In order to report my phone as lost, I have to log in to the carrier's website. In order to log in to the carrier's website, I have to type in my password as usual, and *then* I have to type in the 9 digit code they sent to my phone... My lost phone.
2-factor authentication has never *once* done me any good, but it sure has fucked up plenty of significant events in my life! Good job, Comp. Sci., you made everything suck.
Unus Nemo likes this.
"Such an update allows the company in China to create an update that allows the bus to not run in any way. "
zetland.dk/historie/svNwC3c5-a…
Dybt i et norsk fjeld blev en kinesisk bybus splittet ad. En status på vores frygt
En kinesisk bus blev nøje analyseret for mystiske signaler.Kaare Sørensen (Zetland)
Blaise reshared this.
The most thought proving article I have read this week:
A Norwegian bus company wants to know if their buses could be abused by China in the case of war.
So they drive two buses deep into a limestone mine to isolate them from the internet and forensically investigate how they work.
In the mine, investigators discover a Chinese kill switch which could destroy all Chinese buses.
In Denmark, that is 57 percent of the bus fleet.
Source (Danish):
zetland.dk/historie/svNwC3c5-a…
Dybt i et norsk fjeld blev en kinesisk bybus splittet ad. En status på vores frygt
En kinesisk bus blev nøje analyseret for mystiske signaler.Kaare Sørensen (Zetland)
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Glyn Moody, hypebot, millennial fulcrum, BrianKrebs, GhostOnTheHalfShell, Cassandrich, Jürgen Hubert, Cory Doctorow, Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩, Fish Id Wardrobe, peelinggecko, Truth Or Consequences ✅ 🇺🇦, 🇨🇦 Maverick ✊🇲🇲🇺🇦, Alton Barrett, your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦, Zhi Zhu 🕸️, Blaise, m0xEE, Stuart Celarier and Timo reshared this.
Isn't it funny how the right constantly wrings their hands over how members of any societal group they don't like, be it trans people, gay people, or even just users of recreational drugs, need to lose a bunch of their rights because somehow, they are a danger to children?
And by "funny", I mean "infuriating", because so many of them are themselves the actual threat to children...
thepinknews.com/2025/11/04/you…
Christian youth pastor who shared anti-LGBTQ+ post arrested on child sexual abuse charges
A Christian youth pastor who shared anti-LGBTQ+ posts has been arrested on child sexual abuse charges in California.Amelia Hansford (PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news)
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"The plane was fueled with 38,000 gallons at the time, due to the lengthy trip to Hawaii - sparking a fire that spread to cover FIVE MILES."
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
Seven killed when UPS cargo plane explodes upon takeoff at Louisville airport
The MD-11 plane exploded around 5.15pm as it departed Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.Melissa Koenig (Daily Mail)
So I guess they don't have to say "papers, please" before violating your civil liberties any more...
plan-A reshared this.
Linux: spending hours of your precious and finite life trying to figure out how the fuck do I make it do the thing
Windows: spending hours of your precious and finite life trying to figure out how the fuck do I stop it from do the thing
Computers in General, man
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There was a brief moment in time, when Windows based computers just worked.
Back when Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP were used.
(Though, to be honest, already Windows 2000 and Windows XP showed clear signs of enshittification. Windows 2000 had the unholy marriage of Internet Explorer and Explorer, and Windows XP started the whole "basically all commercial software is now spyware" story...)
But only Linux gives me that feeling of „I might have spent way too much time on this, the way it works now is janky as hell and breaks if I breathe on it too hard but *it does what I want and it‘s mine*“
Sadly it seems to be a Runner’s High like thing, where you have to spend lots of time and energy to get to a level where you can experience that short & fleeting elation which can be had easier and more reliably be e.g. gooning
Also, I strongly prefer having to invest some extra time to get stuff working, to not even having a tiny bit of a chance to find out what the computer is doing that I didn't ask it for.
Check out how many checkboxes ShutUp10++ has - and I'm certain that's barely scratching the surface...
Me: "But I can use an external screen!"
Him: ...
Me: ...
It must be an amazingly stressless job, working for the Onion. US Politics has become so ridiculous, so reprehensible, that the jokes just write themselves!
Especially now that this "liberal", "democratic" politician has an endorsement from Emperor Trump...
ICYMI, Joe Menn had a good scoop this week about how the US govt is getting set to ban TP-Link devices from being sold in the United States. If that happens, a whole lot of small businesses will probably need to find new networking gear. I have never trusted TP-Link devices and have repeatedly warned readers away from them. They have a history of flooding the market with massively underpriced hardware, and this is a market where generally speaking the cheapest means the most hackable. Here's one reply I sent to a reader in 2023 who inquired about finding what appeared to be an undocumented cloud login page.
msn.com/en-us/news/politics/u-…
"Thanks for your readership and the nice note. I was posting on Mastodon yesterday about your very brand of router!
infosec.exchange/@briankrebs/1…
"I realize that NYT and others constantly recommend TPLink b/c of the features vs price point, but I would stay away from this brand, and any that force you to register "in the cloud" before you can use them as local networking devices. You do not want your router to do anything except when you tell it do so, and to my mind all this cloud business being attached to network storage and local network things is troubling."
"If you are at all confident around computers, I'd recommend getting something like a high-end ASUS router and then installing an open source firmware on it, like Tomato or something. Because the default software that is on most routers is complete garbage, and often turns on a lot of stuff you really don't want turned on, or has other stupid default settings. If updating your new $160 router w/ third party firmware that could brick it if you screw it up is too much, then just stick with a Netgear router and make sure you check for firmware updates periodically."
BrianKrebs (@briankrebs@infosec.exchange)
This is pretty neat. It's common for IoT malware threats to patch infected routers, etc. so they can't be updated (with other malware or security patches).BrianKrebs (Infosec Exchange)
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There a reference page on the login accounts and remote access? I'd like to go poking on mine to see if they're there. I've had reports like that about bugs that turned out to only apply to earlier models, not mine.
Next router, I think, is going to be an industrial mini-PC with enough network ports and an OpenWRT build.
TP-Link urges immediate updates for Omada Gateways after critical flaws discovery
TP-Link warns of critical flaws in Omada gateways across ER, G, and FR models. Users should update firmware immediately to stay secure.Pierluigi Paganini (Security Affairs)
Hello Brian,
Thanks for the heads-up regarding that brand. If you'll permit another reader question, would you still recommend changing hardware for those who've installed custom firmware on their devices? I've been running a TP-Link router for years, but I did so by flashing DD-WRT on day 1 (dd-wrt.com). Is it still worth changing to remove that security/privacy risk, or is the custom firmware enough for home use?
Thanks!
@paulehoffman It's probably a good idea to check out the OpenWRT wiki and consult their current list of supported devices. As previously mentioned, newer models with Mediatek chipsets and a lot of RAM will serve you well. The other thing you'll probably notice is a performance boost, especially if you are relying on hardware that is 5+ years old.
here is a list of router features to disable.
routersecurity.org/turnoff.php
Router Security - Turn Off Stuff
Turning off features in a router - RouterSecurity.orgroutersecurity.org
As for Turrris their hardware is not made in China, so good. UI may be a bit too techie for some.
As for tplink they have multiple consumer lines and a single professional line. Someone more experienced than me has said good things about the pro line. Pro devices do not require registering for a tplink cloud account.
Trump's Department of Labor has a new social media ad campaign, and I thought I had seen that Aryan race vibe somewhere before, so I looked it up.
I truly hate how the Nazis always used white, tall, males in their propaganda, as if nothing else existed.
The new Trump regime ad has 13 different posters, and all characters are tall, white men.
that's simply fascist stuff. Unbelieveable, they don't even try to hide it.
Wonder if the 'ballroom' may contain any replucas or Originals of the works of Hitlers preferred sculpturer Arno Breker.
'I can't eat as much as I would like to throw up! ' Max Liebermann
Their idea of amerikkka : only men and only white .
Seems that they lived in another dimension.
Look at Stephen Miller Kash Patel MarcoRubio
They are clearly saying the less you are white, tall or male you are, the less American you are and the less you are valued.
It’s disgusting.
Just because the Republicans are trying to remove all our rights doean't mean it isn't bad when Democrats try to take away whatever is left!
