AndreasChris's recent activity

  1. Comment on Jet Lag Hide + Seek Across NYC | Trailer in ~hobbies

  3. Comment on New study attributes nine trillion dollars of climate change related damages to just five companies, and outlines how they could be held accountable for specific local damages in ~enviro

    AndreasChris
    (edited )
    Link
    Abstract: Finally some progress in the field of climate attribution. It's a big step towards holding big companies accountable for their contributions to climate change. The posted link is a...

    Abstract:

    Will it ever be possible to sue anyone for damaging the climate? Twenty years after this question was first posed, we argue that the scientific case for climate liability is closed. Here we detail the scientific and legal implications of an ‘end-to-end’ attribution that links fossil fuel producers to specific damages from warming. Using scope 1 and 3 emissions data from major fossil fuel companies, peer-reviewed attribution methods and advances in empirical climate economics, we illustrate the trillions in economic losses attributable to the extreme heat caused by emissions from individual companies. Emissions linked to Chevron, the highest-emitting investor-owned company in our data, for example, very likely caused between US $791 billion and $3.6 trillion in heat-related losses over the period 1991–2020, disproportionately harming the tropical regions least culpable for warming. More broadly, we outline a transparent, reproducible and flexible framework that formalizes how end-to-end attribution could inform litigation by assessing whose emissions are responsible and for which harms. Drawing quantitative linkages between individual emitters and particularized harms is now feasible, making science no longer an obstacle to the justiciability of climate liability claims.

    Finally some progress in the field of climate attribution. It's a big step towards holding big companies accountable for their contributions to climate change.

    The posted link is a non-paywalled but sharable read-only version of this nature article by Christopher W. Callahan and Justin S. Mankin. Not sure if gifted links are limited to a certain time period or number of accesses by the publisher though, so I've put the plain link here as well. Also you may be able to access the downloadable version via your academic institution.

    Edit:
    If you prefer to read more mainstream articles about the study rather than the original scientific one, here are links to an english (Phys.org) and a german (Der Standard) one. The Washington Post also wrote one.

    14 votes

  5. Comment on Apple and Meta first companies to be fined a combined 700 million euros for violating EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) in ~tech

    AndreasChris
    Link
    Personally I'm very glad the EU is finally cracking down on the anticompetitive monopolies that have developed in the tech sector over the years. One of the mechanisms that has bugged me for years...

    Personally I'm very glad the EU is finally cracking down on the anticompetitive monopolies that have developed in the tech sector over the years.

    One of the mechanisms that has bugged me for years now, and is actually one of the main reasons I don't own an iPhone, are Apple's ridiculous restrictions on installing third party applications on iPhones. The whole system of not allowing apps from third party sources has been established by Apple as part of their scheme to force app developers into using their payment solutions and thus pay a 30% fee on everything. There's been some progress already with the EU forcing apple to allow third party app stores under certain conditions, but the implementation still makes running such a store unnecessarily hard and expensive, and heavily incentivises the use of Apples app store. Let's hope this step towards taking away Apple's ability to straight up force all apps distributed via their app store to process all payments via their system will finally be enough of an incentive for them to open up their system.

    I utterly despise companies hiding behind security as an insincere excuse to take away user agency in order to establish and maintain a monopoly. There are so many other ways to achieve the same level of security. I'm all for making sure people are properly informed of potential consequences of their actions, and I fully support mechanisms allowing organizations who issue work phones to employees to restrict administrative access on such devices, but on devices purchased by people privately there's really no good reason from a user perspective to flat out prevent any installation of software from third party sources. And since we live in a world where there's really no realistic alternative to iOS and Android when it comes to smartphone operating systems, it's even more important for regulators to prevent such abuses of operating system monopolies by the respective vendors.

    Also here's an archive link to the Reuters article: https://archive.is/QkJNF
    And here's one to an article by the New York Times about the same topic: https://archive.is/2zIkJ

    21 votes

  7. Comment on Pope Francis has died, the Vatican camerlengo announces in ~humanities

    AndreasChris
    Link Parent
    While that is true, Pope Francis did allow "Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex" (the first term basically referring to divorced and remarried couples), in...

