@internic@qoto.org
@internic@qoto.org avatar

internic

@internic@qoto.org

Theoretical physicist by training (PhD in quantum open systems/quantum information), University lecturer for a bit, and currently paying the bills as an engineer working in optical communication (implementation) and quantum communication (concepts), though still pursuing a little science on the side. I'm interested in physics and math, of course, but I enjoy learning about really any area of science, philosophy, and many other academic areas as well. My biggest other interest is hiking and generally being out in nature.

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

Ericlaw, to random
@Ericlaw@mastodon.social avatar

Tip: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's Web Content Filtering has an option to block traffic to newly-registered domains.

Vaporize a category of spear-phishers in their tracks.

internic,
@internic@qoto.org avatar

@Ericlaw I believe you can get some similar functionality with NextDNS based on discussion by @henry on @techlore. Obviously that doesn't block all traffic, just DNS resolution, but that's probably enough in many cases.

justyourluck, to random
@justyourluck@masto.ai avatar

Oh wow.

Well this is a new one.

I've never been gaslit quite like this before 😱

Earlier I read a post in r/Covid19positive... OP tested positive 5 days ago (their THIRD infection) and wanted to know if they were "clear to fly" on an airplane.

There were responses pleading with her not to fly and spread #Covid, that karma was a bitch, that they needed to rest, etc and she countered every single one of them.

So I stated that per Delta's... 1/

#CovidIsNotOver #LongCovid

internic,
@internic@qoto.org avatar

@justyourluck I'm curious, I've struggled to find good, up-to-date statistics giving best estimates for the likelihood of different long-term effects of Covid (of most interest to me are organ damage and cognitive effects). Most of what I have found is just aggregate rates for "long Covid" with heterogeneous definitions of what that means and lumping together really serious impacts with much less severe ones. Do you have suggestions of where to find good numbers?

vicgrinberg, to academia
@vicgrinberg@mastodon.social avatar

No, I cannot rank this student among their class (I have not taught classes at this institution!) & I cannot compare them as "2nd in 10"or similar among the master students I supervised: I supervised folks at three different institutions & systems in two different countries plus every one has their strength and weaknesses, there is no order from best to worst.

My reference letter will tell you nothing and you are wasting everyone's time because of your stupid form 😬

#AcademicChatter #Academia

internic,
@internic@qoto.org avatar

@franco_vazza Worse yet, presumably they're really asking about percentile within some larger parent distribution (e.g. students with this degree/specialty), so even with 20 students you probably can't say this particular student is in the top 5% of the parent distribution with much confidence (unless you assume the parent distribution has a known functional form determined by a small number of parameters).

On the other hand, in a Bayesian mindset you could assume that recommenders already have (from being a student and other interactions with students) a prior distribution, and advising students just allows them to refine their posterior distribution. Of course, even under this assumption, then they should logically ask you some questions to determine how well informed your posterior distribution is.

Regardless of all that, I think @vicgrinberg hit the key objection, that the potential of a student isn't a one-dimensional distribution, so such a ranking doesn't even make sense. Also, i don't actually buy that people have an accurate prior for the distribution of student capabilities, and I think that all such fuzzy judgements are highly subject to unconscious bias.

Not that I have a magic prescription for how to evaluate people, but I do think that stating things in such mathematical terms probably just serves to mislead by creating the illusion of objectivity and precision.

idoubtit, to random
@idoubtit@mstdn.social avatar

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    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @idoubtit Another option is muting the person for a given duration (a nice Mastodon feature) assuming you like most of what they post aside from the occasional sportsball commentary. @CStamp

    idoubtit, to random
    @idoubtit@mstdn.social avatar

    I’m done following @nytimes

    I’ve had enough. What a reputation lost.

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @idoubtit What was the final straw?

    albertcardona, to random
    @albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

    This season of family gatherings is a great moment to persuade your relatives to install the Signal App @signalapp in their phones as a way to get your photos of the events. Then setup a family group chat with them all so that there's a reason to start and then continue using it.

