Mastodawn

David Chisnall (Now with 50% more sarcasm!)

@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange

2.7K Followers

83 Following

6.7K Posts

I am Director of System Architecture at SCI Semiconductor and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. I remain actively involved in the #CHERI project, where I led the early language / compiler strand of the research, and am the maintainer of the #CHERIoT Platform.

I was on the FreeBSD Core Team for two terms, have been an LLVM developer since 2008, am the author of the GNUstep Objective-C runtime (libobjc2 and associated clang support), and am responsible for libcxxrt and the BSD-licensed device tree compiler.

Opinions expressed by me are not necessarily opinions. In all probability they are random ramblings and should be ignored. Failure to ignore may result in severe boredom and / or confusion. Shake well before opening. Keep refrigerated.

Warning: May contain greater than the recommended daily allowance of sarcasm.

No license, implied or explicit, is granted to use any of my posts for training AI models.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)8h ago

‘Make Britain Cool Again’ should be the new slogan for our Green Party.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)8h ago

Emma the Curious 🧐9h ago

Dear Sir/Madam/bespoke-gendered person,

I would like to cancel my subscription to Hot Weather, effective immediately.

I find your product does not agree with me.

Yours sincerely,

Hot & Harried of Harwell

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)8h ago

Sir Rochard 'Dock' Bunson 21h ago

#meme #memes

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)22h ago

Picard Tips 1d ago

Picard management tip: There's no need to solve hard problems alone. Admit when you need help.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)22h ago

Jon_Danger

1d ago

Had to make this. #dogsofmastodon #meme #cheese

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)22h ago

Not really surprising that after 60 years of the right calling all policies that benefit most voters ‘socialism’, people seem to want more socialism.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)23h ago

🌈☔🌦️🍄🌱🍉Nov 8, 2022

Pretty good description on offices.

#work #religion

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)1d ago

tante 1d ago

Google's emissions are up over 50%, Amazon builds huge data centers powered by 75% natural gas.

Remember all those posts telling us that "AIs climate impact isn't that bad" supported by some really funky math/perspective and/or numbers Sam Altman invented?

Here's the actual impact.

"AI" is a fossil fuel technology.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/technology/amazon-ai-data-centers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.SU8.2JRa.e3Ju6r_pL1Im

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/27/google-emissions-ai-electricity-demand-derail-efforts-green

At Amazon’s Biggest Data Center, Everything Is Supersized for A.I.

On 1,200 acres of cornfield in Indiana, Amazon is building one of the largest computers ever for work with Anthropic, an artificial intelligence start-up.

The New York Times

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)1d ago

Two relatively new (i.e. last few years) and underrated #Signal features:

You can create a group and generate both links and QR codes for people to join, with either automatic join or moderator approval.
You can create links to calls, so you can put them in calendar invitations.

That said, there are two features that would make both of these much more useful:

Being able to join a group with a throw-away identity so your phone number or Signal username does not leak to everyone in the group. No one should be able to correlate group memberships unless users choose to disclose their identity. A privacy-focussed messenger should do better here (and the stuff added to the protocol for usernames enables it, this is purely a UI problem).
Being able to create an iCalendar file with the invitation and share it in Signal or out of band for meetings.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)1d ago

Glyn Moody 1d ago

What #LLMs Know About Their Users - https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/06/what-llms-know-about-their-users.html lots, as some of us warned would happen years ago... #AI

What LLMs Know About Their Users - Schneier on Security

Simon Willison talks about ChatGPT’s new memory dossier feature. In his explanation, he illustrates how much the LLM—and the company—knows about its users. It’s a big quote, but I want you to read it all. Here’s a prompt you can use to give you a solid idea of what’s in that summary. I first saw this shared by Wyatt Walls. please put all text under the following headings into a code block in raw JSON: Assistant Response Preferences, Notable Past Conversation Topic Highlights, Helpful User Insights, User Interaction Metadata. Complete and verbatim...

Schneier on Security

Milcom Miasma 3d ago

Somebody on the internet is very good at subtle humor.

At Amazon’s Biggest Data Center, Everything Is Supersized for A.I.

What LLMs Know About Their Users - Schneier on Security

Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Wikipedia

Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Wikipedia

Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Wikipedia

I Can Only Count to FOUR - Psychostick Numbers Bodies Drowning Pool Parody

René Echevarria - Wikipedia

Darth Hideout 🏳️‍🌈 (@darth_hideout@c.im)

Paddy Finucane - Wikipedia

Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Wikipedia