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Joined 2Y ago
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Cake day: Mar 14, 2023

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So the whole thing about FOSS is that at its core, someone could add malicious features or whatever to a codebase, but it can be discovered if people notice adverse effects and dig into it.

Like that one supply chain attack by “Jia Tan” on xz tools, that was quite nefarious, well planned and executed, yet some nerd noticed a slightly longer than normal response time and looked into it (a gross simplification, some luck might have been involved but you get the point). If it were a closed-source proprietary tool, the owners would shrug their shoulders and gaslight people into believing it’s nothing.

That’s why people make a fuss about binary blobs in FOSS code, if anything unwanted was happening, it could always be from there.

My personal level of checking is ensuring that I have gone to the correct official source, but I will generally have to trust the builder that was linked from that source did not modify or inject anything.


Read your credit card agreement. Does it have a number to call, email address or mailing address to post to to opt-out of information sharing of purchase information with 3rd parties? I opted out with my latest card.


And here I am waiting for Sup to be released by an adrenaline-filled code-junkie from Grand Prairie, Alberta…


It’s Lisa looking at a sign that reads:

“Keep Out”

“Or Enter. I’m a sign, not a cop.”


Yeah I was trying to summarize in a word how the linked comment used it, the developer was not talking badly of trans people per se, but was critical of how their group and the cause to express their identity is being misused by the ruling class. I imply that it could be transphobia, but I’m not certain if it is, even if I understand why it would be an upsetting and hurtful take for some. If there’s a better way to describe this succinctly with a more respectful framing, I’m open to alternatives.


Is the pinkwashing part when I use this opinion as an example of questioning transgenderism? I don’t personally have a problem with the opinion highlighted, but again I do not speak for everyone, and I understand not everyone would agree. The point of using this example is not about the opinion itself but what that disagreement should extend to.


Can you elaborate on what you mean by my pinkwashing attempt?

note: I clarified my previous comment that was missing a word.


Precisely. And this is much in the same way coming from the CEO and Proton official accounts. Republicans use Proton, just as much as Democrats. Until I see evidence that Andy Yen’s misguided philosophy leaks into Proton’s offering itself (and not just their PR channels), I’m willing to give benefit of doubt. Part of it seems to be not wanting to get on the wrong side of their leaders. As a reminder, these are the leaders that have been given a blank cheque from both voters and the justice system to do whatever they please with dissidents.


I get you. It’s important to remember there is nuance on topics/people you agree and disagree with, rather than jumping to “is against transgenderism”, or “agrees with Republicans on everything”.

Like you say, actions will speak louder than words. The further the Proton team can put their product and governance away from these opinions the better. The transition to non-profit structure is a positive step in that regard.

edit: forgot an important word in my comment


Biden’s pick Lina Khan deserves all the credit for aggressively prosecuting anti-competitive practices. However, Gina Slater looks like someone capable of continuing that work and a legitimate admirer of Lina Khan. Yes there are ties to Vance and the FTC office is likely to end up beholden to the egomaniac in chief. So the whole “little man” thing aside (that’s baloney), that’s one person that’s not a shit stain out of all the shit stains in the incoming cabinet.

Look Lemmy, you’re welcome to choose what you want in your life and what you don’t. But being too rigid with letting stupid opinions of a project’s founder cause you to reject everything, would have you miss the big-picture benefits of having such a project exist. If you look at this Lemmy development co-leader’s opinions on transgenderism, are you going to stop using this software that lets you converse on an LGBTQ+ safe-space instance with no involvement on a social level from said developer/founder?


You’re absolutely right. GeForce Now IMO is a shitty service and I wouldn’t use it, but I’m glad it’s available for those that want to play R6Siege, Valorant, Fortnite etc.


“Hear me out – I was only taught what the nest is made of, and how it feels on my feet!”

  • the pigeon

Hence I put that part of the comment with my tinfoil hat on, the world is out to get me specifically, trying to masquerade a well-publicized “security feature” as a backdoor to spy on whoever they please, when they could just as easily put unpublicized vulnerabilities elsewhere.

