[from Cuba In Context - weekly newsletter of the BellyOfTheBeast news/video collective]
Cuba has released its annual report on the impact of U.S. sanctions on the island's economy. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the damages amount to $7.5 billion, the single biggest loss in a year since Cuba began issuing these reports.
Also: * Farm near Havana pioneers #agroecology * Cuba wins gold at the Tokyo Athletics World Championships * Almost 1,000 same-sex marriages in Cuba last year * Cuban reggaeton artist returns home after emigrating to #US * Cuba extends tax exemptions on medicine and food imports * Millions of Cubans struggle to get water
You are going to fuck this up. Don't come crawling back to me when you lose all your data since the dawn of time and you completely brick this goddamn computer. This is your one and only warning.
With this ~~character's~~ file's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a ~~saved game~~ backup to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.
I would argue is less secure because there's more potential for signals to be intercepted, and you are only in control of a portion of the network (the other half being in control of your service provider)
When you're on you're own Wi-Fi you're usually much closer to your access point and in your home where you control the network (which has less range) and the space around it.
Either way the difference is minimal as both can be intercepted and attacked
Decrypting the 4g/5g network will require a key from the telecommunications company. I argue it's insignificantly less secure because a malicious actor can intercept it and decrypt it if they manage to steal the key from the company.
Practically, only your government would be able to get a copy of the key. But they'd also be able to watch your actual cable internet as well. And when your government gets interested in you then you fucked all the way up.
Say you access a VPN located over seas from your phone while on mobile data. Then your traffic is encrypted and your mobile data provider (for your phone) should only see traffic to one IP address.
Say you access the same VPN while at home connect to wifi or Ethernet on a PC (or on your phone), then your ISP should only see traffic to the one IP address (that's located over seas).
Now let's say your are tech savvy enough to run a Wireguard setup and or Tailscale setup at home and make your own VPN. Then you access that from work or from overseas with a mobile phone or laptop. All your traffic should now show as connecting to your homes IP address directly, but keep in mind your home ISP provider then sees you connecting to sites like Google, Facebook, or Lemmy.
Using a VPN makes the original question redundant. The VPN would have everything super encrypted for either home wifi or home 4g/5g. Your question transforms into "can i trust this vpn company"
It's going to depend on what types of data you are looking to protect, how you have your wifi configured, what type of sites you are accessing and whom you are willing to trust.
To start with, if you are accessing unencypted websites (HTTP) at least part of the communications will be in the clear and open to inspection. You can mitigate this somewhat with a VPN. However, this means that you need to implicitly trust the VPN provider with a lot of data. Your communications to the VPN provider would be encrypted, though anyone observing your connection (e.g. your ISP) would be able to see that you are communicating with that VPN provider. And any communications from the VPN provider to/from the unencrypted website would also be in the clear and could be read by someone sniffing the VPN exit node's traffic (e.g. the ISP used by the VPN exit node) Lastly, the VPN provider would have a very clear view of the traffic and be able to associate it with you.
For encrypted websites (HTTPS), the data portion of the communications will usually be well encrypted and safe from spying (more on this in a sec). However, it may be possible for someone (e.g. your ISP) to snoop on what domains you are visiting. There are two common ways to do this. The first is via DNS requests. Any time you visit a website, your browser will need to translate the domain name to an IP address. This is what DNS does and it is not encrypted by default. Also, unless you have taken steps to avoid it, it likely your ISP is providing DNS for you. This means that they can just log all your requests, giving them a good view of the domains you are visiting. You can use something like DNS Over Https (DOH), which does encrypt DNS requests and goes to specific servers; but, this usually requires extra setup and will work regardless of using your local WiFi or a 5g/4g network. The second way to track HTTPS connections is via a process called Server Name Identification (SNI). In short, when you first connect to a web server your browser needs to tell that server which domain it wants to connect to, so that the server can send back the correct TLS certificate. This is all unencrypted and anyone inbetween (e.g. your ISP) can simply read that SNI request to know what domains you are connecting to. There are mitigations for this, specifically Encrypted Server Name Identification (ESNI), but that requires the web server to implement it, and it's not widely used. This is also where a VPN can be useful, as the SNI request is encrypted between your system and the VPN exit node. Though again, it puts a lot of trust in the VPN provider and the VPN provider's ISP could still see the SNI request as it leaves the VPN network. Though, associating it with you specifically might be hard.
As for the encrypted data of an HTTPS connection, it is generally safe. So, someone might know you are visiting lemmy.ml, but they wouldn't be able to see what communities you are reading or what you are posting. That is, unless either your device or the server are compromised. This is why mobile device malware is a common attack vector for the State level threat actors. If they have malware on your device, then all the encryption in the world ain't helping you. There are also some attacks around forcing your browser to use weaker encryption or even the attacker compromising the server's certificate. Though these are likely in the realm of targeted attacks and unlikely to be used on a mass scale.
So ya, not exactly an ELI5 answer, as there isn't a simple answer. To try and simplify, if you are visiting encrypted websites (HTTPS) and you don't mind your mobile carrier knowing what domains you are visiting, and your device isn't compromised, then mobile data is fine. If you would prefer your home ISP being the one tracking you, then use your home wifi. If you don't like either of them tracking you, then you'll need to pick a VPN provider you feel comfortable with knowing what sites you are visiting and use their software on your device. And if your device is compromised, well you're fucked anyway and it doesn't matter what network you are using.
If it's from a random thief, both are about equality secure, they rely on proven cryptographic methods.
If it's from somebody powerful enough to make an ISP bend the knee, then they are equally insecure because those cryptographic methods assume you trust the underlying infrastructure. If you do not though, then yes using a VPN will help as you are adding your own level of encryption on top.
I use a Windows VM for apps not available on Linux and just want to cut out all the telemetry possible.
AtlasOS is installed as a Ameliorated Playbook and makes a ton of opinionated changes that aren’t privacy or necessarily performance related. Disabling the Windows 11 right click menus in favor of the legacy one, disabling window shadows, changing the wallpaper, etc. Privacy+ looks appealing, I wanna know if anyone has tried both and can tell me differences, like if one or the other improves privacy more.
Could you please use the cross-post feature instead of making a separate post in each community? That way our front-ends can consolidate multiple cross-posts into one post instead of it being listed multiple times.
Honestly, doing it your way looks like spam. This is what I see in my feed:
Oh sorry, I had heard that was fixed awhile ago but apparently not.
What I don't like about lemmy crossposts is having the whole post text inside block quotes, and sometimes isn't formatted properly. I think that and showing a link to the original post is bad design, like why would it matter if a post is a crosspost or not?
With the fourth plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee scheduled on Monday to review proposals for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), it is an opportune moment to reflect on how the country has navigated its developm…
CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour apologized Monday after claiming that Israeli hostages freed from Hamas captivity were “treated better” than Gazans — remarks that provoked furious backlash from Israel supporters.
The longtime international correspondent retracted her statement on air just hours after Hamas released the final 20 living hostages under a cease-fire agreement brokered by the United States and Egypt.
Amanpour’s mea culpa came after she earlier told CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins that the hostages “were probably being treated better than the average Gazan, because they are the pawns and the chips that Hamas had.”
“That was insensitive, and it was wrong,” Amanpour said during a broadcast on Monday.
CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour apologized Monday after claiming that Israeli hostages freed from Hamas captivity were “treated better” than Gazans — remarks that provoked furious backlash from Israel supporters.
The longtime international correspondent retracted her statement on air just hours after Hamas released the final 20 living hostages under a cease-fire agreement brokered by the United States and Egypt.
Amanpour’s mea culpa came after she earlier told CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins that the hostages “were probably being treated better than the average Gazan, because they are the pawns and the chips that Hamas had.”
“That was insensitive, and it was wrong,” Amanpour said during a broadcast on Monday.
She was not wrong, it was completely factual. But she was harassed by the Zionist lobby group ''Honest"Reporting' and then pressured by her Zionist bosses at CNN to cave.
Speaking basic truths on Israel's barbarity is not allowed in Western media. Only Palestinians may be dehumanised.
I like NYPost for these posts, because they are so pro-Israel that they sometimes publish these headlines without the propaganda sauce on them, thinking anti-Israel folks will interpret it the same way.
LLMs totally choke on long context because of that O(n2) scaling nightmare. It's the core scaling problem for almost all modern LLMs because of their self-attention mechanism.
In simple terms, for every single token in the input, the attention mechanism has to look at and calculate a score against every other single token in that same input.
So, if you have a sequence with n tokens, the first token compares itself to all n tokens. The second token also compares itself to all n tokens... and so on. This means you end up doing n*n, or n^2, calculations.
This is a nightmare because the cost doesn't grow nicely. If you double your context length, you're not doing 2x the work; you're doing 2^2=4x the work. If you 10x the context, you're doing 10^2=100x the work. This explodes the amount of computation and, more importantly, the GPU memory needed to store all those scores. This is the fundamental bottleneck that stops you from just feeding a whole book into a model.
Well, DeepSeek came up with a novel solution to just stop feeding the model text tokens. Instead, you render the text as an image and feed the model the picture. It sounds wild, but the whole point is that a huge wall of text can be "optically compressed" into way, way fewer vision tokens.
To do this, they built a new thing called DeepEncoder. It’s a clever stack that uses a SAM-base for local perception, then a 16x convolutional compressor to just crush the token count, and then a CLIP model to get the global meaning. This whole pipeline means it can handle high-res images without the GPU just melting from memory activation.
