Notices by Bálint Szilakszi (szbalint@x0r.be)

The feeling when I realised that some unmaintained code that I've abandoned ten years ago is in several cisco devices and used by some Oracle proprietary systems:

:over18:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/68.0/releasenotes/

The new Firefox 68 release notes are quite educational:

- They added a bunch of extension quality features: clearer permissions, recommended extensions program, reporting. THIS IS WHAT CHROME SHOULD HAVE DONE!
- cryptomining and fingerprint protections
- WebRender rolling out to more users by default
- camera and microphone access requiring HTTPS

Firefox is really making the case for being the browser that has its users best interest at heart.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-messenger.html

Facebook is rolling messaging between WhatsApp Instagram and Facebook messenger into one.

While they claim to add end-to-end encryption (let's see about that), the silent part is about profiles, contact lists and access.

Internally, the founders of WhatsApp left over this and employees are rebelling. That tells you a lot about how user-hostile these changes will be.

Zuck wants more data. #DeleteWhatsApp.

https://myaccount.google.com/purchases

If you didn't yet know, Google is datamining GMail etc for purchase confirmation emails amongst other things and aggregating it for their own purposes in an extremely detailed way.

(Everything you purchased with order ids, detailed billing details, VAT, including subscriptions etc)

Do not believe a single word about how this information is kept private. There is zero reason to build a system to aggregate this and then not use it to make money out of.

An instance is best when it's like the borg. A hive-mind where everyone speaks with one voice, dissent is nonexistent and there is a single unifying will projecting a

REIGN O̭͈͙̟̝͕̼̼͎͐̒̊̓͂̽̋͡F̹͙͕̜̗̠͐̒̈͐̔͝͝ TERROR O̵͎̮͕̗̣̺̽̿͐̅͜͞ͅṾ̨̧̘͈̳̹͔̐͒̉̂́́͂͌͞͠ͅE̸͍͈͖̦̮͎̟͇̳̐̌͌̒͘͟Ŗ̝͓̺̜̙̤̗͍̀͋́͗̎̽̌̾ T̡̻͖̳͙̾̅͌̄͘͢H̵̢̢̹̫͖͐̊͐̄̚͟͝E̸̘̯͔͎̙̟͊̊̂̆͜͞͠ G̶̢̢̼̥̭͆̋̆̓͆̒̃̿͡A̶̡̨̛͉̭͖̻͔̼̺̔̒͐͐͌̊̆͜͞L͈̹̭̺͈͐̋̾͋̓̐Ā̵̧͉̥̖̰̼̃͌̅͑̔̿̄͗͘ͅX̵̧̖̤̫̻͔̉̋̌̐͛̂͐Y̰̭̙͇̭̥͗̎̀̽̇́̅͊͝

Oh wait.

Instances mainly matter for stability/moderation/trust purposes. A slightly (or wildly) different codebase and performance is an added benefit or difference.

When you're starting out it is hard to imagine that by following people across the fediverse you really are interacting with everyone.

I created lists for low frequency but interesting posters, my home timeline is so full of activity.

So many sites do:

“Here are cookie, advertising, tracking policies. Here is an OK button.”

After not clicking the ok button but attempting to continue:

“You must agree to our tracking policy”

That is explicitly not allowed/illegal under GDPR.

American companies including the Washington Post really have a damn hard time wrapping their head around that an agreement means you can decline to agree to it, and GDRP says refusing to be tracked is not grounds for a site to refuse service.

Oh great, friday evening 🍿: tmobile austria is storing all user passwords as plaintext and people started to hack into their web frontend running a 2.6.x series kernel last updated in 2011.

Of course people on twitter are dogpiling on the company atm, but wow what a shitshow

Public transport doesn’t have to be bad.

In Vienna it costs 365 eur for a yearly pass, for five metro lines with a bunch of S-bahn local trains, dozens of tram and a hundred bus lines.

They are mostly clean, on time, metro goes during the night on weekends.

I don’t own a car here.

Looks like WPA2 has it's own RNG...which is faulty as designed. Oh joy.

Details are supposed to be out tomorrow, but supposedly this allows wi-fi content decryption, content injection, connection hijacking. https://twitter.com/kennwhite/status/919522184384729089