petrichor's recent activity
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Comment on What are the best truly unbeatable E2EE, presumably P2P messaging apps? in ~tech
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Comment on What are the best truly unbeatable E2EE, presumably P2P messaging apps? in ~tech
petrichor Link ParentI think to clarify on this: Signal shipping compromised builds would be extremely obvious immediately because they are open source and have reproducible builds. If they push malicious code, the...I think to clarify on this: Signal shipping compromised builds would be extremely obvious immediately because they are open source and have reproducible builds. If they push malicious code, the community will notice. If their build servers + keys are compromised and someone ships an update that doesn't match with the source, the community will notice. That makes this sort of attack something you do not need to worry about -- in the specific case of Signal.
iMessage and WhatsApp are different due to their clients being closed-source, which renders any claims of end-to-end-encryption meaningless. Total marketing garbage. They can hire audit teams to say whatever, of course, but even if you trust them (don't - no reason to) there's nothing to say what changes in the future: like, say, their clients being stealthily updated to back up messaging history unencrypted.
This is particularly evident with Apple. For years, they've waxed and whined about being a company that puts privacy first. But this is meaningless, because a corporation's only loyalty is to profit, and so when faced with handing over all UK user data or losing the UK market they immediately rolled over. Actual guarantees (like what open source clients + reproducible builds get you) is how you avoid these threat cases: if Signal does get compromised in the future for whatever reason it will be obvious immediately.
I agree with your criteria for messengers, by the way. Usability is super important.
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Comment on What are the best truly unbeatable E2EE, presumably P2P messaging apps? in ~tech
petrichor Link ParentThis is not a threat model you should care about. If Signal's build servers are compromised and they ship an update that decrypts messages locally and sends them to some server, a lot more shit is...This is not a threat model you should care about. If Signal's build servers are compromised and they ship an update that decrypts messages locally and sends them to some server, a lot more shit is going to go down. Provided you are not a journalist in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, or a whistleblower of any kind, you have nothing to worry about.
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Comment on A note on Worm - A review of John McCrae's Worm in ~books
petrichor Link ParentThank you for writing! I love reading people's takes and thoughts on media, especially when I disagree with them.Thank you for writing! I love reading people's takes and thoughts on media, especially when I disagree with them.
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Comment on A note on Worm - A review of John McCrae's Worm in ~books
petrichor LinkHm. I'm not a huge fan of Worm myself, but I also don't think I agree with this review very much. Spoilers I'm not sure whether Taylor being unlikable is the reviewer's impression or something...Hm. I'm not a huge fan of Worm myself, but I also don't think I agree with this review very much.
Spoilers
I'm not sure whether Taylor being unlikable is the reviewer's impression or something they are asserting about the canon. Taylor is certainly likeable in canon - characters fall over themselves and quit their jobs to help her out, and her sheer charismatic power is compared to that of a cult leader. She's certainly a terrible person at the same time, and the book rather explicit about this. As far as impressions go, yeah, whether she's likable to the reader is ambiguous. I find her a bit annoying as the POV because she perfectly analyzes the situation at hand and perfectly reflects on her mistakes, and I find that uninteresting.
Some other notes: "Godzilla with the serial numbers filed off" is certainly treated as a match for the protagonists. The standard Endbringer situation occurs here: many people die, the local area is devastated, and the Endbringer slips away not dead, and so to all intents and purposes unscathed. None of the main protagonists die, and I think that is an accurate observation of this review - the Undersiders overstayed their welcome, for sure.
The in-story explanation for why Gold Morning occurred was because Jack asked Scion if he had ever considered being evil. Jack has the Broadcast Shard, Jack has the ability to influence other parahumans and para-thingies. I'm also not sure why Jack Slash coming back is treated as surprising. This is kind of the underlying stress of a large portion of Worm - the world's most wanted terrorists say they're going to begin a campaign of terror in two years, and then vanish.
I'm also not sure how "Jack Slash doesn't lose to Parahumans" is connected to or circumvents the Manton Effect? And I don't think it's boring. You have a large number of characters with "unfair" powers. A fun part of Worm, and something I think it does well, is pitting these characters with unfair powers against each other and having things play out, especially when these unflawable powers are held by very flawed characters. I'm also not sure how the flaws of Taylor as a person vanish when she puts on the Skitter mask (or cape). This also seemed like a bit of a non sequitur.
I really don't think Cauldron is a subplot. It's kind of, the plot. A shadowy organization working behind the scenes is alluded to throughout almost the entirety of Worm: and when finally revealed, serves to tie up a number of unresolved plot threads. (That was another thing - I did not think that Worm actually left much of anything unresolved? At least, that was not left unresolved explicitly to set the stage for Ward.) I'm not really sure why the presence of Cauldron would serve to de-emphasize the intricacies of powers, also. They don't have a choice over the powers they trigger: they're mostly just making more parahumans.
With regards to Panacea: Yeah.
With regards to Taylor's sexuality: I don't remember there being disparaging comments towards lesbians, but I do remember reading somewhere (found it) that Wildbow wrote he struggles with writing gay and specifically lesbian characters as specifically as the protagonist, and didn't want to do so and leave the door open to misinterpretations of the straight-guy-writing-lesbian-mc variety while he was still a novice author.
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Comment on Jet Lag | Season 9 trailer : Hide and Seek across Switzerland in ~hobbies
petrichor Link ParentNo spoilers They discuss this some in their Layover podcast, but all of the bad curses were really bad: the last six curses all allowed the hider to move, which would completely invalidate every...No spoilers
They discuss this some in their Layover podcast, but all of the bad curses were really bad: the last six curses all allowed the hider to move, which would completely invalidate every question already asked. They just kind of all rolled statistically unlikely easy curses all season.
