Pedant @Pedant@qoto.org

@ll1t Not every instance requires you to have an account in order to view the local timeline.

The Toot! app on iOS makes it really easy to add timelines from multiple instances. I was able to add both servers you mentioned and view their timelines without a local account.

One thing I recommend to a lot of people is PicoCTF and PicoGym. If you're new to #CTFs it's an awesome place to start; or if you're just new to #security in general.

Whether you are a cyber security professional, competitive #hacker or new to CTFs you will find interesting challenges in the picoGym that you can solve at your own pace.

Try it out! https://picoctf.org/index.html#picogym

"Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. But the goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.

We expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.

Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results.

In general, it could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want".

Quote: Sergey Brin / Larry Page, from the seminal 1998 paper that kickstarted the #PageRank algorithm - and #Google with it (see Appendix A).

Reading the paper that started it all after so many years is a quite interesting experience. 25 years ago they knew *exactly* what a search engine may have become if it chose the path of an ads-based business model. They were very aware of the conflict of interest that arises when you have to provide relevant results to the users, but also boost those that pay your bills.

In other words, were warning us about the risks of the business model that their own company eventually decided to embrace.

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

The Programmers’ Credo: we do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy.

Reminder (or maybe eye-opener) to Mastodon users:

Direct Messages on Mastodon are NOT encrypted.

What does this mean: The message is in the database un-encrypted. Anyone with access to the database could potentially read the messages.

For mastodon.world, only the admins have database access (@jeroen, @spaceriker and myself).

If you have really sensitive info, don't share it on Mastodon. There are secure messaging apps for that.

🌓🌎🌞 <-- lunar eclipse

🌎🌓🌞 <-- solar eclipse

🌎🌞🌗 <-- apocalypse

Remember how #twitter doesn't show your replies in your tweet feed?

In #mastodon , you can differentiate between "Public" and "Unlisted". You can reply with the setting "Unlisted" if you don't want your replies to clutter your profile. E.g. courtesies like "you're welcome", or if the reply is only relevant in context of the thread.

To do that on the web client, click on the globe icon below the compose box, and choose "Unlist".

You can also change the default to "Unlist" or "Followers-only". To reach that setting: scroll down the right side bar, Preferences > Other > Posting defaults > Posting privacy.

#TwitterMigration #tips

Oslo Enhjulssykkelrunde (Unicycle Tour of Oslo) 2022

21 unicyclists. The full route was around 30km

DOJ Tracks Down Over $1Bil Stolen By Silk Road Market Robber (50,000btc) #News #infosec #Tech #cybersecurity #DOJ #FBI #btc https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/07/us_bitcoin_silk_road/

Great work by Sofía Celi and her team! Practically-exploitable Cryptographic Vulnerabilities in Matrix.

“We report several practically-exploitable cryptographic vulnerabilities in the Matrix standard for federated real-time communication and its flagship client and prototype implementation, Element. These, together, invalidate the confidentiality and authentication guarantees claimed by Matrix against a malicious server.”

Paper:
https://nebuchadnezzar-megolm.github.io/static/paper.pdf

Project website:
https://nebuchadnezzar-megolm.github.io/

Wish these were still in decent condition, I miss having a quick reference on how to quit vi(m). ;p

#vi #vim #shoes

Most 🔐 Secure / Private 📩 Email Setup? 🤔 💭

📱 🐧 #Pinephone:🐦 Thunderbird + 🔑 #PGP + 🧅Onionmail POP3 Hidden Service

(#Tutorial: See Public #Blog)

#PGP #Thunderbird #email #communication #privacy #crypto #encryption #Peertube #Linux #FOSS

https://tube.tchncs.de/w/wV7CTfEB9vFkqpou5Nkx9c

Okay this might be a long post

One thing that I realised is making #twittermigration harder for people to switch is because the whole concept can feel daunting & overwhelming for non-tech savvy people.

With Twitter to them it was straight forward and easy to find topics they enjoy but with mastodon its a bit different.
So if you're new to mastodon or you want to introduce someone to mastodon here are some tips, useful sites & tools:
### Tips:
- Choosing a home instance isn't as importance as it seems, don't overthink it. Yes moderation rules & policies may differ but they all have one thing in common: Be a decent human. You **always** have the option to migrate your account to a new instance.
- Toots (or posts if you think toots are cringe ) are what we call micro-blogging instead of tweets
- You’re supposed to "boost" AKA "reblog" toots that you like.Since Mastodon does not have an algorithm that surfaces toots that have been liked a lot, boosting is the best way to help spread stuff that you like, and to show appreciation. (credit to @orsvarn for this comment)
- Another way to fill your timeline with content you enjoy is to: Find other people with similar interests, follow them, favourite their posts, boost their posts, use hashtags. rinse, repeat. (credit to @garry)
- If you ever feel yourself getting sucked into arguments on the #Fediverse, you might want to take advantage of the instance mute/block feature!
Instances tend to foster a culture, so if you find people from a specific site tend to be bothering you, muting/blocking that instance will keep other members of that community from bothering you as well.
- Finally do not share private/sensitive information via DMs on Mastodon. Direct Messages are not E2E. **Keep it in mind**

### Useful tools & resources:
[Twitodon](https://twitodon.com/) - Find your Twitter friends on Mastodon
[FediFinder](https://fedifinder.glitch.me/)- Similar to Twitodon
[Fedi Tips](https://fedi.tips/) - an informal, unofficial guide for non-technical people who want to use Mastodon and the wider Fediverse
[Fedi Directory](https://fedi.directory) - A human-curated small selection of accounts to spice up your timeline.
[Trunk](https://communitywiki.org/trunk) -Trunk allows you to mass-follow a bunch of people in order to get started with Mastodon or any other platform on the Fediverse
[Fediverse.info](https://fediverse.info/explore/people) -growing list of people and topics can help you discover mutual interests with people around the world
**Mobile Apps:**
[Metatext for iOS ](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/metatext/id1523996615)
[Tusky for Android ](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keylesspalace.tusky&hl=en&gl=USt)

Lastly if you are interested in setting up your own instance you can learn via https://learnfoss.org/ its completely free and its made by the wonderful @stux

I apologize for the long post lol, just hope this helps anyones transition over