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- Comment on Automated Sextortion Spyware Takes Webcam Pics of Victims Watching Porn 2 weeks ago:
I’d say they’re getting desperate to extort the few victims they manage to infect with this crap if they’re adding an extortion/blackmail component to this that isn’t your bog standard “oh files are now encrypted” malware.
Since ransomware is pretty much known to be common enough; it’s clear that people are backing up data on a regular enough basis to be resistant to it; especially if the criminal is demanding far more money than any data they managed to take hostage is worth to the person. Since cloud services are ubiquitous now; it’s likely they already have critical documents and photos backed up safely and the ransomware fails if all the user does is find someone techy to just nuke the whole system and reinstall everything from their cloud backup.
Using browser activity and webcam spying might seem clever but it’s just a reaching maneuver to extort people who would ordinarily just shrug off a ransomware infection but whom still have poor enough opsec online to be affected greatly by such blackmail.
- Comment on Itch.io blocks adult game creator profiles for UK users while keeping some games accessible: British gamers can play the spicy games but can't peek at who makes them. 3 weeks ago:
Honestly that’s a good thing though. It prevents the prudes from being shocked by the content and finding reasons to harass creators of NSFW content legally.
It really sucks that it has to be that way for UK users; but if you’re already buying something spicy; you know what it is…and keeping systems in place to enforce more “if you know, you know” type walls up tends to keep prudish people pleased easily.
Not defending the action; just saying it prevents problems later.
- Comment on Does AI need to be perfect to replace jobs? 3 weeks ago:
No. Not really anyways.
HOWEVER… The AIs in question MUST BE Competent Enough. What your definition of that will be is likely to be flexible and possibly even debatable with others depending on the situation.
What needs to be true is that AI must not be capable of making the same mistakes a human could, but the mistakes that an AI COULD POSSIBLY MAKE are required to be mistakes that any human could reasonably and very easily catch.
Unfortunately the above IS NOT TRUE of current AI LLM type implementations. These LLMs have no consciousness nor ability to reason beyond what a computer could. They have no creativity, despite having the ability to parse language and guess the next word.
If you only learned the rules, grammar and vocabulary of a specific language and were given absolutely zero context or cultural and historical teaching; an LLM is what that would look like. This by itself is not enough to replace jobs.
Is that fact enough to stop heartless corporations from trying it? Hell. The. Fuck. No. They will try it anyways, they will ‘fuck around and find out’ on the off chance that it may save them money. They don’t care that it’s the company selling the ‘AI product’'s job to lie to sell their product. The fact that some companies are that desperate to save cash is telling in and of itself about the state of the world right now…but that’s another topic for another day and another threaded post in another subcommunity on Beehaw.
- Comment on 4chan will refuse to pay daily UK fines, its lawyer tells BBC 3 weeks ago:
In this case; the UK is reaching too far. Genuinely speaking; they don’t have the right to fine you if you don’t live or operate in that country. 4chan never did have any legal presence in the UK; even if it did accept ‘donations’ from UK citizens.
At worst; the UK can block 4chan from being accessed in their country and seize any money sent to 4chan by their citizenry in the future. I doubt anyone would care if that’s what they did.
The US specifically even states in it’s constitution that no citizen shall have laws imposed on them by another country that restrict their freedoms.
- Comment on Google plans to begin verifying the identity of all developers who distribute apps on Android, even if it's outside the Play Store, starting September 2026 3 weeks ago:
Looks harmless on the surface; but yet, is still in fact, boiling a frog.
Thankfully the rollout seems fairly slow; should be enough time for most of you who find this concerning enough to switch to a custom ROM which eschews this safeguard.
With luck this will be even something we can turn off. I certainly would demand the ability to turn this security setting OFF even if it ships “Default - ON” to protect normal users who do not have a need usually to sideload unsigned apps.
I don’t like it myself. If we are not given a choice; I will likely flash my device over to an Open Source ROM that respects my privacy more.
For developers; this might be a good time to make sure that there are people who can “register” semi-anonymously and share the signing keys. Genuinely, I think something could be figured out; and private registrations could become a thing; Where one person capable of registering simply vouchsafes a number of developers they personally know by sharing necessary signing keys where they too contribute to an app project.
I think the whole implementation can’t be immune to key sharing, and I do think it’s possible to have one dev deal with the devil…Google in this case.
