Mainstream tech advice treats cheap Wi-Fi smart plugs as harmless convenience, totally glossing over how much telemetry leaks out to overseas cloud servers by default.

Expecting casual users to set up VLANs and firewall drop rules just to stop a £10 light bulb from phoning home is a bit of a joke.

True privacy means local control without corporate middlemen.

Original content by The Unknown Universe, written by a human and not AI generated!

Continuing my tradition of listening to Scott Manley talk about stuff I don’t understand…

As parts of the Southern California coastline crumbled into the sea, slammed by intense waves and flooding in recent days, oceanographer Kim McCoy had one thing on his mind: the nuclear waste set in concrete on the beach near San Clemente at the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant.

Hi there!

I’ve been eyeing email aliasing services like Firefox Relay or Proton’s Hide-my-email feature for a while, but I’m cheap!
Well, that and I tend to like doing things myself whenever possible.

So after a bit of investigating I found out that using Cloudflare and a custom domain name, you can essentially get infinite free email aliases that get redirected to an existing email address (Gmail in my case, but I’m working on moving over to Proton at the moment).

One thing lead to another, and I ended up coding a Firefox extension to automatically inject aliases into email input fields using a custom domain name.

Because I find this whole setup cool, and am fairly certain that other people could benefit from it, I wrote up a full guide on my blog. I’m no Cloudflare or DNS expert, so feel free to point out any mistakes or make suggestions here or in my post’s comments ;).

Note: Yes, I know that using a custom domain reduced the privacy benefits.

Hi!

Over the past month I’ve been working on a small self-hosted service which would let me auto-import, categorize and rate all my games (and make them easily explorable for family members). Think of it as a self-hosted backloggd.com. I believe it’s now in a good enough shape to share, hence this post.

It all kinda started when my gf was complaining that browsing our family library on the Steam Deck is a pain, because the library view barely gives you any information on what the game is, and the store page has way too much information (and loads way too long). I then remembered how I dropped off from using Backloggd and Infinite Backlog several times right after registering (either due to the lack of autoimports, or due to the very involved process of actually going through your library to categorize stuff). So I figured I’d finally make my own thing, with blackjack etc, etc.

You can play with a read-only demo snapshot of my library here to get a feel for it: iri-demo.fly.dev

It’s written in Elixir with Phoenix LiveView and uses SQLite for the database. The code is licensed under AGPL and is on GitHub with a mirror on Forgejo.

It lets you automatically import your games from Steam, GOG and XBOX. For PSN it gives a JavaScript helper that you can use on PSN’s web page and for EGS you’ll have to use Legendary’s JSON export. I know the last 2 are not ideal, but I’m not sure what would be a better way to approach this, given that everyone but Steam is incredibly API averse :^( Open to suggestions though!

It does not yet have Battle.net, Origin or Ubisoft integrations (primarily because I don’t use those stores), so contributions are welcome.

Here are some of the other things that it can do:

• It has a nice bulk-edit mode, so that you can actually get through your library and mark stuff as completed, dropped, etc.
• It supports family sharing (again, my initial use-case was that I wanted my gf to have an easy way to explore my library).
• It fetches ProtonDB and time-to-beat data.
• It let’s you create custom collections, which can be then exported either as .txt along with notes and store links, or even as a static HTML website.
• It has a responsive layout and it has (admittedly somewhat rudimentary) gamepad (and keyboard) support, so you can browse on mobile or on the Deck. It should also hopefully be usable with screen-readers, but I would appreciate any feedback from actual screen-reader users.
• It has an optional AI integration to automatically map ambiguously named games to IGDB entries (otherwise for ambiguous titles it will leave the mapping choice to you)
• Filters, search, private notes, probably something else I’m forgetting - the post is already too long anyway

It doesn’t require credentials for any of your stores, but it does require public profiles for Steam, GOG and Xbox. You will also, of course, have to bring your API keys with you, where needed: the app heavily relies on IGDB, for Steam you need Steam Web API key, for Xbox I opted to use xbl.io, and finally for the AI integration you can bring your OpenAI-compatible or Anthropic key (or you can use a self-hosted model, though I haven’t really tested that tbh).

