George Mari @GeorgeMari@social.cleverlibre.org

And just to add on to this: I think what's happening at Twitter is such an eye opening thing. To see how fragile and kind of bankrupt things have been, and then to look at something like this and realize it actually doesn't have to be that way. If you've ever left a job that makes you miserable and found one you love, that's the feeling of Mastodon to me. Like, "oh wait I didn't have to feel bad for no reason." It's a breakthrough for me about how to think about the next version of the internet.

Thanksgiving often brings up one of the central dilemmas in my life — trying to find a better balance between work and family.

Finding a better balance? I’d been kidding myself into thinking there was one. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/thanksgiving-thoughts-my-family-leave#details

*opens your fridge and sees 2% milk* hey bro you should charge your milk

This is an old project, but by some miracle it's still working and I woke up this morning wanting to celebrate the things I love more.

This Inkplate e-ink screen shows Conway's Game of Life, seeded from tarpits I have on the Internet. The tarpits are programs on my computer that superficially look like insecure Telnet and Remote Desktop services, but actually exist to respond super slowly and make bots scanning the Internet 'get stuck'.

When a bot connects to the tarpit, the data it sends gets squished into a 5x5 grid and 'stamped' onto a Game of Life board. Data from a bot at the IP address 1.1.x.x will get stamped on the top left corner, data from a bot at 254.254.x.x will get stamped on the bottom right corner.

Conway's Game of Life, a set of simple rules that govern whether cells should turn on or off, updates the display once per second. The result is that bot attacks end up appearing as distinct 'creatures', that get bigger and more angry looking over time (as their centre is updated with new data). After the attack finishes, the 'creature' eventually burns itself out.

Despite that description, it's a really chill piece of art that doesn't draw too much attention but I can happily watch for a long time.

Credit for the idea goes to @_mattata, I had been wanting to make a real-life version of XKCD #350 for years before seeing his Botnet Fishbowl project.

#projects #inkplate #esp32 #eink #infosec #tarpit

Both #Google and #Apple will soon be facing an uncomfortable and crucial inflection point, brought about by Elon's #Twitter.

The terms of service for both firms' mobile app stores prohibit hate speech and a variety of other kinds of toxic speech that are rapidly becoming the norm on Twitter under Musk, and that (judging from his continuing statements) could soon become the majority of posts on the platform.

While it is arguable how well both Apple and Google have handled apps up to now that catered to the far right end of the political spectrum from day one, Twitter is a different case, since it has had (at least up to now) a much broader spectrum of users who by and large are not as tolerant of the kinds of speech on which most users of those other platforms thrive. The same can be said of most advertisers, many of whom have already paused their Twitter ad buys out of concerns regarding Musk's behavior and actions. Yet another factor is EU regulations that specifically prohibit much of the kinds of speech that Musk is now gleefully inviting back onto the platform.

The situation is complicated by many firms and municipalities using Twitter for important announcements, but as Twitter skews toward catering to fascism these entities would be wise to plan for other communications channels as soon as possible.

More imminently, it is likely that both Google and Apple, along with various of Twitter's infrastructure providers (some of whom, reportedly, haven't been paid for bills that preceded Elon's coronation), will be under pressure to reassess their participation in an increasingly toxic Twitter ecosystem. In the cases of Apple and Google, the calls for them to enforce their Terms of Service as written can only be ignored at the firms' own peril over time.

This will be an ethical test on a grand scale. We will all be watching. -L

Hello Mastodon.

I am looking for new PhD students to come work with me at the Oxford Internet Institute in 22/23 (@oiioxford) to study the future of data privacy and digital rights, the impact of AI and algorithms on digital platforms, and help co-create better digital futures.

Boosts very much appreciated! 🐘

Oh dear. I've just been informed that collecting the names of every person on the planet for my naughty and nice lists is, and I quote, “a significant and wholly irresponsible breach of #GDPR “.
I'm going to hand out about 8 billion consent forms soon. If you could all get them back to me ASAP that would be appreciated.

Boost this toot if you're planning on sticking around Mastodon whether or not it becomes more popular than the birdsite.

I think the shift by the general public to Mastodon may be historically significant beyond just social media because it's a shift away from centralization and back towards distributed services. I'm hoping this trend continues in general for Internet services.

Wish I had started separating #likes from #bookmarks here a while ago. I’ve lost some toots I would have saved had I realized at the time that they’re two different things.

#introduction
I'm a reporter at ProPublica. I favor the Oxford comma, but our style guide does not, so I am perpetually frustrated, which I believe is a requirement of this job.

I co-wrote the story that was the basis for the Netflix series, "Unbelievable." I've done some radio stuff and written the occasional book.

I mostly do investigative stories with a narrative bent -- like this one, just published, written with Raquel Rutledge of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
https://www.propublica.org/article/milwaukee-fire-brunner-belen-landlord-tenant

Join a webinar with our partner from Spain @Danysoft [in Spanish language] on November 23rd, 16:00 CET.

Agenda will cover:

💻 Nextcloud Hub demo
🆕 What's new is Nextcloud Hub 3
🚀 Advantages of the Enterprise version
❔ Q&A

Sign up here:
https://nextcloud.com/blog/introduction-nextcloud-hub-danysoft-2/

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Max Headroom signal broadcast intrusion.

1st incident lasted 25s during the sportscast on the 9PM news on WGN-TV; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who.

Video: https://youtu.be/oqgeM6rWSkw

Never forget 11/22/87.

New work setup

So I’m a science nerd. But now I’m not part of a university I've been completely cut off from the scientific community. Journals are behind paywalls and conferences are way too expensive for me to attend! Why is it so difficult to do independent science?