And the results are pretty insane. At a 10x compression ratio, the model can look at the image and "decompress" the original text with about 97% precision. It still gets 60% accuracy even at a crazy 20x compression. As a bonus, this thing is now a SOTA OCR model. It beats other models like MinerU2.0 while using fewer than 800 tokens when the other guy needs almost 7,000. It can also parse charts into HTML, read chemical formulas, and understands like 100 languages.
The real kicker is what this means for the future. The authors are basically proposing this as an LLM forgetting mechanism. You could have a super long chat where the recent messages are crystal clear, but older messages get rendered into blurrier, lower-token images. It's a path to unlimited context by letting the model's memory fade, just like a human's.
That's a really clever, interesting solution. DeepSeek seems to be leaning hard into optimization and efficiency where other AI companies are just throwing more money at more hardware.
Honestly effenciy, more hardware options and federated are the only real AI advancements that makes huge waves to me. Like getting a reasonable output out of a hundreds of billion dollar DC just isn't as cool as: your PC, phone, toaster can now do xyz or contribute to xyz
Yeah, I'm mostly excited about LLMs that can be run locally. And it really does look like there's a lot more optimizing that can happen going forward. Stuff like this is also really exciting. It'd be pretty amazing if we get to the point where models that perform as well as current 600+ billion parameter ones could run on a phone.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 19th October 2025
Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
Simon Willison writes a fawning blog post about the new "Claude skills" (which are basically files with additional instructions for specific tasks for the bot to use)
How does he decide to demonstrate these awesome new capabilities?
By making a completely trash, seizure inducing GIF...
He even admits it's garbage. How do you even get to the point that you think that's something you want to advertise? Even the big slop monger companies manage to cherry pick their demos.
Anthropic this morning introduced Claude Skills, a new pattern for making new abilities available to their models: Claude can now use Skills to improve how it performs specific tasks. Skills …
The ITUC has released a new report on the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on working people, with a clear call for trade unions to be fully involved in shaping how AI is deployed and regulated.
Lunedì 20 ottobre 2025 un maxi-down ha colpito numerose piattaforme globali a causa di problemi ai server di Amazon Web Services (AWS). Il disservizio, partito dal cloud di Amazon, ha generato interruzioni e rallentamenti a catena su applicazioni consumer e strumenti professionali in tutto il mondo, con oltre duemila segnalazioni registrate negli Stati Uniti e problemi di navigazione segnalati anche in Italia.
wine updated to bleeding edge
dxvk updated to latest git
vkd3d-proton updated to latest git
wine-wayland/em-10 patches updated
fixed news not loading in black desert online (revert GL/VK patch in e...
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has strongly condemned the Israeli regime's mistreatment of a rights activist who stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people, describing its actions as “cruel, inhuman and degrading.”
Esmail Baghaei made the remarks in a post on X, referring to reports that Israel “tortured and sexually humiliated” Greta Thunberg.
He cited Thunberg’s recent interview with a Swedish newspaper, in which the young activist described being violently assaulted during a protest.
“They grab me, pull me to the ground, and throw an Israeli flag over me,” Thunberg was quoted as saying.
The spokesman said Israel’s behavior reflects a deliberate effort to instill fear and suppress dissent amid its genocide in Gaza.
I agree but to what end?They revel in their disgusting image and everyone organizers included knew no food would get thru. Many of the groups involved are opposed to the Palestinian rssistance that inflicts the more important blood losses on the entjty
There are some that still give Israel the benefit of the doubt and showing that a humanitarian flotilla trying to deliver aid are kidnapped in international waters, strips away that.
Israel has, and will always be a piece of shit and definitely revel in it, but those who stand on the sidelines with their "two sides" arguments are now shown that they are morally complicit
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Iran has a complicated history having been one of the first and most progressive nations in the middle east.
They started a democratic parliament in 1906. Mandatory hijab was banned at some point in the 1930s. Women were educated and active in the professional sectors like lawyers and doctors in the following decades. Their royal family (shah) was still around but with decreasing authority, similar to many democratic European countries today.
Then a democratic elected leader wanted to nationalise oil the oil industry pissing off the UK and US
Operating Ajax was a CIA/MI6 lead coup that overthrew the democracy and reestablished the dictatorship of the shah with extended power.
In return for giving them a large share of the denationalisation oil they even helped train a secret police.
This helped fuel an anti-west sentiment as the shah was considered a western puppet. Actual progressive Political opposition got crushed making religion the primary public voice of dissent.
This turmoil ends in the islamic revolution and republic that dominates that eventually reversed all the progressive laws and brought back a mandated hijab for women.
These regime still rules today but you would be mistaken to consider them real representatives of the people. The majority of women today are still educated. Since a protest a few years ago there is mass civil disobedience, especially in big cities.
In effect 2025 the government of Iran has lost legitimacy towards the people but they still enjoy lots of military might to maintain their technical position.
It might be fair to say that some religious people in power would still wish to invoke their views on all women and make this argument in spite of the Irsael-US/UK connections but to equate that to the nation/people of iran is inaccurate.
You're talking about Mahsa Amini who was murdered by morality police after being arrested for not wearing a hijab, which was already part of a wider trend inside the country.
Iran crushed the subsequent protests by killing 500 people and arresting over 20,000. But amazingly enough, that event appears to have led to more women not wearing the hijab.
A growing number of Iranian women and girls have stopped wearing the hijab in public, despite the threat of arrest and imprisonment. Women say the move has transformed the streets of major cities in Iran.
Let's not act as if Iran is so supportive of human rights as they happily string up activists on cranes to then slowly hang them tontortur them to death
Gay? String em up or throw them from a high building
Female and your hair is a little too visible? Don't worry, morality police will be here soon to torture you to death
Great way to rant about technicalities and entirely miss the point that pretty much all islamic countries typically are extremely hostile to LGBT, and Iran in particular, lethal.
But oh noes, that particular method of execution actually does not happen in Iran! WHO FUCKING CARES? That is not the point.
You probably are too young to remember the news articles of crane companies having to find out that their products are used for public executions. Being gay or an activist in Iran is simply a very bad idea
Justifying imperialism with a touch of islamophobia by parroting western foreign policy in the name of LGBT rights, despite western countries having persistent homophobia
What the fuck are you even talking about? Are you high or off medication or are you just that naive to think that being gay in the middle east is a good idea? Are you one of those crazies that keep on going how well the gays are tested in Islam and that Islam really does embrace the gay? Or moreso, that gays are treated worse in the west than they are in islamic countries? Come on, you can't be THAT daft.
How far down did you go down what hole, I wonder...
But leave it up to types like you to take a legit criticism and use the whataboutism trope "but the west does it too!"
No, they don't. I'm still waiting for the next public execution of a gay man because he's gay. The US has quite a few idiots that would love that, but they're not even close to that happening
You're a tone def lib that doesn't understand that while your criticism is true in regards to Iran, it exists in a context where your gullible repeating it is used as a justification to intervene militarily.
First I don't say fuck everyone. If you read closely, you can clearly see that I said "Fuck the Iranian and Israeli dictator governments". Heck, you even quoted it, so one could mistakenly believe that you actually read it, but you didn't.
I said fuck Teo very specific governments. Not all the governments, not everyone in the world, two governments...
Then; are you really telling me that you've never understood that concept of "two can be wrong"‽ Are you 4? The Israeli government is fucking wrong. The Iranian government is fucking wrong. About what? Just about everything they're doing
Then; who or what law says that I HAVE to chose? I fucking have to breathe, I have to eat. What I do not have to do is look at two evil powers and then make the decision that I can only criticize one of them because some twat on the Internet told me so
Stamattina siamo passati a NodeBB 4.6.1, è una release principalmente di [em]bug fixes[/em] tra cui uno particolarmente fastidioso che metteva un carattere strano [code]'n'[/code] nell'oggetto perdendo della formattazione dai post che arrivavano da Mastod
Stamattina siamo passati a NodeBB 4.6.1, è una release principalmente di bug fixes tra cui uno particolarmente fastidioso che metteva un carattere strano 'n' nell'oggetto perdendo della formattazione dai post che arrivavano da Mastodon e da Friendica.
In realtà avevo già sistemato questo bug qualche giorno fa perché avevo aggiornato prima del rilascio della 4.6.1 e non appena avevo visto che questo bug era stato risolto ma ora ne ho approfittato per allinearci con la release stabile.
Kohler unveiled Dekoda, a $599 toilet sensor that uses a tiny camera and spectroscopy to analyze bodily waste and provide health insights12. The device clamps onto the toilet bowl rim and monitors hydration levels, bowel movements, and checks for blood in the toilet.
Users sign in with a fingerprint sensor before use, allowing multiple household members to track their individual data through the companion app. The system requires a subscription costing between $70-156 per year1.
"Kohler Health isn't just another app or product. It's a promise that your home can play a more active role in your well-being," said CEO David Kohler at the launch event2.
The company emphasizes privacy protection through end-to-end encryption. The camera uses "discreet optics" aimed only at bowl contents, not body parts1. The technology works best with light-colored toilets, as dark bowls can interfere with the sensors1.
Dekoda represents Kohler's entry into the digital health space, joining other smart toilet sensors from companies like Withings and Vivoo that appeared at CES 20232.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
I can kind of see this as a positive, where tracking health is useful...
But I'd have to let go of literally every corporation who has tried to be altruistic and then burned me later. 150 a year (let's be real too, per user probably), is too much for a monitoring service like this. Not to mention, you notice blood in your stools. Unless you just ignore weird feelings and just never turn around when flushing you're gonna notice. You don't need a service for that, just go to the doc immediately.