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Comment on The right to change sex in ~lgbt
petrichor LinkWhat a wonderfully well-written article. It hits home on a large number of personal points. Thanks for sharing.What a wonderfully well-written article. It hits home on a large number of personal points. Thanks for sharing.
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KDE Plasma 6 is (mega) released
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Comment on Active US Air Force serviceman self-immolates himself in front of the Embassy of Israel in ~news
petrichor Link ParentI didn't know that. You're right: thinking about it again, I entirely take back that joining the United States military (in support services or in combat roles) implies one is willing to die for...I didn't know that. You're right: thinking about it again, I entirely take back that joining the United States military (in support services or in combat roles) implies one is willing to die for it. Even ignoring support services, there's definitely too much recruiting and too many incentives to join the military to treat that as a oath of commitment in that sense. I guess I'd only say that about... signing up for the military during an active and prolonged conflict?
I do think that the rest of my comment holds, though. He chose self-immolation to be his most effective form of protest. And I'm definitely glorifying it because it lines up with my views. That's the point. That's his point.
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Comment on Active US Air Force serviceman self-immolates himself in front of the Embassy of Israel in ~news
petrichor Link ParentI don't think that being willing to die for a cause is automatically emblematic of mental health issues. This man was an Air Force serviceman. He was already willing to die for the United States....I really don't love the implication that this was automatically noble and not a disturbing example of extremism and mental health issues.
I don't think that being willing to die for a cause is automatically emblematic of mental health issues.
This man was an Air Force serviceman. He was already willing to die for the United States. And when he saw his country doing something indefensible, that he was obligated by oath and position to defend, he chose by his own principles and volition that his most effective act of protest was self-immolation.
It's horrid. That's the point. He intended his death to spark international outrage.
I think he died a noble death.
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Comment on Active US Air Force serviceman self-immolates himself in front of the Embassy of Israel in ~news
petrichor Link ParentThis is an impactful and self-contained enough event I'd prefer for it to not be in the weekly thread.This is an impactful and self-contained enough event I'd prefer for it to not be in the weekly thread.
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Active US Air Force serviceman self-immolates himself in front of the Embassy of Israel
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The billionaire who wants to live forever has Long COVID
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Comment on A 2024 plea for lean software in ~comp
petrichor Link ParentCan you elaborate? This doesn't seem true. I can write an ECS in any language.Languages where you don't control memory (for example) might seem like an efficiency boost, but the drawback is you can't optimise for memory access patterns, which makes programs slow.
Can you elaborate? This doesn't seem true. I can write an ECS in any language.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~lgbt
petrichor Link ParentI don't, and I'm pretty familiar with the tagging conventions you and mycketforvirrad follow, but I'm not really on here as much as I used to be. I might take you up on that if I become more...I don't, and I'm pretty familiar with the tagging conventions you and mycketforvirrad follow, but I'm not really on here as much as I used to be. I might take you up on that if I become more active again in the future.
(but your all's efforts in tagging are extremely appreciated! i only bring this up because i was unsure if tagging stories that may not explicitly mention transphobia, but are about transphobic legislation, is a convention you all actively follow.)
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~lgbt
petrichor Link ParentWhile tags are mentioned: could I request that the transphobia and homophobia tags be more consistently attached to such news stories? It's about 50-50 whether they are or aren't right now.While tags are mentioned: could I request that the
transphobiaandhomophobiatags be more consistently attached to such news stories? It's about 50-50 whether they are or aren't right now. -
Comment on ‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says in ~tech
petrichor Link ParentTangentially, I find it to be such a shame that much of the individual pushback against these soulless corporations sucking up people's life work for profit has focused on reinforcing our existing...Tangentially, I find it to be such a shame that much of the individual pushback against these soulless corporations sucking up people's life work for profit has focused on reinforcing our existing bullshit intellectual property laws rather than accepting that they are harmful and cut us off from our own culture, and not put thought into shattering the copyright system and embracing the better, already successful ways to fund art and artists (Patreon, Bandcamp, Itch.io, and the like).
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Comment on ‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says in ~tech
petrichor LinkThey're wrong. The MIT license is the most popular software license in the world and the majority of projects on GitHub are licensed under it. Content on Wikipedia and the Stack Exchange network...“Because copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression – including blogposts, photographs, forum posts, scraps of software code, and government documents – it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” said OpenAI in its submission, first reported by the Telegraph.
They're wrong. The MIT license is the most popular software license in the world and the majority of projects on GitHub are licensed under it. Content on Wikipedia and the Stack Exchange network is CC-BY-SA, and images on Wikimedia Commons are public domain. These all permit usage by essentially anyone for any purpose, so long as modifications to the content are propagated under a compatible license. And these are massive datasets.
What OpenAI has done to get a hand on their datasets is explicitly in the wrong: Twitter, Instagram, the New York Times, Getty Images, etc all have provisions in their terms of use stating explicitly: "you are not allowed to scrape content without prior consent [of the company]". The legal backing of "Terms of Service" on websites I do not know, but OpenAI very very much broke them.
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Alexei Navalny disappears for three weeks; reappears at isolated Arctic penal colony
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Comment on Circumventing network bans with WireGuard in ~comp
petrichor LinkThis is a neat tutorial. If you're on Arch instead of Nix, and using Mullvad, you can use the mullvad-vpn package. It'll set up systemd services and the like to force all connections through...This is a neat tutorial. If you're on Arch instead of Nix, and using Mullvad, you can use the mullvad-vpn package. It'll set up systemd services and the like to force all connections through Mullvad for you.
Quantum resistance is also not a threat model you should really care about. There is enough classical cryptography out there that if quantum computers ever turn out to do anything useful at all (I am skeptical), again, there's a whole lot more to worry about.