Aaron Soto

Teaching was my first love. Packets were my second.

I make classes to teach people how to defend themselves against hackers. In my spare time, I teach college students to compete in cybersecurity competitions, or try to take back my home automation from the cloud.

he/him 🏳️‍🌈 ❤️💜💙

(Profile banner is a sunset sky from underneath a bridge with kayakers and the edge of the Austin city skyline)

Aaron Soto boosted:
Wonder of Sciencewonderofscience
2025-06-15

Spectacular timelapse of an aurora and Moon-rise over Earth from the International Space Station.

Aaron Soto boosted:
Bri | 🚴📦💨✨ | 🏳️‍🌈cargot_robbie@urbanists.social
2025-06-15

This felt too valuable not to share. Braille-labeled maps of washrooms to help people find and use facilities in the washroom. Everyone deserves to get in, do their business, wash their hands, and get out in peace and safety.

This seems valuable for all public spaces.

#Blind #Accessibility

Aaron Soto boosted:
Dan Fixes Coin-Opsifixcoinops@retro.social
2025-06-15

Hey, you know how when you gotta do something that's so jank it'll only run on windows, you set up a new windows box, what's the first thing you do?

You go into the settings in the file explorer and swear at it and go "Where the hell have they hidden it this time" until you find the option that shows the whole filenames, right? So you don't end up double-clicking on cutekitten.jpg.exe, right? So you can see what the hell's going on in the computer that you bought and that lives in your house? How the hell else are you supposed to use it, right?

Most people don't do that. Hardly anyone does that. You are an outlier for doing that. You are a tiny minority. If someone downloads a zip with file.html and file.css and file.jpg then they only see file, file and file. Most people never change any settings. Most people don't even know that there ARE settings. The joke about the writer who sighs and says "Sometimes I'm sad that I make art.txt not art.jpg," nobody gets that joke, except weirdo computer people like us.

I cannot express strenuously enough how different most peoples' experience of technology is, to how people talk about it on fedi, which is full of the one person in a hundred who fiddle with the settings. But which also seems to have lots of people who are trying earnestly to make Software That Will Change The World.

If you want your software to be liberating, if you want it to be an agent of positive change, then it has to be usable and understandable by a majority of people. Being frustrated at Clueless Users won't change anything, won't help anything, won't do anybody any good. I promise you, these people are just as frustrated at you as you are at them, and you're outnumbered a hundred to one.

Meet people where they are FFS.

Aaron Soto boosted:
2025-06-15

Anyone can become disabled at any time. It’s one of the few minority groups you can always join.

Even if you do everything “right”. Even if you’re young and healthy. Even if you “try hard”

It’s not a moral failing. It’s a part of life.

If more people would accept that and work with us, we would all be better off.

Aaron Soto boosted:
2025-06-15

Do you ever just shout at the top of your lungs at the neighbor walking past your house?

Asking on behalf of my dog.

Aaron Soto boosted:
2025-06-15

VDLM2 Message From: N230BZ / MX0754

Message: OPTOMITRISTS LIVE LONGER BECAUSE THEY DILATE.

Track Aircraft

Area: New York City, NY, USA

#acars #vdlm2

Aaron Soto boosted:
Solarbird :flag_cascadia:moira@mastodon.murkworks.net
2025-06-14

"What is a 'kettle'?" and how to look out for one in four frames.

#protest #protests #kettle #kettling

A kettle is an area protesters are led into by police without good exits or where those exits are under firm police patrol, thus making it easy to contain or arrest you. Watch out for prisoner transport busses and a general sense of being led by police into a specific, small area.
Aaron Soto boosted:
2025-06-14
Just thinking about better ways to penalize corporations that break the law.

Fines are trivial and never keep pace with reality. Instead, what if companies had to give back a chunk of shares to the government? Issuing new shares that dilute existing shareholder value, and making the govt part owners. Effectively, nationalize the company in degrees with every breach of trust.
Aaron Soto boosted:
cR0w :cascadia:cR0w@infosec.exchange
2025-06-14
Frog with a little cup and the text "Hydrate. If for no other reason than to out live your enemies."
Aaron Soto boosted:
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:ryanc@infosec.exchange
2025-06-14

This needs, and will receive, no explanation.

Aaron Soto boosted:
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:ryanc@infosec.exchange
2025-06-14

Hacker alignment?

Aaron Soto boosted:
2025-06-14
“Lockhart Leaders Save Democracy by Banning Anti-Monarchy Slogans—Long Live Free Speech (Some Conditions Apply)”

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/no-kings-protests-lockhart-free-speech/
Aaron Soto boosted:
2025-06-14

For the 9th year in a row, we spend 24 Hours racing ourselves alongside the official race in France, it's the 24 Hours of LRR Mans! twitch.tv/loadingreadyrun

Aaron Soto boosted:
smellsofbikessmellsofbikes
2025-06-14

New speedometer works

Aaron Soto boosted:
Don Burnsidedonburnside
2025-06-14

My wife. My sexy, beautiful wife, is protesting tomorrow with one of her friends group in N. Phoenix. She needs to make a sign.

HELP! What are good, written, sign ideas for tomorrow?

Aaron Soto boosted:
Star Trek Minus Contextnocontexttrek
2025-06-14

It's the weekend, baby

Shaxs from Star Trek Lower Decks is pictured. He's a cartoon, because Lower Decks, besides being the best effing show ever, is a cartoon. Shaxs is a big burly man wearing his gold Star fleet uniform and also an apron over the front like he's doing some sort of art project or baking a nice sourdough. In each hand he's holding a broken bottle like that thing you do where you take a bottle and break off the bottom and then use it as a weapon. His eyeballs are bulging large, his brow is furrowed, and he looks absolutely unhinged with rage and anger. Closed caption reads, "Fighting fascism is a full time job!"
Aaron Soto boosted:
lenazunlzg
2025-06-14

I feel like a lot of the protest advice I see is very good but it assumes you will get gassed, kettled, arrested or targeted for arrest later. the vast majority of people will hopefully go, wave a sign around, see their neighbors for a while, and then go home early. THE VAST MAJORITY. don't be scared.

Aaron Soto boosted:
2025-06-14
Bluetooth Proxy based on ESP32-C3 (USB-C)
Aaron Soto boosted:
2025-06-13

Part of radicalization is realizing that the "proper means" of accomplishing change doesn't actually work, so going to an "ineffectual" protest now could be an important step in progressing some people from liberals to comrades.

They have to first learn what doesn't work in order to understand what must be done.

Aaron Soto boosted:
Ricki Bowie Knives TarrRickiTarr@beige.party
2025-06-13

Repeat to yourself, "I won't defend myself to people who are committed to misunderstanding me."

Client Info

Server: https://mastodon.social
Version: 2025.04
Repository: https://github.com/cyevgeniy/lmst