@pbarker@social.afront.org
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

pbarker

@pbarker@social.afront.org

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pbarker, to programming
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

Never, ever write the words:

"I'm planning to send [the next version of my patches] in the next hour or so, assuming my tests pass."

This is actually a magic spell which will cause your tests to immediately fail with a NULL pointer dereference.

#LinuxKernel #Programming

pbarker, to opensource
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

Bash/zsh tip: ! is a valid character in an alias. I use it to mark aliases which run under sudo, for example on my Debian box I have:

alias e!="sudo ${EDITOR}"
alias a!="sudo apt"
alias s!="sudo systemctl"
alias in!="sudo apt install"

... and a few others.

#OpenSource #Linux #Bash #ZSH

revk, to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

Monmouthshire have to be going for some sort of record here!!!

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@revk Our waste doesn't seem to get collected unless it's on the pavement (blocking it of course) or on the very edge of our property. If it's more than a few cm down our driveway it seems to just be ignored - I'm not joking, we had 4 weeks where the bins weren't collected and they were maybe 30cm from the edge of the drive. It's stupid.

(Edit: 30cm not 30m. I could forgive them if they were 30m away!)

pbarker, to opensource
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

A bold statement from Dirk Mueller on the OpenSUSE blog:

"Debian, as well as the other affected distributions like openSUSE are carrying a significant amount of downstream-only patches to essential open-source projects, like in this case OpenSSH. With hindsight, that should be another Heartbleed-level learning for the work of the distributions. These patches built the essential steps to embed the backdoor, and do not have the scrutiny that they likely would have received by the respective upstream maintainers. Whether you trust Linus Law or not, it was not even given a chance to chime in here. Upstream did not fail on the users, distributions failed on upstream and their users here."

https://news.opensuse.org/2024/04/12/learn-from-the-xz-backdoor/

Floppy, (edited ) to random
@Floppy@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Anyone know a standard encoding scheme for binary data to alphabetical strings using only lowercase consonants?

I want to generate non-numeric IDs but avoid making real words, so cutting out the vowels seems the the best approach.

I could just make something up like convert it to hex, and then make b=0, c=1, d=2, f=3, g=4 etc, but is there anything standard?

EDIT: We have a winner, @pbarker pointed me at https://sqids.org which will do the job nicely!

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@Floppy What size of binary data are we talking about?

If it's just for encoding numeric IDs into strings you could look at sqids (https://sqids.org/) with a custom alphabet.

pbarker, to opensource
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

This, from the naive and innocent days of just under a month ago, is worth re-reading in light of the xz backdoor:

"In essence, having a lot of dependencies results in two problems. The first is the burden problem, where each added dependency requires extra effort. That manifests in tasks such as keeping up to date with dependencies, but also requires extra work for downstream users like people packaging the project for a Linux distribution.

The second problem is a trust problem: each additional dependency is another team to trust and another codebase to validate. This trust problem is especially important to sudo-rs. As a setuid program meant for elevating privileges, all code that is compiled into sudo-rs has the potential to accidentally (or intentionally) give access to system resources to people who should not have that access. The setuid context additionally puts some constraints on how code is executed, and dependencies might not have accounted for that context. We could not expect any of our dependencies to take into account such a context either."

https://www.memorysafety.org/blog/reducing-dependencies-in-sudo/

#OpenSource #XZ #Security

pbarker, to opensource
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

If you still want to read more about the xz backdoor, I highly recommend these two posts from Russ Cox:

"The xz attack shell script" - https://research.swtch.com/xz-script

"Timeline of the xz open source attack" - https://research.swtch.com/xz-timeline

#xz #OpenSource #Security

eb, to security
@eb@social.coop avatar

Unfolding now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39865810

An incredibly technically complex in xz (potentially also in libarchive and elsewhere) was just discovered. This backdoor has been quietly implemented over years, with the assistance of a wide array of subtly interconnected accounts:

The timeline on this is going to take so long to unravel

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@brainwane I dropped you a follow because I am very interested in reading a critique like that when it is published!

exador23, to random
@exador23@m.ai6yr.org avatar

seems legit.