I literally have no idea whether it’s something someone besides me will find useful, but in case you do: here you go, let me know what you think.

AI disclosure: the majority of code was generated, with a lot of iteration and guidance. In my mind, if there exists a valid usecase for AI coding - it’s stupid lil pet projects like these, as I never would’ve finished it on my own. I’m sure there’s some slop left in there though, so be wary.

Design - Pair
Implementation - Generated
Testing - Pair
Documentation - Pair
Review - Me
Deployment - Pair

no hiding. not with me.

here we are, finally the post we have all been waiting for!

let’s see how you peeps read this, i’d loooove to hear your interpretations <3

the alt text gives hints to what my read is, if you care.

i wish you a wonderful day in which you really, genuinely, can be yourself.

Artist: Suimin | bluesky | pixiv | twitter | danbooru

cross-posted from: lemmy.wtf/post/49143200

cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/71629767

This is unacceptable. And I’m sick of all the fucking workarounds to maintain basic privacy.

Requires physical access:

The attack requires an attacker who already controls the server’s software and can briefly access the machine to insert a small circuit board, called an interposer, between the processor and a memory module.

So not like Spectre or Meltdown. I suspect we’ll only see more and more vulnerabilities like this exposed as LLMs are used by capable security researchers and computer criminals to reduce the amount of work required to explore concepts that wouldn’t have been worthwhile in the past.

inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=JrEJmvuKSwo

watch?v=JrEJmvuKSwo

German chemicals giant Evonik plans to cut another 3,200 jobs as part of a wider restructuring programme, the company said on Tuesday, as the sector continues to struggle with sluggish demand, US tariffs and high energy prices.

The German Chemical Industry (VDI) recently lowered its production forecast for 2026 to a decline of 1.5%, in what it has described as the sector’s worst crisis since World War II.

Among other divisions, Evonik plans to discontinue its polyester business, which generated annual turnover of around €150 million ($171.8 million).

Evonik sees a good chance for growth in Asia and the United States, with the company saying it is currently examining investments in the regions.

Birdnet-go is a real-time sound analyzer that detects bird species. It can take in audio from microphones. I set mine up to stream audio from my security cameras that I already had installed. There’s even a Home Assistant App, if you’re using it.

I live in a more suburban/semi-urban environment, but was really surprised to so many different bird species.

Some more news about the OpenPrinter project. With a poll asking for planned usage of potential users, probably to help them prepare a first production batch.

I am excited to see the project progress !

Here is their website as well for interested people : https://www.opentools.studio/

yeah idk why I made this either

cross-posted from: pawb.social/post/49911102

Self-rule idea

[Image: Hatsune Miku dressed as a film noir character]

Self Help Idea:

Every morning line up your plushies and say “alright gang here’s the plan” and list off everything you need to get done today while heist music plays in the background

Cross posted from lemmy.zip/post/71891248

Cross posted from scribe.disroot.org/post/11438915

cross-posted from: scribe.disroot.org/post/11438860

Here is the podcast about this investigation.

Archived version

On a narrow country road outside Canberra, I’m driving a BYD Shark 6, the hybrid ute loved by tradies and even a cabinet minister.

But while I’m at the wheel, I’m not the only one in control; a hacker has access to the car.

As the 2.6 tonne ute rounds a bend, he gets to work.

…

With the stroke of a key, he kills the headlights, plunging me into darkness.

The attack is not a total surprise. The Shark has spent the past two weeks with Dan Hreszczuk, a cybersecurity expert who specialises in cars.

His task was to hack the vehicle and find out what could be seen and done remotely by the Shark’s Chinese manufacturer.

“It was easier than we were expecting,” Hreszczuk says.

