Geekmaster 👽

@Geekmaster@ioc.exchange
233 Followers
216 Following
1.7K Posts

Technology professional with 40+ yrs of experience on systems and networks. I like to talk shop, be a geek, and I know things.

#MasterUser
#Pipesurfer
#WhiteHat
#Certified #Cybersecurity #Architect
#Certified #Systems #Engineer
#Certified #Security #Engineer
oh, and I'm a lifetime #gamer too
#AnimalLover
#SpaceGeek
#3DPrinting
#TravelBug

I know enough to make me dangerous. I know better than to be dangerous. I chose to protect, rather than to attack. 🅅

YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/@GeekmasterGeneral
Bloghttps://geekofthehouse.blogspot.com
GitHubhttps://github.com/Geekmaster-General
AbuseIPDBhttps://www.abuseipdb.com/user/21995
Geekmaster 👽Apr 29
Neil BrownApr 28

How far can a toot travel in the fediverse?

I chatted recently with someone who complained that the fediverse lacked "reach".

So I'm curious: if you are up for it, could you please reply to this toot (which started life on single user instance on a tiny computer in a garage in the United Kingdom) saying which country you are in?

Edit: 12 hours, 74 countries: https://neilzone.co.uk/2025/04/a-toot-travelled-to-fediverse-users-in-53-countries-in-12-hours/

A toot travelled to fediverse users in 77 countries in 12 hours

A little over 12 hours ago - yesterday evening, at around 20:07 UTC +1, I tooted:

Geekmaster 👽Apr 28

#CyberHygiene is an important topic, now more than ever, and even more so as time goes on, especially in the new-world of #AI. So, let's have a quick chat!

I talk about this in my #AwarenessTrainings that I put together for my company. People sometimes have the mistaken notion that they aren't targets for bad actors because they aren't famous and don't have a high net worth, or don't have a high-profile job. But that's simply not the case today. Anyone with any online presence is a potential target to attackers. That means everyone needs to know their cyber hygiene. So what does that look like?

Basic cyber hygiene is essential and easy. Steps include (extra details below):
➡️ Be more stringent about the info you share online 📅
➡️ Review and adjust #privacy settings 🔒
➡️ Use strong and unique #passwords 🗝️
➡️ Enable two-factor #authentication 🗝️
➡️ #Monitor online presence 👀
➡️ Learn about data brokers ⬅️
➡️ Secure all devices 🔐
➡️ Be skeptical of unsolicited requests 😯
➡️ Regularly audit third-party apps with access to your accounts ❗
➡️ Monitor credit reports 💰
➡️ Separate personal and professional identities 👬

I go into A LOT more detail about each point in my recent blog post (TL;DR for  lol). Check it out here, and let me know your thoughts or questions!

https://geekofthehouse.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-chat-about-cyberhygiene.html

A chat about #CyberHygiene

  #CyberHygiene is an important topic, now more than ever, and even more so as time goes on, especially in the new-world of #AI . So, let's...

Geekmaster 👽Apr 12
This is scary. Make sure you get the #IOCs and update your #security platforms to protect against this dangerous #RAT: https://www.cyfirma.com/research/neptune-rat-an-advanced-windows-rat-with-system-destruction-capabilities-and-password-exfiltration-from-270-applications/
NEPTUNE RAT : An advanced Windows RAT with System Destruction Capabilities and Password Exfiltration from 270+ Applications - CYFIRMA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY At CYFIRMA, we are committed to providing up-to-date insights into current threats and the tactics used by malicious...

CYFIRMA
Geekmaster 👽Mar 30
Have I Been PwnedMar 30
New breach: German Doner Kebab had 162k unique email addresses publicly posted to a hacking forum last week. Data also included name, phone and physical addrress. 74% were already in @haveibeenpwned. Read more: https://x.com/DarkWebInformer/status/1905275857159008341
Dark Web Informer - Cyber Threat Intelligence (@DarkWebInformer) on X

🚨Alleged database leak of German Doner Kebab (GDK) Data reportedly includes: Customer names, dates of birth, email addresses, mobile phone numbers, customer addresses, postcodes, marketing preferences, and additional text field information.

