pqdinfo

@pqdinfo@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Giving up on selfhosted email / Any sane email setups?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I use Zimbra with an external email gateway that only accepts authenticated email. Zimbra is pretty heavy (it’s intended to be a Microsoft Exchange replacement) but it at least has a huge amount of protection built-in to deal with spam and comes configured out of the box to not relay (well, outside of you setting up aliases and lists.)

  That said, it’s not hard to find “incoming email only” configurations that deliver to local mailboxes only, for most email servers. The thing to avoid is having a single server configuration that tries to do both - accepting external email and sending locally originated email out. The configurations do exist to do that, but they’re confusing and tricky.

  External email gateways… that bit is hard. I use a mail server I set up myself on a VPS. It does not listen on incoming port 25. It requires credentials. I did this largely because I was trying to send email out via Xfinity’s customer email relay, but the latter kept upping the authentication requirements until one day Zimbra just couldn’t be configured to use it any more. And each time they changed something, I wouldn’t find out until I noticed people had clearly not received the emails I’ve sent out.

  VPSes are problematic as some IPs are blocked due to spam. There’s not much you can do about it if you’re stuck with a bad IP, so if you can find a way to send outgoing email via your ISP’s outgoing email server, do that. For Postfix, you can send out authenticated email using something like: in main.cf:

  relayhost = [smtp.office365.com]:587
  smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
  smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
  smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
  smtp_use_tls = yes
  

  and in /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd:

  [smtp.office365.com]:587 example@outlook.com:hunter2
  

  So in summary:

  • Consider an email-in-a-box solution like Zimbra, I understand the wish to go for something light but it might make sense if your aim is just to control your own email
  • Regardless of whether you do or not, use separate servers for incoming/outgoing email.
  • For incoming email, lock it down to accept local email down if you’re manually doing this rather than using an email-in-a-box solution like Zimbra.
  • For outgoing email, use authentication and avoid it listening on port 25. Consider either directly using your ISPs, or if that’s not practical, configuring your outgoing email server to relay in turn to your ISP (see above for how to do this.)

  Good luck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why don't laptops have proper low power states where useful stuff like downloads can run during sleep/with the lid closed?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This feels like more of an operating system issue than a hardware issue. What you’re looking for is a way to reduce the power it sips while still allowing downloads to happen. Leaving aside the edge cases like OS updates others have mentioned, the major issue is that applications aren’t structured like that.

  If I have Firefox open with one tab displaying a website that runs 1,102 javascript routines all the time in an attempt negotiate a really good advertising deal for each of the banner ads it’s showing - you know, the type you visit and your machine starts crawling and the fans start blowing almost immediately - and another open on Ubuntu.com where I’ve just clicked on the “Download Ubuntu desktop ISO” button, only Firefox knows which of those tasks can be backgrounded and right now (as far as I can see) there’s no API in any of the major OSes where it can say “Send me this signal and I’ll only do the thing that can’t be interrupted.” nor “I’ve put the stuff that can’t be interrupted in this thread, so only run this when you’re trying to save power and nobody’s using the computer anyway”)

  Would it be a good idea? Well, that would depend on whether developers actually use that API if it ever comes into existence. I’d like it, I just see it being one of these well meaning things that devs would avoid using because it complicates their code and probably makes it easier to break.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's your preference for a text chat server (e.g. IRC/XMPP/Matrix/Zulip/etc.)?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Matrix is good, though I’ve been reconsidering it ever since I read this: telegra.ph/why-not-matrix-08-07

  Also I’ve considered it less than perfect since they added encryption and managed to make it a hell to set up. If you can’t get people to understand Mastodon because “yOu hAvE To cHoOsE A SeRvEr” how the hell are you going to get them to set up a Matrix account when it involves downloading files and other crap that you need to keep with you when setting up all your clients.

