Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one
Joined Aug 2019
@gildilinie @IzzyOnDroid VT aka Virustotal is a company owned by Google.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Wow – pure SnakeOil, those so-called anti-virus or anti-malware scanners! "we are unable to proceed with the whitelisting request unless the application is available on the Google Play Store"?!? WTF?!? 🤯
And yes, that's part of a real response a dev got.
So they claim: your app is malware, as long as it is not at Google Play. I'd say we've heard it the other way around, too…
@neil It is clear that lots of people expect a clear answer on LLM code from F-Droid, and I think it is always good to get our user-first perspective out there. At the very least, we should be discussing this more. I would love to engage fully in this discussion. I'm pretty buried these days keeping other parts of F-Droid going, so for the time being, I'll have to mostly cheer from the sidelines.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Idly pondering as to whether I might suggest to F-Droid that it considers adopting an explicit LLM policy, for both the F-Droid project's own codebase, and for apps to be included in F-Droid's own curated app repository.
Anyone can run their own app repository for F-Droid, so if an app doesn't meet F-Droid's inclusion criteria, the developer can still distribute it. There is added friction, of course, since each user must add the third party repo.
Or someone could run and maintain a "pro-LLM" repo, which could be used to distributed multiple slopcoded apps, if someone so wanted.
(Pondering triggered by NLnet's https://nlnetlabs.nl/llm-policy/)
Hey Northern #Europe, welcome to #hot summers! Here are some simple things that I do which really help, which are common practice in hot climates:
* Drink lots of water, really, lots. Careful, alcohol will work against you.
* Close all your windows and curtains in the midday heat. Insulation works both ways, keeping the heat in or out.
* Open all the windows and curtains at night, if its cooler outside.
This is probably enough to avoid buying #AirConditioning, and helps keep cool even with AC
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Public records confirm that the Austrian Ministry of the Interior bought Webloc, a geolocation mass surveillance system based on data from mobile apps and digital advertising = almost certainly illegal under the GDPR.
Austria is now - after Hungary - the second EU state known to use such a system.
https://mastodon.social/@wchr/116817729453918994
One good outcome of all this #AI #hype, particularly around #Anthropic #Mythos, is that it is establishing the idea the #technology can be harmful and there are times when society should control its release. We should build on this precedent and work towards firmly establishing the idea that our communities should be able to manage the technology they use, and work towards minimizing the harms.
@openalt is there another Central European Open Source Policy Forum planned for 2026? I'd love to join. I couldn't find any info about future editions.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Leaked audio from Accenture says a big source of AI token ‘chewing’ is people just converting PDFs to presentation slides.
It seems somehow perfectly fitting that #influencers are being replaced by #AI. I guess those who want to be plugged into #TheMatrix are taking the next logical step on that path.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Whether here on our Mastodon server, or on ATproto with new W profile 👉 @ec.europa.eu – we look forward to staying connected with you.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
If European response to US big tech is trying to replicate it, we have already lost.
A) Copy is rarely better than the original.
B) US big tech fucking sucks. Why would you like to be like that?
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
💳 Who should decide what content is acceptable online? Banks?
In TRANSACTION DENIED, author Rainey Reitman joins Annalee Newitz to discuss why content moderation decisions shouldn't be made by financial institutions. 💵💷💴
As banks, payment processors, and credit card networks gain influence over who can participate online, questions of speech become questions of financial power. ⚖️
🎧 Listen & subscribe to the Future Knowledge #podcast ⤵️
https://futureknowledge.transistor.fm/episodes/transaction-denied
The #LLM approach to #AI is famous for needing vast amounts of data. Web programming is where LLMs excel because #bots can scrape all the websites out there, on top of ingesting all the code in #GitHub, etc. This vast pool of web code that has fed the big AI companies #models includes the 95% of startups that have failed, the supply chain #security nightmare that is #npm, and other gems. For other key dev platforms, there isn't this vast pool available to LLMs
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
We're temporarily pausing the bimonthly open calls with the exception of #NGI Taler & Fediversity. We'll be taking stock of a decade of Next Generation Internet. After the summer the application process will re-open with 3 new programs under the Open Internet Stack (OIS) umbrella.
Ongoing projects are not affected and can continue their important work of providing the building blocks for an open, resilient, and secure internet for all.
https://nlnet.nl/news/2026/20260612-NGIZero-stocktaking.html
#NGI0 #OIS #fossfunding #FOSS
This reminds of me a bit about how email changed the work place. Yeah, I'm old, I worked in offices before we had email there. At first, email was a great improvement, but then came the tsunami of emails. It was so easy to send, people started sending far too many. Then everyone is drowning in it, wiping away most of the productivity gains.
In my minimal experience coding with #AI, it is clear to me that #botsitting work is really draining. There are so many other boring things I'd rather be doing, and they don't take much of my energy. So there does seem to be some small #productivity gains from using AI, it would end up making my quality of life worse. So I'll happily stick to getting in the zone, and just rolling with the boilerplate, refactoring chores, etc. until I see these tools make me happier
https://www.glean.com/work-ai-institute/reports/work-ai-index-report
@Gina Interesting read! Reports like this are always valuable to read to see the status quo of FOSS alternatives. They also highlight how important it is to represent the limitations and issues well, and to target users that we can actually serve right now. The users that try the alternatives and find it too hard are not likely to come back any time soon. So then we've lost them.
It turns out that Switzerland has the most F-Droid users per capita.
Grüß Gott!
Hier spricht Steiner.
Ich hätte gern...
Danke schön!
Schönen Tag noch!
Auf wiederhören!
So the #iPhone could be part of the solution for #ClimateChange! The wealthy of the world all get them, then have a fewer kids, and therefore fewer top #consumers in the world 😜 https://www.theregister.com/personal-tech/2026/06/09/study-links-iphone-rollout-to-decline-in-us-birth-rates/5253138
Joined Aug 2019
