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July 15th 1991: 34 years ago I published the first “modern” password cracker…
…or, rather, smeared its development over a few months in response to requests from Unix systems administrators all over the globe – on the Internet and/or several other networks. It was a spark that still glows, but also helped inform the way Infosec developed as a discipline, notably arguments about full disclosure. Gosh I feel…
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The Gist: Age Verification is an Epic fail
From the 21st July 2025, Ireland’s regulator will be enforcing age checks at the door for social media sites in the EU. This is the Gist. https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-age-verification-is-an-epic-fail
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The most pernicious misinformation story to be found on the Internet is the presumption that government is somehow in control of defining what people can say on it, or use it for…
Governments may lead public discourse, but not drive it:
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Jess Miers on Bluesky and Age Verification: “why no pushback?”
Thread: “I completely understand bluesky’s hand being forced to comply in the UK … But I also agree that there was an opportunity here for [BS] to at least push back on the rhetoric and highlight that age verification makes its users LESS safe.”
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Bluesky, Britain, Age-Verification, Age-Attestation, and Railway Trains | …what child-protection measures British Civil Society *ought* to be demanding
A friend/peer asked me “What are you going to do about Bluesky’s announcement of Age Verification?” as recently described in the Verge — and this is my response: At the moment I am going with “point and laugh, loudly” because if you pick a side then various self-righteous twerps will either chide you for not…
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Bluesky is rolling out age verification in the UK | The Verge
When you stop being able to DM me on Bluesky, this will be why: https://www.theverge.com/news/704468/bluesky-age-verification-uk-online-safety-act
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Bishop of San Bernardino excuses Catholics from mass if they are at risk from ICE
Wow, this is like something from the 1500s: Ref: https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib1-cann35-93_en.html https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib4-cann1244-1253_en.html
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Instagram wrongly says some users breached child sex abuse rules | BBC News
Instagram users have told the BBC of the “extreme stress” of having their accounts banned after being wrongly accused by the platform of breaching its rules on child sexual exploitation. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8kjdz9nr3o
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I’m delighted to find that “The Internet Oracle” is still going, some 36+ years after it started
One of the earliest and greatest experiments in crowdsourcing, and a staple of USENET humour & shared culture: The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply, and in response, thus spake the Oracle: https://internetoracle.org/digest.cgi?N=1613
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I’m delighted to learn Switzerland has taken my advice and will be launching a Swiss national LLM | …relearning the lessons of 1981 & 2005
Just like the BBC launching a desktop computer or Quaero the EU Search Engine (such a great success) we need a period of flag-waving & failed ongoing state investment before Governments can learn to ignore tech again: Via LinkedIn we learn: Switzerland’s national large language model … is about to launch. Purpose-built for environments where…
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New anti-fraud system is labelling hospital texts and other legitimate messages as ‘likely scam’ | Irish Independent
Gosh, who would have expected that false positives exist in the world of online safety? Go read the article because the potential impact is horrifying: Ireland’s new crackdown on scam texts is labelling real texts as fraudulent – leading to confusion over hospital appointments, digital verification codes and sports tickets. https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/new-anti-fraud-system-is-labelling-hospital-texts-and-other-legitimate-messages-as-likely-scam/a1857628310.html Archived at: https://archive.ph/ym8cJ
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Unverified report: 14yo loses access, banned from Google/YouTube because Google Photos includes video of self as baby in bathtub
“I’m shaking right now that all my work on my youtube for Three years has disintegrated to dust” I’m ignoring that he’s supposed not to have a Google account until he’s 13, because given how he presents himself it appears not to be germane; or else his parents will be banned as well. From Reddit: