Links May 2024 (late)

June 1, 2024 | etbe

VoltageDivide has an interesting article on Unconventional Uses of FPGAs [1]. Tagline – Every sensor is a temperature sensor, nearly everything is a resistor or a conductor if you try hard enough and anything is an antenna. Datasheets are just a suggestion, and finally, often we pretend things are ideal, when they often are not.

Interesting blog post about the way npm modules that depend on everything exposed flaws in the entire npm system [2]. The conclusion should have included “use a fake name for doing unusual tests”.

Krebs on Security has an interesting article about MFA bombing [3]. Looks like Apple has some flaws in their MFA system, other companies developing MFA should learn from this.

Joey wrote an informative blog post about the Vultr hosting company wanting to extract data from VMs run for clients to train ML [4]. If your email is stored on such a VM it could be “generated” by an AI system.

John Goerzen wrote an interesting post looking at the causes of the xz issue from a high level [5].

Interesting article about self proclaimed Autistic pro-natalists [6]. They seem somewhat abusive to their kids and are happy to associate with neo-Nazis. :(

Joey Hess wrote an interesting blog post about the possibility of further undiscovered attacks on xz [7]. Going back to an earlier version seems like a good idea.

The Guardian has an interesting article about Amazon’s 2 pizza rule and the way the company is structured [8]. It’s interesting how they did it, but we really need to have it broken up via anti-trust legislation.

John Goerzen wrote an informative post about Facebook censorship and why we should all move to Mastodon [9]. Facebook needs to be broken up under anti-trust laws.

Kobold Letters is an attack on HTML email that results in the visual representation of email changing when it is forwarded. [10]. You could have the original email hide some sections which are revealed with the recipient forwards it for a CEO impersonation attack.

Links April 2024

April 30, 2024 | etbe

Ron Garret wrote an insightful refutation to 2nd amendment arguments [1].

Interesting article from the UK about British Gas losing a civil suit about bill collecting techniques that are harassment [2]. This should be a criminal offence investigated by the police and prosecuted by the CPS.

David Brin wrote a new version of his essay about dealing with blackmail in the US political system [3].

Cory Doctorow gave an insightful lecture about Enshittification for the Transmediale festival in Berlin [4]. This link has video and a transcript, I read the transcript.

The Cut has an insightful article by a journalist who gave $50k in cash to a scammer and compares the scam to techniques used to extort false confessions [5].

Truth Dig has an informative article about how Nick Bostrom is racist and how his advocacy of eugenics influences Effective Altruism and a lot of Silicon Valley [6].

Bruce Scneier and Nathan Sanders wrote an insightful article about the problems with a frontier slogan for AI development [7].

Brian Krebs wrote an informative article about the links between Chinese APT companies and the Chinese government [8].

[1] https://tinyurl.com/2cyrnulm
[2] https://tinyurl.com/24bfy2x7
[3] https://tinyurl.com/277o2wt3
[4] https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/
[5] https://tinyurl.com/27sl85ml
[6] https://tinyurl.com/25vtw89m
[7] https://tinyurl.com/26m7h9ro
[8] https://tinyurl.com/2ajjetba

Links March 2024

March 31, 2024 | etbe

Bruce Schneier wrote an interesting blog post about his workshop on reimagining democracy and the unusual way he structured it [1]. It would be fun to have a security conference run like that!

Matthias write an informative blog post about Wayland “Wayland really breaks things… Just for now” which links to a blog debate about the utility of Wayland [2]. Wayland seems pretty good to me.

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article about the AI bubble comparing it to previous bubbles [3].

Charles Stross wrote an insightful analysis of the implications if the UK brought back military conscription [4]. Looks like the era of large armies is over.

Charles Stross wrote an informative blog post about the Worldcon in China, covering issues of vote rigging for location, government censorship vs awards, and business opportunities [5].

The Paris Review has an interesting article about speaking to the CIA’s Creative Writing Group [6]. It doesn’t explain why they have a creative writing group that has some sort of semi-official sanction.

