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  • 12 Posts
  • 360 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: March 14th, 2023

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  • Hence I put that part of the comment with my tinfoil hat on, the world is out to get me specifically, trying to masquerade a well-publicized “security feature” as a backdoor to spy on whoever they please, when they could just as easily put unpublicized vulnerabilities elsewhere.

    Yeah, if you can’t trust any of the CPU vendors, then you can’t trust desktop computers at all. Or you’d put a Faraday cage around your home or something to keep the internet out.

    Also, cybercriminals simply can hide in countries where enforcement is lax to non-existent. Even if you break American or European rules, all American or European officers can do is their best to block them from their own countries’ services or tap the shoulder of the apparent source countries’ leaders, or in rare cases, dispatch a covert unit to intervene directly.


  • If you’re paranoid, install a new drive, reflash/update the motherboard bios, clear the boot picture (a proof of concept rootkit storage vector was there), factory reset the motherboard, clean install an OS, install software from trusted sources only, don’t let any stranger use your PC without you watching, take extra steps to encrypt your drive, and finally securely limiting privelege escalation to what you explicitly authorize. You’d be in the clear against 9999/10000 of attacks (I have no citation for this figure). You’d have to be super important, like a diplomat, tax chief, Microsoft IT director or small country royalty or something if you are to be targeted through an old ThinkPad.

    (Tinfoil hat time)

    Are you trying to evade info-stealing hackers, or the feds? From feds you’re somewhat out of luck, Intel ME and AMD PSP, in conspiracy-speak are kinda like government backdoors, closed source, undocumented, with huge control over a processor. AMD example intel example. Apple hardware is no better, you had better hope they haven’t conveniently slipped up and left an arbitrary read write endpoint in the software.

    (Tinfoil hat off)

    Assess your risk and threat level and take appropriate mitigation measures. The vast majority of exploited vulnerabilities will be through social engineering rather than software, and then software rather than hardware. The lowest hanging fruit is when there are open, easily accessible connections from the internet, software that can be exploited to freely escalate privilege, a user unwittingly leaking a secure credential, or physical access to a device by someone knowledgeable.



  • Character ideas: The KDE Konqi, Katie and the whole host of dragons (Yoshi style). Xenia the Fox alternate Linux mascot. Lemmy and Mastodon mascots.

    Provisional name idea: Smashtest (like Minetest until they figured out to call themselves Luanti).

    Other name ideas: Open Source Battle Royale

    Stage ideas:

    • Smart Home (Home Assistant themed),
    • GRUB (a few traversable lines or options)
    • GRUB rescue (one line, Final Destination style)
    • Rapid Coding (a DK falls-style scrolling map)
    • vim (a close quarters map similar to the Game & Watch map, optionally with walls as the characters are “stuck in vim”)
    • i3 (a pre-made map styled in a tiling window way, or perhaps dynamically splits the stage during battle)
    • compiz (do whatever you want as long as it looks cool, wobbly, wavy, cubey or 3d-like)
    • Hannah Montana Linux or Biebian (without a picture of the person in question but the colour scheme and the shape of stage elements would highly imply it’s those distributions)
    • Blender 3D interface
    • FreeCAD animated assembly

    Special Move ideas (that can work with most characters):

    • Update (a small rest/vulnerable period followed by a buff)
    • Mailing List (a beam of emails)
    • Harden/Vulnerability Patch (could paint/plaster offensive move, or it could be a curl up defensive move or roll around like yoshi/sonic/jigglypuff etc.
    • Release Candidate (powerful offensive move with some drawback or self damage)
    • Bug catch (a forceful two handed clap in front, or using a net)

    Other attacks:

    • cronjob (Tux tosses a clock that explodes)
    • Tail whips
    • Fire breath

    Obstacles, enemies, hazards:

    • a bug
    • a kernel panic/freeze
    • the meditation guru
    • firejail
    • a green-coloured GPU driver
    • git issues
    • dependencies/dependency hell
    • Blender default cube

    Your game doesn’t have to have every single element FOSS-themed, as it might make it feel too nerdy, but if you were short on this kind of idea and wanted some, here you go.








  • You probably know most of it so just some advice: Don’t format the Partition table (MBR to GPT etc.) on the disk whose data you wish to keep.

    Shrinking a partition or moving it carries a small risk of data loss and will take significantly longer than creating a new partition (since data needs to be cut and pasted from one area of the disk to another). If your old laptop has an empty slot for another SSD or NVME drive you can plug that in, and still dualboot and having the new drive Linux only.

    Also to deal with the occasional Windows cockups, just carry a boot-repair USB, the auto repair has fixed the Windows issue for me 90% of the time (the other times are usually boot order priority or other BIOS setting)


  • Honestly I thought about it, I’m terrified by the results, but even if things have to get worse over the next 4 years before they get better, the young generation has the time to turn it around. The will to improve? That’s still unknown to me.

    I feel bad for Jimmy Carter seeing what his country has become…

    At least following MAGA logic, starting next year we can say that Trump is causing the hurricanes, droughts, tornadoes and floods. Mother nature asking nicely hasn’t seemed to get it in people’s heads.


  • It would be just the same with Jill Stein or Chase Oliver as leader, Wall Street will benefit. There is obviously outsized influence of rich people in government, but big money makes money with money, doesn’t matter what the politics are.

    It’s more important that A. The US doesn’t put a leader who has real plans to become dictator and the Project2025 yes-men lined up behind it, and B. The US chooses a leader who better represents the national interests of common people, which will not happen if too many would-be Harris voters choose 3rd party or abstains.