  Revolt looks nice but until it’s possible to use one account (and browser tab) to access multiple servers (in the computing sense, not the Discord sense), it’s not going to be ideal as a Discord replacement.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  “Why won’t anyone actually challenge the points I’ve made?” - me

  “How dare you write that oranges are the same thing as bananas!” - orizuru

  “I said no such thing and it’s clear you’re not going to say anything worthwhile so I’m going to block you” - me

  “I too want to lie about what you’re saying because I too have no legitimate arguements” - you

  Fuck off, troll

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Kids Online Safety Act' will deliberately target trans content, senator admits.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  If it were possible to “make” people gay, or trans, or whatever, then it would be possible to make gay or trans people straight or cis.

  And if it were possible, given the huge pressure to do so from all angles, someone would have found a way to do it by now.

  Kids are not going to be “made” LGBT by seeing something on the Internet. And if you talk to, for example, trans people older than the Internet, most will tell you about signs they had they were trans long before they had anything that could possibly introduce them to the subject.

  The only thing this bill will do will cut people off of all ages from sources of support.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m beginning to think the support for the EFF’s position here isn’t because of some handwringing “But what should we do, on the one hand…” bullshit from liberals, but “Fuck trans people” from far right wingers who are intentionally lying about what Kiwifarms is doing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  ISPs refusing to carry data is not “mob justice”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  So, the EFF has 33 years of experience fighting in courts on matters of digital rights, and somehow you feel like you know both the current law and the legal consequences of court precedents better than them?

  I have written nothing implying that, no. I’ve said the EFF’s argument is bullshit because the US government cannot enforce the laws the EFF says could be used. Not that they don’t exist, but that this is an international network that heavily uses anonymity. The US government likely cannot at all, and if it can can only do expensively and slowly, too slowly to prevent deaths, ban this website.

  Based on how composed you’ve been in this comment section, I’m going to assume the EFF has been around longer than you have.

  Right back atcha.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I was accused of not reading an article in the most patronizing way imaginable, while in fact you’d have had to be a complete moron to think that I’d have said what I said had I not.

  Am I feeling personally attacked? Yes. But I’m also feeling like there’s a real attempt to derail the conversation. Look at the parent post, which posts a nonsense assertion essentially pretending I wrote something entirely different to what I wrote, and that the EFF didn’t write what it did.

  Right now, people are being killed, and the response by the EFF is “Huh duh, the US government should just use its existing laws to prosecute the people responsible” when actually the US government doesn’t even know who is responsible, would be operating out of its jurisdiction in many cases (such as what’s going on Ireland) and there’s no simple way to get that information that doesn’t involve a giant draconian piece of legislation being passed by governments around the world to ensure that when sites like this are created, it’s easy to find the people who use them in a short space of time and shut them down.

  And the response to this is “Well, sure, but ISPs shouldn’t bother to do anything about life and death situations, even when they can.” And then people here are posting drivel about how if a private entity bans one website in a life or death situation, this suddenly opens some kind of gate which means the State of Texas can pass laws to ban other things.

  Completely ignoring that (1) that gate, were it to exist, has been open since the 1990s, the anti-spammers and protectors of Usenet and so on, opened it and (2) the gate doesn’t exist anyway, Texas can pass any law it wants as long as it doesn’t violate the first amendment. And, well, Texas can probably ignore the first amendment anyway because SCOTUS.

  This isn’t about being emotional, it’s about the fact that the EFF’s viewpoint is… shit. It’s indefensible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  If the government can’t do anything about it, why should we empower corporations too?

  Wait, what?

  Because in this specific case, and yes, you have to address it case by case, the government being able to do something about it would involve draconian anti-privacy international web monitoring of a level that’s literally described in 1984, while the corporation being involved merely involves the corporation cutting off a route knowing that it’ll be publicly debated afterwards and may, if the decision is a bad one, result in it losing business.

  But that’s moot. If you agree that access to communication and the internet is a basic human right, then somebody who is not been legally sequestered, should have access to their basic human right.

  No. There is no human right to organize the killing of people because you don’t like a harmless mental condition they were born with. There is, as a result, no absolute right to access the Internet.