This law would take domestic violence "red flag" determination (where the courts can already convict someone of being a violent threat who can never be allowed to own firearms without having to bother with any pesky constitutional due process) away from the courts and give it to the cops.
They're giving the criminal gang at least 40% of whose members will be engaging in domestic violence, statistically, the authority to convict someone of domestic violence.
Am I missing something here? Do we think that since cops are experts on beating your spouse, they have the expertise to recognize it in others?
Unus Nemo likes this.
US people: If you are white, not racist, not a supporter of ethnic cleansing, but are struggling to pay bills, or don't know how you will afford food next month...
First of all, I am genuinely sorry for the stress you are dealing with. Truly.
Second, this stress was placed on you intentionally. By racists.
Their idea is that you will stop caring about other people and become more racist as you become more desperate.
These racists don't care about *helping* other white people. They don't care about you.
They care about *hurting* Black and brown people, and creating their white ethnostate.
They happily shared stats showing that in pre-war Germany, the nazi party got the most support where hunger and hardship were highest.
They also celebrated the eugenic cruelty that followed the Influenza pandemic, back when "long Covid" or "long flu" were not terms that people understood.
No, I do not think that they invented Covid in a nazi lab.🤦🏿♂️
But the worst of them definitely celebrated its arrival, and said "Let 'er rip, this helps us," at first because of the high Black death toll, and later because of the impact on the elderly, and the desperation and healthcare callousness.
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I'm sure I've heard this from many Black communities, that community is how to defeat this, because hating an idea is much easier than hating Steve, who lent you some diesel for your generator so you didn't freeze.
Trouble is, so many communities got hollowed out by the myth of the independent nuclear family, once unions and other collectives got squeezed out. Thatcher over here praised "no such thing as society" because society gets in the way of conservative plans.
mekka okereke reshared this.
Post-war Germany isn't any different. Support for fascists is strongest in industrially weak East Germany, especially in even less developed rural areas that still don't have some industry mixed in as often seen in rural areas in West Germany.
Fascists everywhere thrive on inequality and poverty, but have no intentions whatsoever to change any of it for the better. If anything, their policies would make it even worse.
mekka okereke reshared this.
@star
I respect your need to protect your mental health. I do.
But I'm not putting CWs on every one of my posts that describes policy decisions that affect every Black person in America. That's not going to happen.
I don't post graphic imagery without CWs. But the whole point of my Mastodon account is to shine a light on the systemic harms which are usually hidden.
So your choices are:
* Block me
* Use a Mastodon client that allows you to do some NLP on posts and do the filtering on your side
No hard feelings if you block me! ♥️👍🏿
@star
You swear a lot in your posts. Some people are very offended by swear words.
If someone asked you to put a CW on every single one of your posts that included a swear word, you might find that unreasonable.
You might instead put a disclaimer on your profile, and ask people to unfollow / block.
@star
White people view Black people living their lives as "politics." I reject that framing.
Just like I reject the framing of trans people living their lives as "politics." A trans person is not politics. A Black person is not politics.
Politics is "Should we raise the taxes? Or "Should we lower the taxes?" Not "Should we do some ethnic cleansing?" Or "Should trans people exist?"
And your "common etiquette" on the Fedi sucks, and is why there are no Black people here.
I was polite the first time. I'm still being a gentleman about it for the moment, but the answer is still no. I'm not CW posts about racism that affects every Black person in the US. Your choices are still block/unfollow, or put the filters on the client side. I know that you know how to code, so you know how to do that.
But expecting me to put CWs on all my posts about racism, is never going to happen. You can keep asking, but the answer remains no.
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The answer will remain no because you are inconsiderate. You are putting your desire to call out systemic issues above everyone else's desire to have a mindful community in which hard triggers can be avoided.
My intent was not to frame your post as politics. I totally agree with your point that human rights, equality and equity are not politics. Genuinely sorry if it came across this way.
The larger point is that we need not push people who are already in personal crises to their absolute limit by taking away their tools of feed moderation, because someone thinks their issue is just too important. There is a genocide going on against my people. We need not fight, but to be united against our oppressors. My pain is different from your pain, but strangely similar in a lot of ways. This is not about importance or restricting speech. It is about protecting our communities, where many already live in fear or despair. People in fear and despair do not rise, they do not fight, they do not resist. They hide. We do not need to push people into a corner any further. We should, nay, must empower them.
N33R ⚸ 🩸 likes this.
@star
No,
The answer is that you're another selfish white person on Mastodon that expects Black people to put CWs on everything we post, and you throw a little tantrum when the answer is no.
Black people usually do one of two things at this point:
1. Leave the Fediverse, or
2. Tell you to go away.
I'm telling you to go away.
You've asked for something, you've heard that the answer is no. So why are you still here? If you believe that my unwillingness to put content warnings on everything that I post is inconsiderate, then why don't you block me and be done with it? Why would you want to have access to such an inconsiderate person's posts? Perhaps all Black people are inconsiderate? Maybe racism is right? Block us all!
Will there be anything else?
then why don't you block me and be done with it?
Because I am not an all-or-nothing type of person. Discourse, even if heated, is valuable. Not just to you or me, but to witnesses and outsiders.
I really do not appreciate your framing and your apparent unwillingness to engage in genuine discourse. You call marginalized and mentally ill people names, which pains to see me, because you are apparently able to do that and sleep well at night.
The only one currently throwing a tantrum is yourself. I could now be extremely cynical and say "you're just another cisgender person on Mastodon that expects transgender individuals to accept the way you behave unconditionally, or to exclude themselves from all discourse unconditionally"
However, that would be fucking ridiculous, no? Think about that.
@star
You speak as if Black people don't have mental health issues, or as if there aren't hundreds of thousands of Black trans people on Twitter.
The Black people on social media with mental health issues that are traumatized by racism, enjoy my posts! It helps them. They are hurt when I post things and people like you ask me to CW everything. I choose to prioritize their needs over yours.
Yes, I am just another cisgender dude online! Guilty! 🙋🏿♂️ And I'm one of those annoying hypermasculine straight guys to boot! Mr MMA man, boxer, college football player, powerlifter, bench press record holder, captain of the college rugby team, worked as a bouncer, dated dancers, still talks about his undefeated high school football team at 40+ years old, you know the type! Yuck!
But no, I don't expect anything of trans people. I don't expect anything of anyone other than for them to leave when they ask me to CW something and I say no. I've given you two options: Block / mute / unfollow, or accept my super Black posts.
And I'm immune to people that try to use their other marginalized identities to try to get Black people to stop talking about Black things.
So no, there will be no CW.
We can keep going, or you can go away.
Content warnings are something you do for the sake of others, not something to demand that others do for you. The expectation that someone else be made responsible for your comfort, or avoidance of discomfort, is a cornerstone of the racism. It is why when nonwhites protest, they are inexplicably always doing it incorrectly: because to protest is to be noticed, and whites demand that nonwhites be always unnoticeable.
Retrain yourself to accept what is offered, and no more.
> desperation, hardship, etc,
> likelihood of being racist or more racist / radicalized or mobilized
What’s so insanely fucked is the web of shit with how it’s probable that there are quite a few humans who are so awful that they don’t even consider race. Everyone is simply beneath them and racism in part is a tool to control massive amounts of people who are willing to help achieve your goals.
Then there’s just the truly hateful shit heel racists. There’s way more of them.
“Their idea is that you will stop caring about other people and become more racist as you become more desperate.”
I just add another monthly donation I can’t afford whenever they make me really mad. Latest is my city’s food pantry.
Along the same lines, we've been deliberately creating failed states South of our border to provide an endless supply of nonwhite scapegoats for at least a hundred years.
Anybody remember when Karl Rove cracked wise about the "reality-based community"? How we study reality and he creates it? In hindsight I can see what he meant. He was going to create a lot of failed states in the Middle East and flood Europe with nonwhite refugees to give their haters a target. Worked pretty well.
Remember--there are no unintended consequences in politics. What happens is what was supposed to happen. Ignore the bullshit justifications.
Right up there with the eugenists
Poverty brings criminals, drugs but no racists.
Either you are a racist or you aren‘t.
Many poor people don’t have that Choice. A racist has.
Far right is prospering in a Part of Germany where Porsche and Mercedes are located.
Don’t Sell yourself that cheap to Break it down to that Level where „white trash“ is responsible for racist.
Good morning Mr Plan-A ☕️
Big plans today?
I'm in dire need of an RDP "mouse jiggler"! When you have a security-martinet IT team, but need to read stuff on two connections while building on the 3rd, the two you aren't activating time out in like 5 minutes. IT says "As defined".
So, I need a way to send a jiggle or something to the inactive servers so that they think they are doing something and don't time out!
Are these physical servers in your possession? Do they have wake on Lan set to true in the BIOS. Make sure you have ICMP turned on and the ports enabled and setup a cronjob to send them a ping. You can open the port for only a specific machine if openning ICMP to the Internet would be an issue.
An AI just told me that my prose is "punchy". I responded with a smart-ass comment denying pugilistic tendencies on my part. It began its answer with, "I suspect you already knew the difference, but were joking..." Then, it gave me a large treatise on the distinction anyway, just in case.
I'm less worried about an AI takeover than I am about AIs treating us all like they're our disappointed parents!
Holy crap. If you're thinking you really want to know every possible technical detail of the submersibles owned by a redacted person who may or may not have directed 'Titanic', now's your chance!
media.defense.gov/2025/Sep/17/…
NTSB Investigation
Loss of the submarine Titan in the North Atlantic on June 18, 2023media.defense.gov
Unus Nemo likes this.
Unus Nemo likes this.
Struggling with vibe coding? You just need to get better at prompting. Here is a six video series "course" to teach you how to write the most effective AI prompts and get the most out of vibe coding!
(Do you ever wonder what it would be like if there were some special language for giving commands to computers... a kind of prompting language so they would do *exactly* what you wanted? Maybe someone should invent that.)
Blaise likes this.
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𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e, hypebot, Lisa Melton, Charlie Stross, peelinggecko, Blaise and Random Geek reshared this.
Yes, and the people not getting the chair are probably pension funds, who are currently starting to invest in "AI startups".
myrmepropagandist reshared this.
variables:
- variable:
variable-name: prompt-text
variable-value: "write a valid yaml-configuration for a CI/CD-pipeline for deploying a lambda service for verifying yaml-code"
enabled:
value: true
I shall now start a Flame War on which language is the best prompt language and why.
I open with VAX VMS DCL
Your turn ...
Yeah! Like a language where each statement works in a predictable way. You could even use concepts from math like "and" and "or" to speed up the process and remove ambiguity.
Maybe this is just a dream... anyways back to the vibes!
Took a course in ATDD once, which covered Cucumber.
It's a concept worth revisiting, as it bridges the gap between human and machine languages, by producing specifications which can be programmatically turned to working code.
@muellerwhh
1) Use AI generated code as scaffolding. Hand polish the result, the look & feel, the usability, the human touch, the quirk, the flourish.
2) For the love of God, is QA a Lost Art? QA does not care who wrote the code (🧑 🤖 👽 ) Don't tell the QA department you fired all the programmers and replaced them with AI.
This is the kind of toot you can do only on Mastodon where people don't need to be explained what sarcasm is.
I can't even imagine the level of stupidity of the comments you'd get on X or Bluesky.
After reading this post, I've decided to flesh out the ideas a little. And I think I may have conceptualised the future of vibe coding!
First, the problem of inconsistencies in how AIs respond to prompts.
We need better predictability!
So let's create a standard syntax for prompts, so when you enter a given prompt in a particular way, the machine will always respond in a standard way.
We'll call these next-gen prompts "commands".
As long as you know this simple "language" of commands, the machine will always do what you want!
Now, on to the problem of needing complex prompts for complex vibe coding jobs.
Let's take away the guesswork.
Instead of trying to precisely enter one complicated long prompt, let's instead have a series of simpler commands that get executed one after the other.
A "program" of commands, if you will.
So you don't have to re-enter your program on prompts, let's invent a physical media for storing and loading these programs.
Now, the next big elephant in the AI room is resource use.
Let's solve this issue so that the command interpreter "AI" software runs with very few resources. I know this is a stretch goal, but perhaps even an 8-bit microcomputer with just 64K of RAM?
And to really make this catch on, let's make this AI vibe command programming language so simple, even an 8-year-old can understand it.
A "basic" programming language, if you will.
Now I know this "Basic" programming language AI vibe coding system sounds extraordinary.
But I promise you that for just $10 billion in VC funding and total indemnity against copyright infringement, I will happily deliver a 64K 8-bit microcomputer with the BASIC programming language preinstalled!
This is the future of AI folks! Feel the singularity approaching!
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@aj this is so crazy. It just might work.
Can we call this AI creation an Intelligence Done Easily system, like an IDE?
Remember when we were all worried that Huawei had filled our telecoms infrastructure with listening devices and killswitches? It sure would be dangerous if a corporation beholden to a brutal autocrat became structurally essential to your country's continued operations, huh?
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2025/10/20/pos…
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In other, unrelated news, earlier this month, Trump's DoJ ordered Apple and Google to remove apps that allowed users to report ICE's roving gangs of masked thugs, who have kidnapped thousands of our neighbors and sent them to black sites:
pluralistic.net/2025/10/06/rog…
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Apple and Google capitulated. Apple also capitulated to Trump by removing apps that collect hand-verified, double-checked videos of ICE violence. Apple declared ICE's thugs to be a "protected class" that may not be disparaged in apps available to Apple's customers:
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/a…
Of course, iPhones can (technically) run apps that Apple doesn't want you to run. All you have to do is "jailbreak" your phone and install an independent app store.
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Big Tech is Silencing the ICE Watchers. Plus, Why a Scholar of Antifa Fled the Country. | On the Media | WNYC Studios
Tech giants Apple and Google have been quietly removing ways for citizens to document The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s activities. On this week’s On the Media, ...WNYC Studios
Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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Just one problem: the US Trade Rep bullied every country in the world into banning jailbreaking, meaning that if Trump (a man who never met a grievance that was too petty to pursue) orders Tim Cook (a man who never found a boot he wouldn't lick) to remove apps from your country's app store, you won't be able to get those apps from anyone else:
pluralistic.net/2025/10/15/fre…
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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Now, you *could* get your government to order Apple to open up its platform to third-party app stores, but they will not comply - instead, they'll drown your country in spurious legal threats:
eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conten…
And they'll threaten to pull out of your country altogether:
pluralistic.net/2025/09/26/emp…
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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Of course, Google's no better. Not only do they capitulate to every demand from Trump, but they're also locking down Android so that you'll no longer be allowed to install apps unless Google approves of them (meaning that Trump now has a *de facto* veto over your Android apps):
pluralistic.net/2025/09/01/ful…
For decades, China hawks have accused Chinese tech giants of being puppeteered by the Chinese state, vehicles for projecting Chinese state power around the world.
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Meanwhile, the Chinese state has declared war on its tech companies, treating them as competitors, not instruments:
pluralistic.net/2021/04/03/amb…
When it comes to US foreign policy, every accusation is a confession. Snowden showed us how the US tech giants were being used to wiretap virtually every person alive for the US government.
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More than a decade later, Microsoft has been forced to admit that they will *still* allow Trump's lackeys to plunder Europeans' data, *even if that data is stored on servers in the EU*:
forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacot…
Microsoft is *definitely* a means for the US to project its power around the world.
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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When Trump denounced Karim Khan, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, for indicting Netanyahu for genocide, Microsoft obliged by nuking Khan's email, documents, calendar and contacts:
apnews.com/article/icc-trump-s…
This is exactly the kind of thing Trump's toadies warned us would happen if we let Huawei into our countries. Every accusation is a confession.
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But it's worse than that. The very worst-case speculative scenario for Huawei-as-Chinese-Trojan-horse is infinitely better than the non-speculative, real ways in which the US has killswitched and bugged the world's devices.
Take CALEA, a Clinton-era law that requires all network switches to be equipped with law-enforcement back-doors that allow anyone who holds the right credential to take over the switch and listen in, block, or spoof its data.
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𝓬𝓪𝓷𝓪𝓻𝔂 🏳️⚧️🦋🌱 reshared this.
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Virtually every network switch manufactured is CALEA-compliant, which is how the NSA was able to listen in on the Greek Prime Minister's phone calls to gain competitive advantage for the competign Salt Lake City Olympic bid:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wi…
CALEA backdoors are a single point of failure for the world's networking systems.
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Nominally, CALEA backdoors are under US control, but the reality is that *lots* of hackers exploit CALEA to attack governments and corporations, inside the US and abroad. Remember Salt Typhoon, the worst-ever hacking attack on US government agencies and large corporations? The Salt Typhoon hackers used CALEA as their entry point into those networks:
pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/for…
US monopolists - within Trump's coercive reach - control so many of the world's critical systems.
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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Take John Deere, the ag-tech monopolist that supplies the majority of the world's tractors. By design, those tractors do not allow the farmers who own them to alter their software. That's so John Deere can force farmers to use Deere's own technicians for repairs, and so that Deere can extract soil data from farmers' tractors to sell into the global futures market.
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A tractor is a networked computer in a fancy, expensive case filled with whirling blades, and at any time, Deere can reach into any tractor and permanently immobilize it. Remember when Russian looters stole those Ukrainian tractors and took them to Chechnya, only to have Deere remotely brick their loot, turning the tractors into multi-ton paperweights?
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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Many of us cheered the high-tech comeuppance, but when you consider that Trump could order Deere to do this to *all* tractors, on his whim, this gets a lot more sinister:
pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/abo…
Any government thinking about the future of geopolitics in an era of Trump's mad king fascism should be thinking about how to flash those tractors - and phones, and games consoles, and medical implants, and ventilators - with free and open software that is under its owner's control.
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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The problem is that every country in the world has signed up to America's ban on jailbreaking.
In the EU, it's Article 6 of the Copyright Directive. In Mexico, it's the IP chapter of the USMCA. If Central America, it's via CAFTA. In Australia, it's the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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In Canada, it's 2012's Bill C-11, which bans Canadian farmers from fixing their own tractors, Canadian drivers from taking their cars to a mechanic of their choosing, and Canadian iPhone and games console owners from choosing to buy their software from a Canadian store:
pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/bea…
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These anti-jailbreaking laws were designed as a tool of economic extraction, a way to protect American tech companies' sky-high fees and rampant privacy invasions by making it illegal, everywhere, for anyone to alter how these devices work without the manufacturer's permission.
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But today, these laws have created clusters of deep-seated infrastructural vulnerabilities that reach into all our digital devices and services, including the digital devices that harvest our crops, supply oxygen to our lungs, or tell us when Trump's masked shock-troops are hunting people in our vicinity.
It's well past time for a post-American internet. Every device and every service should be designed so that the people who use them have the final say over how they work.
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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Manufacturers' back doors and digital locks that prevent us from updating our devices with software of our choosing were never a good idea. Today, they're a catastrophe.
The world signed up to these laws because the US threatened them with tariffs if they didn't do as they were told. Well, happy Liberation Day, everyone. The US told the world to pass America's tech laws or face American tariffs.
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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When someone threatens to burn down your house unless you do as you're told, *and then they burn your house down anyway*, you don't have to keep doing what they told you.
When Putin invaded Ukraine, he inadvertently pushed the EU to accelerate its solarization efforts, to escape their reliance on Russian gas, and now Europe is a decade ahead of schedule in meeting its zero-emissions goals:
electrek.co/2025/09/30/solar-l…
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Solar leads EU electricity generation as renewables hit 54%
In Q2 2025, renewables powered 54% of EU electricity, with solar leading the mix and topping all sources in June for the first time.Michelle Lewis (Electrek)
reshared this
Sheldon and Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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Today, another mad dictator is threatening the world's infrastructure. For the rest of the world to escape dictators' demands, they will have to accelerate their independence from American tech - not just Russian gas. A post-American internet starts with abandoning the laws that give US companies - and therefore Trump - a veto over how your technology works.
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Zhi Zhu 🕸️ reshared this.
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I'm on a tour with my new book *Enshittification*!
Catch me next in #SanFrancisco, #Portland and #Seattle!
Full schedule with dates and links at:
eof/
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As scary as all that is, and it's very scary, thoughts on how existing geopolitical power structures could be disrupted by widespread availability of energy that's an order of magnitude cheaper than today?
volts.wtf/p/super-deep-geother…
(Acknowledging the real possibility that the existing power structures take action to either kill this baby in the crib or coopt it and restrict deployment.)
Super-deep geothermal drilling ... with microwaves
I talk with Quaise CEO Carlos Araque about a technology that could persuade the oil and gas industry to drill for heat instead of fuel.David Roberts (Volts)
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So... I like to audit the devices on my network for unexpected Ethernet packets. I tried searching for CALEA exploits and how they work and didn't see how to protect myself. Is it a stream of bytes and port knocking that activates it?
I do remember back in the late 1990's a particular stream of bytes through my ISP's network would shut down their T3 line for the entire state, which required a manual reboot to restore service. And it was reproducible. With a UseNet News binary of a mp3... Ooops... That CALEA?
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You WILL (for now...) be able to sideload unaproved apps by the ADB debug (USB) bridge, but that requires having a real computer.
Question then becomes this: if an Android ICEblock app requires ADB sideloading what percentage of intended users would be up to teaching themselves to use ADB from the command line?
Remember, making every computer boot to a command prompt like Windows 3.1 did, most people would treat that as an outage.
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Effectively zero.
Is not the answer to rely on web apps running on EU servers (right next to Fediverse servers...)?
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Absent blocking entire websites where such apps would reside, there's no way I'm aware of for an OS to prevent using an "app" residing on a web server.
If we get to the point where the government is forcing blocking of websites, we've got far bigger problems.
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The mechanisms by which citizens are remade into subjects & serfs, it often begins with being made into a captive consumer.
Reminder of who funds Apple: #PrinceBonesaw
businessinsider.com/saudi-arab…
The fossil fuel industry is deeply invested in choicelessness.
Saudi Arabia's crown prince visits Apple, Google
Saudi Arabia's millennial crown prince got to see the inside of Apple's new $5 billion campus.Kif Leswing (Business Insider)
thanks! I thought you might enjoy this paper we recently authored on related issues…
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
No National Cloud should be hosted outside that nation.
No national Cloud should be designed or maintained by companies with ties to foreign governments-that way lies espionage and kill-switch-fuelled blackmail.
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
MTG recently started making statements that don't sound completely insane. Possible explanations:
1) A handler has recently shoved their hand up her ass.
2) A new handler has their hand up her ass.
3) She recently escaped her handler.
Thoughts?
Some notes for the "UX" people out there designing user interfaces:
1) Don't mix menu options and gestures in the same workflow.
2) Don't mix menu options and gestures in the same workflow.
3) Don't mix menu options and gestures in the same workflow.
4) For pity's fucking sake, don't mix menu options and gestures in the same workflow!
Unus Nemo likes this.
When everyone uses a developers library a developer thinks 'Great they all love my work!'. When someone does something similar in UI/UX the UI/UX design expert screams 'plagiarism, how dare they!'
UI/UX design experts are different breed. I believe the only one that really give a sh@t about them are other UI/UX designers. They are really the outcasts of the development community. By their own choice.
"We didn’t love freedom enough. We submitted with pleasure!"
Even if you are sure you don't need extra security, you need extra security. Change messengers! The people keeping you "secure" are farming you like pigs, and the slaughter is a-comin'!
friendica.rogueproject.org/dis…
In 2023, Signal was the first mainstream messenger to enable post-quantum cryptography. We’re still ahead of the (elliptical) curve, implementing a new hybrid PQ ratchet ensuring Forward Secrecy & Post-Compromise Security even in a post-quantum world. signal.org/blog/spqr/Signal Protocol and Post-Quantum Ratchets
We are excited to announce a significant advancement in the security of the Signal Protocol: the introduction of the Sparse Post Quantum Ratchet (SPQR).Signal Messenger
Blaise reshared this.
Me: OK, I sent the memo. I think I've mastered organization-speak. I used it liberally.