Someone use a Smartwatch? Their all your data go to Apple, Google, Amazon and also maybe even to your Doctor. We like to surround us with Spyware to make big corporations great again.
If i feel me bad or have blood in my shit, I go to the Doctor, no need of an app which say it.
Yeah, it’s actually really valuable data for your own personal use in aggregate. Obviously you would notice a dramatic change one day. But you wouldn’t notice a slow trending change. Having the data to see that could help you identify a condition early before you have symptoms.
Collecting the data has a lot of value. Paying a subscription service for the rest of your life to not lose the data kind of ruins the deal.
Yeah that seems like the perfect sort of thing to give away as a free benefit to people, but then charge big healthcare for the overall datasets to do analysis on. Fully anonymized of course. If I, someone who actually cared about privacy, was going to do it that'd be how.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
End to end really depends on which end to which end is being connected.
Butt seriously I WANT THIS, I want poop analysis, I want fecal spectrometry. I do not want it to be a god damn enshitifued from the drop app and crapware has to have big "We aren't recording you TRUST US" stuck to it.
Multiple online platforms including Amazon's cloud unit AWS, Robinhood, Snapchat and Perplexity are all experiencing outages, according to the Downdetector website monitor.
Was hoping if anyone wouldbe kind enough to tell me if there was a good alternative to Google-Fonts ? I wish to use all those cool fancy HTML/CSS fonts without going to Google
Ummmmmm have you heard about the weegers? It's pretty bad you know, try reading a real newspaper like the New York Times instead of your usual russian propaganda...
Þe article reads like an ad, and setting up þe server side takes a lot of steps so þe claim þat it's "quick and easy" is silly.
Distributions nowadays come with wiþ sshd disabled by default. It's, like, þe first þing an experienced user enables, but I'll bet a ton of newbs never do it, and may not know how. I've even come across distributions which don't install OpenSSH by default! Insanity.
þe article implies configuring NFS or samba is harder... and I'd agree. Home LANs are often not enterprise-grade, wiþ nodes connected over unreliable and relatively slow WiFi, and NFS has several moving parts and is chatty. Samba/CIFS is better for reliability, but requires a fair bit of knowledge to configure. And when it does fail, you can be left wiþ zombie processes and hung network connections. Scp is better for straight for transfers.
Not all users are aware þat þere are Android clients which understand sftp, and not all newbs are aware þat you get free sftp wiþ sshd, or þat sshfs exists.
People keep inventing more LAN filesharing apps when ssh/scp/sftp already exist, so þere's a need ssh isn't filling. Maybe it just needs a custom app, alþough I'm fond of apps like Material Files + sftp remotes for Android, and sshfs for Linux.
However, by far þe easiest is þat I set up SyncThing ages ago and haven't had to manually copy a file since. Þe exception is music, because I don't want my entire library on my phone; I now use Subsonic + Tempo and a "mobile" playlist which Tempo syncs, but getting music onto þe server requires sftp, and just getting a directory listing is painfully slow. If Subsonic had a file upload API, bidirectional playlist syncing would provide iTunes-like music library maintenance, which was darn near perfect design.
Anyway, I agree: solutions like QuickDAV keep popping up probably because people don't know about better options.
Basically the advantage is that it’s ridiculously easy to set up. You just install the app and open it. The downside is that it’s ad-hoc. It’s not meant to be a long running server like smb.
"go to another machine on your LAN" So its basically syncthing? But that its not able to decide who gets whick file as there is only one option to log in in QuickDAV? But maybe more intuitive?
Syncthing (as the name implies) is meant to synchronize folders across machines. QuickDAV is meant to transfer files/folders from one machine to another. They definitely both have there uses, and there uses might overlap in a lot of cases, but they also have there own niches. Like, I wouldn’t use Syncthing to transfer a photo to my desktop once, and I wouldn’t use QuickDAV to keep my photos directory synchronized across several machines.
KDEConnect is honestly going to be better. It's runs on everything (yes, Gnome and Cinnamon), has transport and device security, and offers more than just file transfer.
GSconnect extension on GNOME, and its honestly amazing. Send files, copy clipboard, auto pause my music when a phonecalls comes in. Custom commands from the phone to lock my session if I'm away from my desk. Such a great application.
KDE Connect fucking RULES! The ability to send clipboard from phone to pc, send files, control media, remote mouse input, its low key one of the most useful software I've ever used.
KDEConnect is great, but I don’t think it can share a folder. If you want to transfer a folder from, say, a MacBook to a Linux PC, I think QuickDAV would be better suited than KDEConnect. Also, QuickDAV works on Win/Mac/Lin.
I just install openssh server, because I need it anyways, and use an SFTP client to transfer files. Seems to be fast, secure, and easy. No new ports to open up.
I've transferred many terabytes of data this way, no complaints. Rsync is nice for syncing huge folders, and walking away, so I'll also use that when the need arises.
You’re strawmanning their comment— I’d imagine they’d have the same, if not more, issues with snap.
Flatpak doesn’t integrate well with all systems. For me personally, on Arch, I have to update and store Flatpak versions of some dependencies, like proprietary Nvidia drivers, separately from the rest of my system and its package management system. And it does take up some space to store the runtime too.
Also Flatpaks may require some extra set up and/or workarounds due to their sandboxed environment. That’s not inherently bad and has some big security upsides, but it’s a consideration.
Also I don’t know how well it plays with immutable distros, but I’d imagine there may be similar integration issues there, too.
It’s still probably a lot easier for devs to have a consistent distribution format though, and they are typically more secure, so I’m not saying there’s not merits to only providing a Flatpak. Just pointing out that your reply here was misguided, imo.
Banks can track each banknotes serial number when you receive them from the ATM and when they are returned from the store you spent them at. This data could then be used to create a complete profile of your spending habits.
Doesn't work very well if you buy something directly from someone. Or if your cash is given out as change. Seems like it would make a wildly inaccurate profile.
Given a large enough time frame this can be treated as random noise which is easily filtered out, and this data isn't necessarily meant to track your supermarket shopping. For example, you can use it to figure out where somebody went who has gone into hiding. They might have cleared out their bank accounts before leaving and with that data you can see where these banknotes are now showing up. Just wait at the store they apparently visit every Tuesday.
That’s completely made up. Most bills are given out to other customers once used in a store, the amount of bills that are used once and returned to the bank would be well under 5%.
Fantastic fabricated story though. Money laundering which has been done for decades would defeat this, it’s a scary story to share that has zero basis on reality.
Netzpolitik recently did an article about that. I consider them a credible source. How often bills are used before there are returned to the bank heavily depends on the denomination. Larger bills don't circulate as much and at least in my country most stores return their cash income to the bank on a daily basis. People also tend to spend their money around the area where they live, so even if you couldn't figure out which exact store a targeted person spends their money at due to circulation (which I doubt), you can still quickly find the general area in which they are staying.
Bargeld gilt als anonymes Zahlungsmittel. Dabei ist anhand der Seriennummer durchaus ersichtlich, welche Routen Geldscheine nehmen. Die Infrastruktur zum Bargeld-Tracking wird immer weiter ausgebaut.
Without some type of visual confirmation, it’s all noise.
On my way home from work, I grab $600 from the atm, $300 for my wife’s tattoo, $200 for me, and $100 for wife spending money.
After the appt the tattoos artists wife takes $200 and flys across country that night. I spend my $200 at the peelers, all those go to a dozen different girls and servers. My wife the next day goes shopping at an outlet mall and spends her $100 at 4 stores. The tattoo artist spends his $100 on beer.
We live on the same block and I pulled the money out across town. Who’s is the original takers purchases….?
It’s 95% noise, it’s useless unless you’re an investigator and have boots on the ground.
Again, it’s a fun story to share around the campfire though. Is it possible, yes, can it be done in actual practice, absolutely not. Not without some other information.
Yes that would destroy some data points but we are talking about a statistical approach here. How often do you give other people cash directly in comparison to spending it at stores. Given enough time and collected information local concentrations will show up. Its surveillance through data analysis with a new veneer.
I ONLY give other people cash, all my other purchases are debit/credit. Like MOST people and stores since Covid
The only time this works, is if it’s targeted, and that means an investigator is doing it. An automated system wouldn’t know what to do with any of the data. You’re severely overestimating how much people spend cash around them, that’s usually when it’s plastic. People use cash in “sketchier” places.
Again, zero basis on reality, it gets “destroyed” at every step without some manual intervention.
I ONLY give other people cash, all my other purchases are debit/credit.
If you always use card payments whenever it's possible, it obviously isn't necessary to analyze your cash transactions to learn where you are because you are already disclosing it 😀
Like MOST people and stores since Covid
There are close to 2 billion unbanked people in the world. In the US, it's less than 6% nationally, but over 10% in some states.
Many people who are not unbanked also often avoid electronic payments for privacy/security and other reasons.
The cash serial number tracking being described in this thread is useful for locating the neighborhoods frequented by someone who (a) avoids using electronic payments, and (b) maybe obtains cash from an ATM (or perhaps check-cashing service, in the case of an unbanked person) in places other than the neighborhoods they live in or frequent.
There are close to 2 billion unbanked people in the world. In the US, it's less than 6% nationally, but over 10% in some states.
……
If they don’t use a bank, how are they pulling money out for it to be tracked?
See, none of it makes any sense lmfao.
The cash serial number tracking being described in this thread is useful for locating the neighborhoods frequented by someone who (a) avoids using electronic payments, and (b) maybe obtains cash from an ATM (or perhaps check-cashing service, in the case of an unbanked person) in places other than the neighborhoods they live in or frequent.
