Notices by Matt Blaze (mattblaze@federate.social), page 4

@heidilifeldman We have so few broadly capable national newsrooms left, and I am truly hesitant to relflexively stop supporting good news orgs simply because I disagree, however strongly, with one editorial opinion or another. But this one is a bridge too far. I'll have to do without them.

I'm not personally exactly a Grateful Dead superfan / deadhead, but I've spent my life largely surrounded by people who are, and I've always appreciated and admired the Dead's music and cultural impact. They've been a *fixture*. Phil Lesh's death reminds me how fragile everything is, and how the era that defined me is slipping away a little each day.

We're seeing lots of election-related disinformation now, both AI- and human- generated. Mostly it's about the candidates, trying to influence your vote.

After the election, we'll see at least as much disinformation, but the focus will shift from being about candidates to being about the election itself. They'll be trying to influence your trust in the outcome.

As numb as I am to the latest outrages, this is making my blood boil. Threats against disaster workers are dangerous and unacceptable. Period. They aren’t coming from “good people”.

If you can’t even say that simple, obvious thing, you have no place in public life, let alone our highest office. Shameful.
https://www.threads.net/@aaron.rupar/post/DBZKC2UgUoc

If they can go after after teachers, librarians, election workers, nurses, and disaster relief workers, eventually they'll go after whatever it is you are, too.

Gave a talk last night on technology and election security at the Linda Hall science library in Kansas City. I got there early and they let me spend an amazing afternoon with their rare books. Here’s the book that got Galileo in trouble with the Inquisition, complete with a handwritten correction (“semi” in margin) by the author.

@quinn @mmasnick @riana @danmcd @normative The logical fallacy is concluding that because technology has accomplished much, it can accomplish all. People believe this fallacy when convenient.

The Athens Affair is interesting for a number of reasons, but it's particularly notable that the switch that was compromised didn't actually have the CALEA option installed from the factory (since it wasn't then required in Greece). But it was added through a software update (induced by the attacker), and then exploited.

Anyway, my "told you so" muscles are pretty weary at this point.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't note that all the reasons that "lawful access" features in telecom infrastructure are risky apply at least equally to the periodically revived proposals for "key escrow" backdoors in cryptographic systems. Fortunately, we've mostly held back the tide on those, but they come up every few years. It would be a security disaster if they're ever mandated.

Tl;dr: creating one-stop shopping for attackers is a bad idea.

Exploits of "lawful access" interfaces, such as the Chinese attack reported today by the WSJ, appeared almost immediately after they became standardized in the 90's. The most famous example is the case known as "the Athens Affair" https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-athens-affair .

It was a bad idea then, and still a bad idea now.

A fly landed on my monitor and I just spent several minutes trying to shoo it away by moving the mouse cursor at it. I think I need a nap.

We’ve been warning about this for literally three decades, ever since CALEA mandated wiretap-ready telecom infrastructure. And this is merely the latest example of how these dangerous interfaces can be turned against us by our adversaries.
https://mastodon.social/@fj/113253726161428151

Apparently a forthcoming HBO documentary claims to have positively ID'd Satoshi Nakamoto (the pseudonymous 2008 author of the Bitcoin paper, for you kids out there).

Count me skeptical until proven otherwise, but I'm also prepared to be underwhelmed if it's convincing.

https://www.politico.eu/article/mystery-creator-bitcoin-identified-new-hbo-documentary-satoshi-nakamoto-crypto-currency/

For the record, not me.

@evan I just follow interesting accounts when they show up in my feed. Lately more and more of them have been from Threads, etc.

@evan Yes, I'm glad that many of them are available here now. I see it as an unqualified improvement in my experience. (This is apparently a controversial opinion, apologies if it offends).

While Mastodon has been moving slowly in this direction over the last year or so, nothing (here or elsewhere) has managed to replace before-time Twitter for breaking news, local emergency alerts, or a getting a quick general sense of what's going on in the world.

Yes, I know there are some people who don't want real-world information here, but I think this is a real, significant loss.

Crowdfunded effort (led by the awesome Cards Against Humanity folks) bought a tract of pristine land in Texas near the Mexican border a few years ago to prevent development (such as a border wall), and to leave it in a natural state.

This year, Space X unilaterally started building on the tract, without anyone's permission, causing irreparable harm to the natural state of the land. Not cool, says the owner.

Hilarity currently en-suing. https://www.cahsuesmusk.com/

Coincidentally, I just got a replacement battery pack for a two-way radio, which I am EXTREMELY HOPEFUL will not explode.