Yeah, if you can’t trust any of the CPU vendors, then you can’t trust desktop computers at all. Or you’d put a Faraday cage around your home or something to keep the internet out.

Also, cybercriminals simply can hide in countries where enforcement is lax to non-existent. Even if you break American or European rules, all American or European officers can do is their best to block them from their own countries’ services or tap the shoulder of the apparent source countries’ leaders, or in rare cases, dispatch a covert unit to intervene directly.


If you’re paranoid, install a new drive, reflash/update the motherboard bios, clear the boot picture (a proof of concept rootkit storage vector was there), factory reset the motherboard, clean install an OS, install software from trusted sources only, don’t let any stranger use your PC without you watching, take extra steps to encrypt your drive, and finally securely limiting privelege escalation to what you explicitly authorize. You’d be in the clear against 9999/10000 of attacks (I have no citation for this figure). You’d have to be super important, like a diplomat, tax chief, Microsoft IT director or small country royalty or something if you are to be targeted through an old ThinkPad.

(Tinfoil hat time)

Are you trying to evade info-stealing hackers, or the feds? From feds you’re somewhat out of luck, Intel ME and AMD PSP, in conspiracy-speak are kinda like government backdoors, closed source, undocumented, with huge control over a processor. AMD example intel example. Apple hardware is no better, you had better hope they haven’t conveniently slipped up and left an arbitrary read write endpoint in the software.

(Tinfoil hat off)

Assess your risk and threat level and take appropriate mitigation measures. The vast majority of exploited vulnerabilities will be through social engineering rather than software, and then software rather than hardware. The lowest hanging fruit is when there are open, easily accessible connections from the internet, software that can be exploited to freely escalate privilege, a user unwittingly leaking a secure credential, or physical access to a device by someone knowledgeable.


In fact, I have one! And for its size (20-inch wheels and foldable) it can fit a lot!

E-bike


That’s why I’ll take bus, train, rideshare, carshare, plane with all the cameras and tracking over cars. Modern cars can build a personal digital profile of you, they know where you travel, they track your plate, and we found out they track your driving behaviour to screw with your insurance rates.


Pitched in 100 words! Definitely some open source swiping keyboard gesture databases would be helpful for everyone.


Done. Glad they have a checkbox calling out Denuvo DRM as a dealbreaker.


You know when you go grocery shopping you take from the back of the shelf or bin? Just like Bucky.


Well, as you may be aware, banks like getting money.

Taking money from their customers through banking fees and interest on both deposits and loans isn’t enough for the banks and credit card issuers. So they sell credit card and loan usage information to whoever will pay for it, and these credit monitoring companies will, to keep a file on you (tied to your SSN/SIN). They know how many loan accounts and how long you’ve had them for, how often you pay your loan bill on time vs. not, what % of your credit limit you tend to use each month, and when you go shopping for new loans (since loan agencies will request your file from them to determine whether you are trustworthy enough).


If I wear boots, sneakers, sandals, hiking shoes sometimes I wonder if it will be enough to throw it off? How distinctly will it be able to tell from millions of gait patterns? Sure it may work foolproof for a set of 100 even intentionally trying to vary things, but how similar will the gait of Roberto Ramirez be to himself the next week or to the hundreds of thousands of people going past an area over a year?


Now you’ve got 9th world problems.


[flipping through meme glossary]

There’s nothing wrong with it. There are dozens of us! DOZENS!


No one person/company/entity can know everything about me.

Well, they could, but the price would be high and I suppose I’d end up dating someone who went through that level of effort to know me anyway. :P


Ok. Just wanted to make sure the info is relevant to you.

If you have any connections to the IT departments of colleges or your work, see when they do overhauls of laptops and if you can be sold any surplus. They will be not amazing but solid performers, tend to have decent compatibility and a good deal usually. Watch out for Chromebooks as they might be a little harder to configure than your standard.

Use your local online classified (craigslist, kijiji, FB marketplace etc.). You will have to arrange pickup and payment 1 to 1, quality may vary but you will get a decent deal. Test for boot up to a login screen at minimum before you buy, and when you get it check that the speakers/headphones, other hardware actually works before installing something new and wondering if it was functional to begin with.

