cmars

@cmars@infosec.exchange

Open-source developer interested in security, privacy and decentralization topics in computing.

I'm here for the kitties, flowers and stigmergy.

Boost like a neuron in a hive mind. Fav like nobody's watching.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

lcamtuf, to random

deleted_by_author

    •
    cmars,

    @lcamtuf Remove the battery and use it for backup power. Convert the shell: BBQ pit smoker in the back, flat-top grill in the frunk.

    dnc, to random
    @dnc@vive.im avatar

    Not gonna lie this was so fucking good doused in mayo https://www.diningandcooking.com/1107620/not-gonna-lie-this-was-so-fucking-good-doused-in-mayo/

    cmars,

    @dnc call the police

    cmars, to NixOS

    Another drama-free and boring upgrade. Boring, reliable software is the best!

    I switched my daily driver to NixOS 2.5 years ago and let it auto upgrade. I've upgraded the same laptop since installing 21.05. The only thing I need to keep tidy is my $HOME, and for much of that, I have a .

    I find the most liberating aspect to NixOS is the ability to modify the system without fear -- there's no prior hidden state changes to reason or worry about, and you can generally roll back to the prior generation on boot if you really screw something up.

    b0rk, (edited ) to random
    @b0rk@jvns.ca avatar

    what git jargon do you find confusing? thinking of writing a blog post that explains some of git's weirder terminology: "detached HEAD state”, "fast-forward", "index/staging area/staged", “ahead of 'origin/main' by 1 commit”, etc

    (really only looking for terms that you personally find confusing, not terms that you think someone else might be confused about)

    cmars,

    @b0rk "mainline" and "parent-number", in the context of git cherry-pick

    MissingThePt, to random
    @MissingThePt@mastodon.social avatar

    Guns should only be used only as God intended: to shoot any cybertruck you encounter.

    cmars,

    @MissingThePt I don't see what the big deal is. Airsoft is a fun and safe outdoor activity with the right protective gear.

    cmars, to random

    Shadows are now scribbles on everything

    cmars, to DEFCON

    @pluralistic 's talk really got me thinking about the significance of . Could vendor interoperability policy be further integrated into FR requirements? Wouldn't that be amazing!

    https://youtu.be/rimtaSgGz_4

    SwiftOnSecurity, (edited ) to random

    Here’s a previous experimental story I wrote on autonomous cars, but as a weapon.

    ===

    Gliding along the highway, every streetlight transited across her sleeping face, iteratively illuminating every feature in the perfect light and shadow. Ann stirred, Jake grabbed her hand. "Almost home, honey." In reply she mumbled half-consciously on a reclined seat, ready for rest after their engagement party.

    Jake could see their exit, but the car was in the wrong lane. "Cordova, shift lane, far right." There was no response. He grabbed the wheel. Turning the wheel did nothing, neither the brake. Their car's drive-by-wire system was an illusion of control, and it was failing.

    Alarmed, he decided to take drastic action.
    "Cordova, cut engine." Nothing.
    "Cordova, cut gas pump." Nothing.
    "Cordova, stop car." Nothing.
    Ann woke and asked what was happening. "Nothing I do has any effect."
    Ann had an idea. "Hold the ignition button." It refused to stop the engine like the failsafes were programmed to do. It too was simply a computer designed to ask instead of command.
    The car accelerated.

    Picking up speed. 100. 120. 150. They raced ahead as highway lights above quickly dawned and set across the car's interior, as if days were becoming only moments. Panic set in. "Oh god oh god oh god." Ann reached for the door in desperation for feeling in control, knowing it would kill her to exit. It too was electric and controlled by the ECU. It did not respond.

    The throuple of humans and elective machine quickly gained on a convoy of black Suburbans.

    "Sir, car approaching from rear at high speed."
    Everyone in the car tensed.

    Probably a teen racer, but the agents guarding the Secretary of State did not take chances. "Get into delta."

    "I love you Ann"

    In moments, Jake's car positioned and expertly drove itself into the rear quarter panel of the rear Suburban, spinning it out of control in an empty urban highway corridor at 4AM.

    "LIGHT THEM UP!"
    The lead and side Suburban moved into position, lowering their windows. MP5's pounded lead into the Accord and its passengers.