Which is useful to who…? The only time that information is useful, would be for an investigator, so… again… someone, boots on the ground, and doing visual verification. And an investigator and plenty of other useful metrics with less noise.
It
Makes
Zero
Sense
In
Reality!
The person originally started talking about spending habits, and shifted to finding criminals. Those are two whole-fully different situations that need different information points, and are also gathered in significantly different methods.
If they don’t use a bank, how are they pulling money out for it to be tracked?
One example I mentioned in my comment you're replying to is check cashing services. Millions of people in the US receive money via things like check or money order and need to change it to cash despite not having a bank account to deposit it in; this usually involves identifying themselves.
Submitting Organziation Name and role, if any, in the Project Glory Ltd Project owner and provider of all the software and devices/pheripherals used under the experiment.
One example I mentioned in my comment you're replying to is check cashing services. Millions of people in the US receive money via things like check or money order and need to change it to cash despite not having a bank account to deposit it in; this usually involves identifying themselves.
…
Those are done at a teller, not an ATM. An ATM requires a bank card, cashing a cheque at a teller does not. The post and everything that’s being discussed is about ATM tracking…
It doesn’t make sense when you actually understand how the system works… but of course people that don’t quite understand the system can be fooled by how it’s possible. But it isn’t, and not for the reasons you’ve suggested, as I’ve countered. It just doesn’t make sense because of all the NOISE.
No manual intervention needed just track everything and retain the data for a long time. Then you can query the database for all serial numbers your target has ever taken out of an ATM and where they where returned. Circulation will diffuse these results somewhat but that follows a normal distribution. That means it is much more likely that a bill that was spent at a store by your target which is given out again as change, is more likely to be spent at another store near that original store. Aggregate this information over a couple of weeks or months and you will get a heatmap of locations to check out. You can run this operation automatically on all bank accounts if you want. Threshold the heatmap at some significant value and you get a list of stores visited by each person with X% probability.
Except most people use multiple cards, multiple banks etc. there will absolutely need to some visual verification to be able to ever establish a starting point. It just doesn’t work.
It’s a neat proof of concept, but in reality, that would never hold up in court.
Give your head a shake, I’ve got a bridge to sell you if you actually believe this is being used or can be used for what you claim.
I'm a tradesman and get paid in $100 all the time. A guy from the city gave me $100 for a job. My wife, who is a treasurer for Girl Guides, traded her cookie money of $10's and $20"s for my $100 and deposited it in the bank. Now the FBI can prove that my customer has an unhealthy cookie addiction.
Lots of stores also gives bills back out, the system makes zero sense, it can’t track anything at all. Like maybe 5% of bills are used once and then returned to the bank.
Most places don't do cash back, and the ones that do tend to have a limit of like $40. Wal Mart is a bit of an exception, as they'll do $100, but you aren't getting a $100 bill from them through their self checkout. You'll only get 20's.
So if you go to Wal Mart, and you go to one of the few real people to check you out, and you ask for it back in a $100 bill, and the teller happens to have gotten a $100 in since they had started that day, and the front lead hadn't already cashed out the register since they received that $100 bill, then yes. In that case you'll get a $100 bill and will slightly fuzz up the tracking metrics they could theoretically do.
ATMs give out $20 bills. In order to get one back as change you'd have to pay with a bill larger than $20. I don't remember the last time I carried something larger than a 20.
I just occured to me that could be the reason for when a color printer wont even let you print, say, pure black text, even though it only has emptied some of the colored ink, but still has plenty of black ink left to do the job...
Isn't it common knowledge? I've known about it for at least two decades...
BTW - you can easily work around it. Get someone else to buy your printer for you, or trade with someone who has the same printer... Now, they will still be able to match it to the printer, if they find it at your home, but other that that, you are free...
PS. Don't use your printer to blackmail FBI or CIA. 😉
As I said - but there could be a connection. Did you use cash or a card? Some places you have a membership, or they ask if you want the receipt on your mail...
If you don't know how your credit cars ties you to a printer with a serial number, sold by a store that saves it all - then I don't want to help you. It's not a belief, it's fact. I like being asked, I don't like ignorant morons, that says stupid things and either want to pick a fight, or are truly clueless. You can decide for yourself, which category you are in... Now go troll someone else.
Doubt. Laser printers were invented in the early 1970s and were common by the mid 1980s. I don't think this tracking started until inkjets and scanners got good enough that the government got concerned about them being used for counterfeiting, I'd guess mid to late 90s at the earliest.
Photos taken by digital cameras are also trackable in a similar way as prints taken from a printer. I recall reading they were trying to identify the device after a Harry Potter book was leaked by someone taking digital photographs.
Cameras generally have barely noticeable, but uniquely identifiable, defects that will consistently affect pictures. So if you post a photo on your personal Social Media, and then you post a photo from the same camera on Hexbear, those two things could be connected. Just because it can happen doesn't mean it's practical, though.
I have no idea if this is what's been used with the Harry Potter thing.
But pictures can also be traced back to a camera based on irregularities in the camera sensor scientificamerican.com/article…
Unlike with the printers, there is probably no database of the CMOS sensor irregularities of all cameras ever made. But if you upload pictures under your government name and the take pictures with the same camera and share them anonymously, this could be traced back to you in theory.
sensor pattern noise is recognizable to an extent with pros, but usually its paired with highlight rolloff and other similar qualities. For instance, when I watch a movie, I can figure, okay, this was probably one of the arri's rather than a RED, etc. Sometimes, especially with a bit of knowledge on how/where they shot this, you can get an even better idea, close to a specific model. Of course if you're watching an actual movie, this is all after color correction so its more obvious if you have the raw files.
anyway, my point is, people who work with the cameras and files can definitely have at least a good idea of what camera something was shot with, but you'd really need a huge database and computers to do the work to match it exactly. I have colleagues that will show me something they worked on, with cameras they don't own and between the group of us, someone can immediately spot what camera it was shot on. but! like you said, if you post pictures on the internet, and then more pictures/videos with the same camera elsewhere, yeah it should be theoretically possible to match them with sensor noise pattern. they could at least prove its the same model. i'm not sure how much it differentiates between same camera models, but i can recognize my camera models dnp easy peasy. i have not had any caffeine yet so this is likely a jumbled mess of a thought and i apologize.
That's the obvious one. But you can also add data to images by adding tiny values to the pixels, it'll still look the same to us (same as printer tiny dots).
I don't know if phones actually do this. Just saying it's possible.
But many uploading sites optimize the images, so it'll be gone on reshare, but they could get it on first upload.
Any image editing tool like mspaint or similar. Just copy paste the pixels into a new image file. Though, the program youre using will probably still add it's own metadata to the new file, but all the original metadata from the camera won't be there.
Apparently! Just looked it up and reports presently say that the Serial Number of device was found to be 560151117 from EXIF data. Camera make : Canon Rebel 350 (also known as the Canon EOS 350D or Canon Digital Rebel XT);
or just the individual characteristics and flaws of the lens/sensor/postprocessing software, some of which can be unique per device, and potentially comparable to other photos made with it.
Even without EXIF data I would bet the actual encoding of the image will be identifiable to a specific instance of the camera software.
Similar to how websites fingerprint your browser by rendering something in the canvas or webgl and sending back the rendered image. The exact same rendering procedure will produce slightly different images for each browser instance. I suspect browsers are fully aware and complicit in this because why the actual fuck would they not make the rendering engines deterministic to their inputs?!
Apparently! Just looked it up and reports presently say that the Serial Number of device was found to be 560151117 from EXIF data. Camera make : Canon Rebel 350 (also known as the Canon EOS 350D or Canon Digital Rebel XT);
To be clear, this is not about EXIF data (which is its own problem).
Digital cameras can be fingerprinted from the images they produce, due to variations between pixels in any given sensor. If you're concerned about an image being traced back to your camera, you might consider some post-processing before distributing it.
No... But i've thought about how easy it would be to implement in ebooks and pdfs (e.g. my daily newspaper i can download as pdf). I've thought about this when sailing the high seas.
It's prevalent among pdfs downloaded from academic publishers (text listing the receiving IP address and/or institution running down the margins). I wouldn't be surprised if it's also done with hidden white text or in the metadata.
Most ebooks I bought recently come with a warning that the buyer's data is embedded in the file to deter from sharing it online. TBF it cannot be hard to remove it but I didn't bother to check how it's implemented.
The worst thing about that printer tracking is that we only learned about it around 20 years after they started implementing it. It's been another 20 years, imagine what they're doing now.
At launch (in 2021) the FireTV was not on the list of Sidewalk-enabled products, but given the fact that Sidewalk was enabled without user consent on many existing devices (and has been found to re-enable itself after being disabled) combined with the fact that FireTV devices all have at least the necessary bluetooth radio (even if not the LoRA part, Sidewalk can use both/either) and thus could become sidewalk-enabled by a software update in the future... I would still say that Sidewalk is a reason (among many) to boycott FireTV along with the rest of Amazon's products.
The takeaway that Amazon built their own mesh network so that their products in neighboring homes can exfiltrate data via eachother whenever any one of them can get online is not false.
Amazon Sidewalk is a new system that is being activated today across millions of Echo smart speakers and a few Ring devices. It allows those devices to act
Social graph connections can be automatically inferred from location data. This has been done by governments (example) for a long time and is also done by private companies (sorry I can't find a link at the moment).
