Mastodawn

So ...let's face it. A LOT of folks in tech circles are somewhat amazed a fully #blind person can even find the power button on a computer, let alone operate it professionally. I am such a person, and I'd like to bust that myth.
It's also true that many #hacking tools, platforms, courses etc. could use some help in the #accessibility department. It's a neverending vicious circle.
Enter my new twitch channel, IC_null. On this channel, I will be streaming #programming and #hacking content including THM, HTB and who knows what else, from the perspective of a #screenReader user.
What I need, is an audience. If this is something you reckon you or anybody you know might be interested in, drop the channel a follow or share this post. Gimme that #infoSec Mastodon sense of comradery and help me out to make this idea an actual thing :) https://twitch.tv/ic_null #tryHackMe #streamer #selfPromo

IC_null - Twitch

Fully blind person hacking, coding and tinkering while using a screen reader. THM, HTB, accessibility, all the things.

Twitch

Florian Apr 29, 2024

Well ...that teaches me to go to sleep right after dropping an announcement like this :-O I did not expect even a tenth of the response this received, thank you all so much for that.
I realize the channel's looking kinda bare at present. The idea to do this os only a day or so old, so 🐻 with me while I set up an initial stream and such. If people are curious, the YouTube channel over at https://www.youtube.com/@blindlycoding has a number of archived game streams from my gaming channel, where I tackle #accessible #gaming, as well as a playlist on last year's Advent of Cyber on the TryHackMe event where I go through the challenges with a screen reader, critique the accessibility of a lot of them and overall trialed the format I want to pursue on the IC_Null channel. If people need a preview, that's where you go :)

Bevor Sie zu YouTube weitergehen

Florian Apr 29, 2024

We got up to 71 followers in not even a day. That is honestly meteoric.
Tomorrow at 3 PM EST I'll do a first #stream. We'll make us a #TryHackMe account, go through the new user flow, maybe do a room or two while looking at the various #accessibility gotchas we run into. In future streams we'll do similar for HTB, HTBA etc. as well as more #programming related things but tomorrow ...we leave pallet town all mozie-like. See you all then! #twitch #infoSec #selfPromo

Florian Apr 30, 2024

Just a reminder, we're blasting off at 3 PM eastern today at https://twitch.tv/IC_null. Be there or 🐝🟥 :) Cookie for anyone who catches why what I just did is an #accessibility blunder. Today on the Docket; #tryHackMe's #accessibility, as well as whatever tools we encounter along the way. See you there :) #twitch #streamer #AMA #selfPromo #goingLive

IC_null - Twitch

Fully blind person hacking, coding and tinkering while using a screen reader. THM, HTB, accessibility, all the things.

Twitch

Florian Apr 30, 2024

and of course I get the VPN to work literally 10 minutes after ending stream. Welp ... can't be helped :) I unfortunately am also unable to archive the stream as Twitch did not store my desire to have streams be archived.
Therefore for those who weren't there a summary:
- TryHackMe has practically all of their form fields (login form, sign up form etc) improperly labeled by just a placeholder (e.g. rather than "password", the label is " Please make me strong.."), requiring the user to guess at what the field is meant to contain. Generally not a blocker, but annoying and sloppy.
- After onboarding, we picked the " JR Penetration tester" learning path.
- We worked through the first room. Simple web page-based offensive security simulation using gobuster and a hidden webpage.
- We figured out that Guacamole is used for remote access to the lab VM, a tool I have previously made sure is able to transfer audio.
- #ScreenReaders generally only have access to the host system, no remote machines, necessitating a screen reader to be running on the remote end to make that machine screenreader-accessible. This is easy enough to do, but THM's VMs are improperly configured causing audio to not work, therefore no screen reader can actually output speech. This is a rather easy to fix issue, they just ...haven't.
- We had no end of trouble getting VPN to work and I only got it to work after multiple regenerations of the ovpn file so that should be smoother next stream.
- We eventually completed the room by using the screen reader's OCR function liberally to interact with the secret web page which was tedious, but eventually got us the flag.

FOr now, schedule is tuesdays for ic_null content, wednesdays and saturdays for zersiax (gaming) content. If you want to see #accessible gaming, follow that account as well :) Going to try to squeeze in a second ic_null stream weekly as well, watch this space.

nyp0 🩷💛💙Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax waitt, how do you understand the concept of text emojis (i mean the ":-O") if you're fully blind? sorry, im just a bit confused

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@nyp0 simple :) I didn't live in a vacuum. I wentto school with non-blind teenagers. You pick it up through osmosis after a while :)

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@nyp0 That's a great question though. Feel free to ask if you have any others :)

nyp0 🩷💛💙Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax thanks for clearing that up

Liz Hare PhD Apr 28, 2024

@zersiax this is great! While these are not my specific interests, accessible education is lacking across all of tech. What a great step in the right direction.

Florian Apr 28, 2024

@lizhare :) I'll try to be worthy of the praise. Out of curiosity, what ARE your particular interests?