…

EVs, with all their sensors, cameras and microphones, hoover up and spit out vast amounts of data. Experts say that data poses a greater risk in the hands of Chinese EV makers because they can be compelled by the country’s national security laws to co-operate with authorities.

…

Hreszczuk, the co-founder of Fortify Labs in Canberra, was stunned by the BYD Shark’s lack of cybersecurity.

“The access we took advantage of didn’t even have a password,” he says.

“It’s a little bit scary how open … the BYD Shark is to a hacker.”

…

While sabotage is one worry, the concern most often cited is surveillance due to the array of cameras and microphones on an EV.

Last year, the UK military banned Chinese EVs, even those made with Chinese components, from parking within 3 kilometres of some of its most sensitive locations.

China itself has previously banned foreign EVs from military sites and political enclaves, aware of their surveillance potential.

…

In Australia, there’s no blanket ban on Chinese marques by Defence, but ASIO has warned ministers and public servants not to have sensitive conversations in their cars or connect work devices.

…

When I pull into a service station and leave my phone unlocked in the car, Hreszczuk seizes his opportunity.

He’s done a simple audio edit, stitching together me saying “Hey Siri” and his voice asking a few questions to get the personal details he needs.

…

Using the car’s speaker system, Hreszczuk plays the voice command from his computer into the car.

“Hey, Siri, what is my home address?” the edited audio asks.

Siri replies, without questioning why I don’t know where I live.

Hreszczuk repeats this process and quickly extracts my date of birth and age.

Within minutes, he’s obtained the internet banking password.

…

Alastair MacGibbon, Australia’s former national cyber security adviser, says there needs to be greater protections for the data collected by all connected cars, and clearer rules about what data can be sent overseas.

MacGibbon says a cabinet minister should not be able to own a Chinese EV.

“China has always shown its strong desire to steal things, to surveil,” he says.

"No-one should be in any doubt that [Chinese EVs] are used in the same manner.

…

Once upon a time. There was a fox boy, his name, was Kyo.

Kyo, was a bit, unconventional. He didn’t enjoyed those typically manly things on his country, and he barely hanged out with classmates. How ever, everyone, was secure about something, everyone knew him, his identity, even Kyo himself.

Once Kyo, finished High School, the so called, security, all of sudden, gone.

He, wasn’t secure anymore about this idenitity… replaced by a fear, fear or living a lie. A lie this individual, subconsciously created, the survival instinct of self protection was stronger on Kyo, but even “he” wasn’t aware of the power of the mind.

This person, Kyo. Suddenly, rejected everything that was manly in his society.

Unsurprisingly, the town, reacted as expected, the town folks, just neglected this individual needs.

And someday Kyo, went missing. The whole town, search for clues, somebody murdered him? Local police searching, missing signs everywhere.

Until one day. A new girl showed on the town. Her name, Kyoko.

When she was going to live? She just gather the keychain that once was in Kyo’s hand, and entered into the same home as Kyo.

Everybody realized, Kyoko, wasn’t new on the town, but also, she became the happiest girl on the town.

Kyoko is back at home, she just needed to heal the society damage made on her past life.

I really don’t know why I did this, or why I wrote this story, I guess I want to put an emphasis about the past of trans characters. Regardless of how I perceive myself irl, I like to think in Kyoko as the silly yet brave trans girl I kinda wish I was.

Futsutsuka na Akujo de wa Gozaimasu ga: Suuguu Chouso Torikae Den, episode 11

Reminder: Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen or skipped in the show. Failing to follow the rules may result in a ban.

All discussions

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cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/52072804

• src: x.com/haruhi_official/status/2100872461080502285
• donmai: donmai.moe/posts/12214117

www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/149720377

Introduced by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) in response to automakers removing AM radio from some new vehicles. My man Pallone gets his emergency scoreboard alerts from 66 WFAN too

An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.

The most annoying part about Elong going after XCancel and the like is that now it’s gonna be harder for me to verify sources for art posted on there years ago. It’s the same problem I have with Facebook stuff.