LongNow has an insightful article about the threats to biodiversity in food crops and the threat that poses to humans [7].

Bruce Schneier and Albert Fox Cahn wrote an interesting article about the impacts of chatbots on human discourse [8]. If it makes people speak more precisely then that would be great for all Autistic people!

[1] https://tinyurl.com/yppnule7
[2] https://tinyurl.com/ytcxrvug
[3] https://tinyurl.com/23ds5phd
[4] https://tinyurl.com/2268krpg
[5] https://tinyurl.com/26kr4tb7
[6] https://tinyurl.com/yr75h7uk
[7] https://longnow.org/ideas/to-save-it-eat-it/
[8] https://tinyurl.com/ywwhshor

Links February 2024

February 29, 2024 | etbe

In 2018 Charles Stross wrote an insightful blog post Dude You Broke the Future [1]. It covers AI in both fiction and fact and corporations (the real AIs) and the horrifying things they can do right now.

LongNow has an interesting article about the concept of the Magnum Opus [2]. As an aside I’ve been working on SE Linux for 22 years.

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article about the incentives for enshittification of the Internet and how economic issues and regulations shape that [3].

CCC has a lot of great talks, and this talk from the latest CCC about the Triangulation talk on an attak on Kaspersky iPhones is particularly epic [4].

GoodCar is an online sales site for electric cars in Australia [5].

Ulrike wrote an insightful blog post about how the reliance on volunteer work in the FOSS community hurts diversity [6].

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article about The Internet’s Original Sin which is misuse of copyright law [7]. He advocates for using copyright strictly for it’s intended purpose and creating other laws for privacy, labor rights, etc.

David Brin wrote an interesting article on neoteny and sexual selection in humans [8].

37C3 has an interesting lecture about software licensing for a circular economy which includes environmental savings from better code [9]. Now they track efficiency in KDE bug reports!

Links January 2024

January 28, 2024 | etbe

Long Now has an insightful article about domestication that considers whether humans have evolved to want to control nature [1].

The OMG Elite hacker cable is an interesting device [2]. A Wifi device in a USB cable to allow remote control and monitoring of data transfer, including remote keyboard control and sniffing. Pity that USB-C cables have chips in them so you can’t use a spark to remove unwanted chips from modern cables.

David Brin’s blog post The core goal of tyrants: The “Red-Caesar” Cult and a restored era of The Great Man has some insightful points about authoritarianism [3].

Ron Garret wrote an interesting argument against Christianity [4], and a follow-up titled Why I Don’t Believe in Jesus [5]. He has a link to a well written article about the different theologies of Jesus and Paul [6].

Dimitri John Ledkov wrote an interesting blog post about how they reduced disk space for Ubuntu kernel packages and RAM for the initramfs phase of boot [7]. I hope this gets copied to Debian soon.

Joey Hess wrote an interesting blog post about trying to make LLM systems produce bad code if trained on his code without permission [8].

Arstechnica has an interesting summary of research into the security of fingerprint sensors [9]. Not surprising that the products of the 3 vendors that supply almost all PC fingerprint readers are easy to compromise.

Bruce Schneier wrote an insightful blog post about how AI will allow mass spying (as opposed to mass surveillance) [10].

ZDnet has an informative article How to Write Better ChatGPT Prompts in 5 Steps [11]. I sent this to a bunch of my relatives.

AbortRetryFail has an interesting article about the Itanic Saga [12]. Erberus sounds interesting, maybe VLIW designs could give a good ration of instructions to power – unlike the Itanium which was notorious for being power hungry.

Bruce Schneier wrote an insightful article about AI and Trust [13]. We really need laws controlling these things!

David Brin wrote an interesting blog post on the obsession with historical cycles [14].