Most modern cars are SIM-enabled and are constantly sending data back to the mothership. But even those that aren't will still collect data locally and that data will be collected when you send the car to an "official/licenced/authorized" repair shop.
I'm still driving a '99 vehicle and the most advanced thing about it are the power windows. I dread upgrading to a vehicle that can break in so many new ways. I hate that everything has touch screens and the software on many is awful and if it breaks, surprise, you have no music in your car now.
Those still have an ECU that stores most of the same data. It knows you speed, it knows how hard you brake, etc. anything with an OBD will store data. And that’s carssince the 70s
Depends on the car. Most older cars are concerned with basic OBD stuff, faults, and engine management. I have a 2012 and it doesn’t record anything interesting at all. Just engine data. You are right though, a few do save data, I just don’t know which ones, what year they start, and the depth of data recorded. The ‘70’s still had most cars running a regular analog mechanical system or maybe an electronic ignition controlled by an ECU. The ECUs most similar to today’s started becoming more common in the ‘80s.
You’ll be surprised, they take snapshots at certain points. In a collision all vehicles will store last 5 or so seconds of data, speed, see if brakes are engaged, stuff like that, it’s all used in collision investigations. There’s not a single car I think that’s doesn’t do this. As I said, it’s in some form, but your vehicle does know if you’ve sped if it has an obd on it.
What do you think basic OBD stuff is? It’s all that information and that’s used to see if anything’s wrong with the vehicle.
I’m pretty familiar. I think you’re more referring to modern CAN bus systems that record everything under the sun. Basic ECUs from back in the 80s just didn’t do as much. Even my ‘12 only has OBD2 and the data collection is limited. I have some fairly advanced diagnostic equipment to read all this stuff. The only thing I can’t do is program it, but I’ll be doing that soon enough.
You can look this up for your model. When I was looking this, there was a youtube video showing how to physically renove chevy's onstar thing in the car
A lot of stores track your movement through the store with the WiFi or bluetooth your phone sends out, unless you have that turned off. Since it's "anonymous" not even stuff like the GDPR requires to notify anyone of this.
Ah, shops where I go are not even able to tell whether the beer I'm drinking while shopping is mine or I stole from the shop. Though, they do annoy me when they say I should have left it outside. They do annoy me a lot.
Not really. It doesn't really rely on MAC adresses, it relies on your phone to constantly blast out "IS ANYONE HERE $HOME_NETWORK_NAME?" (or bluetoothely named "DYPROSIUMS AIRPODS!???") and it just catches that and then uses classic triangulating to see where you are. They all do that to quickly connect to WiFi without you having to actually type in the SSID because that shits for nerds.
Would or is also a really good way to sniff WiFi passwords. If anybody says "Well yes, I am indeed $HOME_NETWORK_NAME" your phone just hands them the password. It's probably wrong for THAT network but it does mean you can just collect a whole ass batch of home wifi passwords.
Especially given how many people don't change shit about their ISP-provided network if you just cyle $common_standard_wifi_names you're off to a good start to be able to easily infilitrate half your cities WiFi.
Tons of websites record your mouse, keyboard, and scroll activity, and can play back exactly what you saw on your browser window from its backend dashboard as a video. This is called session replay. There are pre-made libraries for this you can import so it's super common, I believe Mouseflow is one of the biggest providers.
When a mobile app, Windows app, or even website crashes nowadays, it automatically sends the crash dump to the app developer/OS vendor (the OS often does this whether the app requests it or not because the OS developer themselves are interested in what apps crash and in what ways). We're talking full memory dump, so whatever private data was in the app's memory when it crashed gets uploaded to a server somewhere without your consent, and almost certainly kept forever. God help you if the OS itself crashes because your entire computer's state is getting reported to the devs.
Your phone's gyroscope can record what you say by sensing vibrations in the air. It may or may not be something humans will recognize as speech if played back because the frequency range is too limited, but it's been shown that there's enough information for a speech recognition AI to decode. Good chance the accelerometer and other sensors can be used in the same way, and using them together will increase the fidelity making it easier to decode. Oh did I mention no device has ever implemented permission controls for sensors so any app or even website can access them without your consent or knowledge?
nah only the minidump is reported back which only contains the memory the crashing stack is using. Sending the full dump would requires uploading gigabytes of data which would cripple any home internet as they mostly have very limited upstream bandwidth.
Though iirc a system crash report can include a kernel dump, which can contain things like private keys.
Though realistically, Microsoft controls your OS. They could easily add code to allow them to grab whatever they want from your system without any logging (by your system anyways).
That actually makes me wonder if there are any apps that run on both a system and the router that system is connected to to determine if the internet traffic as reported by the system (to the user) is the same as what the router sees as a way to detect anything using network resources but bypassing the normal network stack.
you certainly can just run wireshark on your PC and your router, then compare them in the end of the day (with your router's file filtered your PC's source address)
Maybe this. Most smartphones have a modem inside, this modem has a separate closed-sourced operating system and it usually has the main priority in controlling the smartphone relative to the processor running the main operating system, such as Android. Sometimes the modem has access to the microphone or memory, even bypassing the CPU. Although maybe everyone already knows that.
I've wondered for a while if something like this is why Google allowed their bootloaders to be unlocked, because they can get at everything anyways.
And I bet that if that was the case, they've backed off that for future phones because of those stories about law enforcement seeing having those phones as suspicious, which could hurt sales, since I bet the majority of pixel users don't switch operating systems.
They run a mini Linux distro and you can ssh or tyy into them if you have a serial port. They have access to much of the hardware but usually over something like a serial interface but still can inject code and stuff. They are a completely secret self-contained computer and I don't even think they get updated for security. They could easily be hacked by anyone probably mostly government regimes. There is only a few companies that make them and they are ultra secretive and protective over them. This is the main reason it's nearly impossible to get an open source phone. Arm is proprietary, modems are proprietary. They run blobs. I have probably the one phone in existence that can run an open source modem firmware, and interestingly I have figured out that there is basically no security whatsoever on the cell networks. (Monopolies gonna monopoly) So that might be one reason they are so secretive about it, another reason is because they don't want citizens being able to just have open source radios that they can't easily hack or sell to drug cartels or something.
It does have complete access to your mic and Bluetooth and other stuff since they share buses, it has access to all your data being sent. It can record phone calls. It can triangulate your position. It can even imitate other modems to pick up people's messages and calls, which means not only can it spy on you but also it can spy on other people around you. I don't think it's really possible to disable these things completely outside of physically cutting power. They boot up with the phone and can probably run even when the phone is powered off since it's a self contained system, often with a direct connection to the battery.
Between Bluetooth, and cellular modems, they have basically complete access to many bands around you, as well as sensor data and sound and video, and with satellites recording the entire planet, they can trace anyone who doesn't have a device back in time anyways. Cell towers can triangulate you as well and do. It's part of location services in all phones now. The modems can connect to almost any towers at least for "emergency purposes".
Basically the only place that's safe now is inside your own head but even that's becoming unsafe because of AI that can read your facial expressions and infer your mental state.
The ways they get around the legalities is originally with the eyes programs, where countries would spy on their allies citizens to escape domestic laws like those pesky constitutions, but nowadays they just literally sell everyone's personal data to the highest bidder, international or domestic. The CCP can buy this I do just as easily as Black Rock can, not that Black Rock is or every was an American company. These are international corporations that exist outside of the idea of a state.
It's also not the CIA or NSA spying on you, but private companies. Even the people in the CIA and NSA aren't allowed to know about the extent of the true intelligence apparatus which is completely secret, outside the law, and contained entirely in international corporations. The entire Internet has been saturated with bots since 2001 or something probably. The internet is just a massive psyop and propaganda program. The average person in the 90s would be horrified at the opinions of common people today. Nukes are also probably not real. Just a way to scare people into believing Russia and America and China are actually enemies while they partial up and nationalist culture that doesn't want to give all its resources up to the international secret world management and finance corporation. Fiat currency too is a giant scam to make sure the working person never acquires wealth, and has to work forever, and corporations and wealthy humans who's names will never be spoken publicly, can own anything and have unlimited leverage and I finite money without ever having to work or produce anything of value. The text books in nearly every school in America are made by a company in Israel who was co-founded by glisten Maxwell's father. The left in U.S politics is fake, and the whole social justice warrior movement was a clever psyop to push all the countries further right wing run by internationalist corporations btw. 25% of Americans are addicted to legal amphetamines, more on other drugs like weed which reduces people's ability to understand what's real, Md nearly half of working age people in America cannot or won't find work. Wages have been dropping for decades and now IQs are dropping. Most of human genetics have been completely ruined, as we as humanity has destroyed nearly every honest, principled and empathetic human on the planet for profit.
It's just reality and it is too much for most people. It's like that old saying. You want the truth? You can't handle the truth! It's easier to believe in the fairytale. The government and God loves you. Good always wins. Honestly and hard work pay off. People are good. The state will protect you. Just go back to sleep, but make sure you show up to work on time because we are too rich to clean those floors like you common people do, and although you will never have a retirement that is both safe from the stock market manipulation, and inflation, we have boats and nice cars to buy.
Lol you better support the police state so the rich don't nuke the whole world! They have you by the balls. Why do you think they talked about nukes for like 50 years? If not to convince everyone that they need this giant security state and massive armies and trillions in military spending.
You're telling me that the US Government, Northrop Grunman, the us armed forces, the UN, and all the equivalents in Russia are conspiring to fake nuclear weapons despite live testing them over 2000 times over 70 years and that North Korea had a credible test in 2017, we just gave up in the mid 90s and were like "nah I'm bored now"?