  And contrary to this absolutist nonsense that’s been posted about how if an ISP bans even one packet under the most justifiable circumstances imaginable, it means Marsha Blackburn is going to go back in time and propose her laws that she’s already proposed to ban LGBT information from the Internet, ISPs have never provided this kind of absolute right in the first place. ISPs can and do block, and sometimes kick, for any of the following:

  1. Attempting to send email via SMTP except via their own service.
  2. Running a "server"
  3. BitTorrent
  4. (Including this to give you some idea of how this isn’t a new thing) Abusive use of Usenet including spam, trolling, posting pornography into the wrong groups, etc.
  5. Spam

  We tolerate this because… well, we tolerate the anti-spam part and we tolerated the anti-abuse of Usenet parts because we accept that people use the Internet abusively and an ISP, at whatever level, has a right to protect itself, its employees, and even society at large.

  But here you all are claiming that this is all OK, and remaining silent even on the stuff ISPs block that aren’t actually justifiable (what business is it of anyone if I run a webserver from my home or bypass an ISPs SMTP server?), but when it comes to blocking a website whose sole purpose is to organize actions that will result in the deaths of trans people, you all think ISPs should take no action.

  Spam? The worst thing ever.

  Killing trans people? Eh. Who cares.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Cool story bro.

  Now address what those laws would look like if you’re trying to take down an international network with anonymous users and you want it to be effective.

  There is no way, no way on Earth, the EFF would be in favor of those laws.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  We should let a website organize the killing of trans people and not voluntarily, without government action, block the site, because actual governments are planning to ban trans information from the Internet anyway is a hell of a take.

  There is nothing about this that’s going to change what Texas and the US Congress are already planning to do anyway. They’re not going to switch to putting pressure on ISPs to voluntarily ban LGBT information. They’re passing laws to force it.

  But sure, ISPs shouldn’t voluntarily do the right thing because they’re going to be forced to do the wrong thing. That makes sense!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  We are literally talking about people using an Internet service to kill people, in a way the government cannot do anything about without draconian privacy-invading powers.

  You do realize this right?

  Or do you just not care when it’s trans people?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This discussion is a shit show.

  The EFF article has been discussed to death over the last couple of weeks. Their argument makes no sense: they claim the government isn’t enforcing the law, but do not address why, instead demanding it does it. They claim ISPs shouldn’t ever block anything without a court order, but do not explain why except in handwavey frozen peaches ways.

  The government(s) cannot enforce any laws here because they do not have the privacy-invading, international, powers they need to actually determine who is doing this. And a good thing too.

  People here are literally making up shit to defend the EFF’s position. Most often it’s the slippery slope: if Hurricane Electric can block ISPs when lives are on the line, then surely Comcast can block ISPs when IP rights are on the line, or Texas can when abortions might happen.

  None of these are connected. Comcast can, and does, actually block IP infringing content, so I guess a better question might be “If Comcast can block IP infringing content, why can’t HE block attempts to kill transgender people?”

  Texas was already proposing laws against abortion information being online, and the US Congress is actively discussing a law that’ll make it illegal to, by implication, put information on LGBT issues online. Hurricane Electric blocking attempts to kill transgender people isn’t a factor in either of these.

  Hurricane Electric doesn’t have some history of blocking things it doesn’t like. This is clearly a last resort for an ISP that doesn’t want to be partially responsible for the deaths of innocents, whether it’s legal for them to be a part of that or not. Demanding “the government” be responsible for all Internet blocking ignores the fact the government is not always a positive entity, and that establishing a precedent where the government is responsible for blocking things, and can use that power, is a genuine non-fallacious slippery slope: a fascist government is going to use the tools it’s given to ban content that a left wing, liberal, or mainstream conservative government wouldn’t, and is going to use that to harm people.

  And sure, the fascist government will do that anyway, but it’s a hell of a lot quicker if you have the laws the EFF claims should exist by implication already exist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Before I left, I saw some pretty controversial takeovers including r/diving being taken over by mods who blatantly lied about their experience diving.