[1] http://tinyurl.com/2xf9wb9k
[2] http://tinyurl.com/2m82ajju
[3] http://tinyurl.com/yrjp5la6
[4] http://tinyurl.com/ytdb24xm
[5] http://tinyurl.com/2x6b7wbd
[6] https://doctrine.org/jesus-vs-paul
[7] http://tinyurl.com/yp3xqtr3
[8] https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/attribution_armored_code/
[9] http://tinyurl.com/ywus4o47
[10] http://tinyurl.com/ypzkjyfv
[11] http://tinyurl.com/yp6ldxlr
[12] https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-itanic-saga
[13] http://tinyurl.com/yqh9wbfj
[14] http://tinyurl.com/ylue4svh

Links December 2023

December 21, 2023 | etbe

David Brin wrote an insightful blog post about the latest round of UFO delusion [1]. There aren’t a heap of scientists secretly working on UFOs.

David Brin wrote an informative and insightful blog post about rich doomsday preppers who want to destroy democracy [2].

Cory Doctorow wrote an interesting article about how ChatGPT helps people write letters and how that decreases the value of the letter [3]. What can we do to show that letters mean something? Hand deliver them? Pay someone to hand deliver them? Cory concentrates on legal letters and petitions but this can apply to other things too.

David Brin wrote an informative blog post about billionaires prepping for disaster – and causing the disaster [4].

David Brin wrote an insightful Wired article about ways of dealing with potential rogue AIs [5].

David Brin has an interesting take on government funded science [6].

Bruce Schneier wrote an insightful article about AI Risks which is worth reading [7].

Ximion wrote a great blog post about how tp use AppStream metadata to indicate what type of hardware/environment is required to use an app [8]. This is great for the recent use of Debian on phones and can provide real benefits for more traditional uses (like all those servers that accidentally got LibreOffice etc installed). Also for Convergence it will be good to have the app launcher take note of this, when your phone isn’t connected to a dock there’s no point offering to launch apps that require a full desktop screen.

Russ Albery wrote an interesting summary of the book Going Infinite about the Sam Bankman-Fried FTX fiasco [9]. That summary really makes Sam sound Autistic.

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article Microincentives and Enshittification explaining why Google search has to suck [10].

Charles Stross posted the text of a lecture he gave titles “We’re Sorry We Created the Torment Nexus [11] about sci-fi ideas that shouldn’t be implemented.

The Daily WTF has many stories of corporate computer stupidity, but The White Appliphant is one of the most epic [12].

The Verge has an informative article on new laws in the US and the EU to give a “right to repair” and how this explains the sudden change to 7 year support for Pixel phones [13].

Links November 2023

November 30, 2023 | etbe

The Long Now has an insightful article about air quality [1].

Every country needs food labelling laws like Mexico has [2]. Also we need to abolish the investor state tribunals, companies should just accept local laws and obey them – or be treated in the same way as pirates on the high seas.

Ian Jackson wrote a good post about conference policies regarding Covid19 [3]. We really need to do more about this, conservatives like to imagine that it’s gone away but people are still getting sick and dying of it.

John Goerzen wrote an informative article about “air gaps” and ways they can be part of a useful and usable security system [4].

This YouTube video has a good introduction to LLMs (Large Languge Models) for machine learning [5].

This eye tracker is interesting technology [6]. The video shows it being used for MS Flight Simulator but it can be used for other things. Unfortunately the price of about $550 Australian puts it out of range of a lot of free software work. I think this would be good for tracking the user FOR THEIR BENEFIT so that notifications won’t be delivered when the user is concentrating.

This ABC article about the risk of a past Covid19 infection exacerbating or accelerating Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s is a worry [7].

Sam Hartman wrote an insightful blog post about AI safety, consent, and discussions of sex [8].

Links October 2023

October 31, 2023 | etbe

The Daily Kos has an interesting article about a new more effective method of desalination [1].

Here is a video of a crazy guy zapping things with 100 car batteries [2]. This is sonmething you should avoid if you want to die of natural causes. Does dying while making a science video count for a Darwin Award?

A Hacker News comment has an interesting explanation of Unix signals [3].

