Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Microsoft and its 722 advertising/spying partners would like you to use the new Outlook web software. https://www.ghacks.net/2024/01/12/proton-mail-says-that-the-new-outlook-app-for-windows-is-microsofts-new-data-collection-service/

If you're in Europe you can say no easily. If you're not, good luck.

if you've taken a weekend-long shot of "open source library security is bad", here's a "closed-source cloud security is a wreck" palate cleanser for you:
https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/112204031649314161

Huh, what do you know - Microsoft's been found to be broadly incompetent and dishonest about it, too... https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/02/microsoft-cyber-china-hack-report/

Just to clarify things a bit, so people understand the scale of this...

As of today, I've discovered and reported vulnerabilities in court platforms from eleven(!) separate vendors, with another in a records request platform by one of the same vendors.

There are a large number of vulnerabilities in four(?) more platforms from some of those same vendors that will be reported this weekend.

The consequences of these vulnerabilities are exceptionally severe. I'll avoid the need for a content warning by saying that some of the documents that are available are life-threatening and some involve children; a reply to this post will have such a content warning.

There is a dire need for publicity of this knowledge, so that people can protect themselves, vendors can be held accountable, and real change can be made to solve these systemic problems.

It's still shocking to me that so many people and organizations turn down covering this story or outright ignore me. I've been told several times to call a reporter once it's being actively exploited. If you've been in the industry for very long (as they have), you know that we must assume, with or without direct evidence, that if we've found something -- trivially, I'll add -- that somebody else more nefarious already has as well, and will be abusing it to the fullest.

The western evangelical money going into homophobic laws all over Africa isn't discussed enough.

"Who organised this summit of hate? The World Congress of Families (WCF), an elite international network led by US & Russian ultra-conservatives and best known for publicly & militantly opposing LGBT rights and abortion – though its members are also against contraception, comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), divorce, single mothers and multi-generational households."

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/god-has-a-new-africa-undercover-in-a-us-led-anti-lgbt-hate-movement/

Goodbye Craig Maloney @craigmaloney
Blog post: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1021/goodbye-craig-maloney

@BjornW

@Mer__edith was making the point that the quietly abusive nature of Jia Tan's interactions with Lassie Collin, which would have faced a healthy rebuke in other cultural groups, was able to guilt-trip the poor M.Collin in a moment of weakness because such entitled demands on FOSS devs/maintainers are alas quite common, and sometimes (too often) validated by other persons intervening in public FOSS discussions, to the extent that it takes a lot of mental energy to deny them.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/a-country-is-not-a-company-and-a-prime-minister-is-not-a-ceo-chloe-swarbrick/3USXRUBPIZERJDH2EJ73RIFUKY/

In 2024, 40 years on from the 1984 Rogernomics reforms, it’s time for an economy that serves both people and the planet - not the other way around.

#nzpol

Anyone looking for someone to do some web content management work for them?

Kim just finished a Datascape Do It Online form-building contract with Kapiti District Council and is looking for more of the same.

Umbraco, Wordpress, Drupal, forms, Datascape, etc. Remote work, contract or ad hoc. Message me.

“This [proposal] turns the City of Atlanta into an open-air prison for everyone on electronic monitoring,” EFF’s @cooperq told the Atlanta Community Press Collective. https://atlpresscollective.com/2024/04/01/atlanta-police-foundation-pushed-unprecedented-surveillance-plan/

Are you experienced with GTK and Rust ? ❤️

We are looking to contract someone to work on the new GNOME Password Manager 🔑

We want it to become a core/default app and help secure millions of users.

You'll be working with the GNOME Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to building emancipatory technologies for everyone.

Please send resume / portfolio to stf@gnome.org

Boosts welcome

#GTK #Rust #rustlang #GNOME #Linux #Ubuntu #Linux #Fedora #OpenSUSE #Debian

“This is really just a high-tech way of gathering intelligence on people exercising their First Amendment rights under the pretext of public safety: it snoops on everyone, regardless of any connection to a crime,” EFF’s Dave Maass told the @WIExaminer. https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2024/04/02/milwaukee-police-seek-open-source-intelligence-tool-for-rnc/

just a PSA to anyone going to watch the eclipse, The American Astronomical Society says under no circumstances should you buy glasses from Amazon https://aas.org/press/american-astronomical-society-warns-counterfeit-fake-eclipse-glasses

Here's a fun AI story: a security researcher noticed that large companies' AI-authored source-code repeatedly referenced a nonexistent library (an AI "hallucination"), so he created a (defanged) malicious library with that name and uploaded it, and thousands of developers automatically downloaded and incorporated it as they compiled the code:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/

1/

Over the last couple of weeks we migrated Karrot over to @Codeberg - GitHub had been feeling a less and less fitting home for the project.

So our new code home 🏠 is https://codeberg.org/karrot/

We also took the opportunity to refine our release process, so now our container-first releases are over here https://codeberg.org/karrot/karrot/releases - being built using Codebergs CI.

Here's to our bright new Codeberg future! ✨

March 31 was already significant to me because that's day in 1998 when I helped #Netscape Navigator become #OpenSource.

Now this day has a whole new meaning for me as a #transgender woman. And it's my first #TransDayOfVisibility that I celebrate publicly since coming out to everyone on June 21 of last year.

To all my #trans siblings, I see you. Even if complete visibility isn't possible for you right now. You still matter. You're still loved. And you're still trans. Never doubt that. 🏳️‍⚧️🫂💖

Hello #Forgejo admins

We've published a post regarding the impact of the xz backdoor (CVE-2024-3094) on the Forgejo project.
https://forgejo.org/2024-03-xz/

#xz #cve20243094

It's fine to have inconsequential kinks. Positioning, spacing, indentation...

But not everyone is into the same stuff. So if you want someone else to participate in them, make it as easy as possible to adjust. Nobody enjoys repetitive, thoughtless manipulation.

Even (or especially) if there's money involved, do you want me to waste my time on something a machine could do?

...

PLEASE, if you enforce a coding style, GIVE ME A FREAKING LINTER.

#coding #programming #OpenSource #contributing

Allowing private businesses’ Terms of Service to dictate our Fourth Amendment rights is absurd and impracticable. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/eff-asks-oregon-supreme-court-not-limit-fourth-amendemtn-rights-based-terms

Hey funders,

You know you could just... give... the money... to projects that need it. Like software libraries that ARE IN EVERYTHING.

No grants. Don't make tech nerds write grants.
Don't make the tech nerds hire grant nerds to write grants.

FFS don't fund research into this problem with a budget of double what it would take to SOLVE THE PROBLEM for a significant number of open source projects with code that is, again, IN EVERYTHING.

#xz