    That's one path to wean them off whatsapp and even worse messenger apps. At the very least your own communications within the family will happen outside those privacy nightmarish ever-hungry gargantuan for-profit corporations.

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @steveroyle @albertcardona @signalapp I honestly have been loathe to try because of certain behaviors of Signal (such as other devices frequently coming unlinked and conversation histories not showing up on other devices) that degrade the user experience, presumably in favor of greater security. If it allowed one to tune some of those behaviors to fit the user's own view of the trade-offs it would make it easier to sell folks on, I think. Of course, I recognize that means extra development work.
    @steveroyle @signalapp

    idoubtit, to mastodon
    @idoubtit@mstdn.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @idoubtit You might want to also had the hashtag Firefox, but I won't do it in case you intensionally omitted it.

    LinuxAndYarn, to blackfriday
    @LinuxAndYarn@mastodon.social avatar

    I now it's Buy Nothing Day, but VersoBooks.com is having an 80% off all #Ebooks sale, including Miss Major Speaks and @pluralistic 's The Internet Con for $2 each.

    Meanwhile, the 800 pound kindlezilla has @rfkuang 's Yellowface for $3.99 and The Poppy War for $1.99, so I'm making exceptions. They also have Eliot Page's Pageboy for $3.99 and Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother for $2.99.

    #Bookstodon #BlackFriday

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    I've been wanting to get a copy of The Internet Con, so this is interesting, but @pluralistic do you get a bigger cut if we buy it via the link on your website?

    https://craphound.com/internetcon/

    Or is it all basically equivalent?

    I'm sure you'd rather people read it than not read it and buy it than not buy it, so I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people using the sale, but I am curious for myself.

    @LinuxAndYarn

    rwg, to mastodon
    @rwg@aoir.social avatar

    Hey, fellow #Mastodon (and #fediverse) #admins:

    I am working on my book about the fedi and would like to get a sense of what it costs to run your server per month.

    Anyone willing to share numbers? (Feel free to do it via DM if you don't want it public). Please let me know your instance and how much it costs.

    Boosts welcome!

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @rwg @freemo not sure if you want to comment on #qoto

    internic, to RSS
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    I was interested in the NewsFlash #RSS reader, until I saw that installing the FlatPack required 3.6 GB, whereas installing Liferea required about 3 MB. I assume this is a #FlatPack issue rather than NewsFlash being bloated. It was funny, since an article mentioned their slimmed down code base. In related news, if people have RSS feed readers they really like using on #Linux I'm open to suggestions. Some way of syncing across devices (including Android) would be a plus.

    hacks4pancakes, to random

    I legitimately think my suspension on TikTok is like, a personal attack. I have provided a government ID, screenshots of the app login. failure, and even documented proof of my phone number ownership and none of it has been adequate to prove ownership of my account and allow me access. I can’t create a new account. I can’t reset or use my existing account.

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @hacks4pancakes I'm kind of shocked that you don't get traction, since your posts seem to be alternately insightful, informative, or hilarious. @Sempf

    internic, to physics
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    I'm sad to discover that John Clauser is a climate crackpot and continuing the unfortunate tradition of physicists wading into subject areas they don't know much about, assuming they understand them, and making a fool of themselves.

    #physics #ClimateChange #ClimateScience

    (WaPo gift link)
    https://wapo.st/3R0Zpi9

    BrianJopek, to random
    @BrianJopek@mastodon.world avatar

    This fucking guy.

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @BrianJopek As someone else said, I think this would be more effective with citations (to make it clear this is not hyperbole or inaccurate paraphrase). I don't know if the original source gave such citations., but I believe these are the origins of the Trump paraphrases:

    1 and 2 appear to be taken from his Veteran's Day speech on 2023-11-11 (though he also made some overlapping remarks on Truth Social). 3 appears to be taken from a speech he gave in Cedar Rapids, IA on 2023-10-07. And 4 appears to be from a speech he gave in Hialeah, FL on 2023-11-08 (though I'm not immediately finding great information on this one).

