Lmst

On a model for building sustainability into the Fediverse where there won't be ads and you are not the product 👇🏾

"CoSocial is yet another fediverse outpost running Mastodon and with a blog. What’s different is that it’s Canadian, and a member-owned co-operative. Both of those matter to me, but the co-op part is the real story.
It’s not complicated: $50/year and you’re a member/owner, with an account at cosocial.ca. *There’ll never be ads*. Nobody will ever get rich. A few people might make a living, down the road. *You will never be the product*."

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2023/04/06/CoSocial#p-8

@seb

So we asked ourselves "How much is this gonna cost in the long-term? That is, keeping servers on the air and paying people a decent hourly rate to moderate and sysadmin?" Spreadsheets were wrangled. The answer turns out to be
"way less than you might think". We're pretty convinced that if you can get a few thousand members, the cost per member per month for compute and admin and mods is a small single-digit number of dollars.
So, why not ask the members to pay a small single-digit number of dollars, draw a line under it, and call it a win? It smells like a cottage industry, a "lifestyle business" something that can provide a fair price for a decent product with smiles on faces.

#infosec

Using access obtained by MERCURY🇮🇷, DEV-1084 was able to carry out a destructive attack including deployment of DarkBit ransomware and deletion of cloud resources. Rare to see reporting about an actor operating across on-premise and cloud.

Read the MSFT Threat Intelligence post about this incident here 👇🏾

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/04/07/mercury-and-dev-1084-destructive-attack-on-hybrid-environment/

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has detected destructive operations enabled by
MERCURY, a nation-state actor linked to the Iranian government, that attacked both on-premises and cloud environments. While the threat actors attempted to masquerade the activity as a standard ransomware campaign, the unrecoverable actions show destruction and disruption were the ultimate goals of the operation.

@alaric

#Twitter #TwitterFiles

Lolllll..lying grifting Substack bro is officially leaving Twitter. He's got all the subscriptions he can milk out of the 🐦

*"man this is a crazy world"* says bro who has been blatantly lying to make 💵off the hype, lies, hysteria and craziness over the last several years

https://www.mediaite.com/tech/twitter-files-journo-matt-taibbi-ditches-twitter-over-latest-musk-move-and-expects-it-will-come-with-a-price/

#football ⚽️#EPL

So Vincent Kompany, the former Belgium and Manchester City captain and center back, who became the Burnley manager a few weeks after Burnley was relegated from the EPL last year, has now led them back to the Premier League after beating Middlesbrough 2-1 with *7* matches left 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

Burnley is guaranteed a top-two finish in the EFL.

@alaric

#Twitter #TwitterFiles

OK, so Taibbi who has been sucking up to Elon and posting his 💩"Twitter Files" has been told by Elon (saw this on Mastodon somewhere) that Substack notes is why tweets with Substack links in them are "down voted" and not getting engagement....LOLLLLL

This lying, grifting troll is now getting his face eaten by the leopard to whom he has been toadying upto for months now...LOLLLLL

My guess is that the lying, grifting bro will leave Twitter (dwindling interest in his "Twitter files" which won't allow him get more subscriptions on Substack via those "files") will be the reason..

PROUD MEMBER
IT'S NOT LIKE THEY'RE GOING TO EAT MY FACE"

@chancerydaily @anildash @mmasnick @pauliehedron @alaric @BennettTomlin @DataDrivenMD @donni @donmelton @TexasObserver @danluu @molly0xfff @w7voa

@chancerydaily. I appreciate you and am glad that you make your work available on here 🙏🏾

I had Worf, earlier today, doing a "It's a Good Friday" but I've modified it for #FediFriday

Full Disclosure: Generative "AI" was *not used* to create this "amazing content"..lolllll

https://ioc.exchange/users/alaric/statuses/110158737010849361

@alaric

#ChatGPT

Decided to see what the Bing logo at the bottom of my Edge browser on iOS does.

"New" Bing/Chad can go fly off a cliff without a parachute.

*NO, Chad, I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT* enable my mic for you to be able to hear me.

New Bing interface that is using "AI" or more accurately, an LLM, within its web search interface UI and is requesting permission to the microphone to be able to "converse" with me.

@alaric

#Twitter #TwitterFiles #USPolitics #USPol

And here is @mmasnick with another devastating takedown of the lying, grifting Substack bro Taibbi aka #MattyDickPics

*"There remains no there there. It’s less than a Potemkin village. There isn’t even a façade. This is the Emperor’s New Clothes for a modern era. Taibbi is pointing to a naked emperor and insisting that he’s clothed in all sorts of royal finery, whereas anyone who actually looks at the emperor sees he’s naked."*

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/07/mehdi-hasan-dismantles-the-entire-foundation-of-the-twitter-files-as-matt-taibbi-stumbles-to-defend-it/

And this is exactly what the rest of Hasan's interview (an‹ what I've described above) lays out in great detail: Taibbi isn't just sloppy with facts, which is problematic enough.
He leaves out the very important context that highlights how the big conspiracy he's reporting is... not big, not a conspiracy, and not even remotely problematic.

#StarTrek #TNG #GoodFriday

@alaric

#Twitter #TwitterFiles #USPolitics #USPol

Detailed takedown of Taibbi aka #MattyDickPics by @emptywheel

"As to the factual dispute, there is none. #MattyDickPics and his Elmo-whisperer Mike Benz are wrong. The error stems from either an inability to read an academic methodology statement or the ethic among these screencap boys that says you can make any claim you want so long as you have a screencap with a key word in it."