  I don’t think the examples were cherry picked, the author was skimming the surface giving readers some ideas of how apparently “safe” subreddits like r/canning might actually touch subjects that can harm those not in the know. r/diving would have been too obvious, we all know it’s a dangerous hobby. r/canning was a great one to pick.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Again, an ISP blocking KF does NOT mean it’s obligated to block anything else.

  The fact Hurricane Electric hasn’t blocked anything else voluntarily should give you some clue that they’re not going to block, say, abortion information, without a law to force them to do it.

  Nor does it set a precedent that will usher in those laws. Those laws are coming anyway, and only the first amendment might save us from them. If you’re unaware those laws are coming anyway, I suggest reading r/technology which has covered the various “child safety” laws being proposed. Or read nrlc.org/…/NRLC-Post-Roe-Model-Abortion-Law-FINAL… and eff.org/…/texas-bill-would-systematically-silence…

  Fascists aren’t stopped by giving them rights they won’t give you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  No offense, but keep your patronizing “Anyone who disagrees with me could only have just heard of this article I just skimmed, and not been discussing it in depth for the last week” bullshit out of my replies.

  As for a “law degree”, the idea that the state needs to justify ordering an ISP to do something by pointing out it did something different previously shows both a complete lack of understanding of the law, and ignorance of how the real world works, especially when fascists are involved.

  There is. People can be prosecuted individually. This has happened in the past without ISPs blocking whole websites.

  No, they can’t. Not without introducing a layer of draconian laws with international agreements to prop up these laws that would almost certainly include the end of privacy on the Internet as we know it.

  And, incidentally, THAT, not “Hey, an ISP once blocked another ISP to check notes prevent people from being killed, therefore we suddenly have the power to make ISPs block abortion information which we didn’t before”, is what would bring about a world where free speech ends on the 'net.

  Speaking of fallacies…

  Where?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Great, most major ISPs now block all torrent, file-sharing and kodi sites because rightsholders paid them to.

  Actually it’s because they’re afraid of being sued by rights holders, the rights holders have only “paid” them in the sense of “We’ll not file this extremely expensive to defend yourself in court case against you if you add these anti-piracy countermeasures.”

  Which is entirely OK if I’m reading the EFF’s argument correctly because it’s, while not exactly the same as a court order, is basically an out-of-court settlement that amounts to the same thing.

  Some ISPs are also blocking sites talking about abortion and LGBTQ issues because of pressure from certain states.

  Yes, and if you follow the EFF’s logic, that’s also entirely legitimate because the government should decide, not ISPs, what’s allowed.

  You’re not illustrating how this is a slippery slope (which is a fallacy anyway), you’re illustrating just how insane this EFF position is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  No, the whole point is that an isp should not be forced to do anything, unless ordered to do so by a court.

  That’s not the point, no. The “whole point” from the EFF’s standpoint, if you’d bothered to read the article, is that ISPs shouldn’t block each other unless ordered by a court, even when lives are at stake.

  Edit: Nevermind. I see you’re also responsible for this wonderful gem:

  it’s going to take specialist agencies with mandates to request data civilians can’t. Crimes are being committed there (not murders, but a good way to get the scare votes, I suppose), and there are laws in place to deal with that.

  (Unlike you, I’m not quoting out of context above. As I already wrote, there are no enforceable laws here, the only way the state can act is if it passes draconian laws that work on an International level.)

  (Oh, and the quote out of context? We’re talking about the EFF demanding ISPs not block websites organizing the deaths of transgender people, while simultaneously saying it’s the role of the state while arguing (rightly) the state shouldn’t create draconian privacy invading laws to do just that. Explain please how you can be against privacy invading laws AND against private entities from deciding their infrastructure should not be used to kill transgender people, unless you’re actually pro-killing-transgender people? Because there’s no fucking middle ground here. There’s no third option between “The state shouldn’t take action” and “ISPs shouldn’t voluntarily take action”. What is it?)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This is called the Slippery Slope fallacy, as opposed to Slippery Slope fact, for a reason.