I sometimes wonder if they are even actually real but all the hysteria around them is definitely manufactured. I do think all these countries get together like the U.S, Russia, and China to pretend to hate each other so they can justify having huge national security states and surveillance networks and trillions of dollars in defense spending. I think once you get into their club there is no such thing as borders or nations, just psyops to keep the common people controlled and on the plantations of capitalism or authoritarianism. It's not just me by the way but this used to be the common opinion of nearly everyone, even people like Dwhite D. Eisenhower, who was the supreme commander of the entire allied forces during WW2. Not that you will really find any of that information today. They have been scrubbing the internet of any and all references to real history and expanding copyright every year so they can carefully control what kind of information is available to the public.
Yes it sounds crazy but it is also much closer to the truth then what you believe. This is why people in the news media started wearing brightly colored ties now. They are clowns. They are actors. The president doesn't have any power, he is just a clown to distract the masses. The state has no power. It's just a police force for the rich to steal all of our labor and keep us from overthrowing them. Why would the CIA do anything when they have to comply with all the regulatory and transparency laws, when private companies can do it better without a need to keep records? That would be stupid at this point. I don't buy any of it and I know enough real history to realize what's going on. Yes nukes are fake, maybe they actually exist in some rusted pieces of crap somewhere built 60 years ago, but no the rich can't nuke the whole world just because you don't want to worship them.
Yes the pinephone has an open modem firmware you can install, but in order to make the pinephone slightly usable you need to have phosh, because KDE is way to slow. It's not a device that's easy to use unless you are comfortable with tweaking, and are tech savvy. It also has some issues, like a small battery and heavy energy use. Mobian with phosh helps a bit here, but it's just not really a good replacement for android phones rn. The hardware is slow because there isnt really any open hardware with documentation that exists.
There is a few android phones that you can install Linux onto that are better but you have to deal with the headache if googles bullshit and Qualcomm and mediateks bullshit in terms of bootloaders and stuff.
I'm working on my own fork of mobian for the pinephone specifically that will hopefully make it more usable as an everyday device, but it's 4g only so it only really has a year or two left of life. In a few years we will hopefully see better open phones since there is a real market opening up for them, with the desolation of android by Google.
Mobian with phosh is a decent choice if you decide to get one. At two hours of screen off time I've only used over just a out 5% of battery which is good for the pinephone, but I have a large battery. The software has come a long way in recent years.
For audio recordings, there is usually a trace of electric hum in the background that has enough randomness to yield info on when (and sometimes where) the recording took place.
It's not as much of a privacy violation as a privacy vulnerability, but it's still relevant.
People sometimes dies from the trunk falling back down. This can happen if the decomposition of the tree has come far enough or the forces eventually make the tree snap.
I searched but only found references to treeworkers getting hit when cutting the stem with a chainsaw. Natural decomposition caused fatalities may be possible, but seem very unlikely compared to other risks...
No, I mean I might have ADHD, and I do sometimes fixate on very specific things. But this time I was just out in the woods and thought hey that Tree throw might be meme material.
This makes more sense than an IED. WW2 UXO is still a problem in Europe 80-ish years later. I remember a bulldozer getting blown up sometime around 2005 while building a new autobahn.
The point I was trying to make is that the IDF has dropped so much ordinance on the Gaza strip that there are going to be UXO events for at least 100 years.
The IED makes a lot of sense because Israeli bulldozers and excavators are actively destroying Palestinian homes in their yellow line area during the "ceasefire".
So if there was an IED buried there in advance then they would have tripped it for sure.
This is probably just an unexploded bomb. I don't know why you expect that you can drive a bulldozer all over a place you've been bombing without getting blown the fuck up. This is the stupidest shit ever. This is like bombing your own hostages, and then complaining that their bodies can't be returned. Wait a minute. Hold on. Hold on. I'm starting to pick up on a pattern here. I think I'm getting something.
A causa del mio terribile ma solito infognamento di fine settimana, stavo per scherzare sul fatto che troppo programming, con poco gaming e soprattutto niente reading e writing, fa male alla salute… Perché si sta ore fissi davanti al PC, a fare i conti con testi bizzarri in linguaggi decisamente poco umani, per poi andare […]
tanto programming con poi il malo svegling causa la quasi gran morte dell’octt… (stavo per svenire alzandomi troppo veloce stamattina)
A causa del mio terribile ma solito infognamento di fine settimana, stavo per scherzare sul fatto che troppo programming, con poco gaming e soprattutto niente reading e writing, fa male alla salute… Perché si sta ore fissi davanti al PC, a fare i conti con testi bizzarri in linguaggi decisamente poco umani, per poi andare a dormire incazzati pensando ancora a quella roba (o meglio, quello che non si è fatto), e poi la mattina dopo, ancora prima di riprendere conoscenza (!!!), si pensa automaticamente a quello, e quindi ci si sveglia subito con un bel mal di testa, solo per poi (dopo colazione eh, ma comunque) andare ad incollarsi di nuovo davanti al PC per continuare l’effettivo programming… 😭
Tuttavia, ecco, non immaginavo affatto che il lievissimo mal di testa di 1 o 2 minuti ieri fosse solo il tutorial, mentre l’effettivo momento non epico fosse un ben più lungo (5 minuti???) calo di energia vitale (di pressione, probabilmente, dato che all’effettivo la sensazione è simile a se mi rubano il sangue…tanto sangue) che boh, non mi spiego!!! O meglio, me lo spiego nel fatto che è colpa del programming, per cui scrivere tutti quegli incantesimi così forte assorbe una quantità assurda di energia magica, e quindi succede questo… anche perché, sennò, davvero non si capisce come mai io abbia percepito questo genere di scherzetti solo in queste ultime due mattine, quando guarda caso solo in questo fine settimana ho fatto granché programming, i giorni prima no. Ho già pure dimenticato metà dei sintomi, ma è veramente una cosa assurda, ad un certo punto mi si sono pure ammosciati i 5 sensi, mentre stavo sul divano sperando di non cadere all’aldilà proprio oggi… 🤢
A parte gli scherzi, probabilmente è solo che mi sono alzata troppo di botto dal letto, senza nemmeno accorgermene, e dunque sarà accaduto appunto un calo di pressione… ma il punto è che non me lo spiego così forte, al punto che stavo quasi per cadere per terra ad ogni passo, ad un certo punto dal bagno al divano. Vero è che stanotte ho dormito solo 4 ore circa, perché come ho detto il programming fa male anche solo nella misura in cui offusca la mente di pensieri — riguardo la cosa stessa, o che portano la mente a vagare su altre cose, spesso non buone, come il dolore esistenziale di sottofondo — impedendo di addormentarsi serenamente ed efficientemente, e quando mi sono alzata è stato avendo notato che avevo ignorato la sveglia per 20 minuti e quindi ero in ritardo, però insomma… 😵💫
A me comunque pare di non essermi alzata in modo fisicamente meno calmo di altre mattine, ma a questo punto mi viene il dubbio… E se normalmente io mi alzassi con abbastanza calma, ma proprio ieri matttina il programming mind virus mi ha fatta uscire dal letto di fretta per via delle cose da continuare (e non ho avvertito gravi effetti solo perché avevo dormito 9 ore buone), mentre stamattina ci si è messo il tempo tiranno a mettermi fretta? Però, mannaggia a quel gran zio delle pere fritte…se il mio corpo è in uno stato tale che poco mi manca per svenire se mi alzo troppo velocemente, per quale cazzo di motivo le mie gambe me lo permettono??? Con lo stato mentale in cui sto la mattina presto, io certamente non mi posso ricordare di alzarmi piano piano sennò muoio, quindi preferirei che ci fosse un meccanismo di sicurezza automatico… (Anche se, qualora ci fosse, probabilmente pure me ne lamenterei, perché “come è possibile che non riesco a muovere le gambe? e se arrivano le bombe israeliane anche nella mia città e devo scappare come faccio???“… vabbuò.) 🐥 pignio.octt.eu.org/item/105934… #mattina
Our last State of the Bird was September 16th 2025 and can be found here.
This State of the Bird is a bit late due to a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that Gary kept forgetting to finish it. Also the Charts plugin in Discourse got broken so we started looking at alternatives but luckily the plugin got fixed and we now have some code to automatically gather some of the metrics.
Metrics
We have a number of metrics we keep an eye on which you can see below.
Contributors
The number of contributors continues to fluctuate a bit, but that's expected for a volunteer project.
If you're interested in contributing you can find some documentation here including ways that don't require knowing how to program.
Review requests are what we call our code reviews and is the way that all code is accepted into our code bases. This is a look at how many were open and closed each month.
This is a look at the number of issues that were opened in our issue tracker as well as how many were closed by month. We don't create issues for everything we do, this is still good to look at as it will include bugs and other issues users have brought to our attention.
This is a break down of commits to each project per month. In most cases a review request is just a single commit, but this chart helps to see what projects are being worked on.
As you can see, Pidgin 3 activity continues to dominate everything else.
Pidgin 3 is our next generation universal chat client whose goal is to give you the best experience possible when using modern chat networks.
Retrospective
Lots of work on Pidgin 3 this month including a new application icon! Feel free to discuss it at discourse.imfreedom.org/t/new-….
The big work this month that we were trying to get into the release was that we're completely overhauling the account setting and user splits APIs. However, this had some dependencies we didn't expect related to the credential providers using the account username to keep track of accounts. Needless to say, this wasn't finished for the 2.93.0 release, but we're going to keep chipping away at it.
