Notices by Troed Sångberg (troed@swecyb.com)

@Mer__edith Agree - if you want to run your service centralized. Neither my Mastodon nor my Matrix-server need anything but my own self-hosting. Of course they won't handle billions of concurrent customers - but a few tens of thousands similar to mine will. Together.

I simply don't think Signal being centralized is a good thing. It's your choice, but alternatives do exist and those do not need hyperscalers.

@Mer__edith Thanks for your condescending reply. I used to manage global SaaS within fintech with nodes in GCP, AWS and Azure and on multiple different continents.

Essay: Getting blocked on the Fediverse

I'm Usenet/Fidonet-old. I've spent my whole life debating on teh Intarnetz, both as a regular user, moderator or super admin - across such a vast set of services that I'm not sure I remember them all.

... and I think I'm getting blocked more often on the Fediverse than anywhere else, ever. I've been quite intrigued as to why, and I have started to form a hypothesis.

Usually a block will happen in a discussion when the other party _disagrees_ with you, and they have no interest in continuing the back'n'forth on who's right. Goodwin's law and all means any such discussion becomes quite heated, at that. Either you just walk away, or you block. My experience is that _most_ people just walk away - considering the other person having made a fool of themselves in the eyes of onlookers and that's enough.

... here ... it seems different. Now, I'm an undiagnosed GenX-who's-been-told-by-a-therapist-about-his-autistic-traits, and my "special interest" is knowing everything about whatever I become interested in - and I hold being factual above everything else. My other profile says "I read science papers instead of popular media headlines" or something to that effect.

And that seems to bug the hell out of some people here. My hypothesis is that this community, to a much larger degree than any other I've experienced, values "belonging to the in-group" higher than being factual. So in a discussion about a topic, if you point out a factual issue you get seen as not belonging to the "in-group" - but "the others". I have even seen someone claim I'm "probably a Tate-fan" which apparently had my sister absolutely furious for a good while when she read it :D

... because I pointed out something factually incorrect in a discussion.

cont ...

(1/2)

... cont (2/2)

Now here's the thing: I don't believe it's possible to change the world if you're basing your opinion on something that isn't true. You might argue that "this big thing" is important and "that small fact" is irrelevant, but having been "a politician" (The Swedish Pirate Party) I'm quite steadfast in that you should never open up your argument to being shot down by your adversaries - and they _will_ shoot it down if you have some easily pointed out factual errors - and thus "win" discussions that should be about the big picture.

Anyone is free to block anyone. I don't care that I've been blocked here for what I would consider very strange reasons, because I will defend your right to block me and others to the end of teh Intarnetz ;)

... but I do find it extremely worrysome that it seems people here are less accepting to changing their notions in the face of contrasting facts, than elsewhere.

"This is what I believe, if you show me differently I'll block you!"

I have many thoughts on what this could come from, and right now I'm leaning towards the Fediverse more than other places feeling attacked by the rising authoritarian views, globally. There's simply a larger need to feel comfortable in your own viewpoints, to not have to hear them being "attacked", and to experience this place as consisting of people in your in-group.

I get it.

... but. Basing opionions in facts is still very important :(

(2/2)

@bagder There will always be security vulnerabilities in code until we go to using formally correct proofs. And that won't happen because that will make development slower and more expensive and ...

yeah.

@marcusosterberg Precis! För de som inte vet: Många AI-röstassistenter i kundtjänst kommer koppla till människa om man bara upprepar "människa" vid varje prompt.

How long is your unix beard?

@tinker Were there any actual infosec people in the crowd or just infosec-aligned managers?

This is a great post by one of the #Fosstodon admins. Disregard it being about Fosstodon (!) - it highlights something that I feel is critically important for our decentralized times:

*** When you host things _for others_ you are taking on a _job_ - with responsibilities - for the foreseeable future ***

Do not do this if you don't fully understand and accept the implications. Many of us are quite technical and can easily stand up various services - but that's not the same thing as saying that we _should_!

My first service that I hosted for others was a Fidonet node. It took me close to 30 years to realize that i shouldn't, outside of the immediate family.

We need more _small_ Mastodon (Fediverse) instances. Many more. Tens of thousands.

#SelfHosting

https://mikestone.me/2025-04-28-do-what-you-love

@nopatience What's "the latest"? ;) Cybersec is a _huge_ area. Trying to just keep up with some headlines feels nice but to actually keep up within my own specific niches is a whole different thing.