Colleague, reading memo: Holy shit! Jesus, man, you can't use that many buzzwords in one sentence! Did you have your common-sense removed?
Me: Nah, you learn to just suspend it, and let the looney flow; It's actually kinda fun! I wonder if that's why managers do it in the first place....
Unus Nemo likes this.
Signal Protocol and Post-Quantum Ratchets
We are excited to announce a significant advancement in the security of the Signal Protocol: the introduction of the Sparse Post Quantum Ratchet (SPQR).Signal Messenger
reshared this
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩, hypebot, xs4me2, Agaric Tech Collective, Jae Bloom, Truth Or Consequences ✅ 🇺🇦, ninos, salvari, Blaise and josh:// reshared this.
Waiting for the replies to turn into another tech-Karen show...
No, wait. They already did.
#encryption depends upon basically really hard math problems to work
this has worked well for a long time
but now we have #quantumComputing
while it is in its infancy it makes really hard math problems really easy
so that means in some time, encryption will stop working (all banking and finance, all military comms, etc: it can be hacked)
luckily there are encryption schemes that are resistant to quantum computing
but they have to be implemented
#Signal implemented it
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩 reshared this.
@benroyce @erikcats For the record, we do not have quantum computers yet, nor do we know when or even if we'll have them for any outside-the-lab purposes.
Good encryption is never a bad idea though 😊
youtube.com/watch?v=Lhou8I2w_L…
Quantum Computers Look Like Chandeliers. This is Why.
Whether you saw a quantum computer featured in a tech news blog post, or that Black Mirror episode "Joan is Awful", the chandelier-like look may have inspire...YouTube
the problem is in #military #quantumComputing R&D, there's definitely advances we're completely unaware of
#turing (and mathematicians from #poland who don't get enough attention on the topic) broke #germany's #enigma machines in #WWII
but it wasn't until 1974 that the world got its first real details about #bletchleyPark
so you can be almost certain #china, #usa, #europe: somewhere some team is on the crux of or has already broken high level #encryption
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩 reshared this.
Possible, but maybe far from certain.
Breaking the Enigma wasn't really smooth sailing.
It had its ups and downs during the most critical years,
but those can't be summarized in 100 words.
Also the Germans helped by overestimating the strength of the Enigma and thus neglecting some measures that would have been in their interest.
The Venona project is also instructive.
It achieved a lot and yet decrypted a small part of all intercepted messages.
@jwcph @benroyce @erikcats I was about to post something exactly to this meaning!
Also, I would even avoid saying that, if actually made feasible, quantum computers will make hard mathematical problems "easy"; rather, I would say that they would solve them quickly, and much more so than currently imaginable with classic computer architecture. The difference in terminology has to do with how one actually counts the operations that need to be performed in order to solve the problem. Additionally, there is the problem of errors, but let's not get to technical (yet).
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩 reshared this.
There's also the fact that every time so far that some company has claimed "quantum supremacy" and boasted of having "solved" a certain precisely-chosen problem multiple orders of magnitude faster than possible with a classical computer, a different set of researchers have looked at that problem, reframed it, and come up with a way to solve it in comparable time using a classical computer.
The level of hype really is staggering.
a locked door won't stop the police. but your casual handle jiggling thief knows that the noise involved in breaking in won't work out well for them
all security is about "good enough"
@benroyce @erikcats *Some* really hard math problems.
If large-scale quantum computers turn out to be viable, certain classes of problems are going to be impacted more than others.
It is not true that "all" encryption will stop working, even for generous definitions of "all" and "stop working".
It's certainly bad enough, however. And we now have cryptographic algorithms which are believed to be resistant to *both* classical computer and quantum computer attacks. Which is good.
is it Winternitz One-Time Signatures/ Lamport signatures?
i'm not a cryptographer but this stuff fascinates me
@benroyce I'm not an expert either. My understanding is that for example modular multiplication math (which is used for almost all classical public key cryptographic algorithms, both encryption and signing) is potentially highly impacted by QC; but much math used for symmetric-key encryption and for hashing is significantly less affected. E.g., the effective security of AES-256 is reduced to ~ AES-128, BUT that also assumes QC operations are similar to classical operations.
@rhempel @mkj @erikcats
publicly reported, they are up to 6,000 physical qubits as of september, and ibm is aiming for 100,000 physical qubits by 2033
which allows for 100 logical qubits
don't ask me what any of that means
but i'm reminded of "this computer has 4K of memory? that's astonishing!" from the 1980s
and look at us now
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩 reshared this.
Bottom line, I guess, is that there are plenty of nuances here which I am happy to let people who know the stuff much better than I do handle; but it's not quite as clear-cut as "the whole world will break" as it is sometimes presented.
There's a number of detail assumptions which may or may not turn out to be true which impact the actual result. But taking a cautionary stance, we do know that the risk is non-trivial and thus taking mitigative steps is good.
@mkj @benroyce @erikcats well, one other problem is that of the immense number of continuous parameters needed to describe the state of an actual quantum computer. And then along come papers such as this one
journals.aps.org/prresearch/ab…
This is really cool! And the way I see it, it has the potential to address the problem above by providing a general way to discretize quantum systems. So I guess we'll have to wait and see how things work out.
Personally, I'm quite sceptical about the whole quantum hype, but I'm keeping an open mind.
@paraw Oh, there is a *LOT* to this which doesn't fit in 500 characters! And like I said, I'm not an expert. But we DO know that this stuff is possible in principle, even if not in practice currently; and we DO now have primitives which provide protection. Since it's hard to change the past, taking a cautionary stance would mean that we move toward a setup which provides protection while not stripping us of protection, while there's time to do it less stressfully.
To my mind, quantum computers these days are maybe perhaps at the level of EDSAC, ENIAC or their ilk in classical computer terms: just barely usable for more than proof of concept. No one familiar only with those would imagine them being developed into a smartwatch yet here we are. We can see that there are certain classes of problems, widely relied upon, where quantum computing significantly changes the rules of the game. Not a crisis, but worth attention.
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩 reshared this.
@benroyce @zakalwe @hotelzululima @jwcph @erikcats true story: a while ago, I briefly worked on a tetrazole compound. The goal was to better understand a certain molecular mechanism in plants. The compound was synthesised by a student, who is one of the best chemists I've met (think Walter White sans drugs). He did it during a weekend because, in his own words, "if something messed up, it would have blown up the university, and at least it would have been empty."
We published our findings here
pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/a…
@paraw @zakalwe @hotelzululima @jwcph @erikcats
😅 😅 😅
good chemists have better salaries
but good software engineers have more fingers
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩 reshared this.
My co-author on one of my books once attended a weekend party at which they were, among other things, using liquid nitrogen to make ice cream.
After a while, the liquid nitrogen ran out.
Sometime AFTER that point, one of the attendees showed up with a freshly-made batch of ice cream, inviting people to try it. Those who KNEW the nitrogen had run out immediately called a stop and said, "Wait, wait, what exactly did you use to make this?"
He had unknowingly used liquid oxygen.
Amazing work you guys are doing!
Though I'd like to see some community oriented features like spaces and/or moderation tools
Still my most favorite messenger
Keep up the good work!
And you still require a fucking phone number to make an account.
"Whoop doop we're post quantum encryption but you still have your phone number and give away ALL your metadata and who you call!"
lol !
what is wrong with you mental mastubators?
is there a single day you dont waste in the toilet bowl delusions of man and his endless grifts?
YOU LIVE IN A FANTASY WORLD! WAKE UP!!!!
kenwheeler.substack.com/p/quan…
QUANTUM is ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT. No such BS exists in Nature, period
Quantum Brain Farts of the Pseudo-intellectual fools of academiaKen wheeler (Ken Theoria Apophasis Substack)
no not this.
read the article - Title is clear - no room for "quantum" anything in REALITY.
you missed the point bruh.
Bitcoin takes a finite quantum of entropy defined by difficulty scaling the nonce space and through proof-of-work transforms it into conserved thermodynamic memory: satoshis, a quantum of structure and value. The result is a computed quantum of time: the block.
It is the most literal definition of “quantum” and of “computing.” Energy beneath the physical mirage reduces to discrete quanta at the scale of Planck time. Bitcoin instantiates that process at human scale.
