What happens when every time your browser sends data to a tracker it makes a beep sound? Well, @bert_hubert did just that. And it sounds like you are listening to an old school modem. Creepy stuff! https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/tracker-beeper/
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Open on social.wildeboer.net Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
What happens when every time your browser sends data to a tracker it makes a beep sound? Well, @bert_hubert did just that. And it sounds like you are listening to an old school modem. Creepy stuff! https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/tracker-beeper/
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
Again the FOSS world has proven to be vigilant and proactive in finding bugs and backdoors, IMHO. The level of transparency is stellar, especially compared to proprietary software companies. What the FOSS world has accomplished in 24 hours after detection of the backdoor code in #xz deserves a moment of humbleness. Instead we have flamewars and armchair experts shouting that we must change everything NOW. Which would introduce even more risks. Progress is made iteratively. Learn, adapt, repeat.
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Luc
@jwildeboer You're the second person posting a sentiment like this, that I've seen, but the actual flamewars seem to elude me. Getting kinda curious what y'all are on about
Leonardo Ferreira Fontenelle
@jwildeboer reminds me of when some version of Windows had three backdoors: one accidental, another created by Microsoft for the CIA, and another one created by an infiltrated CIA agent
highvoltage
@jwildeboer Absolutely. I marvel at the prompt and efficient response by everyone involved. In the proprietary software world there would still be denial that there even is a problem.
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Robin
@jwildeboer
khaleer_art
@jwildeboer i never have understood why ppl are using bit fly instead of just giving a link.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
I donβt want an internet where 90% of traffic and electricity is wasted to make generative βAIβ and their investors happy while their energy hunger destroys our planet. I want an internet that shares knowledge for free for everyone, so we can build a better world. I donβt want a #libertarian internet β¦ *drumroll* β¦ I want a #librarian internet
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Fernando F. Mancera
@jwildeboer So what can we do to avoid this? I feel impotent, there is no possible action on my hands considering all tech companies are literally embracing generative AI.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
I am not saying that generative AI in general is wrong. Quite the opposite. Just like Machine Learning, Large Language Models can be a net positive. When they are focused and domain specific. But the #GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) approach by the big players is not helping at all.
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ave π
@jwildeboer citizen or resident: > β1. Any citizen of the [European] Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, has a right of access to documents of the institutions, subject to the principles, conditions and limits defined in this Regulation.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
Yes, #Apple will demote WebApps to bookmarks on iOS 17.4 in the EU. Yes, they claim the EU is to blame. And no, that is not true IMHO. What is right is that under the DMA (Digital Market Access) rules WebApps could become a real escape route for Apps to avoid the Apple App Store tax. So better to close that possible loophole and blame the evil EU. IMHO. Reminds me a lot of the Cookie Banner stuff. Same story. Same blame game.
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Veronica Olsen π³οΈβππ³π΄π»
@jwildeboer The Cookie Banner stuff drives me nuts. They pop these big forms in our face just to force us to click "OK" to get them to go away, and falsely blame GDPR for the mess. It's Trumpian tactics. I hope EU starts to sanction sites that does this.
Robin Jakobsson
@jwildeboer I disagree. It's a security feature. #EU is in the wrong on this one (as they were with the pointless cookie-law).
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
With βAIβ generated websites and content that are SEO optimised making it next to impossible to find real answers to even the simplest questions, it dawns on me that my weird decision to get a printed version of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica was an inspired one. We are losing access to reliable knowledge due to βAIβ and centralised, commercial services defining the web. We, the elders of the internet, look at this with fear and disgust.
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
Will Wikipedia be able to withstand the already ongoing flood of βAIβ generated content? βOn the internet no one knows you are a dogβ is an old joke/meme. But when you think about it by replacing dogs with βAIβ, where βAIβ means a small oligopoly of commercial entities with an agenda that can afford to burn tons of fossil fuel and water to run their datacenters for the training phase of models β things start to look really frightening. What we need is more H2H (Human to Human) communications.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
IMHO: #Mozilla is repeating the #OpenAI process. A growing conflict between community driven/focused products and greedy managers thinking more VC (Venture Capital) style as they become more and more decoupled from the humble origins. This conflict will explode (I mean β asking for donations while the managers take home millions has a weird smell to it) soon and money will win (again). It's really a shame in this case.
Tara Stella π·
@jwildeboer i feel is becoming more and more the case. I wonder if we can make it back to the true spirit of open source. I definitely still have it, but I feel more and more uncomfortable with sharing nowadays.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
The #SMTPSmuggling attack is being mitigated and tracked in the following CVEs: - CVE-2023-51764 postfix All three CVEs have been filed *today* by the community and NOT by SEC consult who discovered the flaw in June 2023 but decided to not share their findings with postfix, sendmail or exim. Only after they published their post on 2023-12-18, the communities have become aware and are now working hard to fix what is now more a 0day :(
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π± Ligniform :donor:β
@jwildeboer never been happier to have just finished my on-call shift. Good luck everyone in the trenches
Tony Hoyle
@jwildeboer That's awful. What possessed them to hold onto it for that long.. then release at christmas?
Momo
@jwildeboer
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
Asimovβs three (well, four) laws of robotics are not supposed to actually work. They are vehicles to create interesting literature BECAUSE they are wrong and create contradictions that lead to good books. Too bad so many techbros donβt get that.
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Skip Lacaze
@jwildeboer Put any robot with a #PositronicBrain subject to the #ThreeLaws in a room with #CaptainKirk for five minutes, and it will be a smoldering psychotic wreck when the Captain strolls off to keep his date with his latest alien babe or armada. #Asimov is no match for #Roddenberry.