  It’s incredibly easy for an ISP to point out that they’re not going to block a network for a different reason by pointing out it’s… not the same reason. Banning abortion information is not the same thing as banning a harassment network that’s causing deaths.

  The EFF deserves to be roundly condemned for this, especially as it has no obvious alternative. Claiming the authorities should do it while ignoring the fact that draconian laws would be required to actually enforce the laws here, that the EFF would (I assume) be opposed to, is handwaving at best.

  The position is intellectually dishonest unless you’re actually pro-killing-transgender people. I prefer to call the EFF’s position intellectually dishonest, because the alternative is even more horrific.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  If the content is illegal pursue legal means to punish the posters. But to create a layer of censorship on the internet, that is enforced by opinions of companies, is a terrible precedent

  “We should force ISPs to carry a service that’s designed by and used by Neo-Nazis to kill people because governments around the world are unable to stop it because they don’t have the draconian laws necessary to shut down an international neo-Nazi network” is a hell of a take.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The endless battle to banish the world’s most notorious stalker website⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  But who decides what should ISPs block next?

  The ISPs. Just as in this case. Next question.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Notes on using a single-person Mastodon server⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Having done it before my honest advice to anyone planning this is:

  1. Start with a Mastodon account on a regular server.
  2. Build lists of friends etc.
  3. After a few months, once you’ve curated a feed you like, move to a self hosted one.

  That’s if you intend to use it “socially” as opposed to, say, “commercially” (ie an cartoonist publicizing their work, for example, or even the corporate Mastoverse account for a burger chain), in which case it makes sense to have that account on a server (where it’s essentially self verifying, and can’t be killed by a single confused overworked instance admin - in the case of the burger chain, also by an instance admin that would rather not host commercial accounts), but also a private account on one of the main servers for just being yourself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do most religious conservatives support capitalist ideology?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I didn’t say it (directly) supported capitalism, I said the fact modern Christians accept it despite significant changes to biblical canon was a demonstration that modern Christians believe that power is given by God.

  Also Capitalism isn’t that new. The term is, but it’s always been used to describe pre-existing market based economies and concentrations of wealth, and pretty much every significant civilization has had that.

  Your thing about English translations: Nobody’s criticizing translations into English. But the King James edition included, for example, the “sodomite” language which didn’t appear to come from any legitimate translation of the bibles. So it did significantly change the meaning of the Bible in places, in fairly negative ways.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do most religious conservatives support capitalist ideology?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m aware various groups and individuals appeared at various times during the last two millennia that opposed abortion on Biblical grounds. But I was specifically referring to the Catholic church. The quote you’re responding to was “(…) the Catholic church didn’t adopt this position until the late 19th Century. It literally took nearly two millennia for anyone in the primary Christian religion to notice their book had these (supposedly) anti-abortion messages.”

  Now, true, “anyone in the (Catholic church)” is probably hyperbole, but certainly “anyone in position to make decisions in the (Catholic church)” is accurate. They didn’t adopt their current stance until the late nineteenth century.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do most religious conservatives support capitalist ideology?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I suspect you can find ways to read into the Bible whatever you want to read. As a basic example, modern Catholics are convinced the Bible outlaws abortion, and there’s a ton of road side billboards next to Catholic churches that supposedly quote anti-abortion statements. But the Catholic church didn’t adopt this position until the late 19th Century. It literally took nearly two millennia for anyone in the primary Christian religion to notice their book had these (supposedly) anti-abortion messages. What’s more likely, they missed them, they ignored them because it was inconvenient, or none of these quotes are as clear cut as the billboards would imply?

  Then you have the allegiance to the King James edition of the bible, which most Christian churches do, and that generally feeds into a more direct answer to what you’re asking.

  Why King James? What makes him more of an authority on what the Bible means than Jesus, his disciples, and the other contemporaries and near contemporaries who put the Bible together? Well, he’s a King of course.

  …crickets…

  And God loves powerful people?

  …crickets…

  Uh, OK, well, what about if God didn’t want him to be King, he wouldn’t be a King, therefore, ergo, God thought King James was a pretty cool dude and should be able to do whatever he wanted? Including edit the Bible and put some stuff in there that wasn’t in there originally?