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@mansr @revk @exador23 this makes me miss the days when https://wathifi.com/ was updated regularly with new forms of audiophool bullshit.

ross, to random
@ross@hachyderm.io avatar

Can anyone recommend a podcast on Norse mythology that isn’t two guys sitting around and talking about their Christmas shopping for an hour? Something with a script and production values.

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@ross I would also devour something like this.

Different subjects, but I highly recommend the British History Podcast, the History of Rome Podcast and the Fall of Civilizations Podcast.

pbarker, to twitter
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

Blog post #ShoutOut: Save your Twitter Account by @eff

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/save-your-twitter-account

"Amid reports that X—the site formerly known as Twitter—is dropping in value, hindering how people use the site, and engaging in controversial account removals, it has never been more precarious to rely on the site as a historical record. So, it’s important for individuals to act now and save what they can."

If you have a Twitter account and care about any of your data over there, go grab a copy of it while you still can.

#Twitter

andypiper, to random
@andypiper@macaw.social avatar

Bizarrely (?), it seems that most of the local councils in the UK have entirely different methods and sites for providing information about refuse collection dates to their residents. Fortunately, there's a GitHub project working to create a simpler API across them (albeit with a ton of different adapters)... https://github.com/robbrad/UKBinCollectionData

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@andypiper Bins? Collected? Surely you jest!

(The bin collection calendar here seems to be a vague suggestion rather than something that's actually followed. And if your bin is more than half an inch onto your property it doesn't get collected)

zip, to random
@zip@wandering.shop avatar

the year is 2024. A bunch of music has fallen out of copyright, but you can’t actually use it because none of the automated enforcement systems know that

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@zip it's disgusting. Looking at the DMCA (since it's US law that's dictating a lot of this), a false complaint is perjury. You can't get out of that with the excuse that you automated your perjury and so it's not your fault. Yet there's never any consequences on any of this.

pbarker, to RSS
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

I'm want to start shouting out good blog posts & articles here... Starting with this one:

"Why your blog still needs RSS" by @amoroso
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/why-your-blog-still-needs-rss

I completely agree with this sentiment - I now read most things via RSS feeds.

The main thing I need in addition to RSS is discoverability - how do I find interesting blogs & articles. I have a nasty habit of checking Hacker News, even though I know it's a trash fire.

So feel free to share good blogs & articles on here, perhaps in doing so you'll save me from HN.

#RSS #blogging

mansr, to random
@mansr@society.oftrolls.com avatar

Use doors HOW?

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@mansr @hedders you may only enter if you cartwheel through the door. Bonus points if the door is closed and you kick it open on the way round.

Private
pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@stina_marie @horror Straight in with one of my favourite films!

kernellogger, (edited ) to linux
@kernellogger@fosstodon.org avatar

#Bcachefs was about to hit #linux-next (a pre-requisite for mainline inclusion[1]), but missing Signed-off-by lines got in between:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230911125359.5a61d30a@canb.auug.org.au/ #kernel #LinuxKernel

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=wjUX287gJCKDXUY02Wpot1n0VkjQk-PmDOmrsrEfwPfPg@mail.gmail.com/

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@kernellogger this just re-enforces that a period in linux-next is needed here. I'm excited to try out bcachefs once it hits mainline, but I'd much rather wait and have it done right.

astrid, to random
@astrid@fedi.astrid.tech avatar

monogamy implies the existence of stereogamy and 5.1gamy

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@astrid and if you're really perverted, Dolby Atmosgamy.

neil, to random

The coronation of King Charles takes place next Saturday.

After this date, banknotes showing the queen will no longer be valid.

You're probably hearing this for the first time and panicking a bit, but don't worry.

Just post your old notes to me, along with a stamped, self-addressed, envelope, and I will exchange them for you.

pbarker,
@pbarker@social.afront.org avatar

@neil A true public servant.

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