@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 Bulgaria
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

More than twelve years ago I was invited by @LaQuadrature to come to the Europarlament to help stop ACTA:
https://rys.io/en/65.html

This was the first time I got a chance to directly talk to MEPs to try change their minds on an issue I cared deeply about. It was not the last.

I've done a lot of activism, on both EU and national level. My experience with the European Parliament remains the best.

It really matters who we send there. And we do have a say on that.

Go vote. 🇪🇺

rysiek, to CrystalsHashtags
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

While #Adobe is doing an absolute stupid with their new licensing terms, and (now Canva-owned) #Affinity slashes prices by half in a "flash sale", I am once again asking people to consider supporting #FLOSS tools instead.

Yes, they are far from perfect.

But with a small fraction of what these closed source vendors are raking in, these tools could be made immeasurably better.

And they won't end up bought up and enshittified, as experience with past attempts at doing that to FLOSS tools shows.

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

Lukewarm take:

When I see general* "security advice" that mentions "do not use public WiFi" or "use a VPN", I am immediately suspicious about all other advice offered.

Yes, a decade ago that was a consideration, because most sites were not using HTTPS. Credentials were flying cleartext on the wire.

Today, almost all sites use HTTPS. Doesn't mean the risk is zero, but it's way lower.

*) "general" meaning "without a very specific threat model in mind", meant for general public, etc.

#InfoSec

rysiek, to random
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Phone not reconnecting to the Bluetooth speaker in the other room randomly every 45min challenge.

Difficulty: impossible.

:nkoFacepalm2:

rysiek, to random
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tired: the illuminati
wired: the illuminaughty

rysiek, to firefox
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I just spent two hours trying to get #Firefox to use #KDE Dolphin as the default file manager.

I went on a journey from .desktop files and mimeinfo.cache, through DBus, to .service files.

I shook with anger when everything seemed configured correctly, but Firefox would just not launch a file manager at all. Click that "show in folder" button and nothing happens.

I have now found the problem.
The problem was: systemd. :angery:

Why. Is. Systemd. Involved. In. Launching. A file manager. 👀

rysiek, to KDE
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

This is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy in software. 👀

Konqueror is an amazing file manager, I love the ability to split the window horizontally and vertically as many times as I want. I would love to use Konqueror as my main file manager. :blobcat:

But... there is no way, apparently, to make Konqueror always show the sidebar. Every time I open it, I need to hit F9 to explicitly show the sidebar.

What the hell! 🤦‍♀️

Eh, back to Dolphin it is. :blobfoxannoyed:

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Dear community, would you mind a question?

For a long while I had an ASCII-art hacker glider emblem in my profile bio. It was this:

. ۬. :

At some point I realized this might be a problem for people using screen readers. So I removed it from my bio.

I am still somewhat fond if it though, and wonder if maybe it wasn't in fact that big of a deal?

And more generally, what do you think of small ASCII-art bits like this? Are they extremely distracting? Are they acceptable?

Thank you!

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

I mean as far as doing crime goes, the guy always went all in. Truly a convicted criminal.

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

This might be a good moment to add a certain US former president's name to your filters if you swing that way, as a certain jury reached a verdict, apparently.

rysiek, to mastodon
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:blobcatpeek:

#Mastodon

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Random reminder this exists and is indeed excellent:
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ZOHGC0zptGQ

Thank you for your attention, carry on.

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 random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

A system's purpose is what it does.

https://mstdn.social/@mcnado/112514829176613312

rysiek, to Facebook
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We are getting ready to expand our Torment Nexus experiences in your region.

To help bring these experiences to you we will kidnap your firstborn, based on our legitimate interest.

This means you have a right to object. If your objection is honored we might return your firstborn at some point.

We have updated our firstborn policy. Pray we don't update it any further.

#Facebook #Instagram #AI

rysiek, to RaspberryPi
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Remember that surveillance tech adjacent cop that had hired a while back?

I wonder how that went.

rysiek, to ai
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

This just randomly came up and I cannot not share this again

> Mark J. Girouard (…) says one of his clients was vetting a company selling a resume screening tool, but didn’t want to make the decision until they knew what the algorithm was prioritizing in a person’s CV.

> After an audit the resume screening company found that the algorithm found two factors to be most indicative of job performance: their name was Jared, and whether they played high school lacrosse.

https://qz.com/1427621/companies-are-on-the-hook-if-their-hiring-algorithms-are-biased

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Maybe, hear me out here, maybe it was not the best of ideas to put all Web eggs into a single Google basket? 🤔

But who could have known, right? :thaenkin:

sigh

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

> Look, I'm no luddite…

First of all, why do tech writers feel they need to be apologetic when criticizing bad technology decisions by Big Tech?

I don't see similar hedging when the piece is about the tech underdogs – say, small FLOSS projects. Being a vicious critic is then somehow okay?

Secondly, just embrace your inner Luddites. Luddites were not against all technology per se, they were against how technology was being used to abuse people:
https://techwontsave.us/episode/187_the_real_history_of_the_luddites_w_brian_merchant

Sounds damn valid to me!

rysiek, to telegram
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Telegram in 2020[1]:

> Q. Will you have ads?
> No.

Telegram in 2024[2]:

> Q. Will you have ads in my private chats and groups?
> No.

…but also:

> In 2021, Telegram launched Sponsored Messages – minimalist, privacy-conscious advertisements that can appear in certain public channels.

Hey, but at least they still promise not to sell your data, so that's fine. I'm sure they would never go back on this one. 🤡

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200229080907/https://telegram.org/faq#q-how-are-you-going-to-make-money-out-of-this

[2] https://telegram.org/faq?setln=en#q-how-are-you-going-to-make-money-out-of-this

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

Nie da się e-zarejestrować do głosowania za granicą bez skryptów od Google. 👀

Strona rejestracji[1] pobiera czcionki bezpośrednio z serwerów Google – te można zablokować bez utraty funkcjonalności.

Ale uruchamia też skrypty bezpośrednio pobrane z infrastruktury Google. Zablokowanie ich uniemożliwia rejestrację. 🤦‍♀️

Nie ma o tym słowa w "Informacji dotyczącej przetwarzania danych osobowych". A link do "Polityki Cookies" przekierowuje na niezwiązaną stronę. 🤡

[1] https://ewybory.msz.gov.pl/nowa-rejestracja

rysiek, to random
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I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as PC, is in fact, a Windows laptop, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Copilot plus PC.

rysiek, to random
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Something tells me once she's done with Sam, he's going to be pretty scarlet himself.

rysiek, to random
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It's so weird watching The Dropout – a TV series about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes – while also watching OpenAI and Sam Altman happen IRL. :blobcat0_0:

Wondering who's going to play Sam Altman in the series about the implosion of OpenAI. 🤔

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

I am now verifying a @QubesOS installation ISO I am going to use very soon, and I need a trusted source of their master signing key fingerprint.

/me looks at the 10-year anniversary t-shirt I physically got from QubesOS team at :blobcateyes:

Right. :blobcatcoffee:

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