Interesting documentary on the rise of mega corporations [4]. We need to split up Google, Facebook, and Amazon ASAP. Also every phone platform should have competing app stores.

Dave Taht gave an interesting LCA lecture about Internet congestion control [5]. He also referenced a web site about projects to alleviate the buffer bloat problem [6].

This tiny event based sensor is an interesting product [7]. It could lead to some interesting (but possibly invasive) technological developments in phones.

Tara Barnett’s Everything Open lecture Swiss Army GLAM had some interesting ideas for community software development [8]. Having lots of small programs communicating with APIs is an interesting way to get people into development.

Actually Hardcore Overclocking has an interesting youtube video about the differences between x8 and x14 DDR4 DIMMs [9].

Interesting YouTube video from someone who helped the Kurds defend against Turkey about how war tunnels work [10]. He makes a strong case that the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip won’t be easy or pleasant.

Links September 2023

September 30, 2023 | etbe

Interesting article in Wired about adversarial attacks on ML systems to get them to do things that they are explicitely programmed not to do such as describe how to make illegal drugs [1]. The most interesting part of this is that the attacks work on most GPT systems which is probably due to the similar data used to train them.

Vice has an interesting article about the Danish “Synthetic Party”, a political partyled by an AI [2]. Citizens can vote for candidates who will try to get laws passed that match the AI generated goals, there is no option of voting for an AI character. The policies they are advocating for are designed to appeal to the 20% of Danes who don’t vote. They are also trying to inspire similar parties in other countries. I think this has the potential to improve democracy.

Vice reports that in 2021 a man tried to assasinate the Queen of England with inspiration from Star Wars and an AI chat bot [3]. While someone who wants to be a real-life Sith is probably going to end up doing something bad we still don’t want to have chat bots encourage it.

Bruce Schneier wrote an interesting article about milestones for AI involvement in the political process [4].

Sam Varghese wrote an interesting article about the allegations that India is following the example of Saudi Arabia and assasinating people in other countries who disagree with their government [5]. We need to stop this.

Ian Jackson wrote an interesting blog post advocating that DKIM PRIVATE keys be rotated and PUBLISHED [6]. The idea is that if a hostile party gets access to the mailbox of someone who received private email from you then in the normal DKIM setup of keys never changing they can prove that the email is authentic when they leak it. While if you mail server publishes the old keys as Ian advocates then the hostile party can’t prove that you sent the email in question as anyone could have forged a signature. Anything that involves publishing a private key gets an immediate negative reaction but I can’t fault the logic here.

Links August 2023

August 31, 2023 | etbe

This is an interesting idea from Bruce Schneier, an “AI Dividend” paid to every person for their contributions to the input of ML systems [1]. We can’t determine who’s input was most used so sharing the money equally seems fair. It could end up as yet another justification for a Universal Basic Income.

The Long Now foundation has an insightful article about preserving digital data [2]. It covers the history of lost data and the new challenges archivists face with proprietary file formats.

Tesla gets fined for having special “Elon mode” [3], turns out that being a billionaire isn’t an exemption from road safety legislation.

Wired has an interesting article about the Olympics Destroyer malware that Russia used to attack the 2018 Olympics [4].

Wired has an interesting article about Marcus Hutchins, how he prevented a serious bot attack and how he had a history in crime when he was a teenager [5]. It’s good to see that some people can reform.

The IEEE has a long and informative article about what needs to be done to transition to electric cars [6]. It’s a lot of work and we should try and do it as fast as possible.

Linux Tech Tips has an interesting video about a new cooling system for laptops (and similar use cases for moving tens of watts from a thin space) [7]. This isn’t going to be useful for servers or desktops as big heavy heatsinks work well for them. But for something to put on top of a laptop CPU or to have several of them connected to a laptop CPU by heat pipes it could be very useful. The technology of piezo electric cooling devices is interesting on it’s own, I expect we will see more of that in future.

etbe – Russell Coker

Linux, politics, and other interesting things

Category Archives: Links