Notices by Don Marti (dmarti@federate.social)

Question for #Linux #beginners and educators: What are some good intro to Linux books?

(Background: I'm organizing an #installfest at the public library and the Linux books on the shelf are from 2009-2012. I'd like to be able to recommend some up-to-date intro reading. The installfest isn't until Aug. 30 so we have time to get some books ordered and/or into the library purchase request system)

@evan it's not that simple -- surveillance advertising is also part of a political movement that goes back to direct mail ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/04/conservatives-pioneered-direct-mail-stoke-discontent-it-has-worked/ )

@masukomi @aral yes, that's a huge issue (and one that on its own should rule out having events here—conference organizers need to pay attention and not just assume that no attendee is affected)

@aral I am in the USA and I agree. I'm not inviting anyone from outside the country for the foreseeable future unfortunately.

(I have a rough idea what to do if a visitor has trouble with local law enforcement here, but you could be sent to a Federal or private location out of state where it would be hard for any host or their lawyer to communicate with you)

@inthehands good point, there's already a fart sound effects feature on those things, hopefully the compromise will be annoying and not dangerous.

Did you ever see the old Reddit thread where a former Tesla employee wrote about ssh-ing in to people's cars?

@aral good point. (and how much money would the USA's Big Tech companies owe in EU fines if the EU wasn't going easy on them because they rely on the USA's help for regional defense?)

myth: #Mozilla is forced to do creepy advertising shit because the users are slacking and not making enough donations!

reality: the users see Mozilla making hella $$$ from creepy advertising shit, so they don't need donations like other .orgs do

@evan I figure that by blocking surveillance ads I should be spending an extra $17/mo on subscriptions to even things out https://blog.zgp.org/or-we-could-just-not/ (but that's a USA number, probably lower in countries with less total money spent on advertising)

not affiliated with this #job just sharing what looks like an awesome #privacy #sysadmin opportunity in #california

(implementation for the #DeleteAct so you get to go home every day knowing you helped make the surveillance industry big mad)

https://calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/Jobs/JobPosting.aspx?JobControlId=466076

@fabiocosta0305 @glynmoody @cstross The fair use issue in the USA still isn't decided. In the EU, though, AI can be trained on copyrighted works unless the copyright holder "expressly reserves" -- which all the mainstream publishing companies, and most independent authors, have been doing

https://cultureactioneurope.org/news/european-parliament-adopts-the-ai-act/

@tek @twifkak @jonathankoren and the NSA, and the CIA... https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-nsa-and-cia-use-ad-blockers-because-online-advertising-is-so-dangerous/

@twifkak @jonathankoren @tek (and yes, "experienced advertisers" in the USA are more likely to run an ad blocker than average https://www.ghostery.com/blog/privacy-report-advertisers-and-adblockers )

@twifkak @jonathankoren @tek

Malwarebytes has more info on fake domains showing up in search ads -- in this case it's fake ads for ads.google.com but looks like the same principle (?)

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/01/the-great-google-ads-heist-criminals-ransack-advertiser-accounts-via-fake-google-ads

@lavaeolus @dsalo It looks like they're obfuscating their real problem, which is that most of the people who have released their works under CC licenses want an updated license that clearly disallows generative AI training, and Creative Commons management doesn't want to make one

https://www.ietf.org/slides/slides-aicontrolws-creative-commons-position-paper-on-preference-signals-00.pdf

I found one thing on the Internet you can click to buy better stuff and be happier—and five theories about how it works https://blog.zgp.org/click-this-to-buy-better-stuff-and-be-happier/

@evan @wjmaggos good point--imho a server would be a great extra for an annual event like a conference or trade show

1/2 very good point from @_elena here: "I will be thinking: what do the Big Tech billionaires and kleptocrats wish I would do? And then I will do the OPPOSITE."

https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-fediverse-has-empowered-me-to-take-back-control-from-big-tech-now-i-want-to-help-others-do-the-same/

The habits and settings that are revenue-positive for Big Tech are the ones that reflect more surveillance and addiction on the user's side (ever notice how Big Tech big shots tend to have strict screen time rules for their own families?)

Good story but the headline should really be "exploiting Meta's decision to understaff content moderation and ad review" not "weakness"

https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-instagram-meta-deceptive-political-ads-election

@aral @SecurityWriter Good point. Some ad blockers are security tools, some (like ABP) offer a false sense of security with paid allow-listing, and some are adware, malware, or subscription scams.

The 2 tools I recommend are:

Privacy Badger is simpler but since it's purely focused on tracking it will let more annoyances through.

uBlock Origin does a lot more

I never recommend "an ad blocker" to users—the extensions that come up highest in Google are the ones that let the Google ads through

@tchambers @evan Personally I'm not opposed to web advertising if done right (Kurt Vonnegut was able to quit his day job as a car dealership manager because of sales to ad-supported magazines—constructive web ads could help writers) but the way that Mozilla is going about it is more like #adfraud in the browser than like the previous "ads in Firefox" projects

Making it easy for bad sites to "steal attribution" (claim credit for sales) creates surveillance risks to users

https://blog.zgp.org/why-turn-off-firefox-ad-tracking/