Avoid Bestbuy, Newegg, Amazon as they are way overpriced for what you can get through these other methods. Warranty is the main advantage, but I’d suggest Microcenter or to support your local computer shop if you go this way.

Stuff like ebay may work, quality could be decent but unless you can spot an amazing deal, prices are only a little bit better than buying from a retailer.


What country/geographic region are you in? I have Canada and US specific sites about what sites and stores are good, what are overpriced.

You should be able to get Linux running on most laptops, whether every feature will work (camera, fingerprint sensor, audio, dedicated video card) can be a crapshoot but I’ve heard it’s gotten better on the software side in recent years, just use Ventoy and distrohop until you find one that works. Trying to use a Nvidia laptop graphics card is a huge pain in the ass, I’ll warn you in advance.

Old ThinkPads are a solid choice if you can scrounge one wherever you are.


Check what environmental variables and launch options Lutris is using, and if stuff like gamemoderun is being used, which can help with performance a little or a lot depending on your hardware.


Yeah, getting the dedicated graphics card and other peripherals on laptop to work is one step more difficult than on desktops.




Other nerdy version of the meme, I whipped up on falstad’s circuit simulator:


For me more often it goes like this:

Friend: Wanna play [game]?

Me: sure. launches game

Friend: Alright the game lobby’s ready, come and join it.

Me: (Processing vulkan shaders, 2%) I’ll be there in a bit, it’s taking a while to start.


Is the “Emulate a virtual desktop” option gone? That is the one I usually set for games that really misbehave in full screen and have a terrible/non-existent borderless window mode.

If you don’t see it in Lutris settings, use the Launch winecfg option in Lutris after selecting the game.


It’s all fine, they have another set of billions of files as copies so they can safely remove the original collections.


Isn’t it great when the US’ FTC does something other than lick corporate boot?


It’s just an aggregation site, how can it grow in value?

Supposedly in Reddit finance there’s something called the “Anarchy Chess/Ewan gambit”. If you post one grain of rice, and double it each time you reach a threshold you can farm near-infinite updoots! Probably works the same with money, idk.


I noticed from the beginning that Lemmy’s default comment sorting improves visibility of a variety of comments including newer ones. Gee, I wonder who could have helped make it that way ;)

Over the years I ended up getting a Reddit habit of replying to one of the top comments so that it could attain some visibility. I still do sometimes but less often on Lemmy.



There’s more: this Monday, November 13, 2023 at 10:00am PT, the Rules Committee of the Board of Supervisors will meet to discuss upcoming ballot measures, including this awful policing and surveillance ballot measure. You can watch the Rules Committee meeting here, and most importantly, the live feed will tell you how to call in and give public comment. Tell the Board’s Rules Committee that police should not have free reign to deploy dangerous and untested surveillance technologies in San Francisco.


crossposted from !socialism@beehaw.org San Franciscans, get the word out for this ballot measure to be held March 5, 2024, to prevent police from playing around with surveillance technology for a year before they need to report it.
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Got this from a post on the alien site. From previous discussion on Lemmy it sounded like Linux users had good things to say about this game but were discouraged about the upcoming FaceIt implementation such that they wouldn't be able to join anticheat enabled matches. Those users and Linux gamers on the fence would probably appreciate hearing this news. With this announcement on the dev team's community Discord, it appears Linux users will NOT lose access to matches with anticheat. Source: https://discord.com/channels/303681520202285057/345616096470237186/1129780379218358282 (BattleBit Remastered official Discord server)
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An explosive new lawsuit claims TikTok’s owner built a ‘backdoor’ that allowed the CCP to access US
> - ByteDance allowed a Chinese Communist Party unit to censor content and access data, a new lawsuit alleges. > - The unit, referred to as the "Committee," even had a "death switch" to turn off certain apps. > - ByteDance built a "backdoor channel" to enable CCP access to US user data, the suit alleges. I hope this app gets picked apart and investigated thoroughly. If the claims in the lawsuit are true, then it will have confirmed what probably a lot of privacy minded people have long been suspecting.
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