Mastodawn

Online age verification isn't the same as a quick ID flash: it's surveillance. These systems collect your data and undermine your ability to anonymously access and discuss sensitive topics online. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/why-isnt-online-age-verification-just-showing-your-id-person

Why Isn’t Online Age Verification Just Like Showing Your ID In Person?

This blog also appears in our Age Verification Resource Hub: our one-stop shop for users seeking to understand what age-gating laws actually do, what’s at stake, how to protect yourself, and why EFF opposes all forms of age verification mandates. Head to EFF.org/Age to explore our resources and...

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Kate Dec 11

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Ryan Cordell Feb 26, 2023

Last night the 11yo broke down the Google Slides middle school Chatroom for me:

1. At first they used a Google doc but the infinite scroll was too chaotic
2. In the slide deck each new slide is one “post”—some all text, some images, some both—
3. They use slides’ comments feature to “reply” to each other’s “posts”
4. This allows participants to easily flip between posts using the slide thumbnail navigation, so they can find the conversations they care about easily
5. He owns the file & if anyone spams it, deletes other people’s posts, or gets nasty, he can revert the file to its previous save state & remove the spammer’s access
6. He did share the file with me on purpose, I think because he was proud & wanted me to see what he’d made

Essentially they’ve created a chatroom with moderation in Google Slides, so they can get around the school’s ban on platforms like Discord. It’s kind of brilliant

Kate Nov 29

I think the ACCC needs to set down a rule on this. If you buy a thing and it doesn't do what you were told it did, then you would be entitled to a refund. But what if the manufacturer takes away that function 1 5 or 10 years down the track?

Kate Nov 27

Cat 🐈🥗 (D.Burch)

Nov 26

Trash icon over the years

Kate Nov 15

Phorm The Vixdjinn Nov 14

I know a lot of folks have been going on about it, but Steam's latest hardware announcement has been utterly insane for the day and age in which we live.

Consider that they didn't hype it up with a launch event. They didn't sell a bunch of hype and buzzwords. All they did was release a ~6 minute video that effectively described the hardware and what it would provide, and had a webpage with *actual specs on it*.

They invited a bunch of tech reporters/YouTubers to their HQ, but they let them talk to *engineers*, not marketing people. The discussions focused on real capabilities of the hardware, and actual demonstrations. No vapor and promises. Not glitz and glam.

They made it clear this is all SteamOS driven, and that they have a focus of getting *existing x86 Windows software* running not only on Linux, but on ARM and in VR!!

They aren't pitching a closed ecosystem. They said, outright, "This is your hardware, you can do whatever you want with it".

THEY DIDN'T MENTION AI ONCE.

And they're _already_ making a bigger splash than any competitor ever did, even though those competitors have gobs more money they've thrown at this stuff, and tremendously more staff.

It's flabbergasting. I hope they make enough of an impact with all this that people sit up and take notice.

Kate Nov 11

thanks amazon I totally needed this single screwdriver bit shipped in a massive box from Japan.

Richard Stephens Oct 23

Security conference talks fall into two categories
* we designed a distributed entropy siphon to perform a black-box hypervisor side channel escape and chain-load a persistent rootkit into the CPU cache
* we looked behind the sofa and found an entire industry of products/services that have made no attempt at security at all and are therefore vulnerable to the most basic issues that we've been finding in everything for the past 30 years, and no-one else had bothered to look.

Kate Oct 21

SmithChart Oct 20

Hey electrical engineering bubble!
In my job @ @LinuxAutomation we are developing a super-small Linux PC for DIN-rail. All the functions are fine. But we are having trouble passing EMC testing for DIN EN 61131.
There are two problematic areas: RGMII (the SoM we have chosen sucks at decoupling :-/ ) and the base frequency of the PoE- and 24V- regulators.

Does anyone know someone who would help us with some (paid!) consultancy?

Edit: I've got some very promising contacts! Thanks for your help!