Posts by Mikal@sfba.social
(DIR) Post #AzTHkbQGVdqbzhjd68 by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-10-22T15:26:21Z
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@futurebird Right? Jeff Bezos never noticed when I canceled my prime subscription, but the newsletter writer who I subscribed to for about the same amount of money per year certainly did.
(DIR) Post #B0EB299J2XGkppMplo by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-11-14T04:25:41Z
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I am involved with or adjacent to several activist groups working on border and immigrant rights issues who use Google forms and Gmail accounts for organizing, volunteer signups and so on. At this point, I see a Google form as an ICE form. Can anyone change my mind here? How is asking potential new members to fill out a Google form not a massive opsec fail? Am I overreacting? I would love to be wrong.https://www.404media.co/google-has-chosen-a-side-in-trumps-mass-deportation-effort/
(DIR) Post #B0EB2EMxdCA91cnJFQ by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-11-14T05:01:15Z
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Can some #infosec person or expert in Why-Google-Is-Evil-And-You-Shouldn't-Give-Them-Your-Data-Especially-If-You're-An-Activist explain it to me like I am five so that I can provide a clear argument to these groups? I'm feeling like they see me the same way as if I were talking about chemtrails or 5G conspiracies. Whatever the case, I'm not getting through to people.
(DIR) Post #B0eA2asioScMJtxH8K by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-11-26T18:56:20Z
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@lproven @Flick "Not turning their brain on"?It assumes everyone understands the threat model, how their devices work, how the web works. It assumes people are never in a hurry, never distracted or tired. It assumes everyone is extremely technologically literate. It's sort of like telling people that every single time they use a credit card at a gas station or an ATM that they need to check the security seals and physically grab and jiggle the device to make sure it'a not a skimmer. But then blaming them for not turning their brain on if they didn't do all that and it turns out there is a skimmer and they get scammed. It feels too much like victim blaming.Yeah, checking a URL before clicking (assuming it's not using a link shorter) is easier than manually jiggling a card reader, but slapping a fake QR code sticker is also lots easier than installing a skimmer, so is an extremely easy scam interface to install.
(DIR) Post #B0fFst3pA8LwgkrYAK by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-11-26T22:54:06Z
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@lproven @Flick Yep and part of that caution is not scanning QR codes in the wild [edit:] as a general practice. They are something to be very wary of. Useful, sure, but very easily compromised, more easily than many other types of scam vectors. Giving people advice is fine, but the audience matters. I give different advice to different people based on their skill level and my best guess as to their risk profile. No matter what, victim blaming when people fall for scams is always counter productive.
(DIR) Post #B0itB7y8x3H3pDm33A by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-11-29T01:58:29Z
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@futurebird I am on my third iPhone SE second generation (warranty replacements). It's small and easily fits in my pocket and still has a home button. It also still gets all the latest security updates. But, even though I'm on my third new phone, the performance has steadily degraded. I'm usually not very conspiratorial, but I'm quite convinced they are doing this intentionally to get us to spend $1000 or more on a new device. Things like voice to text and virtual keyboarding have completely gone to shit when they used to be quite good. It started with a particular software update several years ago and has gradually gone downhill.When they finally quit supporting it with security updates, I'll probably upgrade to a used version of whatever last month's model is.
(DIR) Post #B0iuSgvCLt1L6bKqpc by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-11-29T02:12:54Z
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@futurebird In my case, they destroyed trust a long time ago. But now they're going from destroying trust to outright animosity. You know how so many people are getting fed up with Microsoft and finally learning Linux? It's Apple that is gonna push me there. All that aside, it is truly ridiculous that they don't make a small phone.
(DIR) Post #B0tYhcoTqedESFT5MG by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-04T01:12:43Z
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Everyone's talking about that turd-cam thing, but I haven't seen anyone mentioning Ondi Timoner's 2009 documentary "We Live In Public."2009. The live-in, underground performance space with cameras and microphones everywhere, broadcasting everything to everyone, also had a… you guessed it, turd cam.The whole experiment and the thought behind it was quite amazing and it's an excellently made documentary. I saw it when it premiered at Sundance, but then it seems like it disappeared off the radar. Highly recommended if you can find a place to stream it. Here's the Wikipedia link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Live_in_Public#TurdCam #Documentary #WeLiveInPublic
(DIR) Post #B0uO8W9pnT85IH2MJE by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-04T15:07:17Z
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@tomjennings You didn't. Omg. But if you did, why aren't you a zillionaire by now?
