Posts by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AymqF6dk3CRK93TiqG by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-10-02T02:41:19Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Rest in Power Jane Goodall. 1934 - 2025.
(DIR) Post #AyxTCVRtC91u0qHjGq by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-10-07T07:03:12Z
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Pleased to announce new dates for the next round of the Tunnel and Fortress training series. https://learn.nikau.io/courses/course-v1:Nikau+TF2+2025_T4/aboutIf you would like to bring carefully secured self-hosted sovereign server infrastructure to your communities, movements and/or orgs - getting them off BigTech and onto a happier & healthier platform surface - these courses are probably for you.These will be the last Tunnel and Fortress sessions of the year as I work to finish a self-paced offering.#sysadmin #selfhosting
(DIR) Post #AzPVVfxpxnhqSgNIWG by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-10-20T19:22:52Z
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Reading paragraphs like these in front page mainstream media gives me hope tickles:"Dr Corinne Cath-Speth, the head of digital at human rights organisation Article 19, said: “We urgently need diversification in cloud computing. The infrastructure underpinning democratic discourse, independent journalism and secure communications cannot be dependent on a handful of companies.”https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/20/amazon-web-services-aws-outage-hits-dozens-websites-apps#datasovereignty #selfhosted #decentralisation
(DIR) Post #AzPuwYQEbtGfk9ZS6a by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-10-21T00:25:19Z
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For a really long time I have wanted a world with this in it:- Self-host Signal server under my desk or in a network-near dc (https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server)- Install Signal app from whatever store- Open up app and select my alternative server - Ask friends/family/colleagues to open up their apps and do the same
(DIR) Post #AzSaXyQ1P3nHWPLvEG by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-10-21T20:41:59Z
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I've been studying the chat app SimpleX (I have to keep abreast of these things for work) & was so over focused on the tool I did not see the hand that made it.Thanks to a prompt from @liaizon, I looked into the political leanings of the developer.The author indeed appears to be hardline, highly vocal, conspiratorial extreme right, even so far as drumrolling racist party ReformUK.https://x.com/epoberezkin (trigger warning)So it follows I will not be using or further supporting SimpleX Chat
(DIR) Post #AzcfIHNhfj9sBKMDVQ by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-10-25T18:47:22Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
Amazon sought to hide the water use of its data centers from the public, for fear of looking bad:"Instead, Amazon officials opted to use only the relatively smaller figure of primary use, 7.7 billion gallons, when calculating progress towards its target because of “reputational risk”, fearing bad publicity if the full scale of Amazon’s consumption was revealed, the document shows."https://www.source-material.org/amazon-leak-reveals-true-data-centres-water-usage-secret-plan/
(DIR) Post #Aze5Ac13rP73pSjOgy by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-10-27T20:22:29Z
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A truly wonderful overview of the cherished Permacomputing 101 talk given at Critical Signals, by @neauoire in August:https://100r.co/site/permacomputing_101.html#permacomputing
(DIR) Post #AzrEwfTZiza36OXMDA by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-11-03T03:37:41Z
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It is great to see increasing momentum to get off US BigTech and onto alternatives. It is however important to zoom out a bit and check where the alternative is actually hosted - and I don't just mean geographically. Many BigTech alternatives, even if non-US owned, run atop Amazon AWS or MS Azure datacenters anyway. So you're leaving the room but staying in the building.To disempower the deep capture US corporations have over tech globally, we're going to need to be rigorous, & act on it.
(DIR) Post #AzrEwlrC062MtNdIrA by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-11-03T03:48:39Z
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I will say it's totally fair enough to mail a service in advance of signing up and asking "where would my stuff be stored?" and push for detail. Keep them on their toes, turn up the heat.We would want to know the same with any item of ours that is precious. And just as we might also not want to participate in, or contribute to, markets or regimes that we're ethically opposed to.