    I wouldn't dream of progressiveness this day and age being, say, inclusion of gay priests or gender diversity. I think that's still very far away if ever.

    While that is true, Pope Francis did allow "Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex" (the first term basically referring to divorced and remarried couples), in his declaration "Fiducia Supplicans". It's not equivalent to gay marriage, but it's a huge step forward that would've been unthinkable under his predecessors.

    Similarly he's recently put women in leadership roles in the vatican, which was quite a shock to some conservative cardinals working with them.

    This may not seem unusually progressive for western standards, but given what the baseline worldview in the catholic church was when he took over, he's probably made more progress than most western leaders of late.

    Also disregarding any of his political stances - if all politicians had the level of integrity that guy had, the world would for sure be a better place. Not only did he actively fight corruption in the vatican (- he's fired a bunch of leaders in the vatican that tried to continue running shady financial deals behind his back), he did so in an incredibly authentic way. Other than many of his predecessors he didn't just preach modesty, he actually lived it by refusing most of the luxuries he was offered due to his role as Pontifex.

    Independently of any beliefs I may hold, that guy has definitely earned my respect with the actions he took during his time as Pope.

    27 votes

  8. Comment on Pope Francis has died, the Vatican camerlengo announces in ~humanities

    AndreasChris
    Link
    Oh no. That's a bit unexpected. Two weeks ago it wouldn't have been that surprising, but now that he has just started to make public appearences again I thought he was over the worst part of his...

    Oh no. That's a bit unexpected. Two weeks ago it wouldn't have been that surprising, but now that he has just started to make public appearences again I thought he was over the worst part of his illness.

    I'm afraid this will halt a lot of reform processes in the catholic church. His prorgressive actions weren't all to popular among other church officials. Nothing's set in stone yet, but this is likely not a good sign for the future of the church.

    35 votes

  10. Comment on George R.R. Martin says 'The Winds of Winter' is 'the curse of my life' in ~books

    AndreasChris
    Link Parent
    That may actually be a good idea. I've always felt that the reason he manages to surprise his readers by switching perspective/POV charactets and not having this one invincible main character is...

    maybe GRRM should write the Spring book first so he has a target.

    That may actually be a good idea. I've always felt that the reason he manages to surprise his readers by switching perspective/POV charactets and not having this one invincible main character is the basically the same reason he's unable to finish the series: Instead of planning the story with an overarching goal in mind, he surprises himself by taking unexpected turns and opening ever more storylines. Maybe a bit of planning would help him. Decide where you wanna end up first, and fill the gaps later, instead of the other way around.

    3 votes

  11. Comment on 'politics.usa' tag proposal in ~tildes

    AndreasChris
    Link
    I've actually used both politics.us and politics.eu before, but it's always been changed back to politics and maybe a separate usa or eu tag. As far as I understood the tag system anything tagged...

    I've actually used both politics.us and politics.eu before, but it's always been changed back to politics and maybe a separate usa or eu tag. As far as I understood the tag system anything tagged politics.us should also show up under its parent tag politics - so I'm not really sure why these differentiations have been removed in the past. Politics is a very common tag after all, so having some subcategories for it makes sense imo.

    6 votes

  12. Comment on There must be Nazis in the White House. EO 14188 -> 14/88. in ~society

    AndreasChris
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I've silently followed this thread up until now and chose not to comment before, because it felt very uncomfortable to read through this thread with no productive outcome in sight. It really felt...

    I've silently followed this thread up until now and chose not to comment before, because it felt very uncomfortable to read through this thread with no productive outcome in sight. It really felt to me that I could only loose by commenting here, because being chastised simply for having an opinion one way or the other seemed likely. And I'm still not sure wether it's a good idea to leave this comment.

    I haven't seen anyone here defend what the trump administration is doing on a factual level either. The discussion has very much degenerated into a meta conflict about wether you're supposed to have an absolute position on wether the specific symbolism here was intentional or not. I'm afraid I can't offer a good explanation for what you're asking, but I believe the comment thread by @kfwyre, @elight, and @aphoenix is the most nuanced perspective in this thread.