  Ding ding ding!

  NOW is it starting to make sense? Because if God didn’t want Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Rupert Murdoch or Peter Theil or Sheldon Adelson or (long list of other rich jerks) to be rich and powerful, they wouldn’t be rich and powerful, right?

  Now, never mind the contradictions here, I mean, I’m pretty sure the Bible does, in fact, have some choice words to say about rich people, and they’re not positive, and it’s pretty anti-Roman Empire in parts, especially the bit about crucifixions, but that all requires reading the Bible, and not trying to find double meanings to justify the status quo.

  Add to that the fact the rich and powerful control the narrative and always will, and you’re left with Prosperity theology and all its ramifications becoming more and more a consensus in countries that allow people to become that rich and powerful.

  What the Bible says… well, “it’s not meant to be taken literally, it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products” The eye of a needle might be too small for a camel, but the loophole of not being meant to be taken literally certainly can be.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bots are better than humans at cracking ‘Are you a robot?’ Captcha tests, study finds⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Not quite. When I used to care and kind of tried to distort the training data, I would always select one additional picture that did not contain the desired object, and my answer would usually be accepted

  Yes, that’s true.

  That’s your assumption. Had you not clicked on the van, maybe it would’ve let you through anyway

  Perhaps you should ask yourself why I wrote “it won’t let me get past without clicking on the van” rather than “It probably won’t let me get past without clicking on the van.”

  I was reporting what happened, not some wild guess I made without testing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bots are better than humans at cracking ‘Are you a robot?’ Captcha tests, study finds⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Which made me wonder why (1) it would reject invalid answers and (2) it would confuse things no human would, eg "Bus bus bus… no that’s a van, that’s clearly a van, it has Bob’s Plumbing written on it… it won’t let me get past without clicking on the van sigh.

  I mean, if the aim is to train an AI, why are you ignoring the human’s answers? How do you say “No this isn’t a f—ing bus you idiot” to the captcha system? I never saw anything allowing us to do that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You can now verify your Threads profile on Mastodon⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  To own my own data and feed and have some control over what’s pushed at me?

  I mean, I get it. Some people hate X and Meta. I hate them too. But if my aim was to get away from those two, I’d be on Tumblr, not Mastodon. If I was concerned that my postings to “social media” can be abused, I wouldn’t use Mastodon either, it’s completely open and there’s very little concept of privacy.

  To put it bluntly, Meta doesn’t even need to join the Mastoverse with an ActivityPub instance to vacuum up your Mastoverse data. It just needs single accounts to join the big instances and follow the “Federated feed” on them, doing a little algorithmic work to link accounts to Facebook accounts. It’s actually easier for Meta to suck your data from the Mastoverse than it was Twitter or Tumblr. (I deadnamed X, because I assume X’s position is so dire that if Meta offered to pay for everyone’s feeds, Musk would sell it all. But Twitter, for all of its faults, wouldn’t have done that.)

  What I’m hoping is that Meta will follow through and join properly, offering ActivityPub feeds and the ability to subscribe to ActivityPub feeds. Doing so will give Meta’s own users an off ramp, making it easier for Meta’s users to feel able to leave without losing their circle. And it’ll give the morons who insist that “OMG MASTODON IS TOO HARD YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE A SERVER!” (I can’t be polite about these people any more, the number who brag about their own idiocy is astonishing) a “simple” social network they can join with that off-ramp available for the future.

  But no, in my case, I didn’t join Mastodon to get away from Meta. I joined so I have the network I want.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s the two party system. The choices you’re given are what the largest groups in each party are in favor of, not what most people prefer.

  So with Republicans, most Republicans are pro-forced birth, so that’s their platform, however unpopular it might be.

  With Democrats, you don’t notice it as much because the largest bloc in the Democrats is basically the “Centrist” group. But that’s also why they keep doing these bone-headed “Trying to be Bipartisan” things that nobody except columns for the New York Times really likes rather than actually using solutions that work.