Liz Hare PhD Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax hi Florian, my main interest is an open source statistical software like R. I work with open source communities around my research interests and also about accessibility and inclusion.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@lizhare ahh :) I know a bit about R, here's a blind guy in New Zealand who (used to) do a lot with R, he's the author of LURN (Let's use R now) and I helped him out when he gave a workshop here several years ago

Liz Hare PhD Apr 29, 2024

Yeah I know Jonathan Godfrey from some of my work in the community. small world.@zersiax

Jeff Apr 28, 2024

@zersiax Incredible idea!

tatzelbrumm Apr 28, 2024

@zersiax
@saizai seems unreachable at the moment.
Linking to
https://s.ai/
instead, then.

Sai (saizai)

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@tatzelbrumm Not sure what you're referring to :)

tatzelbrumm Apr 29, 2024

WHO I am referring to.

Sai, whom I met forever ago at noisebridge in San Diego,
who is also blind,
and has offered workshops about how blind people can orient themselves.

So if you don't already know each other, it probably makes good sense to get to know each other.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@tatzelbrumm ahh, I see. No, I don't think I am failiar with the person but they sound fun to get to know, thanks for the pointer! :)

guites Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax this is awesome. I often wonder how people with disabilities interact with computer stuff, please update us here on mastodon whenever you do something

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@guites gladly :) Twitch is my main avenue currently so as soon as I amass a bit of a following there I'll start creating content regularly. Will announce here :)

Gödel Escher Spock🦿Apr 29, 2024

Shdwdrgn Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax Oh boy do I have a bone to pick about this. I support a college department and one of our retired faculty (who is quite computer-literate) is also fully blind. Through the march of "progress" I have had to fight for him to retain usage of a text-based email program which higher-ups have tried blocking many times. Now we're at the point where he was forced to install a full desktop on his computer (which he has no need for) and requires the help of a sighted person every few months to collect the 2FA key so he can still use email. And yet we have a whole division supposedly devoted to accessibility who seem to overlook this aspect or suggest that he needs to get with the times. What ever happened to supporting everyone equally?

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@Shdwdrgn ahh yes, that is a fun one isn't it? :(

Irene Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax
Sounds like a great idea!
Could you give a heads up on when you'll start posting there? Now we are met by an empty channel.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@elmerot yeah, it was all kinda last-minute. I've been going as http://twitch.tv/zersiax for years and only decided to split off cybersecurity content literally yesterday so its very much a baby channel right now. I'll try to get a stream out this of next week and announce it here

Zersiax - Twitch

Fully blind coder, hacker, gamer and overall oddball. I pioneer accessibility efforts in various spaces. Come watch me do so! :)

Twitch

gunstick Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax are braille readers still a thing. As text to speech has become quite efficient.
I ask because those braille lines are horribly expensive. It would be a hacker project to make an open source one.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@gunstick they are, yes. and they are still pricy. there's cheaper ones, but they do have a lot of quality issues currently. check out Orbit Research

Norbi Peti Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax I'm really curious about this, especially since today's user interfaces are often completely inconsistent and unforgiving. My phone often works against me instead of for me and I can see.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@norbipeti lol grumbles about that will definitely feature :)

lori Apr 29, 2024

@norbipeti @zersiax when I had eye surgery I made the text on my phone just slightly bigger than the default and suddenly a ton of websites became literally unusable, like modals I couldn't dismiss hiding everything and text becoming cut off with no way to see the rest. Instead of making the web more accessible we've just made it inaccessible to even more people

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@lori @norbipeti yup, I see this a lot as an accessibility auditor. And those are public-facing websites. Talking to developers who make stuff for developers is even more fun because like I said ...it's anywhere from " do blind people even computer?" to "It's possibly maybe on our roadmap ...maybe". Generally a lot of acute cases of #NotMyProblemDotCom

Andrew Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax Oh, this is good to know about — I've seen *so much* content that's just a five minute "here's what a screenreader is", and I've tried turning on the screenreader to test our apps but I've never seen a genuine screen reader user actually using one so I never really know if I'm doing it right. I'll definitely dig into this content

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@andrewt fantastic, thank you! :)

lori Apr 29, 2024

@andrewt @zersiax yeah I've used a screen reader before but I don't actually need one and so it's been hard to picture what the full workflow for someone that does looks like, it's definitely something I've wanted to see.

alastair87 (old account)Apr 29, 2024

@hyperreal - I know your issue is different but I wonder if there might still be some overlap.