    Please people... Just let us accept that it's okay for different people to have different opinions about what proof is required for them to be convinced of something being intentional or not. Neither labelling someone as a conspiracy theorist for being convinced that some expression was intentional, nor labelling someone as insane for having a more nuanced perspective due to their hurdle of objective proof not being met helps any of us. Both are unnecessarily dismissive of the other person's position. Allowing for different opinions to exist is an essential part of any healthy discussion, and creating a fractured community with hundreds of little filter bubbles where any one of us is affirmed in their preexisting position isn't productive either. No one will be convinced if we're going into a discussion with the mindset of 'you can either take my exact position, or be the evil antagonist that's not worth talking to in the first place'.

    Retaliating against anyone with slightly differing opinions is one of the major issues the Trump administration is citizised for. Let's not go down that route as well. It just feels so unnecessary... :(

    13 votes

  13. Comment on MITRE support for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program will expire tomorrow in ~comp

    AndreasChris
    Link Parent
    Well, at least the EU has already been working on the EU vulnerability database (EUVD) for some time now. (See also: this ENISA press release from June 2024.) Maybe building off of that we could...

    However, the EU tends to move slowly.

    Well, at least the EU has already been working on the EU vulnerability database (EUVD) for some time now. (See also: this ENISA press release from June 2024.)

    Maybe building off of that we could get a full CVE replacement in a somewhat reasonable timeframe. But yes, changing how basically every organization worldwide is keeping track of vulnerabilities is not something that happens overnight.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on MITRE support for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program will expire tomorrow in ~comp

    AndreasChris
    Link Parent
    There's also this really nice diagram created and shared on LinkedIn by James Berthoty earlier. It nicely illustrates how central CVEs are to effectively processing vulnerabilities in a...

    There's also this really nice diagram created and shared on LinkedIn by James Berthoty earlier. It nicely illustrates how central CVEs are to effectively processing vulnerabilities in a professional setting, and how many dependencies would be destroyed by removing them from the equation.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on Notorious image board 4chan hacked and internal data leaked in ~tech

    AndreasChris
    Link Parent
    Uhm... What? If that's true I'm honestly surprised that hasen't happened years ago if they've been this negilgent.

    FreeBSD and PHP which hadn't been updated since 2016...

    Uhm... What? If that's true I'm honestly surprised that hasen't happened years ago if they've been this negilgent.

    22 votes

  16. MITRE support for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program will expire tomorrow

    ~comp Text 588 words
    A letter to CVE board members posted to bluesky a few hours ago reveals that MITRE funding for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program is about to expire. Haven't found any good...

    A letter to CVE board members posted to bluesky a few hours ago reveals that MITRE funding for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program is about to expire. Haven't found any good articles that cover this news story yet, but it's spreading like wildfire over on bluesky.

    Of course this doesn't mean that the CVE program will immediately cease to exist, but at the moment MITRE funding is absolutely essential for its longterm survival.

    In a nutshell CVEs are a way to centrally organize, rate, and track software vulnerabilities. Basically any publicly known vulnerability out there can be referred to via their CVE number. The system is an essential tool for organizations worldwide to keep track of and manage vulnerabilities and implement appropriate defensive measures. Its collapse would be devestating for the security of information systems worldwide.

    How can one guy in a position of power destroy so much in such a short amount of time..? I hope the EU will get their shit together and fund independent alternatives for all of these systems being butchered at the moment...

    Edit/Update 20250415 21:10 UTC:
    It appears Journalist David DiMolfetta confirmed the legitimacy of the letter with a source a bit over an hour ago and published a corresponding article on nextgov 28 minutes ago.

    Edit/Update 20250415 21:25 UTC:
    Brian Krebs also talked to MITRE to confirm this news. On infosec.exchange he writes:

    I reached out to MITRE, and they confirmed it is for real. Here is the contract, which is through the Department of Homeland Security, and has been renewed annually on the 16th or 17th of April.
    MITRE's CVE database is likely going offline tomorrow. They have told me that for now, historical CVE records will be available at GitHub, https://github.com/CVEProject

    Edit/Update 20250415 21:37 UTC:
    Abovementioned post has been supplemented by Brian Krebs 5 Minutes ago with this comment:

    Hearing a bit more on this. Apparently it's up to the CVE board to decide what to do, but for now no new CVEs will be added after tomorrow. the CVE website will still be up.

