Nerdy Echidna

11 Followers
112 Following
299 Posts

Botanist with a hobby interest in infosec. I mostly use Mastodon to stay current and read content, because it's not owned by MrCreepy.

Into: Linux; self-hosting; plants; pictures of capybara; philosophical discussions.

Not into: religion; politics; PR-spin.

This needs to be shared on its own for visibility. It’s more difficult to trust Ars Technica after this. I DO respect them for publishing this but…

Frankly it’s getting increasingly difficult to trust any news source.

In the journalism world, fabricated quotes is an egregious offense.
https://arstechnica.com/staff/2026/02/editors-note-retraction-of-article-containing-fabricated-quotations/

Editor’s Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

We are reinforcing our editorial standards following this incident.

Ars Technica
If you write about the messy reality behind "free" internet services: we're seeing #OpenStreetMap hammered by scrapers hiding behind residential proxy/embedded-SDK networks. We're a volunteer-run service and the costs are real. We'd love to talk to a journalist about what we're seeing + how we're responding. #AI #Bots #Abuse
#3196 - Aurora Coolness
https://mltshp.com/p/1RIE1 “Cathy Wilcox on Aussie racism”
What even is the point of being in a military alliance with the US in 2026? It's not like we can rely on them honouring the alliance and coming to an ally's help. Anyone that thinks that is probably deluding themselves.

#Microsoft is clearly becoming desperate due to low adoption rates of #Copilot.

Apparently, Microsoft is now pushing Copilot to all #Microsoft365 personal subscribers and calling it a "subscription price increase". Only when you decide to cancel your subscription are you presented with the option to switch to "Microsoft 365 Personal Classic" without Copilot (and nearly the old price). The classic plan is not presented as an option unless you try to cancel your subscription.

This is a classic scammy trick: Modify the existing plan and add the feature no one wants and hide the old plan from view. Presto, now you have an insane adoption rate you can present to investors as a great success.

I personally don't use Microsoft subscription services, so I don't know if they tried this bullshit in the EU, but if they did, they're asking for trouble. They got sued in Australia over this already: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/microsoft-in-court-for-allegedly-misleading-millions-of-australians-over-microsoft-365-subscriptions "Microsoft in court for allegedly misleading millions of Australians over Microsoft 365 subscriptions"

EDIT: It seems that at least in some areas/situations the "classic" non-AI version is actually even more expensive. This isn't exactly making the situation any better of course.

Microsoft in court for allegedly misleading millions of Australians over Microsoft 365 subscriptions

The ACCC has commenced proceedings in the Federal Court against Microsoft Australia and its US-based parent company Microsoft Corporation for allegedly misleading approximately 2.7 million Australian customers when communicating subscription options and price increases, after it integrated its AI assistant, Copilot, into Microsoft 365 plans.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

xubuntu.org might be compromised https://old.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/1oa4549/xubuntuorg_might_be_compromised/

The malware check the clipboard for crypto wallet addresses and then replace them with attacker addresses.

#linux #security

FUCK THE BEES HAVE DISCOVERED BRUTALISM
Well, Google AI seems a bit confused about Anubis and CrowdSec, so I'd say they're working as intended @cadey #anubis #crowdsec #aifail