This is what Elon and his paid "journalists" including Taibbi, Weiss and Shellenberger are doing, trying to discredit how central the orange 🤡is to election disinformation in the US all while racking up those Substack subs and 💵s

https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/04/07/matt-taibbi-is-furious-that-election-integrity-project-documented-how-big-trumps-big-lie-was/

The concerted effort to discredit the Election Integrity Project has little effect on flagging mis- or disinformation in real time. What it does, however, is discredit efforts to track just how central Trump is to election disinformation in the US.

@alaric

#Twitter #TwitterFiles #USPolitics #USPol

Taibbi *demanded* to go on @mehdihasan show and got *ABSOLUTELY EMBARRASSED and HUMILIATED*, but like all grifters and charlatans, he's doubling down and claiming that he was "attacked" and that his "reporting" is accurate.

LOLLLLL..perfect time for this Dril tweet 👇🏾

We need Dril on Mastodon...

wint @dril
"im not owned! im not owned!!" i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a corn cob
7:20 PM. 11/10/11

@alaric

#USPolitics #USPol

Given what has just happened in Tennessee, where the state GOP expelled two Black Democratic representatives *after* another mass shooting for participating in an "unauthorized gun safety protest" while a White Democratic representative survived her vote , and the daily suppression of the rights of minorities that the GOP is engaged in around the country, this piece written by Hal Crowther in 2017, seems fitting to reup 👇🏾

"Trump didn’t just loom up out of the fog, a giant orange dirigible releasing air. His election is the *result*, not a prime cause, of the *intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party*. After veering recklessly to the right for decades, *consolidating the support of racists and religious extremists, achieving power at the price of self-respect*, the GOP no longer has a place for moderates or even fully rational, conscientious citizens. *Only the cynical, gullible and fanatical remain.*

Pertinent sentence highlighted

https://populist.com/23.05.crowther.html

I live in the South; I've worked in the South for 30-odd years, and I know race-coding and retro-segregationist politics when I see them. Trump voters in Michigan or Kentucky may have been protesting lost jobs, Trump voters in Wyoming may just love guns and hate Mexicans, but in the South most of his voters hate Obama and anyone who looks like him. It surprises and amuses me that so many Northern observers and academics fail to get this, or refuse to acknowledge it. They try so hard to be tolerant of the intolerant that they make idiots of themselves. The United States remains a profoundly racist country If you don't think so, I can book you an educational tour of ugliest America, and not all your stops will be in the South.
The only travelers who wouldn't learn much from my tours are African-Americans. They know already.

@alaric

#Twitter

We live in the absolute *DUMBEST* timeline.

Also, classic pump and dump by Elon 👇🏾

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/doge-s-dramatic-dive-after-twitter-logo-reversal-has-the-meme-coin-bubble-burst/ar-AA19z1DM

@alaric

#Twitter #USPolitics #USPol #TwitterFiles

Taibbi is such a hack. Lying blatantly on Twitter and Substack is a lot easier than when you are confronted by an interviewer who is very good and asks pointed questions with receipts for all to see.

Watch him get schooled here by @mehdihasan

And then Taibbi corrected *3* of his tweets *AFTER* saying that he "stood by his reporting"

LOLLLLL

https://www.thedailybeast.com/msnbc-host-mehdi-hasan-makes-matt-taibbi-squirm-over-his-twitter-files-errors

" didn't realize that until now," Taibbi replied. (Though he said he stood by his story, he would end up correcting three different tweets on Thursday afternoon following the interview's recording.)

#Bunny #Easter

Spotted in the wild

@alaric

#Twitter #infosec

The Twitter 'Shadow Ban' bug gets an official CVE : CVE-2023-29218 👇🏾

"The Twitter Recommendation Algorithm through ec83d01 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (reduction of reputation score) by arranging for multiple Twitter accounts to coordinate negative signals regarding a target account, such as unfollowing, muting, blocking, and reporting, as exploited in the wild in March and April 2023,"

https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2023-29218

CVE-ID
CVE-2023-29218 Learn more at National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
• CVSS Severity Rating • Fix Information • Vulnerable Software
Versions • SCAP Mappings • CPE Information
Description
The Twitter Recommendation Algorithm through ec83d01 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (reduction of reputation score) by arranging for multiple Twitter accounts to coordinate negative signals regarding a target account, such as unfollowing, muting, blocking, and reporting, as exploited in the wild in March and April 2023.

#infosec

Printers 👀

CVE-2023-1707 was awarded a score of 9.1, so critical severity.

"Certain HP Enterprise LaserJet and HP LaserJet Managed Printers are potentially vulnerable to information disclosure when IPsec is enabled with FutureSmart version 5.6."

HP confirmed that affected customers are running FutureSmart 5.6, software designed to enable printer configuration from the control panel or a dedicated web page. Affected users will also have IPsec enabled.

HP has announced plans to issue a firmware update within 90 days, advising customers to downgrade firmware in the meantime to prevent unwanted attacks.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_7905330-7905358-16/hpsbpi03838

Mitigation
HP has provided a temporary firmware mitigation for customers currently running FutureSmart 5.6 with IPsec enabled on potentially impacted products. HP recommends immediately reverting to a prior version of the firmware (FutureSmart version 5.5.0.3). Updated firmware to address the issue is expected within 90 days.

@alaric

#Twitter

About that Twitter blue check debacle and Elon trying to strong arm legacy users into paying for them...

His tactics got exactly *3% of power users* to subscribe *AFTER* he threatened to take away approximately 420,000 users' verified blue checkmark badges ....LOLLLLL

"genius" Rocket Man.....

https://mashable.com/article/twitter-legacy-verified-account-twitter-blue-subscribers