Nick @internic@qoto.org

Neo-Nazi Telegram Users Panic Amid Crackdown and Arrest of Alleged Leaders of Online Extremist Group

An analysis by ProPublica and FRONTLINE shows a surge in activity on Telegram channels aligned with the Terrorgram Collective, as allies tried to rally support for their comrades in custody and sought to oust users they believed to be federal agents.

#News #Telegram #Terrorism #Extremism #Tech #Government #PavelDurov #Crime

https://www.propublica.org/article/telegram-terrorgram-collective-extremism-accelerationists-dallas-humber-matthew-allison

In a lot of conversations about genAI creating text in tooling so you don't start with a blank box (eg for paperwork, messaging) there is a general assumption that people accurately and swiftly read text during task completion. I just feel like.... That's not true? Many people are terrible skimmers?

Separate entirely from whether you agree with this type of usage for LLMs I do really wonder about how much received usefulness of these features is so mediated by different types of engagement

GREAT change is approaching. NIST will standardise prohibition of requirement of composing passwords from various character styles, and requirement for periodic password changes. These are harmful and obsolete rules. Now they will be treated as a cybersecurity weakness https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/sp800-63b.html

Hey #astrodon folks - I know we are few here and the question is very specific, but: Is there any astro info on how to write a good research proposal? Not an observational proposal, a _research_ proposal.

Say an article, a talk, a website...

Use case: give to a PhD candidate (not mine!) who is in dire need of help, but who is not getting it locally and where I don't have the time to walk them through the process or to give detailed feedback.

Boosts welcome.

I feel like I'm gonna get into a lot of trouble if I keep asking this question. But fr fr. If this is taking up a significant portion of your time such that you can't make ends meet doing other things, is it really "volunteering"?

Many orgs that do have money still accept volunteer hours. Maybe we should be using a different word for the people who need to get paid in order to keep doing this.
https://akko.erincandescent.net/objects/4e4c1368-59b8-4223-8b4b-3278314b737c

If you are okay installing a script manager for your browser, and you use the gmail web interface, here is a userscript that renders TeX in your emails. Anything supported by KaTeX works, apparently.

https://github.com/LoganJFisher/LaTeX-for-Gmail

Scholars: what you trying in order to organize & support networks of community among emerging scholars?

Today across the extended CAT Lab network, we had a revealing conversation; gradstudents reported that microblogging platforms exposed them to risk/harassment with little reward, that they were unsure how to find peers & community elsewhere, aside from becoming an "influencer," which only some found palatable.

Are you seeing the same? What can we do about this?

If you happen to live in the United States, the consumer credit reporting bureau Experian is easily the shittiest company you will deal with as long as you have heartbeat. IRS? Hahaha. Experian will take your privacy and security. Seriously.

I just sometimes don't think I can do enough to call attention to the barbaric practices of Experian when it comes to letting their hapless and often reluctant "customers" manage their relationship with the Mother Ship.

I pointed out like 3 years ago that if you're a US citizen and you have instructed Experian to "freeze" your credit file so that ID thieves and other ne'er-do-wells can't just apply as you for credit wherever, that designation means absolutely squat because Experian will happily let anyone "become" you if they can supply your name, address, DOB, SSN and can successfully guess or answer 3 out of 4 multiple guess questions based entirely on public information.

This is still the case. I received an email this morning from another victim who had their freeze reversed at Experian.

Past reporting

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/07/experian-you-have-some-explaining-to-do/

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/11/its-still-easy-for-anyone-to-become-you-at-experian/

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/01/experian-glitch-exposing-credit-files-lasted-47-days/

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/01/identity-thieves-bypassed-experian-security-to-view-credit-reports/

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/04/experian-api-exposed-credit-scores-of-most-americans/

I'm happy to announce that as of next week I'm taking up a new position as full professor at IT:U (https://it-u.at)!

IT:U is a brand new public university in Linz, Austria 🇦🇹, that focuses on interdisciplinarity.

At IT:U I'll be heading the “Inverse Complexity Lab” (https://skewed.de/tiago), focusing on inverse problems in network science and complex systems.

I'll be searching for a post-doc very soon (stay tuned!), and there will be many PhD openings next year.

It has been a pleasure to have been part of DNDS at CEU for the past 5 years! It's a wonderful department, with many colleagues that I will surely miss. (Keep your eyes open for a possible opening there!🤞)

Friendly warning for those seeking to fill out the UNESCO survey "Consultation on a Global Diamond Open Access Framework" ... it takes a long long time to fill out if you're trying to answer each question properly :S

Like, schedule at least 30-45mins for yourself to get it done!

#OpenScience #OpenAccess

One of the best things I've bought in the last years, is this foldaway electric water cooker. Recommded by other academic folks back on old twitter (the good old times!), it's a life saver in hotels in Spain or Germany which do not have tea facilities.

In other news: it's 8 AM and I'm writing an overdue reference letter... But at least I've got coffee and tea.

#AcademicChatter

A fascinating read about implementing a solver for quadratic equations. Floating point arithmetic makes it incredibely hard to get it right. Clearly, IEEE 754 is the result of evolution, it could not have been designed.

https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-04116310/document

it's just occurred to me that maybe my attitude of "i don't want to ever see an advert for anything, ever, and if i do, i consider it a patronizing, unsolicited attack on my free will, and i will forever have a negative opinion of the company and try to make a point of actively avoiding the product from that day onward purely out of spite", maybe that attitude isn't actually as mainstream or normal as i think it is

The new Georgia election-night ballot counting law is ill-advised for many reasons (it will create chaos, solves no actual problems, and creates a logistic nightmare to implement this late in the game, for starters). But the thing that bothers me the most is that it will put ground-level election workers - who were already viciously targeted in 2020 - in the spotlight and at the center of partisan disputes.

We need to do better by these dedicated public servants.

Arrests made after $243 million stolen from one individual in Gemini phishing attack

September 19, 2024
https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=gemini-phishing-attack

They stole my voice with AI

Elecrow—an electronics company that makes Pi and ESP accessories—used an AI voice for multiple tutorial series which sounds _almost exactly_ like me.

I never consented to have my voice used to promote Elecrow's products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMofZIT9FcQ

I'm teaching my mom to play video games (first time ever) and she is STRESSED

@polotek at some point I think I saw a mastodon developer say that the reason my Mastodon client can't just fetch the missing replies from the host instance is for privacy reasons (so that the instance can't see my IP address)

I thought that was interesting but I'm not so concerned about privacy and would prefer the convenience of my client just fetching the replies