Nick has moved to Mathstodon @internic@qoto.org

Microsoft enabled the notorious "Recall" with the last update (for Windows 11 copilot+ enabled pcs only). It's part of the OS and can't be uninstalled. This software stores metadata about EVERYTHING that appears on your screen, including passwords/urls/images/videos/any messages you send or emails etc

To disable this gross spyware, run the following as admin on the command line:

Dism /Online /Disable-Feature
/Featurename:Recall

#Windows #Spyware #Recall #PrivacyAbuse

BTW I have no idea how much Google has spent protecting just my site over the past 8 years, but it has to be a LOT. The economics of defending dinky sites like mine don't scale very well and sometimes require some fairly custom solutions. I just remember after I exited Akamai's protective harbor and started casting about for pricing on DDoS protection, the figures I was quoted were more than I made in a year, and could expand dramatically depending on how evil the adversary wanted to be.

I wrote about this in more detail not long after I put the site behind Shield.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/02/how-google-took-on-mirai-krebsonsecurity/

They're not wrong.

Well this data breach just got a lot worse.

Fidelity filed several other data breach notices, which confirm that the unauthorized third-party "accessed and retrieved certain documents related to Fidelity customers and other individuals by submitting fraudulent requests to an internal database that housed images of documents pertaining to Fidelity customers."

Fidelity also confirmed SSNs and driver's licenses were compromised in the data breach.

More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/10/fidelity-says-data-breach-exposed-personal-data-of-77000-customers?nocache=1

Look, people choosing bluesky, likely knowing full well that it will eventually go bad and they’ll need to relocate again… we can scold people like that for choosing a precarious VC backed service, or maybe we can recognize that in the social media space that some people are … migrants.

Maybe we should ask ourselves what Bluesky offers now, in the near term, that’s compelling to people who might not enjoy the luxury of a long term, and ask what their choices say about us in the process.

Xavier 2024: "An evidence-based and critical analysis of the Fediverse decentralization promises" https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15383 "Our findings suggest that Fediverse will face significant challenges in fulfilling its decentralization promises, potentially hindering its ability to positively impact the social Web on a large scale." #nwit

"The US top rate of tax in 1944 was 97%. The postwar top rate from 1945-63 was 94%, and it was 70% from 1965-80. This was the period of the largest expansion of the US economy in the nation's history."

Taxing the rich is the most Conservative policy you can think of, but somehow conservatives keep claiming that is a radical Socialist idea. 🤷‍♂️

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/15/piketty-pilled/ by @pluralistic

Hello everyone - did I mention I wrote this a while back? #Space #Rockets

It's aimed at adults, it has no equations, and many young or very young adults have found it interesting and useful too. As have space scientists, astronautical students, and, apparently, astronauts.

Marie Curie didn't necessarily aim to hire women in her lab, but she didn't have anything AGAINST women, and so ended up creating a network of more than 45 women trainees who changed (and are still changing) the course of science. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-marie-curie-helped-a-generation-of-women-break-into-science/

One thing @pluralistic doesn't mention in his enthusiastic promotion of #RSS is that every #YouTube channel also has its own RSS feed. On desktop, press Ctrl+u to view the source and then search for /feeds/ .Copy the URI into your RSS reader and voilà! No need to rely on YouTube's terrible notification system; you get notified of each new video when it's posted, and the site can't put any obstacles in your way as they love to do.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/

Today on the arXiv:

Loading errors due to the system being spammed by requests from scrapers who want to keep stealing everyone's papers all at once.

We did not agree to have our work fed into the automated plagiarism machine.

QT Steinn Sigurðsson
2024 October 16

Dearest LLM script kiddies who are slashdotting @arxiv - if you're being blocked for being rude, the solution is not to try the same stupid thing again an hour later.

You're spoiling the Commons.

https://twitter.com/steinly0/status/1846519433621016675

If you're reading this, please #boost so I can get back to being federated with the #fediverse. Unfortunately, the data center I've been hosting with for years and years encountered some serious issues. I had to move suddenly, losing almost everything. I took the chance to change the software I use. But I've still lost all of my followers, all of my federation, etc! It's also taken down rblind.com, my passion project to get more #blind folks off #reddit. I'll be bringing that back over the coming days. In the meantime, hi! I'm a blind guy who uses the #NVDA #screenreader, loves #accessibility and works in the field, and reads tons of #fanfic, #litrpg, and #sciencefiction and #fantasy in my spare time. Nice to meet you!

“If you’ve suspected that you’re yelling into a void about the election on Instagram, Facebook or Threads, it might not be your imagination.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/16/instagram-limits-political-content-shadowban-election-posts/

Read about True Value hardware declaring bankruptcy today: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/true-value-declares-bankruptcy-sells-174128698.html

Which seemed odd to me, as they've been around for long time selling low-priced items.

It took me exactly one search to find perhaps another reason beyond the claimed "the housing market stalled and consumers have become far more picky about discretionary purchases like hardware” for the news:

To give you a glimpse into the vast image data that #ESAEuclid is observing in its surveys, #ESA published a new set of images: a section of 2 weeks of observations, 132 deg² on the sky, that's 500x the area of the Moon, and zoom-ins.

Check out the images in our Euclid Blog, where you can also find a link to ESA's full release with high-res images and all explanations and background.

https://www.euclid-ec.org/euclids-first-large-piece-of-the-sky

#astronomy #astrodon #space #cosmology