Another huge thing we finished this month is the start of the migration guide for developers. This was a huge undertaking and still needs to have all the user interface stuff added to it, but it's still a huge milestone. It can be viewed here. We need to finish the architecture documentation too which will help fill in some of the finer points that aren't covered in the migration guide.
Also as previously mentioned in the Experimental 4 release announcement, we now have a setting for toggling light/dark mode!
Highlights
Add a Pidgin.Badges widget to contacts in the contact list
Import our new application icon from the one and only Hylke Bons
Create Purple.AccountSetting
Add Purple.AccountSettings
Add Purple.Protocol.get_default_account_settings
Create Purple.AccountSettingStringList
Update the default account settings handler to include user splits
Port IRCv3 to the new account settings
Add Purple.Account:disconnected to complement Purple.Account:connected
Fix settings initialization in network prefs
Fix parenting of Account Manager window on initial startup
A first pass at documenting how to migrate from purple 2
macOS: fix some issues with the macOS native files
macOS: hide duplicate menu items
Stop setting XDG_RUNTIME_DIR in devenv
Add a dark/light color scheme setting
Add remove all and update methods to Purple.AccountSettings
Make sure accounts have names when saving and loading
Add the account name to the account editor
Update Pidgin.AccountDisplay to use the Purple.Account:name property
Update libpurple to use Purple.Account:name when referring to accounts
Update pidgin to use Purple.Account:name when referring to accounts
A few cleanups in the account api
Create Purple.ConversationManagerBackend
Update Purple.ConversationManager to use a Purple.ConversationManagerBackend
Pidgin 2 is our stable "production" release of a universal chat client. Meaning that you can use it as a single interface to many chat networks!
Retrospective
We're still planning on doing a 2.15.0 release, but we haven't moved forward on this at all this month.
Highlights
Cleaned up the app data file.
Removed the auto package spec file.
Retrospective
We still need to finish up the build environment packages so we can upgrade GTK on windows and get that all into the installer. We also need to remember to update the spell checking dictionaries as we haven't done that in awhile.
As announced in the last State of the Bird, we've started an additional user interface to keep the look and feel of Pidgin 2 and Gaim before it in GTK4 and we've chosen to name it Gaim.
Retrospective
No new work this month. We've put things on pause until the account settings rewrite is finished. We need to be able to create accounts to move forward and don't want to write a bunch of code just to rewrite it very soon afterwards.
Highlights
None
Releases
None
Future Plans
Once the account settings API is finished up we're going to start moving pretty quickly here.
Birb is a library of GLib utilities that we use across all of our projects.
Retrospective
We created Birb.LocalizedString to be used with the new Account Settings in purple as well as a few maintenance things. After the release we pull in the check license header script from the pidgin repo so that other projects can use it.
Highlights
Create Birb.LocalizedString
Fix some issues with the queued output stream error
Add the check license header script and make it installable
Xeme is our XMPP integration library. It is the basis for both the Link Local Messaging (Bonjour) and XMPP protocols in Pidgin 3. It is still early in development and has not yet had a release.
Retrospective
No activity this month.
Highlights
None
Releases
None
Future Plans
Everything! Seriously though, we're looking to get back to this in the near future.
Ibis
#ircv3-library is our IRCv3 integration library. It has seen a lot of active development as it is used in the IRCv3 protocol plugin in Pidgin 3.
We are nearing known feature completion on it and expect to do a 1.0 release in the near future.
Retrospective
Fixed some issues with the unit tests on windows by using stroul instead of atoi. We also renamed the nick projects by renaming nick to primary-nick, alt-nick to secondary-nick and added tertiary-nick. The old properties are still there but have been deprecated.
Highlights
Use strtoul instead of atoi when parsing hosts
Rework the nick properties
Releases
None
Future Plans
Continue working through the open issues and watching new IRCv3 specifications for things we should be including.
Hiya is a new client abstraction library for mDNS. It was created to help make implementation of the Link Local Messaging protocol easier as we would have to abstract out the different platform implementations and by putting it in a library that abstraction can be used by other projects.
Seagull is a new library we created to make working with SQLite feel more like a GLIB/GNOME library and force usage of prepared statements with named parameters and other similar things.
Retrospective
Just some minor maintenance this month, but we've got some more stuff coming as we're using Seagull to serialize more stuff in Purple 3.
Highlights
None
Releases
None
Future Plans
We have a few features to fill out yet and a few ideas that need a bit more time in the oven.
More specific details can be found in our open issues.
Traversity is a new library for traversing NATs. There are many different ways to traverse a NAT and the goal of Traversity is to hide that from developers who just need to traverse a NAT.
It is still early in development and has not yet had an official release.
retro-prpl is a new repository we've created on GitHub. This repository contains all of the abandoned protocols that have ever lived in our code base and is meant to make them easier to study and for people to use with services like Retro AIM Server, escargot, and NINA.
Retrospective
Nothing to report on this month.
Highlights
None
Releases
None
Future Plans
Right now we didn't add any support for protocol specific emojis because we completely forgot about them. Anyways we're looking at creating a custom emoji theme that will include everything for these retro protocols.
We're also trying to make sure that you can actually use this to connect to the self hosted clones, but we haven't gotten through verifying that and fixing what doesn't work.
Closing
We have a lot to do going forward but we're still striving hoping that the Experimental 5 release which is due 2025-12-31 will actually be Alpha 1. The distinction is whether not not we think the protocol specific APIs are stable enough for third party protocol developers.
We don't have this well defined yet, and it's more of a feel than anything, but we've had a few people tinkering with third party protocols with moderate success which is absolutely amazing!! So as they continue working on their protocols we're getting good feedback on basically everything which is extremely helpful!
We hope you all are enjoying the new format and if you have any questions of comments please leave them below!
I spend a lot of time on the computer, using a lot of software. This makes me acutely aware when things don’t quite work right. A button that renders incorrectly. Inconsistent padding. Unthemed dialogs.
Thanks for sharing your thought process going through this. Theming is important, perhaps more important than we think of regularly, it's actually one of the main things I enjoy about linux. I believe it's also a reason why people are leaving Windows as it has become way too corporate and soulless.
I have found the gtk theming to be extremely confusing. It's too complicated IMHO, or I'm missing something. I wanted to make the titlebar/window manager bar darker (with white text maybe) on this theme mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/1… and I couldn't figure out how to ONLY change the titlebar. I want the various elements (e.g. window bar, menu bar, icon bar etc) to have slightly different colors you see, so I can differentiate what's what. I can't use dark themes because I can't see where the boundaries are of each window/thing. My eyes just can't differentiate dark theme elements. It's a mystery to me how people can use these themes. :o)
I wiped both #Ubuntu and #CachyOS on this #DELL 16" 5640, that I had trouble with its fingerprint reader software getting its settings lost at random times, and installed Linux Mint.
And it works perfectly.
There's a reason why Mint is the go-to distro. Some say that "start with Mint, and then move to something else". And I ask you: WHY? Why move to something else that never works as well as Mint? Who's got time for tinkering?
Honestly Gtk theming has extremely poor documentation and you need to look closely at existing themes to figure out all the CSS selectors you need to define. It is definitely possible, but can require some trial and error.
Not all themes are created equal, but the titlebar is actually one of the easier things to theme.
That being said, it really depends on your DE, and if the apps you are using are Qt or Gtk 3/4.
I really wish they had better guides online, but that was the main reason I spent time working on Celestial. To finally have the consistency i wanted, and untangle the theming mess.
As far as i understand it (never made one, only modified), it's like creating a global usercss for the web (that i did), except with imports and symlinks. You have some generally used class names that fit most of the apps, except that one tool and then some. Then there's gtk 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.1/4⁴, 4.0 and the window theme, which is (luckily still) separate.
It only makes gtk theming slightly less of a pain in the ass, but you can use gtk’s inspector (enabled thru a gsettings terminal command and then ctrl+shift+d in the app or thru an environment variable) to find the classes, names, and object types for whatever you’re trying to theme.
Writing a custom GTK3 theme for my own use a couple of years back was an extremely painful process. There's no list anywhere of the possible themable element types (I had to go through the actual source code to compile one) or the possible nonstandard options (never did manage to compile that list). I haven't had to look at GTK4 yet, but I doubt it's any better.
(As for how people use dark themes: put borders on things if you need to, and/or use hover options to distinguish what the active element is.)
For anime I am watching via Animekai thanks to its front page putting focus on current show schedule and an easy to use book mark system.
I am wondering is there any Stream site for Westren Movies and shows? So far most I can find seem to use a front page that focuses on what’s supposedly trending rather then current showings
Over the past several days, I have been trying to install Linux on my surface pro 2 because Windows is having issues with hogging memory, which is preventing me from finishing a drawing.
First I tried Linux Mint. After several freezes of the Bluetooth program, I was able to get my 8bitdo controller to connect, however i learned that neither using it as a wireless keyboard nor as dinput works. Mint was not detecting input from either mode, but it could detect xinput. Krita, however did not recognize the inputs because they were not keyboard keys, so i had to install a program to convert xinput signals to key presses.
Additionally, the on-screen keyboard on Mint has two options: always on when enabled, or on when a text box prompts. The former sucks to use because you have to toggle the keyboard in accessibility settings every time you want to turn it off or on, and the latter never detected a single text box in my experience. So the on-screen keyboard simply doesn't work on Mint.
