Keen to meet any #fairphone 4 or 5 owners at #emf2024#emfcamp - my Fairphone 3 is creaking a little but I want to get a feel for the weight and shape of potential successor options
@Laura Replacing the USB C port on my Fairphone 3 sorted out the most annoying creak on mine but yours may be creaking differently, and if I had the chance I would also want to see what the newer ones look like. They have some cool long term security support features. 🙂
UK friends - do you have an air conditioner?
If so, which one?
There are so many different options and I don't know how to choose!
Boosts, as ever, appreciated.
(UK replies only, thanks. Not interested in fans & ice-cubes. Will be run off solar power, so I'm comfortable with the energy usage. Yes, I hate having to ward off reply-guys with these long disclaimers.)
@Edent A ground source heat pump can provide you with "free" passive cooling in the summer (if configured correctly) as it stores the heat away in the ground for use in the winter. Capital outlay is higher but if you don't already have a heat pump then it could be a good option.
@waldoj What surprises me the most is that the Bible has detailed descriptions of what bad leaders look like and how to avoid them and I think Trump matches every single one of those red flags.
I just got a complaint about my #photography posts, which I concluded came from a troll, but perhaps I’m actually coming off in a way that rubs people the wrong way here.
The complaint was that by posting high resolution images and describing in detail the processes used to create them, I’m merely “showing off” in a way that isn’t useful to most people.
I indeed do rather niche photography, using relatively esoteric gear. I think some people are interested in process and enjoy the results.
The Pixel 8 series launches with Android 14 and will get 7 years of software support, including annual OS updates, monthly security updates, and quarterly Pixel Feature Drops. This means they'll be supported till 2030.
I can't emphasize enough how big of a deal this is.
@MishaalRahman 7 years is a huge improvement in support length, but Fairphone is offering 10 years, so still a long way off the market leader in long term support.
We're all just a bunch of frogs sitting in a pot as it gently warms on the stove, too stupid or lazy or comfortable to jump out just yet. But soon to be part of the stew.
In this "enshittified" world, we don't actually own any of the things we buy. The vendor either sells all customer data up front, or what's sold is offered mainly on a subscription basis, even as they're reselling that data. Any terms, prices or promises can be changed on a dime, and your only "choice" is "okay" or not to use the thing.
This fairly describes your privacy expectations for commercial services in the USA. We are long overdue for a Privacy Bill of Rights that says quite simply, if you sell it and it actively collects and transmits data, you have to up front offer consumers the option to turn all it off. Full stop. And then respect that decision in perpetuity.
We're big supporters of the EFF, but I can't get on board with the idea that somehow it's wrong or a slippery slope for Tier 1 ISPs to be blocking Kiwifarms.
It's cheaper to buy a seat and a room supplement on the Caledonian Sleeper than it is to just book the room directly, is there any reason this is a bad idea?
@mjg59 There might be a risk of no rooms being available when you go to buy the supplement and one does not willingly travel twice in one of those seats. The rooms are nice but the seats are designed to encourage you to buy an upgrade. If you are visiting Glasgow then you would be welcome to visit Strathclyde, but I am sure you have more exciting things planned.
@cohomologyisFUN@TaliaRinger A colleague at another university was first told they were giving an introductory talk to new students 15 minutes before they were scheduled to give the talk and as they were outside and not on campus they ended up having a clown unicycle through the back of their video... Not quite as bad as your nightmare though.
We got an email from someone who was falsely accused of using ChatGPT to generate their essays.
My name is XXX I am a XXX year old XX student at XXX. I am currently being falsely accused of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) on an assignment of mine. The AI detector is used through the company "Turnitin".
I am contacting you because I am interested in discussing this subject with someone who is willing to listen.
@timnitGebru How can that university stand that up as an academic process? Turnitin's AI detector is useless as it can present no evidence that AI was actually used and is well known to have a high false positive rate. If a student at Strathclyde appealed such a broken process they would easily win. We of course have disabled as broken Turnitin's AI detector along with most (all?) UK universities.
When an app asks for permissions, the OS should not only let you answer yes or no. Every category should have a "yes, but feed the app fake data" option.
Want my contacts for no reason? Have these generated fake ones! Wanna listen to my microphone? Here's random ambiance sounds! Location? I'm on a tiny 5x5m island!
Hell yeah! Put it all in your databases mfers!
Actively punishing services wins over boycotts any day. Didn't want that junk in the database? Don't ask for it!
You know what secretly holds much of the financially-oriented cybercrime world together? It's the relatively few evil code wizards who are really good at making malware look benign. They call them cryptors, or encryptors, and their services are known as "crypting."
Crypting is a core method by which malware purveyors try to evade antivirus and security tools, and virtually all serious malware that is deployed for use in data stealing at some point needs to be crypted. Because if you're not doing stuff to obfuscate your malware before sending it out, it's probably going to mostly get caught by antivirus. So, if you're not crypting it yourself (challenging), you probably need to pay someone else to do that.
There are countless cybercriminals who've hung out their shingles as crypting service providers, but most of these people are really not very good at what they do, and are soon out of business. Still, there are a fair number of crypting services that have been around for a while and do a passable job, with somewhat unreliable results.
However, it's crazy how many different big time cybercrime outfits turn to a fairly small number of super-scary crytpers who've been doing malware a LONG time (15-20+ years).
One thing I have discovered in all my lurking on the forums is that the best cryptors are independent contractors who tend to have arrangements with multiple, often competing cybercriminal operations.
In short, if you want to really kneecap a number of cybercrime enterprises all at once, go after the top crypting service providers, and take them off the board.
@briankrebs We found something similar with the server operators holding the booster market together, but the difference between them and the crypter purveyors would be very interesting to investigate.