(DIR) Post #B086dj8qjULYm0CDsO by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-11-11T03:42:13Z
2 likes, 4 repeats
Today while training some sysadmins I shared this real photo of ancient Greek engineers configuring a mailserver.On the left the brave engineer is trying to stop unauthorised pipelining through the MTA as their knee is viciously attacked by a subtly broken DKIM key. Meanwhile, their co-sysadmin is hammering away at a perfectly good Postfix sender restrictions policy, screaming "It's not DNS!", while bitten by a PTR record quietly hissing "It'ssss DNSssss".#sysadmin #selfhosted
(DIR) Post #B0XHQ2uunL51PbVtwW by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-11-23T09:02:31Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
It's telling when invisible human workers whose job it is to proof 'AI' output, place no trust in it themselves.One worker for Google was tasked to find the limits of the LLM software's historical breadth:“I asked it about the history of the Palestinian people, and it wouldn’t give me an answer no matter how I rephrased the question"And yet the same query for Israel was profuse with detail. "We reported it, but nobody seemed to care at Google.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/22/ai-workers-tell-family-stay-away
(DIR) Post #B0YEnVtX7JizEzKFTE by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-11-23T22:36:20Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
genAI is wrecking content on the www, seeding distrust, spacing & cooling off engagement. The impact on journalism is already severe. Far beyond the 'photoshopped' effect, now anything that is remotely unusual inherits suspicion it is the work of machines, rather than our diversely surprising reality.Much of this could be solved if those making the tools had the simple honesty to cryptographically watermark all genAI content such that interfaces can readily detect it as such. Yet they do not.
(DIR) Post #B1I1woHT3SskpReqhs by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2025-12-15T18:11:16Z
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A Moscow court has officially labelled Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot an 'extremist group'.Founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova, now living in exile, is not phased however:"When I was tried for the punk prayer, facing seven years in a labor camp, I told the judge and prosecutors that I was still freer than they would ever be," she said in comments sent to AFP. "In today's Russia, telling the truth is extremism. So be it – we're proud extremists, then."https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/12/15/russia-outlaws-feminist-protest-band-pussy-riot_6748524_4.html
(DIR) Post #B1pvZbTGmxwKYd7bQe by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2026-01-01T06:51:30Z
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An enviro defense group reached out asking for my security take on using BigAI in activism work. After giving them the take (basically "don't"), I took liberty to talk about the ethics of using it in the first instance, especially in the context of human rights and climate activism. Sharing here in case useful on the same grounds elsewhere. #bigai #bigtech #climate #humanrights
(DIR) Post #B1pwTRQ7LQThbOGyA4 by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2026-01-01T03:03:26Z
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For a country with so much innovation & DIY nous per capita, we still have our public sector on a proprietary & enduringly insecure surface, data & services hosted abroad (PaaS, SaaS) much of the time. Until our public sector is hosted on our soil, E2E atop a readily-audited free & open source stack, this will happen time & again.We have among the lowest #sovereignty in the entire Asia Pacific. 40% of our gov links serve from Oz.Has to changehttps://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/583030/managemyhealth-reveals-scope-of-data-breach
(DIR) Post #B1pwauKoEwL3J0LlfU by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2026-01-01T09:31:55Z
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@vik I hear also that even when some clinics moved to other portals, like Vensa (AU hosted it seems), MHH didn't do their basic due diligence and delete the patient data.
(DIR) Post #B2YSpPHK8RV9bjmRo8 by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2026-01-22T20:33:10Z
1 likes, 2 repeats
If you are in the US and have an Amazon Ring camera, disconnect it. The camera may be being used by ICE, by way of its participation in a Flock AI surveillance network. Or sure, smash if it feels better.https://futurism.com/future-society/amazon-ring-cameras-icehttps://www.404media.co/ice-secret-service-navy-all-had-access-to-flocks-nationwide-network-of-cameras/
(DIR) Post #B2muNNi7bZ0ksqizIG by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2026-01-29T20:07:01Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
#BigAI is #climate poison. It steals from the future of all life. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/29/gas-power-ai-climate
(DIR) Post #B2tHiwyLA6ESDlK9g0 by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2026-02-01T21:04:41Z
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Some sorely overdue time offgrid. Hiked into the Tararua rainforest on a fine summer day and found a spot that had been eyed before as a possible campsite: no clearing needed, close to water, sheltered, no flood plane. It was perfect.
(DIR) Post #B2u0gf92y66yHxcDIG by JulianOliver@mastodon.social
2026-02-02T00:14:43Z
0 likes, 3 repeats
As we guessed, it seems that despite Google saying they were not making recordings of people's voices and mining them for advertisers, they were doing exactly that.If it was a colleague caught wiretapping the workplace, we'd have them sacked and never speak to nor trust them again. In the case of Google, it's even more personal.No Google service is free. We are the terrain they extract from. We always pay.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-voice-assistant-lawsuit-settlement-68-million/#bigtech