(DIR) Post #B1JjDlfsULpor6Msfg by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-16T20:31:16Z
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@futurebird @tshirtman I'm imagining the obvious: someone selling knock-off XKCD merch. "Slop Generator, make me some clever cartoons in the style of XKCD" or whatever prompt would be used. That is such blatant infringement that the person should be forced to immediately take the knockoff garbage down and to then hand over any profits to Randall. But is that likely? Maybe, after lots of work, as noted.The problem with out-scamming the scammers in this case is that it requires extra work to sell crap that would likely dilute and confuse the original artist's vibe/brand/cachet/style or whatever. And to be really effective, it would need to be sold cheaper than the knockoffs. Maybe that's fine as a revenge tactic for a financially secure artist, but for most it would require losing time and money on principle. Like, I couldn't out-scam someone making machine-generated copies of my photos and selling them, for multiple reasons. Ugh, I hate this so much.
(DIR) Post #B1KTPqWmriKfH4oUJU by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-16T22:50:30Z
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@ottaross That had to be an intentional pun...right? Some people will take it as a challenge.
(DIR) Post #B1KVAvhFZ89qryiq3s by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-17T05:28:37Z
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@vik @ottaross Yeah, I think there are a few of those types on here 😏
(DIR) Post #B1Q6C3krl5fQFJcCi8 by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-19T18:41:53Z
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Poll for both web/UX designers and general web readers about address autocomplete as a feature on check-out/shipping forms or email sign-up forms:Do you think it contributes to a positive experience, fewer abandoned carts, better accessibility or something else? Especially if you check more than one, explain in comments!
(DIR) Post #B1Q6C4d6VR3IxWzWFc by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-19T18:43:57Z
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I hate it! So, of course I turned it off in the settings for my checkout page. Real scenario: As someone with a Post Office box, when I go to start typing in "po box..." it immediately covers the screen with a list of random po boxes in random cities. Similar when I start typing the town name, so I have to click the autofill screen away to complete typing. Also, most seem to be based on Google Maps, so you're probably giving Google more info about yourself, whether you want to or not.I hate that "feature", but someone, somewhere must've thought it was a good idea?
(DIR) Post #B1QW4tUC8ZUTB93qmu by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-20T03:07:02Z
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@tomjennings Oh, you don't have to be either a coder or clever. It's an on/off button in things like Woocommerce. So it's not even about saved address or account info. Just a Google Maps one-click integration. There might be other services, but most I've noticed are Google.
(DIR) Post #B1Qn4zEyRNWCFMZVTM by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-20T06:17:29Z
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@tomjennings Probably a bug. Someone should report it to them.
(DIR) Post #B1jEIKrnoAcN9yMAsK by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-28T22:30:17Z
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Another water drop done and another silly saguaro en route. This is one of the weirdest ones I know of and one of my favorites. It's out in the middle of nowhere, so I don't see it very often.#SonoranDesert #SillySaguaros #saguaro #cactus
(DIR) Post #B1jHtDMkxTnATR70Xg by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-12-29T04:27:30Z
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@futurebird I see it!
(DIR) Post #B1xzL8cnCELG7Rc4ie by Mikal@sfba.social
2026-01-05T05:38:48Z
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Around a week ago, I noted that I was trying out Mastodon's mute feature with the word "Epstein". It seemed like my entire timeline was nothing but Epstein Epstein Epstein all day long.It worked really well and I didn't see anything about Epstein for a week. Strange, though, a week later, and mute function off, I'm still not seeing hardly anything about Epstein 🤔
(DIR) Post #B2MP0m9qxMjWIqNlUu by Mikal@sfba.social
2026-01-17T01:21:03Z
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@futurebird 🙁