alastair87 (old account)Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax I'm sighted but would be interested to learn about this in case it is something I can help others with.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@alastair oh sighted people more than welcome :) I am doing this for a great many types of people so if the content resonates with you I'm glad to have you :)

cholling Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax There was a 1999 movie "Fatal Error" that, by all reasonable measures, sucked, but it did feature a blind hacker using a braille terminal. I'm sure it got many things wrong (it was laughable when it came to non-blind-specific computer things) but it was one of the first things that actually got me thinking about how a person (a hacker, at that) would use a computer while visually impaired.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@cholling heh :) well, I hope to do better. I will be using a braille display as well so I got that part right :)

cholling Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax One can only hope! I have no idea if any blind people at all, let alone computer professionals, were involved in making that movie, so I'm sure you've got them beat on that count. Still I have to give them props for even attempting representation.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@cholling particularly back then, yeah. Didn't Sneakers also have a blind hacker? I could be confusing my movies ...

cholling Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax I don't remember if he was a hacker per se or some other kind of intelligence guy, but yeah.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@cholling think he might've been a phreak ... been a minute since I watched the movie :)

John Wyatt 🐧Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax please make sure to stream and save the videos to youtube too. Archival material is difficult to use on twitch and youtube I can easily set a timestamp and a link for someone to look up in a bug report.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@sageofredondo that's a good idea. I will archive them on the https://www.youtube.com/@blindlycoding/ Youtube channel

Bevor Sie zu YouTube weitergehen

Mx Verda Apr 29, 2024

Yeee!

(Uhhh. Brain tender after driving in bright light yesterday and seeing movie with earplugs close to bedtime, but trying to be supportive.
yooo lmk if you want a 3D vtuber model too. https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/4353586 are the instructions.)

MxVerda: Easy fun steps to make a thing you can use for stuff

How to Vtube!Summarised from https://streamlabs.com/content-hub/post/best-free-vtuber-softwarePart 1: Design your hand puppet1. Download VRoidStudio.2. Open VRoidStudio and design your vtuber.3. When done, click the export / share button at the top-right, near the window buttons.4. Reduce some of the quality settings to make the file smaller and easier for your computer to run.5. Add a filename and creator nickname, then press Export as VRM.Pay attention to where you save this file. This process may pause and then take a moment.6. Close VRoidStudio. Part 2: Put hand in puppet7. Download VSeeFace. Open VSeeFace. (You may need to right-click and select 'Open as Administrator'/) 8. Open OBS Studio. (You may need to right-click and select 'Open as Administrator'/)In OBS Studio, follow VSeeFace's setup instructions for streaming from VSeeFace to OBS.You don't need to memorise the tutorial. Open it later from the help menu.9. Once you've added VSeeFace as a source to OBS Studio, press add / accept and return to VSeeFace.[READ-MORE]Part 3: Train hand to move puppet how you want10. In VSeeFace, press the + or Add button in the central box area.11. In the file explorer window that appears, find and select your VRM file from step 5.12. At the top-right, choose your webcam. Now press the 'recommended settings' button just under the drop-down menus. Wait a moment (sometimes 2 IRL minutes).13. Experiment with the drop-down options to find a setup you want to try.14. Press the start button.15. To hide the VSeeFace UI, click the small 'X' square at the bottom-right. Now press your spacebar.16. Press your space bar and click the 'X' again to restore the UI. Click the 'Help menu' button for more options.[/READ-MORE]Feel free to copy this for other people!Also here’s a thing on other styles of vtuber setup https://www.rokoko.com/insights/guide-how-to-create-the-best-vtuber-setup.

Pillowfort

haliphax 👾Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax That username is so, so good! Followed.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@haliphax haha I rather like it myself, I came up with it during my gaming stream on my Zersiax twitch channel this weekend and I pretty much went to go pin it down right after

sunflowerinrain Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax I used to work in the same office as a software developer who is totally blind, and well remember his fury when "upgrades" to tech tools lost accessibility.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@sunflowerinrain its the russian roulette of the game, unfortunately :(

alastair87 (old account)Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax I'm interested to know as well what your perspective on different operating systems is. My impression is it might be more difficult outside the Windows and macOS worlds because so much accessibility stuff is expensive and proprietary but I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@alastair you're not, unfortunately. Linux Accessibility has been very hit and miss over the last 15 years but at least it exists up to a point. The further you veer off the beaten path, the less likely it is you're going to find enough accessibility features to make it worth doing. Being able to use SSH or similar to access an OS over a commandline shell from an OS that IS accessible helps up to a point

alastair87 (old account)Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax I heard the Orca screen reader is actually broken under Wayland which means of course distros shouldn't be shipping Wayland, at least as default. But they are.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@alastair see also: the normies forget we exist and if they remember, we're not a priority. Tis rather sad a thing.

alastair87 (old account)Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax I'm aware of that - I'm autistic and have ADHD and bipolar disorder and haven't been able to work for a long time. Obviously I'm not claiming different disabilities are the same, but the tendency of society to ignore or downplay them is unfortunately pervasive.

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@alastair yeah ... some things are universal, which is really unfortunate

Lisa Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax own that shit

Florian Apr 29, 2024

@liseo I intend to

Lisa Apr 29, 2024

dgr Apr 29, 2024

@zersiax if it's an hp, a black button on black ground will also not help.