While I understand some projects will rightfully not want to hand information over to Google; usually because they’re being legally attacked by Google; I believe it will be possible to simply use wider shared keys to misdirect and deflect any unwanted legal action.
- Comment on Google Gemini deletes use's code 1 month ago:
With the Obvious exclusions being mentioned here, where you should see them first...
- IGNORANCE, regardless of if it was willful or blissful unawareness of the dangers - AI researchers…and other research interests - Science involving intelligence - Other Computer Science tinkering and experimenting…
I can’t imagine why anyone would allow an AI to interact with files that have not been thoroughly backed up and secured on a disk that is detached from any system the AI is running on.
Secondly, I cannot imagine why one would ever permit the AI to use move commands when getting files from a directory that is external to the directory you explicitly designate as the AI’s workspace.
Third, why would someone not make sure all the files are in the right places yourself? It takes maybe 5 minutes tops to crack open a file explorer window and do the file operations exactly as you intended them; that way it’s ensured that a ‘copy’ operation and not a ‘move’ operation is used on the files, while doing any versioning, backing up or checkpointing that is desired.
Last of all; why would someone use an LLM to make simple commands to a machine that they could easily do in one CLI command or one GUI interaction? If one can type an entire sentence in natural language to an AI, and they are skilled enough to set up and use that AI agent as a tool, why not simply type the command they intended, or do the GUI interaction necessary to do the task?
- Comment on I’m not ignoring your message – I’m overwhelmed by the tyranny of being reachable 2 months ago:
In general, I disable the ability of getting a ‘read receipt’ if at all possible. In the case of some rare platforms that don’t allow this; I also warn people that "Seeing a ‘read receipt’ indicator does not mean I was available to reply.
In general; people who hang on to this little indicator are also committing a larger social faux pas, and you should { [(yellow/red) flag] / address / handle } it accordingly based on your relationship to that person, your goals and the situation.
Whether that means ‘calling them out’ or , kindly explaining what it actually means or explaining your approach to communications; the behavior of expecting something to happen on the receipt of a read receipt.
- Comment on Nintendo Is Already Punishing Switch 2 Users Over Piracy ‘Suspicions’ 2 months ago:
It will be the end of Nintendo. …Eventually. Of course these things take time; and people in general are slow on the uptake; especially uninterested masses.
Eventually though; they will grow too bold; brick a larger number of systems than is absolutely necessary to intimidate people away from piracy and basically piss off the gaming userbase; at which point the Steam Deck and related hardware will likely draw all casuals in.
- Comment on Microsoft pushes staff to use internal AI tools more, and may consider this in reviews. 'Using AI is no longer optional.' 2 months ago:
This is problematic; and a perfect example why end users should not be trusting Windows 11, 12 or later, or any software that Microsoft outputs from now on.
AI CAN’T WRITE SOFTWARE, ONLY HUMANS CAN CREATE AT HIGH LEVELS NEEDED TO CREATE NEW SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS At Best, AI can tell you maybe what libraries might help you get 50% the way there; but it cannot, and should not ever be used to do all the work of a human.
- Comment on Portable Network Graphics (PNG) New Specification 2 months ago:
Alpha channels are critical. The ability to have images have transparency in them is much more useful than you believe it is. Many end users have a need for it, more than they know they do; so this argument really isn’t doing much for your stance supporting PNG. Similarly PNG has supported alpha channels for quite a while.
- Comment on Nintendo Is Already Punishing Switch 2 Users Over Piracy ‘Suspicions’ 2 months ago:
The change in EULA was the hint; I have not; and will not be buying any Switch 2 games, consoles or related merchandise. Nor will I be paying any further into my Switch beyond NSO as I have or buying any games for the Switch that are not explicitly on a physical cart.
I don’t buy games often anyways and would rather support Pocketpair and Palworld and Valve. So that’s where my discretionary spend and gift requests will go henceforth.
In general Nintendo is having it’s villainous arc; and I don’t believe they will survive it…given that they’ve run out or demoted their creatives and visionaries to workers. Nintendo is dead; what’s left is a greedy and soulless shell that behaves more like a gang or mafia. Given their History; that doesn’t surprise me.
- Comment on Anxiety is the most common mental health problem – here’s how tech could help manage it 2 months ago:
- Comment on Anxiety is the most common mental health problem – here’s how tech could help manage it 2 months ago:
Hell. To. The. No.
This is no different than the electroshock ‘therapies’ that were pioneered from 1930 and onward through the 1990s. This is based in medical quackery and this is highly problematic that it once again is being suggested.
