Reach for the Stars @antares@qoto.org

We made a comic about sharing.

World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres says Israel targeted his aid workers 'systematically, car by car'.
Systemically, car by car is not an accident.

#palestine #gaza #wck #genocide #auspol

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-04/chef-says-gaza-aid-worker-cars-hit-one-by-one/103666184?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link

Some thoughts about attribution in the XZ backdoor, having just wasted so many hours digging into the details.

The email addresses used for a couple of years at least by the parties involved have absolutely *zero* trace in any kind data breach or database beyond Github/Gitlab, and maybe Tukaani and Debian and a few mailing lists.

Normally when I see this, the assumption is that we're dealing with a single-use or single-purpose email address that was created either for fraud or b/c someone is super paranoid about privacy.

The people in the latter camp who do this tend to have other tells that give them away, or at least *some* trace or home base in the online world. Especially if we're talking on the order of years using that address.

Either way, very few people do opsec well, and for every year you're operating under the same name, nick, number, email, etc you dramatically increase the risk of screwing up that opsec. And almost everyone does, eventually.

To see this complete lack of presence in breached databases once or twice in the course of an investigation is rare, but to find it multiple times suggests we're dealing with an operation that was set up carefully from the beginning. And that almost certainly means a group project (state-sponsored).

Thinking about Easter reminded me of something I learned about Uruguay.

Uruguay is determinedly secular, and doesn't want to give special status to religious holidays. So the week leading up to Easter was renamed "Tourism Week”.

But people still celebrate Easter, because it’s a longstanding tradition.

And that's why you're quite likely to find a sign on the door of the tourist office that says "Closed for Tourism Week”.

Happy Tourism Week to all who celebrate!

Mildly interesting: these two trucks have the same bed length.

It's important to understand that "age verification" schemes being passed by states, ostensibly to "protect the children", won't do that and will bring about incredible abuses.

In order to age verify children, obviously EVERYBODY of any age must be verified, for every account, under every name or pseudonym, ultimately on every site no matter how public or private the topic, and before downloading any apps.

Children will find ways to work around this. They'll use the accounts of adults, which will be openly traded. But because these age verification systems must by definition be based on government IDs, the verification process creates a linkage between your account names and your actual identity, subjecting you to all manner of leaked personal information, government abuses (think MAGA in charge), and worse. Firms will claim their systems either don't keep this data or can't be abused. History strongly suggests otherwise, and when courts step in, those firms will have to do what the courts say, often in secret, when it comes to collecting data.

Age verification is in actuality a massive Chinese-style Internet identity tracking project -- nothing less -- and there are many politicians in the U.S. who look with envy at how China controls their Internet and keeps their Internet users under police state controls.

Just a reminder folks, unless you agree with them, no matter how polite you are, you will always get blocked... I get 10 examples a day why I cant stand the left, even as a person who is on the left (slightly)

https://mastodon.social/@Radical_EgoCom/112147596006629998

Just a reminder... no matter how much you listen or try to genuinely understand them.. this is almost always the outcome when you discuss things with a leftist... Either you agree with them, or they get offended, make personal attacks, and walk.

Every interaction I have with the left leaves me wanting to have less to do with them than the time before, and this is sad since I associate more with left ideals in many cases than right ones.

Schooling experience grounded in the pedagogy and technology designed to prepare students for a print-dominated culture is no longer appropriate.

For the last time:

Abyss = for staring into
Void = for screaming into

Please stop screaming into the abyss we’re not insured for that

Looks like Firefox is adding in ads and shopping (enabled by default) in the near future. Found this while browsing through about:config to turn off the "See your search with suggested images" ad on upgrade.

Fuck the users, opt them in by default.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1868180

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/ad68d46aefa7

#firefox

There's still time to turn the ship around. If not out of human decency, or shame, then to win an election?

And yes, there is still time. But I honestly don't know if they'll use it.

They're probably going to keep doing what they're doing, while mumbling "Trump is worse!" to themselves and "These voters will come around! They have to! Right?" Up until the moment of disaster.

Somewhere, someone is looking at recent Biden poll numbers, and convincing themselves that pushing a few boxes of MREs out of the back of a plane will fix this.

It will not fix this.

No I'm not interested in having a "discussion" about this. I know how the conversation ends: someone yelling "Trump is worse!" at me while being convinced that the only possible solution is for voters to accept what is going on.

“The first person you should be careful not to fool is yourself. Because you are the easiest person to fool".”
― Richard Feynman

Quote of the day: "I need privacy, not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are"