-texas.html

Full text in attached pic.

simplenomad, 3 months ago to random

My fave part of the SuperBowl was the empty streets. I was able to drive to and from a restaurant to get some take out, there was no traffic and no lines or waiting.

At this point I don't know who won (and I don't care), I know it wasn't played here in Arlington as the route to and from the restaurant went by that atrocious Cowboys eyesore I voted against construction, and in fact I don't even know who was playing.

#sportsing

simplenomad, 3 months ago to infosec

I mean I like AT&T for my Internet and all, although my vendor-provided router is a bit of a mess. I've managed to configure it to block everything destined for it, but everything passing through to the public servers and the gateway system is allowed. But every once in a while when there is either an update to the router's firmware or the app that controls it, a security setting is tweaked, usually blocking something suspicious that I actually want to see. No AT&T, don't block those weird slow port scans using multiple systems from a class C hitting my public servers in a random order, I'm tracking that. #infosec

simplenomad, 3 months ago to random

Oh! I just figured out that the Super Bowl Sunday is this weekend, or as I like to call it "that day where there is no traffic and I can get anywhere in town quickly because everyone is at home watching the game".

Not a sportsing fan.

simplenomad, 3 months ago to infosec

Being #FridayChaiDay I’m ready to go and finish off the work day. #infosec #HackerLife

simplenomad, 3 months ago to random

Interesting story. Seems utterly non #green. https://www.wfaa.com/mobile/article/news/local/how-bitcoin-mining-facility-causing-headaches-health-concerns-hood-county-residents/287-d763a45a-d6a3-4fcb-ab2f-5e17af94763b

simplenomad, 3 months ago to Futurology

A large chunk of people stating #AGI is the future and is coming soon are spokespeople for companies that are in the #AI business, most of whom are in some startup phase. Well, not a large chunk but the chunk that is getting press. Of course they are saying that.

The models need clarity and refinement to make them useful, and so far every model that has "matured" reaches a level of degenerative uselessness. Google's search engine is a prime example of it, as people purposely tuned their web-based context (some with AI help) to create garbage web pages that to Google's search engine AI looked good enough to index and include in results, and now results are fairly useless. The LLMs will begin to show these same signs as they are not being fed curated data, they are simply being fed a huge amount of data as fast as possible.

Until we can come to a consensus as a society on what we deem to be right and wrong which we can't do "acoustically" then we're not going to be able to do it digitally. We're not going to get Star Trek's Data or even a HAL 9000. We'll get something shitty that eventually breaks down.

For a bit of context, my first AI projects I worked on were 14 years ago preparing good and bad data example sets to train models, and even in that small and controlled environment it was somewhat difficult to start approaching correct output, and those models were tiny by today's standards.

Fast, expensive, accurate. If you're developing AI models, pick only two. And one of those picks has to be "expensive".

That said, I do use existing LLMs as I find them useful in many cases, but I obviously have to validate the results.

Diami03, 3 months ago to random

Critical thinking is going the way of the dodo

simplenomad, 3 months ago to random

I think I’ve figured out the lack of a lot of birds in the tree in the backyard. #Caturday

simplenomad, 3 months ago to random

Random oddball thought. The idea of a "maiden name" seems really medieval. Implies the bride was a 16 year old virgin marrying some much old land baron. A "maiden". I'd tell anyone out there that when asked to provide a "maiden name" to add "The Chaste" onto it.

"Yes, my mother's maiden name was Alice Smith The Chaste."

#RandomFridayThought

simplenomad, 3 months ago to random

Something for #FunFriday. Remember UbuntuSatanic? This was a distro that was in essence a somewhat dark themed Ubuntu-based distribution that had SE Linux enabled by default IIRC. The instructions recommended loading up Ubuntu Christian Edition and then loading UbuntuSatanic over the top of it.

simplenomad, 3 months ago to China

Thoughts on the #FBI statements re #China and US #infrastructure (just google proceeding hashtags for details), mainly since I am being asked about it by friends - 1) no this isn't new and the IC has known about it for years, 2) comparing a count of just FBI cyber agents vs PRC hackers doesn't count CIA/NSA/TRO/etc so isn't a fair Intel headcount, and 3) one testifies in Congress to get them to do something. I'm guessing by pointing out headcount they want more budget.

I'm not saying the threat isn't real - it most certainly fucking is - but there is always a lot of moving parts as these things continuously play out.

#infosec #cybersecurity #cybercybercyber

simplenomad, 3 months ago to infosec

A blog post about why I self host, because, well, you all have seen the Internet, right?

https://www.markloveless.net/blog/2024/1/30/why-i-self-host

#infosec #HackerLife #hacker

simplenomad, 3 months ago to ai

It seems the vast majority of people out there simply do not want to hear the truth, they want to hear something that makes them feel good. For #AI, #LLMs don't say the absolute truth, they are designed to bring forth verbiage that sounds like the truth whether it is true or not. No wonder an inaccurate #LLM can be so popular right now.

simplenomad, 3 months ago to solar

8:55am to 4pm was the dead-of-winter time when my #solar panels would begin offsetting the house load and charging the batteries, assuming of course a sunny day. Now it's 8:15am to 4:25pm, so it's slowly looking up!

#greenenergy