    Of course it would be nice to pull the exact quotations from transcripts.

    mcnees, to random
    @mcnees@mastodon.social avatar

    Little mouse hanging out next to a copy of Paula Lambert’s “Cheese Lover’s Cookbook” in our neighborhood used book store.

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @mcnees I guess the bookstore needs this sign.

    https://mastodon.social/@wevebe/111363951073832351

    rebeccawatson, to random
    @rebeccawatson@mstdn.social avatar

    me to other women: "💕 you should be kinder to yourself 💕"
    me to myself while editing my videos: "I breathe too much"

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @rebeccawatson I look forward to your new, lucrative career as a "No Breathing" YouTube influencer. Just think of all the toxins you could avoid inhaling by not breathing!

    dangoodin, to random

    If a transgression by a single employee breaches your network, you're doing it wrong.

    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/no-okta-senior-management-not-an-errant-employee-caused-you-to-get-hacked/

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @dangoodin Yeah, if your system fails and your solution is "well, we'll just make sure no one ever makes a mistake again" that...isn't really a solution at all.

    I mean, I know that they did make other changes, but trying to focus on the poor judgement of the individual just to me betrays the wrong mindset.

    arstechnica, to random
    @arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

    No, Okta, senior management, not an errant employee, caused you to get hacked

    If a transgression by a single employee breaches your network, you're doing it wrong.

    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/no-okta-senior-management-not-an-errant-employee-caused-you-to-get-hacked/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @arstechnica I love that this article actually links to a #mastodon thread because of the great input from the many #infosec folks here!

    1password, to random
    @1password@1password.social avatar

    We detected suspicious activity on our Okta instance but confirmed no user data was accessed.

    Pedro Canahuati, our CTO, provides more information in a blog post, which includes our internal Okta Incident Report for additional details.

    https://blog.1password.com/okta-incident/

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @1password I'm happy to see you posting a blog post with details about the incident. Are you planning to send an email out to users as well (since presumably most do not read your blog regularly)?

    dangoodin, to random

    1Password detects “suspicious activity” in its internal Okta account

    1Password, a password manager used by millions of people and more than 100,000 businesses, said it detected suspicious activity on a company account provided by Okta, the identity and authentication service that disclosed a breach on Friday.

    “On September 29, we detected suspicious activity on our Okta instance that we use to manage our employee-facing apps,” 1Password CTO Pedro Canahuati wrote in an email. “We immediately terminated the activity, investigated, and found no compromise of user data or other sensitive systems, either employee-facing or user-facing.”

    Since then, Canahuati said, his company had been working with Okta to determine the means that the unknown attacker used to access the account. On Friday, investigators confirmed it resulted from a breach Okta reported hitting its customer support management system.

    Okta said then that a threat actor gained unauthorized access to its customer support case management system and, from there, viewed files uploaded by some Okta customers. The files the threat actor obtained in the Okta compromise comprised HTTP archive, or HAR, files, which Okta support personnel use to replicate customer browser activity during troubleshooting sessions. Among the sensitive information they store are authentication cookies and session tokens, which malicious actors can use to impersonate valid users.

    Security firm BeyondTrust said it discovered the intrusion after an attacker used valid authentication cookies in an attempt to access its Okta account. The attacker could perform “a few confined actions,” but ultimately, BeyondTrust access policy controls stopped the activity and blocked all access to the account. 1Password now becomes the second known Okta customer to be targeted in a follow-on attack.

    Monday’s statement from 1Password provided no further details about the incident, and representatives didn’t respond to questions. A report dated October 18 and shared on an internal 1Password Notion workspace said the threat actor obtained a HAR file a company IT employee had created when recently engaging with Okta support. The file contained a record of all traffic between the 1Password employee’s browser and Okta servers, including session cookies.

    https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/10/1password-detects-suspicious-activity-in-its-internal-okta-account/

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @dangoodin It sounds like the theory that it was a recorded session cookie that granted access doesn't 100% hang together because it didn't look like the relevant HAR file was accessed in the #Okta system prior to the #1Password incident. Do I understand that correctly or have I misread? If so, that seems a little disconcerting.