- Comment on It’s official: There are no Nintendo Switch 2 reviews. Here’s what that means for us, and you [VGC] 3 months ago:
Nintendo is clearly hiding something; they clearly are highly afraid of critical reviews and this is clearly a strategy that is not unlike what Nvidia, led by Jensen Huang, does.
What they are hiding will remain to be seen. I’m sure that the bad reviews will not go away…only be delayed by a week or so.
If you are wise; you will avoid buying the Switch 2 for at least a month. If you can’t wait a month to see what Nintendo is hiding; just be advised; you bought into it blind and have no right to complain about the bad reviews later, nor should you take it personally when people start talking poorly about the Switch 2.
- Comment on Tinder tests letting users set a 'height preference' 3 months ago:
In a perfectly reasonable, civilized and rational world; this would be seen as an additional feature in “Bad taste”.
There is no rational reason for the company to permit any kind of detailed filtering; the longer you’re swiping through photos, the longer you use the app and the chance that you potentially give them money for services remains.
There is no rational reason to discriminate against people based on their height either. While it’s quite natural to have preferences, generally speaking, you know when you find someone attractive. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone genuinely only attracted to specifically only tall or short people; there’s usually something else there behind the reason. That reason could be any number of things from feelings to experiences and more.
Attraction, much like people, is a complicated and not so straightforward thing. It’s reason for being isn’t based on rationality always, we don’t always size up our mates the way a computer would. In general it’s oftentimes emotional, and attractiveness can be something that happens when someone manages to emotionally convey an appearance or vibe that matches something the one feeling the attraction might be looking for.
- Comment on End of 10 - Windows ten is ending. Microsoft wants you to buy a new computer. But what if you could make your current one fast and secure again? 4 months ago:
This is a good a start as any to market Linux to the common end-user. It’s not about the software being better; it’s about the software offering the user some advantage, like not needing to buy new hardware.
Linux is, far from perfect still. It has a metric ton of “foot guns” that cannot be pointed anywhere away from the feet; the user MUST move their feet away. It has a lot of pain points and still lacks polish in some ways. Most things mostly just work; but may the gods and goddesses help you if something for some reason does not work, or does not work as expected for any reason. Coaxing it to work exactly as expected might seem impossible for average users.
Then there’s the issue of Linux having only volunteer support in most cases. Getting help from an overworked and under-interested FLOSS developer is like pulling teeth; even when they’re literally the only person on the planet who can solve your problem
That being said; Linux is free and mostly usable. 9/10 times it does work and can save you a lot of hassle and headache if all your computing needs are basic and predictable.
- Comment on People are using Google's new AI model to remove watermarks from images | TechCrunch 5 months ago:
The solution to this is subtle and gentle amounts of 2D Perlin Noise, as well as a touch of Gaussian noise on and around the watermark as well.
The more you can cloak the area around the watermark with subtly increasing amounts of noise; the harder it is for AI to manipulate it without mangling the image in general. (or leaving the watermark behind)
Similarly; leaving smaller artifacts like small signatures or wordmarks embedded in the image also makes sense, particularly small signatures hugging things like lineart in inconspicuous places or hidden in places with intricate detail.
Tools like Glaze and Nightshade also exist to “Poison” images at creation-time such that, if they go viral and get re-shared and AI remixed heavily, they won’t be as easily usable by AI models to knock off your works. Yes, this technique is ineffective for existing works, as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. These tools use many different techniques beyond just subtly masking the entire image with multiple layers of imperceptible perlin noise. Which is a task that could take you several hours to get to looking right in your favorite image editing suite, as you’ll be poking and prodding and tweaking that slider to maximize protection while minimizing it’s visual perturbations.
- Comment on Is This How Reddit Ends? 7 months ago:
- Comment on Please ban data caps, Internet users tell FCC 10 months ago:
I’m suspecting these companies are trying to use Data Caps to “Deter Piracy” without saying as much.
Unfortunately; the reality now is that these Data Caps do not just affect rampant pirates or people who download a lot of things. They are trying to justify an outdated policy that no longer works as intended; and hoping customers won’t notice them taking a bit more profit off the top.
They’ve been more than caught now and the practice must stop or customers will get federal regulators involved
- Comment on Low Tech Magazine: Communal Luxury: The Public Bathhouse 11 months ago:
I think not.
