SheilaAllen

13 Followers
88 Following
150 Posts
pronounsshe/her/they/them
Carved cave turtle may have been worshipped 35,000 years before Christianity

Sculpture found in Galilee was made with human tools and could be a ‘totem or spiritual figure,’ experts say

The Telegraph
Did you know that @libreoffice will cheerfully open WordPerfect files created by 34 year old software? Quite remarkable.

@bert_hubert Good time to remind people Naomi Wu was forced to stop her social media activities shortly after exposing a Chinese manufacturer's keyboard spyware. @SexyCyborg

"For years she has called attention to this problem, in which people were using apps like Signal to protect their privacy but typing on a keyboard that could be recording every keystroke and sending it to the developer, Tencent..."

The spyware was independently verified, #TenCent denied it, and then the govt paid Wu a visit.
https://skepchick.org/2023/08/maker-naomi-wu-is-silenced-by-chinese-authorities-and-why-i-blame-elon-musk/

Maker Naomi Wu is Silenced by Chinese Authorities (And Why I Blame Elon Musk)

There’s a really disturbing situation happening in China that I think it’s important everyone know about as soon as possible. The very talented maker Naomi Wu, aka Sexy Cyborg, has revealed that Ch…

Skepchick

Not the only thing, but one of the things I like about Bluesky: I made a post there a little while ago (correctly) pointing out a problem with a particular group of contrarian assholes. Shortly after, it was quote-reposted by a troll who did a Twitter-style "Oh, so we're censoring people in the name of anti-fascism now" dunk to try to start trouble.

Instead:

* Click menu, click "detach quote", confirm. Troll now just has a dunk with no quote inside it.
* Click "block", confirm. Troll is now nuclear-blocked and can't stink up anything I do.

And let me tell you, folks, they *hate* this. On a site that gives you tools to protect yourself, they can't generate the fights they want and it makes them seethe.

My latest nationally bestselling novel is "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Signed copies from Chevalier's Books:

https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/product-page/the-bezzle

--

My latest nonfiction book is "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" from Verso Books:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

Signed copies available from Book Soup:

https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245

Both are national bestsellers!

9/

The Bezzle

New York Times bestseller Cory Doctorow's The Bezzle is a high stakes thriller where the lives of the hundreds of thousands of inmates in California’s pris...

Macmillan Publishers

dad: what is it you do again?

me: i built a ton of features into firefox

dad: okay i guess

me: and now i secure systems with an almost incalculable amount of data

dad: ???

me: also today i got quoted by consumer reports

dad: *EYES BUG OUT OF HEAD*

https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/digital-security/tips-for-better-passwords-a3656305306/

Tips for Stronger Passwords

Consumer Reports tells you how to create strong, unique passwords. Research shows that many people reuse the same, often weak passwords—even after they're exposed in data breaches.

Consumer Reports
@ubernostrum 😞 I have no idea about those and don't look at social media much, but I am glad you are around to criticize those sorts of conversations. I don't know how you have the patience for it, though.
GREAT change is approaching. NIST will standardise prohibition of requirement of composing passwords from various character styles, and requirement for periodic password changes. These are harmful and obsolete rules. Now they will be treated as a cybersecurity weakness https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/sp800-63b.html
NIST Special Publication 800-63B

NIST Special Publication 800-63B

@kevinhearne WOW Candle & Crow book made me so happy. This world and these characters have come such a long ways since the Iron Druid Chronicles, and I loved seeing their stories wrapped up in such a gratifying way.
Callooh! Callay! CANDLE & CROW is out today! Please enjoy and holler about it. This book has
•a sleeping dragon goddess
•the courtship of a librarian
•heists in a wizard van
•fountain pen geekouts
•whisky and cheese
•sirens and hobgoblins
•recreational donut throwing (at cops)
And more! Yay!