    Bullets made the interior of the Accord and its windshield what could only be assumed to be red under the decay of yellow light, but the car aggressively gained on the protective detail.
    "ITS AUTONOMOUS"

    Before they could finish reloading, the Accord - undamaged by previous impact due to its lack of front engine compartment, expertly PITed its second Suburban, and came up behind the Secretary, slamming them forward.

    Darting to escape what could be an ambush on the highway ahead, the Secretary's car darted to make an exit and only barely, lead car losing traction and crashing into barriers. As the remaining Suburban drove onto the off-ramp, its tires screamed in protest on a sharp corner to city streets while trading concrete for asphalt. Moments later, the pursuer reappeared in silence, driven expertly to the edge of its performance envelope.

    > Whoum.
    The Accord tugged left and right
    > Whoum.
    as each wheel’s electric motor had its firmware
    > Whoum.
    sequentially reprogrammed over their shared CAN bus,
    > Whoum.
    safeties unlocked, and full amperage dumped into it by a software-defined battery decomposing under suicide chemistry.

    The pair of machines hurtled down an urban chute entertaining empty streets with the sound of periodic useless rearward rifle fire, each frame's suspension taking a staccato punishment through every intersection. Wet asphalt was lit red by traffic management LEDs set to give preference to cross-traffic by the AI for chance of innocent obliteration.

    Under constant acceleration, each machine's four rubber contact patches pitched and atomized water from the soaked road, displaced air degenerating into violently buffeting turbulence as speed increased beyond anything designed. These machines at their extremes couldn’t last.

    They didn’t need to.

    Compelled forward at an ungodly pitch as if moved by an angry god, the Accord hit the Secretary's vehicle again.

    His SUV, plated with armor, was top-heavy. It swerved left and right and left again. It kicked up and began to roll, at 60 mph.

    An electrical transmission pole was suddenly bent.

    Lee entered the conference room, quietly navigating through transportation company representatives, finally whispering in the suited man's ear.

    "The Secretary of State was attacked in his convoy at 4AM in Los Angeles. He's in a coma. They don't expect him to live. We need to go."

    Across the large desk, Cordova's hologram looked concerned.
    "Is something wrong, Mr. President?"

    //END

    cmars,

    @SwiftOnSecurity I heartily recommend Daemon by Daniel Suarez if you've not read it.

    gamingonlinux, to random
    @gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar

    Stop. Putting. Important. Info. In. Discord.

    Put it on the actual web, where it is searchable.

    cmars,

    @gamingonlinux

    cmars, to random

    My latest project, still a "tech preview" but starting to come to life and supports some simple demo cases. Check it out!

    https://gitlab.com/cmars232/ddcp

    DDCP (Database-to-Database Copy) replicates databases over

    It's a Git-like CLI for VLCN's CR-SQLite (https://vlcn.io), a Rust-native networking layer for reconciling database changes and an agent that publishes a database to peers.

    stux, to random
    @stux@mstdn.social avatar

    ✈️ I’m an airplane!

    cmars,

    @stux
    @SwiftOnSecurity 😏

    ifixcoinops, (edited ) to random

    A fediverse feature that'd be way better than pinned toots: go to my profile and find a sidebar with a hierarchical menu of plain ol' HTML pages that are stored on my home instance, this is where I put the actually Good Stuff.

    Easy Little Federated Websites, call it, ELFWS, think of Legolas surfing, easy to remember.

    Add a button on every toot that takes you to that user's web pages. Label it "Good Stuff" so we can acknowledge that most of what I post and boost is shite

    cmars,

    @ifixcoinops
    This captures so well, why good search results only seem to come from small online niche communities. Until they scale and get strip-mined for eyeballs and attention. Look at the long trail of dead: del.icio.us, reddit, ... ISTM only fierce skin-in-the-game moderation can overcome this entropy and eyeball exploitation. Wikimedia, hacker news (to an extent), fedi? What other communities manage it?

    thegibson, to random

    Post your fails.

    Pwn your imposter.

    cmars,

    @TheGibson
    2nd day on the job, wrote a clever little Python script that scraped factory equipment http endpoints, to try and load it all into a database.

    Little did I know the event loop on this equipment was interrupted and blocked by http requests fetching large blobs of historical data over a slow network. And that's how I shut down an entire factory floor in Asia overnight! They were cool about it but I had to promise to never do it again before they'd let my workstation back on the network.

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