katsume3

> Ransoming the data for money?

It's acknowledged that some high-profile ransomware attacks had the ulterior motive of wiping data. They used the ransomware as a front and really just wanted to do damage, not make money.

Interesting. It annoys me when hackers tend to do something 'creative' once they're in. Instead of recursively deleting everything (which has the most impact) - they try some novel and boring task which has low impact. The end goal of all nefarious forms of hacking should be to wipe everything.

Since Bitcoin is not fundamentally private, any attempt to tumble your BTC is fruitless because the Bitcoin blockchain and every transaction is public and transparent. There are even companies like Chainalysis[0] who profit off this fact and help law enforcement with e-crime. I imagine if Satoshi wanted to do Bitcoin again, she would bake in privacy as a core feature?

[0] https://www.chainalysis.com/

I always found people who use that word online never actually achieve the word's intended purpose, which is to emotionally charge your sentiment. The word is so common place that it has lost all meaning. Using it in the early days you were a rebel and the word actually shocked people. Today, not so much. Using it just makes you sound like another boring keyboard warrior.

> If you think tinkering and configuring are fun you should stay as far away as possible from software design

You overlook that not giving the user options to configure their systems is bad practice as it can force all manner of dark patterns on them, and they are left constrained in that software, unable to bend it to their will. Let them tweak, I say!

Oh yeah because Twilio like to be partially responsible for election rigging. Being a dev at Twilio must be an interesting job: you get to witness the erosion of democracy!

At least with Facebook it's harder to do disinformation campaigns as they require a phone number to register, which would mean some outfit like the Russian IRA[0] would need a fuck-tonne of Russian-number phones to do influence operations, which would be a huge red flag and a sure-fire way of doing attribution to Russian state backed entities.

Twitter, not so much. I can still register an account with just an email address (and emails are easy to cook up en masse, unlike phone numbers), then I do my psyop campaign.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

I try to train my systems to behave just the way I like them. It's no different than coding: you are bending tech to your will. I don't see the difference in configuring a brand new Virtual Machine and that of coding a new piece of software. For me, the definition of non-sucky technology is the ability to configure, tinker, and otherwise mess with systems to make them do your bidding.

This is why I love computers, because no two computers are in the same state, and I always laugh using other people's computers because you can be sure they have configured it in a weird idiosyncratic way, entirely different than one's own configuration.

Well Hitler was known to co-opt and misappropriate esoteric teachings[0] for his own horrible acts. That's the problem with occult teachings; so often they are weaponized for evil deeds. As for enlightenment, it can only be understood by explaining it in paradoxes or riddles. My favorite is:

    If you see the Buddha, kill the Buddha

Which is meant to explain how we should not be attached to Buddha as a personality, but rather understand the teachings instead.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occultism_in_Nazism

I find myself writing less code these days, not because I'm lazy, but because I can borrow so much already-written code from people now, thanks to things like Github and the Internet in general. I am a firm DRY[0] enthusiast, and also, a /Don't Repeat Other's Efforts/[1] enthusiast and it pains me to solve an already-solved problem.

Sadly there are people out there calling me a 'Stack Overflow developer' in that I copy and paste code, but I find immense joy in challenging most of that code and tinkering with it to find a solution that fits my needs. In other words, I rarely use a snippet of code ad verbatim.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinventing_the_wheel

My creativity has certainly changed and I'm middle-aged. I find myself constantly trying to make everything as ergonomic as possible. Years of sitting in an office chair has warped my spine, which now means I have to take regular breaks every 15 minutes or so to straighten out my back. In my early 20s I could go for long stretches in a chair, happily coding away doing 'sprints'. Now I've turned everything into a marathon, stretching out my work thinly over longer periods of time, paying attention to and mulling over details instead of glossing over them (something my younger self would do all day: gloss over everything and ignore nuance, yet still get things done)

> It seems strange that this article does not actually embed the tweets mentioned

That's because a tweet can be deleted by the owner of the tweet, and the embed won't show it in the article anymore. Embedding tweets in an article is usually bad practice, and it also slows down the page with unnecessary Javascript.

Frankly I see nothing wrong with just copying and pasting a Tweet, so now you have a verbatim copy of what was said. Then there is the issue of edited tweets which apparently are coming soon, giving another troll tool to users of Twitter.