A quantum without absolute scarcity is unintelligible. Physics drifts when it defines quanta without bounds. Measurement is not a convention, it must be tied to a scarce denominator. No such scarce denominator existed before Bitcoin, thus no true measurement existed before Bitcoin.
“A measure of any kind, of any thing, is not a thing at all, nor is a measure found in nature. A measure is an agreed-upon standard of measure.” Except Bitcoin’s measurement is not an agreement. It is a thing. It is conserved energy, crystallized into memory. It’s not just an “agreement”, because truth does not care about your opinion.
Bitcoin is the only system to prove that a quantum of entropy can resolve into a conserved quantum of structure: auditable, irreversible, and true.
there is NO SUCH thing as a “quantum of entropy”. Not in bitcoin. Not in REALITY.
YOU. ARE. WRONG.
youtube.com/watch?v=faaMsuNitC…
🤔 FIELD Theory in Depth: Fake Particle-Fantasy pseudo-science of Quantum & Relativity
🤔 FIELD Theory in Depth: Fake Particle-Fantasy pseudo-science of Quantum & RelativityIF YOU LIKE THESE VIDEOS, YOU CAN MAKE A SMALL DONATION VIA PAYPAL LINK...YouTube
🤖 Tracking strings detected and removed!
🔗 Clean URL(s):
youtube.com/watch?v=faaMsuNitC…
❌ Removed parts:
&pp=ygUPdGhlb3JpYSBxdWFudHVt
🤔 FIELD Theory in Depth: Fake Particle-Fantasy pseudo-science of Quantum & Relativity
🤔 FIELD Theory in Depth: Fake Particle-Fantasy pseudo-science of Quantum & RelativityIF YOU LIKE THESE VIDEOS, YOU CAN MAKE A SMALL DONATION VIA PAYPAL LINK...YouTube
I-told-you-sos are considered to be preening, so how do you make people remember what you said and see the proof so they change their minds without doing it? This was all predictable, and predicted....
blaisehartley.com/2025/10/01/w…
When you build a dictatorship, you get a dictatorship – Blaise's Blatherings
We’ve been on a death march toward the complete disintegration of every principle that ostensibly animates our democratic republic for decades. Both sides have helped keep us on the path.blaisehartley.com
Lol, I actually switched to GNU/Linux when Windows was just a MS/DOS application. Windows 3.11 had just released when I began using tutorials on usenet to build my own GNU/Linux installation. X Server was another story. It took literally weeks to download all the code successfully and For a very small while I used a bare bones X Server with no DE or WM. Boot magazine (now Wired) distributed a stripped down copy of Debian on their complimentary CD on one Issue and I finally got to try out Gnome and KDE which were both in their infancy. At first KDE had my attention, then as both matured, as I pretend I did as well, I learned to love the elegancy of simplicity and now I favor Gnome.
Have a great day!
Can't sell electric motorcycles to "real" bikers? Put a whole-ass extra non-working IC motor on the electric motor's output so e-bikers can throw away 50% of their charge on making everyone think they're just as selfish and obnoxious as regular bikers!
motorcycles.news/en/yamaha-e-m…
motorcycles.news/en/yamaha-e-m…
Yamaha patent: New “fake engine” for electric motorcycles aims to deliver the feel of a real combustion engine
Yamaha is developing a special unit for electric motorcycles that is designed to generate the typical noises and vibrations of combustion engines. The new patent aims to transfer the classic riding experience to electric vehicles.Andreas Denner (Motorcycles.News - Motorcycle-Magazine)
Blaise reshared this.
Raimund Eder
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Manfred
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Sensitive content
MarjorieR
in reply to Manfred • • •@titanmanfred John Deere tractors aren't cheap, to buy or to repair.
I wonder where the Chinese got the idea of software/IP lock in from?
pluralistic.net/2022/08/15/dee…
Pluralistic: 15 Aug 2022 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netMarjorieR
in reply to MarjorieR • • •@titanmanfred just to amplifiy this point. Nearly all internet connected devices have a kill switch.
Teslas have a kill switch
Your ISP supplied router has a kill switch
Your phone has a kill switch
Your Windows computer has a kill switch
Your programmable bed has a kill switch
Your robot vacuum has a kill switch
Your MS Mail account and your Bank account has a kill switch (ask ICC judges)
Your data in the US owned cloud (even if hosted in Europe) has a kill switch
F35 planes, NATO donated to Ukraine, have a kill switch.
Your Polish locomotive has a kill switch (activated if you try and use an independent repair shop).
All these have been mentioned in the news and in the Fediverse recently.
Most of these are controlled by US or Chinese companies. Particularly with Trump in charge and alll the tech Billionaires subbing him are you sure that the American ones are less lilkely to be used against you by the USAian companies than the Chinese companies to disable your kit and maybe your life?a
Manfred
in reply to MarjorieR • • •Sensitive content
* my cars are 1975 and 1990
* using Linux since 20years
* ...
Ed Bridges
in reply to Manfred • • •Fish Id Wardrobe
in reply to Ed Bridges • • •Osma Suominen
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •US made John Deere tractors also have a kill switch and it has been used to disable some of them (in this case tractors stolen by Russian troops) remotely:
orchardandvine.net/news/john-d…
edition.cnn.com/2022/05/01/eur…
(EDIT: this was also mentioned briefly in the Danish article linked above)
John Deere ‘Kill Switch’ Renders Stolen Tractors Useless
orchardandvine.netjesterchen42
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •To be honest: I'd love a broad scale analysis of this. Few days ago it as a vacuum cleaner, now buses...
Test this in all things. From mobile phones to cars (don't care if Chinese, US or German), smart beds (well... actually leave these ones out. Who buys a bed that needs internet?!), switches, routers, water pumps, ....
I bet they'll find stuff in too many places.
Randahl Fink
in reply to jesterchen42 • • •jesterchen42
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Pēteris Krišjānis
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Some people might find open hardware and open source guys annoying but this what they talk about.
m0xEE likes this.
Arthur van der Harg
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Not just China doing this. I remember arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…
It is generally not a good idea to give others control over apparatuses that you own.
Trains were designed to break down after third-party repairs, hackers find
Ashley Belanger (Ars Technica)Randahl Fink
in reply to Arthur van der Harg • • •Nicolas Fournier
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •@ArtHarg
you have plenty of this, everywhere
one of my favorite is farmers using hackers to be able to self-repair their tractors...
copperhilltech.com/blog/farmer…
Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors Because of a Right to Repair Ban
CopperhillThierry Van Kerm
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to Thierry Van Kerm • • •Thierry Van Kerm
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Is this really surprising?
And, btw, don't you think the US (or Russia) don't do the same?
Time for Europeans to grow up, to stand up and get their balls unleashed from whoever hold them tight! 🙂
The Penguin of Evil
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Christian Klüber-Demir 🏈
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Here's another article about this in German:
derstandard.at/story/300000029…
Chinesische Busse in Oslo könnten von China aus gesteuert werden – sie fahren auch in Amstetten
DER STANDARDBernard
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Medium
Mediumpanu
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •The existence of a kill switch is one thing, but what's more fundamental here in the case of a bus is why on earth it has to be connected to the public internet in the first place?
It just doesn't make sense.
umberto otto
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Peraphs not..
@randahl
We must ask ourself where this suspious comes from? I've get you a clue in the interview linked below.
slotos
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Reminds me of Polish train manufacturer bricking their trains located close to independent repair shops.
So far, the only people suffering for this decision are the people that helped unbrick the trains in question.
hackaday.com/2023/12/14/polish…
This is not a China phenomenon but a greed one. Not to say that Chinese government doesn’t enjoy the results, just that I doubt they had to actively instruct anyone to include these kill switches.
Polish Train Manufacturer Threatens Hackers Who Unbricked Their Trains
HackadayBørge
in reply to slotos • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to Børge • • •waldi
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Tom
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Tl;Dr
Chinese electric buses have independent outgoing Comms that are used for navigation and OTA updates.
These updates could be designed to disable the vehicle (or they could do it by accident).
As others have noted, pretty much all electronic devices (from doorbell cams and printers to trains and combat aircraft) from all manufacturers (western and Chinese) have this issue.