Lars Lehtonen
@jwildeboer Techbros are striving shitsacks that have never read an SF book in their lives.
Adrian Morales
@jwildeboer They're not theses. They're entertainment. They're supposed to make you want to read them and not get bored. π π€
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
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vibhor π π³οΈβπ
@jwildeboer I can see him suing everyone using the unicode in future for plagiarising their trademark !
RFern
@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net the logo looks like it represents "how to chop your income in half"
DamonHD
@jwildeboer followed as a tag and boosted. I would like to join your cult and receive your newsletter.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
If some people say the #fediverse is a left-progressive project, it only shows how successful we collectively are to block the Nazis. Loads of far-right instances and users exist in the fediverse. Gab, anyone? But defederation and blocking makes that part invisible to most of us. They still exist and federate amongst themselves. ActivityPub, the protocol, is neutral. We decide what we want and not want. The fediverse is a herd of Venn diagrams, not a closed circle.
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raf
That we are capable of such coordinated action on the network is only a start. There is still lots of racism and bigotry. We should lean into our willingness to cooperate to further develop mechanisms to do so. To make coordinated action easier and more seamless
Rich Felker
@jwildeboer In my book, "the fediverse" is defined by what's actually federated, not by what speaks a protocol that would allow it to be federated if not for being blocked by everyone. So no, Gab is absolutely not part of "the fediverse".
Stan Wonn π³οΈβπ πΉ
@jwildeboer @mekkaokereke Having tried out several of the βTwitter alternativesβ over the past few months, I think that Mastodon is much less of an βecho chamberβ than the others. So I think your point is well taken.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
Renewed my free #RedHat Developer subscription for individual developers by simply logging in at https://developers.redhat.com after a year. Another year of up to 16 machines running Red Hat Enterprise Linux for free, yes, even with production workloads.
Mathieu Poussin
@jwildeboer oh I though developer licences were not to be used for production?
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
In case you want to have a better web on your machine: https://consentomatic.au.dk #Consentomatic is a browser plugin/extension that does all the clicks on these annoying consent popups for you. Not by simply clicking "accept" β by doing the opposite. Automated opt-out :)
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xaph but smaller π
@jwildeboer started using it a few days ago and I'm already up to 310 clicks saved!
OctoFloofy :Splattershot: :tower_badge: :callie_badge:
@jwildeboer oh cool, wondered how that's different from adblock until I got to the last line lol
Scott Williams π§
@jwildeboer I've started to notice a number of sites showing a message "opting out of cookies due to your browser preference" and dismissing the banner lately after checking that box in #Firefox, both on desktop and mobile.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
We call stuff we donβt understand but that entertains us βmagicβ. The best magicians are really good at misleading us, so they can surprise us and we are awed and want more. Most of their tricks are quite mundane, so we prefer to not know how they work. Thatβs current βAIβ/LLM explained, IMHO. Like a good magician it plays with our expectations. Unlike a magician in purely mechanical ways. We are awed. We think it must be more than it actually is. Thatβs my current position.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
And knowing that it IS a trick is why we love good magicians. Plot twist: Thatβs why I would say that prompt engineering is like trying to find out how the trick works without really wanting to know the trick. Because that would take the magic away.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
Tech bros love to whine about "The EU cookie policy" that simply doesn't exist the way they imagine it. All these popups are the most radical way to interpret the explicit consent demanded by regulations when sending data to a 3rd party. An ongoing provocation by the ad/tracker industry to blame their ruthless data hoarding on the EU.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
Every time you see such a cookie consent pop-up, you know you are on a website that has accepted to share your data with some data collecting entity. That they are willing to hand over parts of the page content to be filled by a 3rd party. And allow that 3rd party to aggregate and sell their visitors data to the highest bidder. So stop blaming "the EU" and ask yourself if this is the internet we want.
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
Dear @Gargron and other #Mastodon devs, can I point your attention to PR #22149 and #22150, referenced in https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/9567 which would solve a growing problem on a lot of instances where header/avatar images are effectively immutable and eating up too much storage with currently no way to do something to reduce it? PLEASE :)
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
If you, any of my dear followers, have a connection the #Mastodon devs - can you please boost? This would really help a lot of instances running on (virtual) servers with limited storage. I am now at 44 GB used just for header/avatar media on my single user instance with a 50 GB storage limit and there is no way to reduce that amount :(
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
I'm just curious. In which timeline do you spend most of your #Mastodon time? Anonymous poll
Poll
Local
140
17%
Home
592
71.8%
Federated
825 people voted. 93
11.3%
Voting ended 11 Nov 2022 at 13:50.
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Ιβ―ΚΖΟΚ
@jwildeboer It used to be local, but then my instance shut down and I had to move, and it's not the same anymore.
BOFH πΊπ¦ πΊπΈ
I spend it in #Pleroma and elsewhere because there's so much more to the #fediverse than #mastodon, why would I want to limit myself? π
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
#unpopularopinion. I am fine with Multiplatform for software being an afterthought. I develop since many years Linux only. The exponential burden of multiplatform support limits my creativity and enthusiasm. Linux is for free, so deal with it. #SorryNotSorry
Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:
Funny thing: my Toot got crossposted to Twitter, so it seems to be a specific block for mastodon.social (and maybe other instances too?) |
@jwildeboer @bert_hubert
π― Thatβs insane! ..but not really surprising.
If they were to allow that now my ipad would vibrate so much it would fall on the floor.
@jwildeboer @bert_hubert Per has written a blogpost about this very thing https://axbom.me/objects/87db3bcb-8ff4-4748-a44f-609eeab21574
@jwildeboer @bert_hubert scary...