How did these seeds get through customs?

> is just avoiding the real work of thinking about yourself and your place in society

Well sometimes idioms / proverbs can contradict each other. Take for example the Russian proverb

    If you try chasing two rabbits, you will end up catching none

Does this mean I have to be singularly focused on one task all the time, and not multitask? Hardly.

There are other quotes which challenge that proverb and inspire us to be multitaskers and 'do all the things' at the same time.

As I stated: my brain can't cope with a lofty tome, and prefers soundbites. It's how I'm wired, and I leverage that. I also integrate these proverbs into family life and use them as a guide, no different than reading loads of books. But horses for courses; if reading loads of books suits you, then do it!

The Internet has changed how I assimilate knowledge. It has wired my brain to pay attention to soundbites, rather than lofty tomes. This is why I am the proud owner of a large list of various short proverbs & idioms that I have gathered over the years via social media. I only collect the ones that help me in some way and discard anything that doesn't resonate with me. One example is this phrase by Lao Tzu

    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step[0]
    

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_journey_of_a_thousand_miles_...

In every book, you can find little kernels of truth and can distill many larger points made in a book, down to helpful and short gems of wisdom. For me this is how I can take a shortcut and avoid reading ridiculous amounts of books!

Does anyone else do this?

I find it ironic that this article talks about the user losing out to aggressive (and intrusive) advertising on the web, but presents me with an un-closeable modal window[0] asking me to subscribe to their blog. Note: I have JS disabled by default, and had to temporarily enable JS to view the article, but it's still intrusive and annoying for users.

[0] https://imgur.com/a/SQSHh0i

And more reading on this matter, relevant to CCleaner's supply chain mishap:

https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-unnerving-supply-chai...

Something like Bleachbit seems more reputable, but not necessarily immune from similar attacks, but it's what I use instead of CCleaner.

How small can you make a QR code until it can't be scanned by a phone?

Also relevant:

https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/malicious/pape...

https://digital-forensics.sans.org/media/analyzing-malicious...

Malicious PDFs are still around, even today

Which is why you need to cultivate a zen-like calm when dealing with them, otherwise they will hurt you

I never renew domains. I just let them expire after a year and register a new one in its place. The web is ephemeral in nature anyway and that's why I do it. Then you have the ten-year time window limit to deal with, and who even knows if your registrar will be around by then.

Interesting you say this, because I've seen many side projects on Github that have 'Made with love' in the footer. This typically means the project was crafted lovingly and with care (Something that can be absent when software is rushed out the door at break-neck speed)

I never had a trip that inspired me to do something very creative. I mean the will to create something psychedelic was there, and I done some brightly colored doodles in my notebook, but that was about it.

Also psychedelics for me rarely tried to make me push for a better future as discussed in the article. If anything, they thrust me directly into the present, 'the felt presence of direct experience' as McKenna called it.

Trips for me, were always like dreams, in that they are ultra vivid and lucid, and worthy of remembering, but quickly fade away like RAM when a computer turns off. Kudos to the author for bringing something back from the trip, something I could rarely do.

One insight I did have though is the importance of knowing the time[0], which is why I surround myself with several clocks, which are all synced together, and none of them would be fast or slow. That's the only insight I gained after 10+ powerful trips!

[0] Anecdotally I once had a situation entirely absent of clocks which freaked me out whilst tripping. My phone was absent, I didn't own a wristwatch. The TV had only international stations with different time-zones, and there was no-one nearby that I could ask for the time. Lesson learned.

Also relevant: https://copyblogger.com/digital-sharecropping/

Interesting the author didn't mention lists which are my favorite way to escape the firehose of Twitter. The trick is to add just /one/ account to a list, and then you can visit that 'list' when you want, rather than that account being forced upon you randomly when you fire up the app.

It's also a quick way to access an account without having to search for the account each time. You're probably thinking that defeats the purpose of a 'list' if there's just one account in it, but it's been my go-to method for a long time now, and I have bookmarked so many useful tweets, and I sometimes even reference these gems in blogposts, or share the tweet with friends on other social media channels.

It's all about having the time to /mull/ and assimilate knowledge rather than drinking from a firehose.