X (formerly Twitter)
Geekmaster 👽Mar 30
SarlackLabMar 30

Command-and-control IPv4 map, 2025-03-17 to 2025-03-30 #Cartography
https://abjuri5t.github.io/SarlackLab/

124.220.0[.]0/14
3.120.0[.]0/13
113.44.0[.]0/16
147.185.221[.]0/24
1.94.0[.]0/15
148.66.0[.]0/19
176.65.140[.]0/23
101.42.0[.]0/15
176.65.144[.]0/24
196.251.84[.]0/22

SarlackLab C2 Tracking

Geekmaster 👽Mar 30
feliksMar 29
Geekmaster 👽Mar 28

I fell WAY down a rabbit hole in 1985, and just keep falling #Hacker #Geek #Geekmaster #CyberGeek

I never want to get out. This is way too much fun! #UnlimitedKnowledge

Geekmaster 👽Feb 22
Lesley Carhart Feb 22
On immigration as American IT people
Show threadGeekmaster 👽Feb 14

We should reopen and #evangelize #libraries, and I think everyone should spend a few hours per week just finding any book on any topic and reading it cover to cover. There's still something to be said about holding a #book, especially an old one, in your hands. Flipping the pages. Absorbing its scent. Not saying you can't get the same experience digitally, but many people don't use their digital devices for true #learning and #cognitive growth. Apps and games aren't the same.

It's how I grew up and fed my deepest #addiction - #learning - spending hours in the library and just reading. The Internet barely existed. That's true knowledge. Ever learning. Ever #craving more. And I believe knowledge is true power.

#knowledgeispower #fin

Show threadGeekmaster 👽Feb 14

I used to enjoy #deep, highly #nerdy, and rather #philosophical #conversations with many of my #peers and family members. I see that number of people who can "keep up", as it were, dwindling quite fast. Then I scroll through the little corners of the #Internets I do have active, and it astounds me how far people have #fallen, especially the younger generations. So #smart in so many ways - yet so mind #numbed in so much more.

(part 2)

×
feliksMar 29
Show thread ✨ JuneMar 29
@feliks I teach college freshmen, and some colleagues and I were just talking about this. we keep having conferences and advice articles about "lean into the fact that this generation is so tech savvy!" meanwhile these kids can't figure out how to save a file from their cloud onto their laptops
Show threadYu Vitaqua fer Chronos (Izumi)Mar 30
@demimom @feliks I think a reason for the rapid loss of tech literacy in the younger folk (I say younger but I'm a Gen Z too :p) is probably because of the switch to mobile devices which made it really easy to do stuff and you could do p much everything on your phone
Show threadaismallardMar 30
@hourglasses @feliks @demimom also the lack of actual tech education. schools just assume children are born with the knowledge magically beamed into their head and never, you know, spend time to teach it. so they have to just improvise their way through.
Show threadWillow "Wolveric" CatkinMar 30
@hourglasses @feliks @demimom Also the fact auto-save with cloud sync enabled, is now the default, even if you are using something like Word on desktop...  From personal experience in exams, where students are writing out answers on a laptop with no cloud connection, they weren't saving their work, without someone actually prompting them that they needed to manually... which as a result, when Word froze for one of them, resulted in the loss of over an hour's worth of exam work...
Show thread ✨ JuneMar 30
@WolvericCatkin oh nooo  I would have wanted to throw up if I were them
Show threadWillow "Wolveric" CatkinMar 30
@demimom They got to redo the exam... they basically just ended up resitting it right there, as the school closed up for the evening...  I ended up going home after 7 PM, it finished so late... 
Show threadOzzelot  Mar 30
@hourglasses @feliks @demimom I think the opposite: phones made it really hard to do stuff in A Computer Way.
Show threadYu Vitaqua fer Chronos (Izumi)Mar 30
@ozzelot @feliks @demimom what do you mean by that?
Show threadOzzelot  Mar 30
@hourglasses @feliks @demimom Mostly the obfuscation of the filesystem and the walled gardens of apps.
Show threadOzzelot  Mar 30
@hourglasses @feliks @demimom (Even arguably the popularization of the word "app" itself, though admittedly I was just beginning to learn English at the time the Jobsian smartphone came about, and anyway this issue in itself is not directly related to the actions that are performed by the users of such devices.)
Show threadYu Vitaqua fer Chronos (Izumi)Mar 30
@ozzelot @feliks @demimom when it comes to app stores and such, at least on android i don't think there's much of an issue because you can install any apk without trouble tbh, but obfuscation of the filesystem i don't understand, unless you're talking about how users can't get access to them unless they root their phone and such?
Show threadOzzelot  Mar 30
@hourglasses @feliks @demimom I mean how the very concept of a hierarchical filesystem is meant to be less perceived by the user. (The inability to access it in full is a part of this, though not quite as immediate as what I had in mind.) Same with third party apps - though it is technically possible to install them (even on iOS these days if you're in the EU), users are encouraged to use Google's/Apple's/Huawei's stores.
Show threadOzzelot  Mar 30
@demimom @feliks "their cloud" is an oxymoron
Show threadR.L. Dane   🍵 Mar 29

@feliks

Blooming' heck, are millennials incapable of remembering that #GenX exists?

Show threadNN SchneiderMar 30

@rl_dane @feliks

It's generational camouflage. 😶‍🌫️ If we act too old, they think we're boomers. If we act too young, they think we're genY.