    Edit/Update 20250416 08:40 UTC:
    First off here's one more article regarding the situation by Brian Krebs - the guy I cited above, as well as a YouTube video by John Hammond.

    In more positive news: first attempts to save the project seem to emerge. Tib3rius posted on Bluesky about half an hour ago, that a rogue group of CVE board members has Launched a CVE foundation to secure the project's future. It's by no means a final solution, but it's at least a first step to give some structure to the chaos that has emerged, and a means to manage funding from potential alternative sources that will hopefully step up to at least temporarily carry the project.

    Edit/Update 20250416 15:20 UTC:
    It appears the public uproar got to them. According to a nextgov article by David DiMolfetta the contract has been extended by 11 months on short notice just hours before it expired...

    Imo the events of the past 24 hours will leave their mark. It has become very clear that relying on the US government for such critical infrastructure is not a sustainable approach. I'm certain (or at least I hope) that other governments (i.e. EU) will draw appropriate consequences and build their own infrastructure to take over if needed. The US is really giving up their influence on the world at large at an impressive pace.

    54 votes

  17. Comment on A whistleblower's disclosure details how the US Department of Government Efficiency may have taken sensitive labor data in ~society

    AndreasChris
    Link
    [Offtopic:] Since 'DOGE' has been retroactively edited to read 'US Department of Government Efficiency' in the post's title and I can't edit it myself anymore, do me a favor and put a 'the' in...

    [Offtopic:]

    Since 'DOGE' has been retroactively edited to read 'US Department of Government Efficiency' in the post's title and I can't edit it myself anymore, do me a favor and put a 'the' in front of the expanded version. Doesn't sound right to me without the article in the non-abbreviated version.

    And since we're doing abbreviation expansion¹ already, here's a relevant anecdote: Technically it should be 'U.S. Department of Government Efficiency Service' if you put the US in front of it, since Trump can't just create an actual department w/o congress by himself. So he simply renamed another U.S. ___ Service (in this case the U.S. Digital Service) to U.S. DOGE Service. So USDS now expands to 'U.S. DOGE Service' which in turn expands to 'U.S. Department of Government Efficiency Service'. I find this naming clusterfuck Trump had to submit to for a lack of ability to create a new department on a whim incredibly funny. :D

    ¹ a thing I generally still dislike, since it leads to unnecessarily bloated titles

    5 votes

  18. Comment on A whistleblower's disclosure details how the US Department of Government Efficiency may have taken sensitive labor data in ~society

    AndreasChris
    Link
    This is highly concerning. Even if you assume that none of the data exfiltration has been done maliciously, the careless practices described here expose so attack surfaces for arbitrary...

    This is highly concerning. Even if you assume that none of the data exfiltration has been done maliciously, the careless practices described here expose so attack surfaces for arbitrary adversaries to infiltrate sensitive systems. But putting people responsible for insider threat detection on administrative leave, disabling all sorts of logging, and creating highly privileged user accounts that then send large amounts of data to unknown servers doesn't exactly support the non-malicious theory to put it mildly...

    Found the article via this bluesky thread. Here's an archive link documenting the state of the article at the time of poating.

    14 votes

  20. Comment on European Commission allegedly issues burner phones to staff travelling to US for fear of espionage in ~society

    AndreasChris
    Link Parent
    The way I read the article (especially given the last paragraph) the measure specifically affects mid- to high-ranking EU officials holding a laissez-passer. I suppose in the past it was assumed...

    The way I read the article (especially given the last paragraph) the measure specifically affects mid- to high-ranking EU officials holding a laissez-passer. I suppose in the past it was assumed that the US as an ally country would treat holders of such documents issued by the EU equivalently to holders of diplomatic passports issued by individual countries - i.e. grant them immunity and and not search them at the border when entering the country on official business. Imo when dealing with an ally country it is a reasonable assumption that electronic devices of delegations with holders of such diplomatic documents won't be searched on entry. It appears that given what happened in the past few weeks the EU has lost faith that the US will continue to adhere to this practice.

    12 votes