Good to check and worthwhile developing processes to firewall, monitor and control this access.
NoBorg
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •European option:
"The extensive network of IVECO BUS and IVECO service points guarantees support wherever a vehicle is operating worldwide. The manufacturer employs more than 5,000 people and has five factories, located in Annonay and Rorthais in France, in Vysoké Myto in the Czech Republic, and in Brescia and Foggia, in Italy."
ivecobus.com/france/La-Marque
La Marque - En route vers le changement | IVECO BUS |
www.ivecobus.comNoBorg
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Sad story, Alstom Aptis was manufacturing good electrical buses in Alsace, France, but due to low demand, they cease activities in 2021.
European Union countries should give priority to EU products so that OUR companies don't close and to prevent sad surprises.
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_A…
Alstom Aptis — Wikipédia
Contributeurs aux projets Wikimedia (Fondation Wikimedia, Inc.)Graeme 🏴
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Slyence 🥥🌴
in reply to Graeme 🏴 • • •@pa27 thats a bunch of bullshit
Here’s what can happen:
You can get cut off from software updates
You can get cut off from American made parts
But guess what - America needs the parts made in evey f35 partner nation to keep their jets flying too
The program forces everyone to play nice
Randahl Fink
in reply to Slyence 🥥🌴 • • •Delphi
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Thanks for sharing this.
As much as I like tec, in spite of my decades of using it (I started as a mainframe op in the 1970s), I think we've let the horse bolt through the barn doors.
TrimTab 🇺🇦
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Kill switches are fantastic folks. The question is only about who controls the switch.
-- When the owner of the asset can control the kill, it is a boon for privacy, anti theft, and pro security.
-- When an adversary controls it, it is coercive, malicious, dangerous and predatory.
Anders Lund
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Kerplunk
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •A Norwegian bus company wants to know if their buses could be abused by China in the case of war.
in the mine, investigators discover a Chinese kill switch which could destroy all Chinese buses.
BOLLOX
Thank you for replicating the ridiculous accusations. A sim card and update box was found.
That system is used in thousands of buses, trains, cars, tesla for example can be switched off from usa as can john deer tractors.
65dBnoise
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Isn't this a well known practice? Isn't Tesla doing the same with OTA sw updates, performance monitoring et.c. of the vehicles they manufacture?
But, I guess, we are all conditioned to see #US #technofascism as more acceptable, for some reason.
Cassandrich reshared this.
Randahl Fink
in reply to 65dBnoise • • •Paco Hope wishes ill for JK Rowling
in reply to 65dBnoise • • •I think @65dBnoise has a point. I’m pretty sure the same sort of feature is built into nearly every “smart” lightbulb and “smart TV.” The issue is not the nationality of the software developer. It’s the whole notion of being dependent on some cloud service, generally.
If the authors think war is the only reason the company would use that kill switch (or even the most likely reason) try repairing a bus with unapproved parts or trying to make unauthorised modifications to the software running on the bus. Or maybe just try not paying the bill.
@randahl
Mike Spooner
in reply to Paco Hope wishes ill for JK Rowling • • •Paco Hope wishes ill for JK Rowling
in reply to Mike Spooner • • •@shelldozer C’mon. Be realistic. If the Danish rep in the UN condemns the treatment of Uighurs in China, the Chinese bus manufacturer is not going to retaliate by bricking a bunch of buses in Denmark. The diplomatic fallout would be extreme.
The point is well taken that once it’s possible to brick these buses at all, it is possible to do that for a trivial reason. And what they discovered is that it is possible. But that doesn’t make it likely that they would do this for a trivial reason.
Sadly, I can’t figure out how to pass that article through a translator so I haven’t read it. When I hand it to google translate on my phone, Danish still comes out.
@65dBnoise @randahl
Randahl Fink
in reply to Paco Hope wishes ill for JK Rowling • • •@paco just copy the text and paste it into translate.google.com.
@shelldozer @65dBnoise
Paco Hope wishes ill for JK Rowling
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •millennial fulcrum
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •wow! clever investigation, thanks for this eye opener. I'm sure it is the same here in Aotearoa
it's almost as if trading with terrorist states was a bad idea in the first place.
Randahl Fink
in reply to millennial fulcrum • • •millennial fulcrum reshared this.
millennial fulcrum
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to millennial fulcrum • • •Tak!
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •The most thought-provoking thing about this article is that it highlights the absolutely wild level of sinophobia in scandinavia.
My wife's Volvo has remote firmware update functionality, is that a Swedish killswitch? Every one of the tens of thousands of Teslas in Denmark has remote update functionality, is that an American killswitch? Modern BMWs have remote update functionality, are those German killswitches?
I personally hate the techbroization of modern cars, and I believe that every one of these features should be regulated out of existence, but
it's amazing how this kind of stuff is accepted and normal in every part of our lives until a company based in China does it, and suddenly it's "😱 THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT HAS KILLSWITCHES IN OUR BUSSES 😱"
🙄
Randahl Fink
in reply to Tak! • • •@Tak Not wanting remote kill switches in products has nothing to do with sinophobia. I am against ALL remote kill switches from ANY country that my country could potentially go to war with.
After Donald Trump has threatened to invade Greenland, I find it deeply problematic that Danish politicians continue to use American iPhones. That does not make me anti-American. It just makes me conscious of the very real security risks Donald Trump represents.
Perrin42
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •proto-post-naïve timmy
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Marcel Abraas
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Walter Tross
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Mr. Lance E Sloan (IRL) 👤
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Cassandrich
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Ben Aveling
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Chinese 'kill switches' found in equipment at US solar firms trigger national security fears. What are the
ET Online (Economic Times)Andy Rabagliati
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •leberschnitzel
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •KasTas
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •well, translation does not sound that scary and specific:
> " The Chinese electric bus contains a computer that, among other things, controls the bus's battery and engine, so the bus can most efficiently drive around Oslo. And this computer is – via a small sim card – on the Internet, so it can send information and sometimes retrieve an update back. For yes, a bus can be updated in exactly the same way as your phone."
TL;DR: remote tracking and updates which can be used maliciously
Sam Oldman 🐀
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •To be fair, my ten year old north american GM car has the same kind of remote "kill switch" vulnerability. It's there as a feature of the OnStar theft protection package that came with the car even though I'm not paying for it.
If the U.S. regime wanted to take over Canada, it could (potentially) order car companies to disable nearly every car and truck we have.
#autos #theftprotection #ElbowsUp
Randahl Fink
in reply to Sam Oldman 🐀 • • •Sam Oldman 🐀
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Daniel Molkentin
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Sorry, unless we suddenly start to take non-elective OTA updates without safeguards such as independently reviewed, reproducible source code builds as the theoretical but very possible general threat that they are, I fail to see how this is special. Even more so because @briankrebs boosted it.
Vendor-forced OTA updates are an accepted practice. Attack the practice, not the practitioner.
BrianKrebs
in reply to Daniel Molkentin • • •Daniel Molkentin
in reply to BrianKrebs • • •shironeko
in reply to Daniel Molkentin • • •BrianKrebs
in reply to shironeko • • •shironeko
in reply to BrianKrebs • • •BrianKrebs
in reply to shironeko • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to Daniel Molkentin • • •@briankrebs
Daniel Molkentin
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Honestly, with the Cloud Act and similar laws in place and tech companies obediently submitting to the Trump Administration, I don't really trust any product from the US, and I am saying this with a lot of US tech on my desk. I don't see why I should trust US products any more than I trust Chinese ones.
If it would serve his purpose, Trump would jump in Putins' lap in a heart beat and abadon Kyjiw. Right now, he's just heartbroken about his imaginary best buddy.
@briankrebs
onterof
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •shironeko
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to shironeko • • •shironeko
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to shironeko • • •shironeko
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to shironeko • • •William032
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •never make america again shirt
viralstyle.com/shirtte/never-m…
viralstyle.com/shirtte/cat-smo…
Viralstyle
viralstyle.comViðrir
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •To be fair: All Tesla's, and probably many other EV's on the market today have this same functionality.
It's not a "kill switch" directly, it's that the busses support OTA with full admin-rights directly from the manufacturer without user envolvement that could theoretically be used as a kill switch.