Show threadR.L. Dane   🍵 Mar 30

@nnschneider @feliks

It's so annoying, but also ironic that generation X is the one that's always forgotten 🤣

We're literally the "Brand X" generation.

Show threadDan Morgan Mar 30
@rl_dane @feliks
Shhhhhh. I’m okay with this outcome. Our entire generation is in shut in our collective bedroom listening to The Cure and Depeche Mode while no one else bothers us.
Show threadR.L. Dane   🍵 Mar 30

@DanMorgan @feliks

#MOOD. 😆

Show threadWearyBonnieMar 30
@rl_dane
Oh that's funny, I think of myself as Xennial and I assumed the original post was actually about GenX, and that Millennials were being erased for once 😅
@feliks
Show threadKatrina Katrinka Mar 30

@rl_dane @feliks
It's a meme now. 🤷‍♀️

I just enjoy looking in the comments for fellow GenXers to smile and nod at.

Show threadFlesh 🐀 Mar 30
@feliks Good, what a fucking horrid format.
Show threadlizzy  Mar 30
@feliks I'm gonna be honest, i've written operating system kernels but I do indeed not know how to rotate a pdf
Show threadfeliksMar 30
@lizzy it's pdfrotate -r 90
Show threadgeorgiaMar 30
@lizzy @feliks I'm 27 and dont know how to rotate a PDF xP
Show threadLightning Bjornsson*  Mar 30
@feliks as a unix nerd who doesn’t have to lie much to claim to know thing A right through thing Z about computers… how are PDFs rotated? #lang_en
Show threadRemco van BreeMar 30
@lightning @feliks I've done it by doing it with a search and replace in the file metadata
Show threadA Fool And His FujiMar 30
@feliks try teaching online ethics to yr 9's......
Show threadhamkaasMar 30
@feliks why rotate the pdf if you can rotate the screen...
Show threadRaeynMar 30

@feliks 😂

Noooo, instead my 10-year-old keeps making Powerpoints for lulz, which. I cannot even.

Show threadAxel HartmannMar 30

@feliks - full ack.

To be honest, working with pdfs on any corporate laptop nowadays is so frustratingly hideous that I'd probably end up with taking a photo of the screen and mailing it to myself.

Come to think of it, I have actually done that, because the phone does text recognition even when - for unfathomable reasons - the pdf is published without allowing text to be marked and copied.

Why?!?

And it continuously gets worse, with forced Acrobat updates three times a week that require an immediate reboot and cannot be rescheduled to the end of the day because they are security relevant.

Show threadTenkomanMar 30

@feliks

Boomers: Invent modern computers

Millenials: Standing on the crossroad of analogue age/digital age - acting as tech support to connect both sides

Zoomers: Sadly often take digital things as granted and don't question how something works (e.g.: We had an intern at a huge IT company who was in training but always reacted with blank stare when asked to fetch certain cables (Ethernet/LAN, DVI, "cold cord"(national term for the "kettle cord" - etc.) or do quick commands(like CTRL-ALT-DEL)

Show threadNick Mar 31
@tenkoman
@feliks You forget about #Zillennials D;
Knowing stuff, but no one listens
Show threadTSRBerryMar 31
@nick @tenkoman @feliks Could you expand on that? :o
Show threadNick Mar 31
@tsrberry a sub generation basically between Millenials and Zoomers.
We are familiar with Millenial terms and often more tech savvy than others from Gen-Z, but also know the world others in Gen-Z know, that Millenials dont.
A so called micro-generation. But well imho you could probably slice up all generations if you want to.
@tenkoman @feliks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zillennials?wprov=sfla1
Zillennials - Wikipedia

Show threadTSRBerryMar 31
@nick @tenkoman @feliks I see, thank you!
Show threadMekkiMar 30
@feliks as someone who did PDF forms consulting for the federal government and was treated as if I was a high magician, can confirm.
Show threadAletheMar 30
@feliks I was taking a computer-based exam at my uni along with a bunch of 18 years old kids (I'm not that much older myself) and I was absolutely shaken by what I observed that day.
The one thing I'll never forget is that I had to show the person sitting next to me how to use a mouse because they didn't know how.
Show threadBuckRogers1965Mar 30

@alethez @feliks

Where they trying to talk into the mouse like a microphone, they might be from the future.

Show threadAletheMar 30
@BuckRogers1965 @feliks Unfortunately no. Maybe they were good at hiding it.
Show threadRexx Deane 🏳️‍🌈Mar 30
@feliks Feeling this. Having a new recruit at work discover how much easier her life is with ctrl-z, c, x, v, shift selecting with cursors etc. is mind boggling - how did she get through university without knowing some of what I'd consider computing basics?
Show threadNes the Guinea PigMar 30

@feliks I think, people forget that Gen Z also includes those who are in their 20s now and been rotating pdfs since they were 4.


#I'm-not-sure-I-f-with-those-condescending-ass-tweets-about-generations