We’ve been bathing in private for the past 200 or so years hereabouts. It is difficult, if not improbable, to reverse such a trend in society and culture so quickly.
While I may actually feel this is a thing that society might benefit from; I don’t see this happening outside of nations with a lower societal taboo on nudity. It works in Japan simply because that’s how their entire society has been structured from the start, and their society largely agreed that communal bathhouses made much more sense logistically and economically; largely due to the fact that it is an island nation, and land space is more precious there.
Furthermore; I personally also prefer privacy. As a trans individual; that privacy is strongly necessary to me for many valid reasons concerning my own safety and health; and for ensuring others do not feel unsafe; regardless of their reasons for feeling that way.
Society is not ready for this kind of thing anymore and has mostly chosen to abandon the practice to antiquity.
- Comment on After is a new dating app that tries to tackle ghosting 11 months ago:
I don’t think this app is problematic. I think it’s attempting something interesting. Whether that will work or not will remain to be seen.
As with many “untested” dating app concepts; “May the user(/buyer) beware.” My advice to people who doubt the app is to ‘avoid it’. There’s plenty of valid reasons why you may feel that it won’t work. I’m not going to invalidate those feelings nor those experiences.
Enough people will vote with their feet; either by using it, using and quitting it, or not using it at all that we will probably see within a few years if it works or if it quickly dies and languishes in obscurity.
I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing how well things performed in 5 years from now for this concept. I do feel it could help, especially if the boilerplate rejection text is designed intelligently enough. I certainly feel like enough people struggle with mental health that what they are trying to do could be beneficial to encouraging people not to act impulsively. I think providing mental health resources right there in the app may allow rejectees to seek help they need; instead of pinning their hopes on finding a potential mate to address their issues, then lashing out at, or stalking, those potential mates when they’re rejected.
To be clear; I do understand that many kinds of scary or bad experiences are a thing for some dating app users. I simply feel that, for those people who have not had such an experience and might feel safe or safer with such a messaging mechanic in a dating app; I do not see the harm in it.
At no point do I recommend this app anyone who feels that it’s unsafe to do anything but ‘ghost’ a bad match-up.
^Please,^ ^do^ ^not^ ^try^ ^to^ ^change^ ^my^ ^mind.^
- Comment on AI tool cuts unexpected deaths in hospital by 26%, Canadian study finds 11 months ago:
Agreed; when an AI is used to bring things to the attention of a qualified human handler; the two working in tandem can be pretty effective.
AI alone should never make decisions; and humans should always evaluate an AI’s findings carefully before acting on them.
- Comment on My dead father is “writing” me notes again 11 months ago:
We can no longer trust anything that is specifically sent to us via digital means.
Technologies like the Document Scanner and even the Photocopier will now have to encode secret data to authenticate that a real, functioning machine has digitized the document.
This can in fact, cause a great amount of trouble for people.
People will be required to never digitize themselves handwriting all letters of the alphabet; lest their handwriting be vulnerable to an AI learning it.
- Comment on Chrome will block one of its biggest ad blockers 1 year ago:
Firefox is open source. It’s not going anywhere; even if Mozilla Co. goes broke and closes down the Mozilla Foundation.
- Comment on Logitech has an idea for a “forever mouse” that requires a subscription 1 year ago:
Most reasonable consumers won’t go for this. it’s a greed play.
Give me mice that I own; not mice to rent.
- Comment on Logitech has an idea for a “forever mouse” that requires a subscription 1 year ago:
Disgusting. Utterly disgusting. This idea belongs in the garbage bin.
- Comment on 98% compatibility 1 year ago:
Linux must achieve 100% compatibility. Otherwise the doubters will not shut up.
- Comment on Alternative YouTube clients having issues loading videos 1 year ago:
github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/10397#issuecommen…
Looks like there’s several causes.
- Comment on Alternative YouTube clients having issues loading videos 1 year ago:
I should point out that this isn’t always “Google is trying to block adblockers” again!
Google can, will, and does simply change how the YouTube watch pages look, feel and operate behind the scenes quite regularly.
Thankfully we have people like those at the FreeTube, NewPipe and yt-dlp projects to sift through those changes and update the code to cope with the new output.
- Comment on Android Dialer App Recommendations? 1 year ago:
In general; I strongly don’t recommend anything on the Google Play Store except the Google Dialer.
If the Google Dialer is not to your liking; I strongly recommend only trying Dialers you will find on F-Droid.org