I tried installing Kubuntu. I installed the Linux surface drivers recommended on r/SurfaceLinux. This resolved an issue where the pen and eraser were seen as the same. My controller also worked Flawlessly in keyboard mode right out of the gate. The Bluetooth program didn't freeze once. The on-screen keyboard is also acceptable. By all accounts the experience was a significant improvement.
Then I tried calibrating my pen. This did not work. The cursor was consistently 2-3 mm up and to the left of where i was holding my pen. KDE with wayland also does not support non-linear digitizer calibration. This is a problem because the errors in my tablet's digitizer are non linear. On windows I had created a script to add extra calibration points to rectify this. I can't do this in KDE with wayland. I could switch to X11, but then all the QoL improvements for touch screen/tablet use would be gone.
So I've been fiddling for hours trying to make a script in krita that will allow me to correct my pen inputs with an error matrix. Krita is refusing to even recognize the script is even there. Probably a Krita problem, not Linux, but blegh. I wouldn't have to do this if the system pen calibration worked.
But of course, my 5 year old experience with how troublesome Linux was is invalid today, and Linux has gotten so much better and Just Works™ now /s
I understand the frustration, but Linux only works because the community works on it together. You sound like someone who has some technical knowledge, maybe you can help the kubuntu team make the calibration a feature?
I get it, it's frustrating and it doesn't feel like your needs are being met.
It's just important to see the larger picture. Windows and iOS suck more every day. Linux gains more and more traction, more and more users as the competition becomes less and less attractive.
I hope that the next time you try, that it just works.
Published date: 19 October 2025 09:51 BST last update: ~1200 EDT
Heavy Israeli bombing rocked the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 15 Palestinians, in a major violation of the ceasefire.
More than 100 air strikes were reported in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north, and parts of central Gaza.
Among the sites hit were a cafe, a mobile phone charging station, a group of journalists and a house sheltering displaced people.
The Israeli military said the strikes were in response to an alleged "attack" by Palestinians on its troops in southern Rafah involving a rocket-propelled grenade and sniper fire.
Israel heavily bombs Gaza in major ceasefire violation
Published date: 19 October 2025 09:51 BST last update: ~1200 EDT
Heavy Israeli bombing rocked the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 15 Palestinians, in a major violation of the ceasefire.
More than 100 air strikes were reported in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north, and parts of central Gaza.
Among the sites hit were a cafe, a mobile phone charging station, a group of journalists and a house sheltering displaced people.
The Israeli military said the strikes were in response to an alleged "attack" by Palestinians on its troops in southern Rafah involving a rocket-propelled grenade and sniper fire.
Published date: 19 October 2025 09:51 BST last update: ~1200 EDT
Heavy Israeli bombing rocked the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 15 Palestinians, in a major violation of the ceasefire.
More than 100 air strikes were reported in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north, and parts of central Gaza.
Among the sites hit were a cafe, a mobile phone charging station, a group of journalists and a house sheltering displaced people.
The Israeli military said the strikes were in response to an alleged "attack" by Palestinians on its troops in southern Rafah involving a rocket-propelled grenade and sniper fire.
Israel heavily bombs Gaza in major ceasefire violation
Published date: 19 October 2025 09:51 BST last update: ~1200 EDT
Heavy Israeli bombing rocked the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 15 Palestinians, in a major violation of the ceasefire.
More than 100 air strikes were reported in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north, and parts of central Gaza.
Among the sites hit were a cafe, a mobile phone charging station, a group of journalists and a house sheltering displaced people.
The Israeli military said the strikes were in response to an alleged "attack" by Palestinians on its troops in southern Rafah involving a rocket-propelled grenade and sniper fire.
I have some sewing patterns that I would like to share (and hopefully swap) but all of the PDFs have a
"This was purchased by John Doe john.doe@email.com #ordernumber - if you are not John Doe, please dob in the person you got this from to company@example.com so we can sick our lawyers on them"
sorta footer on every single page.
Obviously for privacy reasons (and because I don't actually want lawyers sicked onto me), I need to remove this footer.
These are often complex PDFs with more than a hundred pages and multiple layers.
I managed to successfully remove the editing password (not user/viewing password, just can't edit without password) with qpdf --decrypt. But removing that footer has left me at a dead end. I have even tried manually removing every single instance of those footers using Master PDF Editor but saving the file flattened it and you are no longer able to show/hide layers which is essential for correct printing. (Please don't ask me how many different PDF editors I have tried because it has been so so SO many I have lost count).
Not that I really want to have to manually edit this out on what could amount to over a thousand pages but searching for a command to remove a certain phrase has come up empty. Even Master PDF Editor doesn't seem to have a bulk remove or search and replace function (just search).
Two replies there that came to my attention, while I'm unable to get back to sleep at 5am. An old one mentioning github.com/kanzure/pdfparanoia which seems to be an old tool that removes watermarks, hasn't been updated in 5 years, but neither has the PDF spec?
The other is this paste of text:
if it helps anyone, here's what I do to prepare a pattern for uploading to make sure it is 'clean':
Check over the PDF files for any reference to my name/email address (usually this is in a footer on each page, and not every pattern company does this)
If my personal details are present, I unlock the files using a site like ILovePDF - There are other sites but this one has no daily limits
Open the unlocked PDF in Adobe Professional or another PDF editor of your choice and delete the footer box. You can just delete the box on the first page it appears, or the first page it is a standalone box, then save the pdf, close and reopen it - usually it will now be gone from all pages.
Repeat for any other PDF files (obviously)
Run PDF and jpeg files through an exif cleaner
Double check and upload.
I was already able to remove the edit password with qpdf --decrypt. Most of the PDF editors I used, changed the PDF too much (e.g. added margins/padding) which ruined the very specific layout needed for the patterns to work. There has to be no changes to the PDFs apart from removing the 'footer' text :/
I tried doing print to PDF but it flattened the resultant PDF so the layers were lost. Almost all of the software I used to try converting altered the PDF layout in some way and patterns must not change at all, otherwise they get messed up :/
Maybe you could just search and replace the text with an equal amount on whitespaces? Edit oh sorry I only now understood the issue is finding a tool that replaces and keeps the layers. I have never worked with layers in a PDF so I have no idea on that, sorry
My best answer at this point would be that you need to make your own program to find and remove by content. Because no other manual pdf editor would reasonably have such a feature since it's so niche.
Also vibe coding with AI tends to be very good for singular tasks like this.
I wouldn't recommend converting the pdf to anything else since that would remove the layer info unless it's to more complicated formats like EPS, illustrator, etc.
You might be able to do a find and replace with github.com/pymupdf/PyMuPDF . I'm not an expert on PDFs, so I'm not sure if it can be done in a way that preserves all the important formatting, but if you feel comfortable DMing me the PDF (or one of similar complexity) I could try to write a script that replaces all instances of the target text in a way that preserves the rest of the document.
Iirc, tested it out quite a few years ago, and I had to use a software that would both decompile and recompile the PDF, and while it was decompiled, I had to remove the repeating pattern I didn't want with something like Notepad++. File got recompiled a bit over 50% bigger iirc, maybe different compression methods, but the pages themselves didn't seem affected.
Sadly can't remember the name of the program I used for compiling and recompiling, only that it'd do both and that I looked for how to remove watermarks from PDFs. Also the program was certainly offline.
Found a few candidate tools though can test neither now, mutool (part of the mupdf tools), PDFtk, qpdf, pdf2txt (name sounds familiar though it might be memory playing tricks).
If any of those could be found as a single portable exe around 2020, chances are it is the tool I used for it.
There's also GhostScript, which feels like advanced tooling for dealing with PDFs. I used it to scale down the images in some game PDFs I have and save as a copy, so that my old phones could actually open them. The Warcrow free PDF from Corvus Belli went from a whopping 623MB to around 111MB. Still way too fucking large for my phones. The PDF for Mantic Firefight went from 65MB to ~20MB.
Perhaps just blocking it with a white box and then converting it into an image-only pdf. This makes the file much bigger but will keep the exact same layout while also removing the text blocked by the white box.
Or does it have any interactive elements? What do you mean by "layers"?
Just because the visible footer gets removed doesn't mean there isn't other unique tracking information hidden deep in the PDF that could still get the lawyers sicced on you. Depending on how valuable this information is to the company, and how litigious they are, you have to judge how far they might've gone and might yet go to protect it.
Unfortunately, that's why this kind of copy protection can an actually be an effective tactic to prevent individuals from sharing their copies. While there might be ways to strip this kind of hidden data on simpler PDFs... even resorting to methods like screenshotting or printing and scanning, still cannot give you absolute confidence that there isn't some subtle unique identifier invisibly hidden in the layout or through subtle inconspicuous variations, especially if you're doing this regularly and they start targeting you and your account for identification. And on complex PDFs there are so many more ways they could hide this information digitally if they know where to look for it and you don't. 99% of the time it's going to be pretty obvious to strip out, but are you willing to take that risk even if you do find a technical method of removing the visible footers? If it's a one-off, maybe you can get away with it, but in the long term this strategy is not viable and is a trap for rookies.
The only truly safe way to share digitally watermarked content like this is to buy it with a burner account and full opsec in the first place. Nobody to sic lawyers on if it's a hacked paypal or a stolen/prepaid credit card or an untraceable email and IP, or in a jurisdiction with no enforcement. Smash and grab, get the data anonymously and get out. Don't share stuff from your personal account that's literally got your name and banking information attached to it unless you can confirm it's bit-for-bit indistinguishable from other innocent copies with something like a checksum.
pignio.octt.eu.org/item/105934…
Rozaŭtuno
in reply to Skullgrid • • •