illithid0

This is some anecdata, but I'll share it nonetheless as I have a pretty wide network of software and security engineer friends from which I've heard the following.

Almost no one I know wants agent usage to be a zero-sum activity. There are a few oddballs who obviously only got into software for the money, so any means to that end is acceptable. That does not stop those with say-so over things like employment (and, if you're in the USA, the associated healthcare), from treating it as a zero-sum activity.

When engineers are being told to maximize token usage, are constantly being brought into meetings where they're expected to reveal their latest and greatest use of LLMs, and not using enough tokens in your role is seen as a negative, then the pressure starts to creep in. Yes, I know this is silly to most people who read this site, and I agree. It's bonkers. But there is certainly something to the idea of "AI psychosis" in upper management that is making agent use zero-sum company-wide.

I often wonder if whatever it is we currently experience as consciousness or self-awareness was a major contributor to species-wide problems such as climate change.

Having come across Zapffe's "existential elk" theory in the last year, it's hard to not see consciousness as a design flaw rather than an upgrade that sits at the root of the things driving climate change, e.g. hyperconsumerism, rampant use of non-renewable materials, and all the other things we choose into for personal satisfaction despite the negative impacts to the whole.

Might we have been better off without consciousness, or at least not as detrimental to the planet? I don't know.

Ah, okay, thank you. I was expecting it to work more like Mastodon in the sense that I can go to a different instance and interact with accounts seamlessly without having to bring them up in my own instance, but this is fine, too.

I was trying to interact with the account mentioned in the grekpak blog post here: https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:w4xbfzo7kqfes5zb7...

I can't comment, follow, like, or anything like that without getting the "Sign in or create your account to join the cookout!" popup. I wasn't trying to cause problems or get downvoted, this is just the the first non-BlueSky PDS I've ever come across and was curious to see the federation work.

I might be missing something about the protocol, but when logged into BlueSky, I can't interact with BlackSky accounts at all. I specifically have to have an account there to even follow a BlackSky account.

I'm not as familiar with ATProto as ActivityPub, but following someone from another Mastodon instance, for example, is seamless as long as I'm logged in to the account I have on my home instance.

That post isn't very clear about what specifically happened on BlueSky that made the author move, and I can't see the full thread he links without having a BlackSky account.

What moderation decisions were made regarding this "Link" user that were suspect, using the post author's word?

My first assessment was honestly as anticlimactic as OP's.

We had to break into a particular unit of a multi-tenant office building. The client wanted us to focus on social engineering, but if we were able to do that, to move on to testing if anyone would see it as suspicious if someone was messing with doors and stuff.

So my partner walked up to the reception desk with a toolbox and a clipboard, claiming to be there for an off-schedule inspection of the elevator fire suppression system. Signed the guestbook with no formal verification, walked into the office area, and sat down to plug his laptop into an ethernet drop.

Meanwhile, after he texted me to let me know he was in, I took the stairs up to a door that led into the back of the target unit and just had to use a traveler's hook to pull door latch open. No guard plates or anything in the way.

Then I walked around in my business casual outfit until I found what looked like an IT closet, waited for a time when no one was in the hall with me, and used an under-the-door tool to pop it open. All their network equipment was in there along with spare laptops and an unlocked IT admin machine on a desk.

:)

From one red teamer to red teamer to another, glad your first assessment went so well and you had a great time. My first physical pentest made me want to never sit in front of a terminal again.

People, as we like to say, are not paid enough to care. At-will employment, company-sponsored healthcare, etc. have employees so focused on their own wellbeing that protecting "the company" is the last thing on their minds, and I can't really blame them. That lady who you barged in on may very well have just been used to micromanaging jerks doing it to her all the time, so she has to seem busy.

Physical security, in my experience, comes down to giving people something to protect which actually benefits them to protect. All the technical controls in the building can fail and one person with enough skin in the game can kill an intrusion attempt in seconds.

Thank you so much for sharing this. Not only is it a great post, but the site invokes such warm feelings of an internet long lost.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the Constitutionality of his tariffs or their ability to accomplish the stated goals.

The power to impose tariffs is given to Congress in the Constitution. Exceptions are allowed but in rare and specific situations. The fact that SCOTUS struck it down means the tariffs as imposed were unconstitutional.

You can be for tariffs all you want, I'm not here to argue their efficacy. But you absolutely cannot with any intellectual honesty still be on the fence about whether he abused his power given this ruling.

It is not "flip flopping policy" to break the bounds of your Constitutional power and be shut down by one of the branches meant to check you.

Normally I'm pretty good at extending intellectual generosity. But for them, it's at the level of voting for a candidate who supports cuts to Medicaid and then wondering why it's suddenly infinitely harder for me to get through to anyone about assistance (not even for myself, for them) following staffing cuts.

"This isn't what I voted for" is a common utterance. They can't help themselves, so I do my best to help, while they undercut my options to help them.

I don't know, man. I'm at a point where not even the tangible effects on me that the policies and decisions some members of my family endorse are enough to get them to think twice.

I can sit right in front of them and describe the problems I'm now dealing with and point out the exact legislative changes that caused them and it's like their brains turn off until the subject changes. More than happy to pray for me, though.

I've worked as a security consultant with one or two companies (who shall remain nameless) whose sole product was a hardware device with a black-box software stack meant to be a plug-and-play lawful intercept compliance solution. Telecoms should be able to buy it, install it, and access a web panel to do their government-mandated business.

In the three or four year I worked with them, they would only let me do penetration testing of their user network, and never the segments where the developers were, and never the product itself. In speaking with their security team (one guy - shocker) during compliance initiatives, it was very clear to me that the product itself was not to be touched per the explicit direction of senior leadership.

All I can say is that if the parts of their environment they did let us touch are any indication of the state of the rest of their assets, that device was compromised a long time ago.

I quite like this! I've been looking into artists myself for a couple commissions but I hate using Instagram for just about anything. I gave it an example image and gave me several artists in my immediate area that look promising.

Nice work!

I was trying to do something similar last year and gave up because it felt futile. That said, it was the push I needed to try Rockbox, and I haven't looked back. Managing things via the file system is really nice.

Came back to answer but the comment got flagged, but I think I remember it being that he chose not to publish RNC info received at roughly the same time as the DNC emails.

That said, I just fact-checked myself and found that the RNC stuff was already public and that was Assange's reason for not publishing. So I'm not sure anything in the comment I was replying to can be substantiated.

While there are bits of truth in this comment, much of it is exaggerated and unsubstantiated, namely:

- Being a verified Russian asset

- Working with Russia to specifically help elect Trump to the office of president

- Specifically seeking to weaken US democracy

Going to need sources and supporting evidence proportionate to the extent of your claims.