Giving University Exams in the Age of Chatbots

How I managed to give an exam while giving the students the choice to use a chatbot or not.

And what I learned in the process.

https://ploum.net/2026-01-19-exam-with-chatbots.html

Every time we read animal books with the kiddo, we have to discuss whether each animal can or cannot be petted and why.

It is a surprisingly complex question.

My new dissertation title therefore shall be: "Pet-pet okay?: The ethics and logistics of petting animals at the intersection of physical danger, legal obligations, animal bodily autonomy, geographic distance, and disease vectors."

Edit: my spouse will be Reviewer No. 2

#parenting #ParentPhD

Here is the humongous blog post describing how Boxie, the always offline audio player for my 3 year old was built. Includes files and instructions so you can build your own (if you are brave).

https://mariozechner.at/posts/2025-04-20-boxie/

Bypassing disk encryption on systems with automatic TPM2 unlock – https://oddlama.org/blog/bypassing-disk-encryption-with-tpm2-unlock/

oddlama writes: '"Most TPM2 unlock setups fail to verify the LUKS identity of the decrypted partition. Since the initrd must reside in an unencrypted boot partition, an attacker can inspect it to learn how it decrypts the disk and also what type of filesystem it expects to find inside. By recreating the LUKS partition with a known key, we can confuse the initrd […]"' #tpm #linux #Encryption

I’ve made an incredible discovery. I installed Monopoly CD-ROM (1995) on my XP machine. It came with a program called WCHAT, a chat client for several Westwood games. Imagine my surprise when it connected right up to the server!

Time to install wireshark… (1/n) #vintagecomputing

Liebe:r VW Mitarbeiter:in oder Zuliefer:in!

Ich verstehe Deinen Frust. 💕
Deine (anonyme) Nummer gegen Kummer: E7A8EUDW (Threema ID)

(Der Screenshot ist aus einer VW Firmware, please boost!)