Technology

8 months ago I prepaid an entire year subscription in order to skip the wait list for the Beeper beta testing group.

Today, I wrote the following to the development team:

I've been alpha/beta testing for decades and have enjoyed every moment starting with Gmail and Orkut.

I know that I have pre-paid for one year and I want your team to have my remaining subscription time as a donation.

I wish all of you the best and I'll spread your service, by word of mouth, amongst everyone I know that may be interested in your product.

I, personally, do not have enough chat contacts to warrant my continued subscription.

Please, delete my account with Beeper and let me know when you have done so.

Thank you again for allowing me to test your brilliant software.

And I thought I wouldn't hear anything from them and just be silently removed. But...

Eric Migicovsky wrote back:

Hi Chris, it’s Eric. Thanks for testing and working with us over the last few months! We’re sorry to see you go. Is there any chance we might be able to win you back as a user in the future? If so, it would be better for us to leave your account open, but disabled. It would be really hard to recover your account in future, and someone else might grab your username. As a thank you for your help, I would be happy to offer you free service on Beeper for life! I have already canceled your subscription so you will not be billed again, ever. - Eric

I haven't worn a wrist watch for 30 years. I'm, now, considering getting one. If it helps, I have an iMac desktop, an iPod Touch and an iPhone SE.

I do not like Firefox's default start page. Please, let us know what you believe are some of the best alternative start page setups.

Scientists have developed a laser with artificial intelligence (AI) designed to neutralise cockroaches as a new form of pest control.

The team’s experiments showed that its laser system “enables the immediate and selective neutralisation of individual insects” from a distance of up to 1.2 metres.

You certainly want to be sure to have some remote kill switch for this device, as I would not want to walk up to it to disable it if it has some malfunction. Will also be interesting to see what else it zaps by mistake… although mosquitoes would be great!

See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/science/462446-scientists-make-ai-laser-turret-for-killing-cockroaches.html

#technology #AI #cockroaches #pestcontrol

Google Camera and its post-processing algorithms undoubtedly changed the game in terms of what we expect from smartphone cameras, elevating the Google Pixels to some of the best Android phones you can buy for the camera. That’s the exact reason why Google Camera ports are so highly requested for non-Google devices. With the appropriate ported Google Camera app, you can use Google’s superior HDR+ optimization as well as their Portrait Mode on virtually any smartphone that supports the Camera2API.

See if your phone is listed for Camera2API at https://www.xda-developers.com/google-camera-port-hub/

#technology #mobile #camera #photography #googlecameraport

Big Tech wants to kill the password, with "Passkeys" being the hot, new password replacement standard on the block. Passkeys are backed by Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the FIDO Alliance, so expect to see them everywhere soon. iOS picked up the standard in version 16, and now Google is launching passkey betas on Chrome and Android.

The Passkey standard just trades cryptographic keys with the website directly. There's no need for a human to tell a password manager to generate, store, and recall a secret—that will all happen automatically, with way better secrets than what the old text box supported, and with uniqueness enforced. The downside is that, while every browser in the world supports showing that old text box, passkey support will need to be added to every web browser, every password manager, and every website. It's going to be a long journey.

Not only that, there is also talk of it being locked to a mobile device, and what about those who move across all platforms like me having an Android as well as iPhone, and a Linux and Windows desktop? I make use of apps such as Authy and Bitwarden that sync and work across all my devices. I can't use Apple's Passkey as that only works on Apple devices, and Android's one is not going to help me on Linux.

I just get this queezy feeling that Big Tech has been out to grab land as quickly as it could here for itself, and has not tried to really work openly with each other, and others, to create a truly portable solution. I want to make use of a solution that does not belong to any platform owner, and which I can use anywhere.

Problem is, Big Tech owns platforms and they end up being the majority voice. I really would have preferred cross-platform players to have had a louder voice.

See https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/google-rolls-out-beta-passkey-support-for-chrome-and-android/

#technology #passkey #passwords #authentication #BigTech

An interesting read at the linked article below. Whilst it is a given that eSIMs (and their successor) are going to happen, there are clearly some rough edges that need to be worked on. What was going to be greater freedom to switch SIMs, could end up being a bit of a lock-in with an existing eSIM ;-)

I've switched more than once between an iPhone and an Android phone, and even moved a SIM card from a mobile hotspot into a second SIM slot on an Android phone. And yes, some of these things may not be easily possible yet with eSIMs. As the author pointed out, they ended up with two phones and no cellular service at all.

