Sparky J @jon@jonspark.com

DOD report finds no antivirus, no data encryption, no multifactor authentication, and 28-year-old unpatched vulnerabilities in a security audit of the US' ballistic missile system at https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-ballistic-missile-systems-have-very-poor-cyber-security/ - discuss at https://freepo.st/freepost.cgi/post/y4ooqmxip1 #freepost

If anyone has a recommendation about a openwrt vdsl router to buy, I would be grateful.

I am fucking horrified by the above stack...

@test Nice post!

@clacke the main reason people don't use a GNU/Linux distro on their desktops and laptops is the same reason most people don't use #Replicant, #LineageOS, or #SailFish on their mobile device. Which is that most people are not confident about installing a postmarket OS on any device. That's why I'm using the vanilla #Android that came with my mobile, despite using #Trisquel on laptops and desktops for years. I don't know how to swap out the OS without bricking the device.
@enkiv2 @scolobb

When you’re watching Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift is watching you.

“a kiosk was set up for adoring fans to view videos of her … the kiosk took photos of people looking at the videos. The images were sent back to a “command post” in Nashville where they were cross-referenced, using facial recognition technology, with a database of people who had been identified as potential stalkers of the pop star.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/arts/music/taylor-swift-facial-recognition.html

"Encryption without authentication is pretty worthless. It’s like a blind confessional: your conversation is private but you have no idea who’s on the other side of the curtain. Only this isn’t a church, it’s the internet."

Blog: Boogie Board: a beautiful, modern, portable take on the blackboard

https://ar.al/2018/12/16/boogie-board-a-beautiful-modern-portable-take-on-the-blackboard/

(Not to mention inexpensive at $35-$45. I got mine delivered from the US to Ireland for ~€50.)

In light of Australia's anti-encryption, this is an important message from @signalapp@twitter.com

It's not enough for services to state they decline to add a backdoor. It should be practically impossible to do so. Based on their architecture and verifiable by public source code. #aaBill

👇

Mastodon as a Sidebar (Firefox add-on) by @soapdog is really neat! Just tried it out today and it works surprisingly well. Uses Pinafore under the hood, so you can log in to multiple instances. Pressing Shift-Alt-M will close or open it. Cool use case! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mastodon-as-a-sidebar/

Mozilla Foundation site tracks security, privacy, encryption, sharing, creepiness, etc. of gadgets: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/
Handy for gift ideas.

The EFF Gift Guide: What’s Creeping Us Out at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/eff-gift-guide-whats-creeping-us-out - discuss at https://freepo.st/freepost.cgi/post/ko2t50mq60 #freepost

#Magellan : remote code execution vulnerability discovered in #SQLite | #cybersecurity #RCE https://blade.tencent.com/magellan/index_en.html

uuughh this is @noelle level stuff here

"A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers, and says 'Five beers, please.'"

Just had to solve, I shit you not, 7 different reCAPTCHAs to be allowed back into Discord. This is without needing to enter my password, mind you. Then I got asked for a TOTP code on top of it.

I need to just stop using services that put CAPTCHAs on login.

RT @lopp@birdsite.link
Google has access to 70% of credit and debit card transactions in the United States through various third party partnerships. https://blog.google/products/marketingplatform/360/powering-ads-analytics-innovations-with-machine-learning-xp/

https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1073670585048272896

weird how until about 100 years ago nobody knew how the sun worked. like, people been looking up at it, for the whole of history, and prehistory, every day, lookin at the sun like “how is it doing that” “what’s going on in there” and nobody knew, it was just there

Some of the world's biggest capitalists have finally realized they've been funding the folks burning down the house, and decided it might be time to finance the fire brigade. Genius. I'm thrilled. But I also worry that all my "climate skeptic" friends are going to say "see! It's the capitalists want climate taxes and renewables. That proves it's all an elite conspiracy!"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/10/tackle-climate-or-face-financial-crash-say-worlds-biggest-investors

#lowtech magazine's recent article on rethinking the concept of energy security is apparently repeatedly being removed from from facebook because it considers the article fake news in relation to 'US politics or issues of national importance'.

https://twitter.com/lowtechmagazine/status/1073373343313731584

Here's a link to the entire article:
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-lights-on-redefining-energy-security.html

Might have to get more familiar with the Masto codebase so I can work on this..

"Pull in existing toots when following new remote account"
https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/9525