Now, if you read further on the "Lion Cage" project, that is scary shit.
klegdixal
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Polish Train Maker Is Suing the Hackers Who Exposed Its Anti-Repair Tricks
Charlie Sorrel (iFixit)Randahl Fink
in reply to klegdixal • • •klegdixal
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •yup. That SLAPP is indeed insane.
Dunno if this was brought up, this time a Chinese smart vacuum.
cybernews.com/security/enginee…
Kevin C 🎬
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Version of the story from The Guardian.
Danish authorities in rush to close security loophole in Chinese electric buses theguardian.com/world/2025/nov…
Danish authorities in rush to close security loophole in Chinese electric buses
Miranda Bryant (The Guardian)Randahl Fink
in reply to Kevin C 🎬 • • •@kcarr2015 It is so funny for us Danes to see the politicians panicking now.
For years, Danish security experts warned about this, but most politician arrogantly rejected this as paranoia.
There was a tv-show were a politician from Venstre arrogantly said: "It is okay to fear wars and such, but one cannot fear a computer".
John Mierau
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •huawei suspected of kill switch in routers
dji drones suspected of kill switch
e-cars suspected of kill switch
vacuums suspected of mapping
WHEN DO NATIONS START DEMANDING OS SOVEREIGNTY?
(not expensive or complicated: it's called open source software and linux)
PS: the expensive and complicated part?
EDUCATING VOTERS TO VOTE FOR IT
randomized
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •scotty86 🇺🇦🕊️
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Robin Barton
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Fish Id Wardrobe
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •do busses really need to be connected to the internet?
however attractive that seems, the possibility (actuality, in this case) of remote interference makes it too costly.
same for everything else, too. does my fridge need to be? my tv?
javensbukan
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •This is important - and is true for all internet connected tech.
Something I've thought a lot of lately because of our proximity to the US and reliance on US tech - in spite of the threats of annexation coming from Trump.
Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Most certainly - and the due diligence needs to be done to make sure critical hardware and services are hardened and impervious to such an attack.
Queen 1066
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Peter Bindels
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Jack Poller
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •I just wrote a similar article about Israel banning Chinese cars from the military...
securityboulevard.com/2025/11/…
Why Israel Just Banned 700 Chinese Cars from Its Military—And What It Means for Security - Security Boulevard
Jack Poller (Security Boulevard)SarcastiCat
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •foo ✅
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Magical Cat
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Elon Muksis 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 🇪🇺
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Pete
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Beelbeebub
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Ok I read the translated article and it seems that what they found was the computer that controls the battery and inverter had a sim card in to to allow for firmware updates.
In theory the firmware could be updated to kill the bus but I couldn't see any mention of a function in the existing firmware kill the bus.
This "update firmware to kill" vulnerablity is present in any hardware that can be updated.
Sometimes it happens inadvertently when apple/Google brick a load of phones.
Yop32
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •And that is why being electronically independent make sense. Unfortunately not is not always possible but these tests are easy to perform by forensics. That being said, include a clause in the contract specifying remote kill switches, investigate the product you are buying and return them if you find something related.
If you are a country this should be mandatory
ScottMGS
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to ScottMGS • • •Marcel Abraas
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •tomshardware.com/tech-industry…
rozie
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Article says that investigators found no spying functions and no kill switch.
They "discovered" auto update function. Described scenario is of course possible (for every device with auto update function), but this is not a kill switch.
But I guess any reason is good for anti-Chineese FUD?
Jo
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Joey Provolone
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Carlos Solís
in reply to Joey Provolone • • •Joey Provolone
in reply to Carlos Solís • • •yeah, i mean even look at appliances. its hard to find a non-smart or basic fridge without smart apps or screens built into them.
Juan Per¢ent,🇲🇽 🍉
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Polish on Polish Train kill switches. Maybe this is more of anabuse of IP issue than a security/defense issue.
The story of the great Polish train hack
Patrick Rhys Atack (Railway Technology)MBybee
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Literally a top security concern at every sec conference I attendeded back in the 2000s.
And people were like "Stop being paranoid"
Remote OTA updates are a compromise vector for *anything* capable of it.
Kris
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •So they are not different from Teslas.
Or from any other device that can get OTA updates, which allows the maker of the device to install any change any time?
Flo reshared this.
dragonfrog
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •saying they "found a kill switch" is a bit alarmist IMO.
They found that over the air firmware updates are supported. Yes the manufacturer could in principle ship broken firmware, but there's no indication they built functionality specifically to disable the buses - unlike, say, European and North American car manufacturers, which build in features specifically designed for dealerships to disable a car if the buyer misses payments, sold *as a feature* to dealerships.
Akashanil206
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •payhip.com/b/xFKwO
H4Heights 🇪🇺🇵🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Nicole Parsons
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •These kill switches are likely embedded in every chip-enabled product.
It's a national security problem. Spyware, control, & sabotage all in one.
But it's also part of a fossil fuel disinformation campaign to undermine renewable energy.
It's for accelerated planned obsolescence in household appliances, phones, computers, routers, vehicles, satellites, home heating, public lighting, electric grids, and solar & wind electricity generation.
reuters.com/sustainability/cli…
1/
Nicole Parsons
in reply to Nicole Parsons • • •2/
However, when the Right were nattering on about Huawei, remember Accusations are Confessions
wired.com/story/intel-earnings…
theguardian.com/technology/202…
cbc.ca/news/business/us-lutnic…
investors.com/news/trump-stock…
m.economictimes.com/news/inter…
Now that Trump owns 10% of Intel, will Intel chips also get kill switches?
Reminder, both China & the USA have a long history of taking hostages, regime change, & expansionist wars
bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-5…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradit…
nytimes.com/2019/02/27/world/c…
Canadian legal dispute
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Bruce Acton 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Winfried Angele 🇺🇦🇪🇺
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Blaise
in reply to Winfried Angele 🇺🇦🇪🇺 • •@Winfried Angele 🇺🇦🇪🇺 @JP Mens @Randahl Fink They weren't looking for the SIM card, they were looking for *any* external communications. Every electronic device has the potential to carry a transceiver, whether for good or evil. They were going to a place guaranteed to have no other RF transmissions at all so that they could know that anything they detected came from the bus.
Afterward, having found nothing else, they examined the potential attack vectors exposed by the SIM card.
Elias Probst likes this.
Winfried Angele 🇺🇦🇪🇺
in reply to Blaise • • •Hotspur🏳️🌈🇺🇦
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •This clicks with my support for the right-to-repair movement here in the US and elsewhere...consumers should be able to repair their purchases, replace batteries, etc. themselves or by a third party, rather than being forced to go back to the dealer or simply discard it and buy a new product.
And related to that....the ability to turn off updates or sever connections should they see fit.
Rev. Robodummy
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •tekhedd
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Outfrost
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Rich Stein (he/him)
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Two articles in English:
- cybernews.com/security/norway-…
- aa.com.tr/en/europe/oslo-tests…
Oslo tests reveal Chinese electric buses can be switched off remotely
www.aa.com.trNumber6
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Doesn't the SIM card have to connect to a specific, paid-for network? So who is paying for the network?
If there's a way to get a working SIM card without paying, I'm very interested.
I suppose the next step is that the Chinese will require the SIM card to be in place to operate. Which means the bus will stop if you drive through a 0-bar location. And the drive won't be able to call for help because her phone will also have no connection.
Jimmy
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Moe Lassus
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Klimperei - Petchanatz
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to Klimperei - Petchanatz • • •Thierry 🅰️🕒
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to Thierry 🅰️🕒 • • •JohnnieMac
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Luigi Muffingione
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Thomas =:-)
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Robert Berger
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Hunspirillen already
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Deutscher Bahnkunden-Verband
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Bob LeFridge
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •This seems like an important story. Unfortunately the Zetland site doesn't allow Google Translate.
@randahl
Pieter
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •emaksovalec
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Glyn
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •It is misleading though.
Not a kill switch a software update mechanism.
That doesn’t get clicks though does it
IHateFireworks
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •y'all: debating how serious this is and whether is constitutes malice
me: wondering how I get the "testing busses in the cave" job
we are not the same