See https://www.theverge.com/23412033/esim-phone-plan-device-switch-ios-android

#technology #eSIM #SIM #mobile

Yes, progress with Bluesky has been super slow (a bit like Tim Berners-Lee's Solid) but at least we now know what protocol it will use, which will help explain a bit more about what could be expected.

The AT Protocol website is still fairly sparse, but it offers three reasons the decentralized future of social might be the right one: “federated social,” which allows users to use many apps on top of one service; “algorithmic choice,” which lets them decide how that information is presented; and “portable accounts,” meaning you could move your stuff from one app to another without losing your content or social graph.

Don’t hold your breath for the app and protocol to hit your social sphere, though. Bluesky continues to move fairly slowly and is trying to do its work publicly. As Dorsey said when the project launched, “The work must be done transparently in the open, not owned by any single private corporation, furthering the open & decentralized principles of the internet.”

See https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/19/23412482/bluesky-at-protocol-decentralized-twitter-social-networks-app

#technology #Bluesky #Twitter #decentralisation #federation

Professor Kathleen Booth, one of the last of the early British computing pioneers, has died. She was 100.

In 1950, Kathleen and Andrew married, the same year that she got a PhD in applied mathematics, again from the University of London. To secure further funding for their work, the Booths again went to the Rockefeller Foundation, which provided it on condition that the APE(C)X worked with human languages as well as just mathematics. The result was a demonstration of machine translation in November 1955.

As well as building the hardware for the first machines, she wrote all the software for the ARC2 and SEC machines, in the process inventing what she called "Contracted Notation" and would later be known as assembly language.

See https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/29/kathleen_booth_obit/

#technology #programming #assemblylanguage #KathleenBooth

You can append to your existing e-mail address in various ways, and this could be pretty useful for seeing who leaked your e-mail address to spammers. For example, for your bank, give them the address myaddress+banking@gamil.com. Then, if spammers send to that address, you can quickly see where they got the e-mail address from!

I've tested it with Proton Mail, and it works in exactly the same way.

See https://lifehacker.com/your-gmail-account-has-unlimited-addresses-1849809691

#technology #email #antispam #privacy

Once your archive is on your machine, you will have a browsable HTML archive of your tweets, direct messages, and moments including media like images, videos, and GIFs. This is nice, but it also has a few flaws. For one, you can’t easily copy your Tweets somewhere else, for example, into your website because they are stored in a complex JSON structure.

But even more dangerous: your links are all still t.co links. This hides the original URL you shared and redirects all traffic over Twitter’s servers. But this is not only inconvenient, it is also dangerous. Just imagine what happens when t.co ever goes down: all URLs you ever shared are now irretrievable. And then, there are the images: all images in your archive are much smaller than the ones you originally shared, and when you click to expand them, you are taken to the Twitter website once again. So, your Twitter archive is far from being a safe, independent backup in case you want to delete your account or if Twitter ever dies completely.

But luckily, there is help in the form of a Python script called Twitter Archive Parser, a project started by Tim Hutton.

See https://matthiasott.com/notes/converting-your-twitter-archive-to-markdown

#technology #twittermigration #twitterarchive #twitter

The device, nicknamed Wi-Peep, can fly near a building and then use the inhabitants' Wi-Fi network to identify and locate all Wi-Fi-enabled devices inside in a matter of seconds.

The Wi-Peep exploits a loophole the researchers call polite Wi-Fi. Even if a network is password protected, smart devices will automatically respond to contact attempts from any device within range. The Wi-Peep sends several messages to a device as it flies and then measures the response time on each, enabling it to identify the device's location to within a meter.

"The Wi-Peep devices are like lights in the visible spectrum, and the walls are like glass," Abedi said. "Using similar technology, one could track the movements of security guards inside a bank by following the location of their phones or smartwatches. Likewise, a thief could identify the location and type of smart devices in a home, including security cameras, laptops, and smart TVs, to find a good candidate for a break-in. In addition, the device's operation via drone means that it can be used quickly and remotely without much chance of the user being detected."

This vulnerability relates to the location and type of devices, so is not about any access to your devices or network. It's great from thieves for example to see where your smart TVs are located in a home, and where the human's phone devices are presently. But it's also great for hostage rescuers to see where hostages are grouped in a bank vs others moving around.

As it is hardware related, there is no possible software patch, and we'll need to wait for newer Wi-Fi hardware devices to be rolled out.