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @dangoodin I now realize that I was basing my remark on something from another article I read, "However, there appears to be some confusion about how 1Password was breached, as Okta claims that their logs do not show that the IT employee's HAR file was accessed until after 1Password’s security incident."

    https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/1password-discloses-security-incident-linked-to-okta-breach/

    But re-reading it now, having also read the 1Password internal report, it does appear that you (and your article) are correct.

    And yeah, we should all be grateful to
    @briankrebs for unearthing the information about the ur-hack here.

    arstechnica, to random
    @arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

    1Password detects “suspicious activity” in its internal Okta account

    1Password CTO says investigation found no compromise of user data or sensitive systems.

    https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/10/1password-detects-suspicious-activity-in-its-internal-okta-account/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @arstechnica The phrase "...the threat actor updated ... an IDP ... used to authenticate to a production environment.." in the article is tantalizingly vague. I'm guessing that there was no more detail about the nature of the "production environment" @dangoodin?

    johncarlosbaez, (edited ) to random
    @johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

    Though part of me - the worst part - would like to join the clever crowd who endlessly pontificate and interview each other, I'm held back by my intense aversion to publicly talking about:

    1. consciousness
    2. free will
    3. string theory and other theories of everything
    4. are mathematical objects real?
    5. is reality a simulation?
    6. interpretations of quantum mechanics
    7. quantum computers
    8. large language models, machine learning, AI

    and most other topics that the "digiterati", the "intellectual dark web", and other quasi-scientific talking heads enjoy bloviating about. I'd much rather curl up with a good solid book on the life cycle of lichens, or the organizational structure of car repair shops.

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @johncarlosbaez Isn't #3 something you've already written about on many occasions (or perhaps I'm misremembering)? Or do you just not want to talk about it?

    I will say that I admittedly find it silly when things like string theory are discussed on a general-interest show/podcast, since the discussion is necessarily at such a superficial/simplified level. But there are exceptions, like Sean Carroll's Mindscape, which generally takes significant time to build up discussions of prerequisites to have a bit more meat to the discussions.

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @johncarlosbaez Well, yes, I can't argue with your last point. However, it is sometimes interesting to hear people speak about these things from different points of view. But, again, it's only interesting if they're given the time to explain potentially subtle points.

    rebeccawatson, to random
    @rebeccawatson@mstdn.social avatar

    got im

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @rebeccawatson I was really hoping you'd go the Goedellan route of saying you were for that policy, so what is he going to do now. But admittedly he probably wouldn't have understood, so your way is likely better.

    pluralistic, to random
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    For a brief time this year, Amazon's bestselling "bitter lemon drink" was "Release Energy," which consisted of the harvested urine of Amazon delivery drivers, rebottled for sale by prankster in a stunt for a new doc, "":

    https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-great-amazon-heist

    If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

    https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

    1/

    internic,
    @internic@qoto.org avatar

    @pluralistic I woke up to the real danger posed by counterfeits on Amazon during the run up to the total solar eclipse in Aug. 2017, when apparently unsafe glasses were being sold there.

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/amazon-recalls-potentially-hazardous-solar-eclipse-glasses

    Amazon is not only seemingly overrun with counterfeit products with fake reviews, but they allegedly commingle inventory from different sellers who are using "Fulfillment By Amazon" (FBA) if they are ostensibly selling the same product; this would mean that you could receive a counterfeit product from seller B even when you bought from the listing of legitimate seller A if they both use FBA. After I came to understand this, I started telling anyone who would listen not to buy any product from Amazon where safety might be an issue (which it really a whole lot of products when you include things like electrical/fire safety).

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