See https://techxplore.com/news/2022-11-loophole-wi-fi-walls.html

#technology #security #privacy #wipeep #vulnerability

These days, social media gets all the attention, but the Bulletin Board System (BBS), a relic from a kinder, gentler time in computer communications, persists. Each BBS is its own retro-flavored community with messages, text-based games, and files you can download. And you can still connect to one today.

A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer-based electronic community on which its members can read and write messages, play text-based games, and download files. They originated in 1978 in Chicago, and their popularity peaked around 1995, just as the internet began to go mainstream.

Back then, this was the Internet for most people.

Today, because dial-up phone lines are scarce, and we have the internet, most BBSes utilize the Telnet protocol for connections (although some dial-up BBSes still exist). Today, the number of BBSes is rising due to a growing nostalgia for the past. The Telnet BBS Guide lists almost 800 currently active BBSes, which is more than double the amount around in 2016. Sure, you can just jump on Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit to find a community. But if you want a blast from the past, you should try a BBS.

Each BBS is a cultural pocket that’s usually insulated from the reach of Google’s indexing or viral intrusions from social media. You can’t get to a BBS through a web browser without logging in through a terminal emulator. This means, generally, you can’t reach the resources of a BBS openly from a website (although exceptions do exist).

As a result, each BBS feels like a private club that reflects the personality of the administrator, or Sysop (system operator). Each BBS is its own community. People leave messages for each other, play against each other in text-based games, and (less commonly, now) share files that are only available on that particular BBS.

See https://www.howtogeek.com/686600/remember-bbses-heres-how-you-can-visit-one-today/

#technology #retro #BBS #bulletinboard #Telnet

Germany's federal and state data protection authorities (DSK) have raised concerns about the compatibility of Microsoft 365 with data protection laws in Germany and the wider European Union.

Under the GDPR, children below the age of 13 are incapable of consenting to their data being collected, while consent may be given by those with parental responsibility for those under 16 but not younger than 13. When platforms do store data on adults, those customers are meant to be able to request the deletion of their records.

Microsoft has denied that its assessment : "We ensure that our M365 products not only meet, but often exceed, the strict EU data protection laws. Our customers in Germany and throughout the EU can continue to use M365 products without hesitation and in a legally secure manner."

That statement is not actually a categorical and clear denial of what Germany alleges. But actually my opinion is, if there is concern about any age group using this software for educational purposes, all the concepts (and use) can also be taught using open source LibreOffice and then there is no issue like this. Schools should anyway be teaching concepts and principles, that there are options out there, and to innovate around experimentation, adapting software, etc.

See https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/30/office_365_faces_more_gdpr/

#technology #GDPR #privacy #M365 #Germany

This is a complete rewrite in Rust of the UAD project, which aims to improve privacy and battery performance by removing unnecessary and obscure system apps. This can also contribute to improve security by reducing the attack surface.

Packages are as well documented as possible in order to provide a better understanding of what you can delete or not. The worst thing which could happen is removing an essential system package needed during boot causing then an unfortunate bootloop. After about 5 failed system boots, the phone will automatically reboot in recovery mode, and you'll have to perform a FACTORY RESET. So make a backup first!

In any case, you can NOT brick your device with this software!

So the app itself is not going to cause any direct damage. The issue is more around how deep the bloatware sits, and whether some part of the phone's OS really relies on that bloatware being there. But they do have debloat lists per OEM, so hopefully that means those, at least, are fairly OK to rip out.

See https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater

#technology #opensource #android #debloat

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/282116

We've posted a number of times about our increasing storage issues. We're currently at the cusp of using 80% of the 25gb we have available in the current tier for the online service we run this instance on. This has caused some issues with the server crashing in recent days.

We've been monitoring and reporting on this progress occasionally, including support requests and comments on the main lemmy instance. Of particular note, it seems that pictures tend to be the culprit when it comes to storage issues.

The last time a discussion around pict-rs came up, the following comment stuck out to me as a potential solution

Storage requirements depend entirely on the amount of images that users upload. In case of slrpnk.net, there are currently 1.6 GB of pictrs data. You can also use s3 storage, or something like sshfs to mount remote storage.

Is there anyone around who is technically proficient enough to help guide us through potential solutions using "something like sshfs" to mount remote storage? As it currently exists, our only feasible option seems to be upgrading from $6/month to $12/month to double our current storage capacity (25GB -> 50 GB) which seems like an undesirable solution.

Internet shutdowns or disruptions in connection with armed conflicts and mass demonstrations have led to people not being able to communicate or report abuses, which has caused further insecurity, violence and violations of human rights. Off.guard allows private individuals, journalists and human rights defenders to share information when and where deliberate disruptions of the occur.