Aaron Toponce ⚛️:debian:

MSCSIA, cryptography, security, locksport, Linux, programming, mathematics, amateur radio, Buddhism, running, anime, and bibliophilia.

Public Key

npub14dfr55yyvfw0leduur7e4af7fnkeegww6e2n64laxkkdyn4sufrqhs5uyy

NIP-05 Address

atoponce@fosstodon-org.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2k5362zzxyh8luk7wplv675lyemvu588dv4fa2l7nttxjf6cwy3spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds4x69lx

Publishing to

saltivka.org

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub14dfr55yyvfw0leduur7e4af7fnkeegww6e2n64laxkkdyn4sufrqhs5uyy

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Last Notes

2026-05-05 13:00:05 UTC

Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size. It's done without consent, it's not visible in the settings, and removing it will reinstall it later.
https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/

2026-04-23 15:16:22 UTC

#Bitwarden CLI 2026.4.0 compromised in a supply chain attack.
https://socket.dev/blog/bitwarden-cli-compromised
Looks like the window was incredibly small and the impact minimal. A CVE is still being issued.
https://community.bitwarden.com/t/bitwarden-statement-on-checkmarx-supply-chain-incident/96127
> "The issue affected the npm distribution mechanism for the CLI during that limited window, not the integrity of the legitimate Bitwarden CLI codebase or stored vault data."
No need to panic, but I have a feeling we'll see a lot more of this. Recall XZ and SSH?
#security #cybersecurity

2026-03-19 12:34:50 UTC

Systemd merged age verification to comply with California state law.
If you want to enter a birth date, I recommend "Friday, 13 December 1901 20:45:52".
I like this for a few reasons:
1. This is the earliest date possible for a 32 bit datetime integer in C.
2. It's malicious compliance.
3. It's obviously faked.
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954
#linux

2026-03-10 17:08:13 UTC

Looks like #SUSE #Linux is up for sale. Again.
- 2003: Acquired by Novell
- 2010: Attachmate Group takeover
- 2014: Micro Focus merger
- 2018: Sold to EQT AB
(Ignoring all the asset sales and transfers)
https://www.reuters.com/business/eqt-eyes-potential-6-billion-sale-linux-pioneer-suse-sources-say-2026-03-09/

2026-02-23 18:52:13 UTC

>“But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” Altman said. “It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart."
Human consumption of ~2000-2500 kcal/day is roughly 97-121 Wh. If that human lives to be 80 years old and keeps a constant energy consumption of ~100 Wh, then their total energy consumption is ~56 MWh.
GPT-3 consumed approximately 1.287 GWh during its training.
GPT-4 consumed 50-60 GWh.
Swing and miss.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/21/sam-altman-would-like-remind-you-that-humans-use-a-lot-of-energy-too/

2025-12-28 14:24:01 UTC

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@nprofile…dql2 While dating my wife in 1999, Pine was the only email client available at my local university. I still remember it fondly, and wish I had an archive of those emails.

2025-12-06 12:52:44 UTC

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@nprofile…f95k Code will expire in 1 minute. We'll send you the email shortly.
Please keep refreshing your inbox.
We promise it's coming.
It's almost there.
Just a little longer.
Thank you for your patience.

2025-11-06 00:32:02 UTC

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@nprofile…43jh Give me slack!

2025-10-23 16:30:35 UTC

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@nprofile…52vl It only happens with internal Intranet domains that require the VPN to display and it's off-and-on. Sometimes, the page pulls up without issue, sometimes I get a cert domain mismatch error. I never have the problem with any external domain and other staffers cannot reproduce the problem.

2025-10-23 15:58:32 UTC

Something is stealing my DNS in Brave and I cannot for the life of me figure out what.
When I type in the URL in a normal window, the TLS cert fails because it doesn't match the domain. Brave alerts me to the problem and prevents it from happening, asking me to proceed.
When I type the URL in a private window, everything behaves normally.
I've disabled all extensions, cleared cache, cookies, history, etc. yet the problem remains.
Anything I can do in the developer tools to investigate?

2025-04-04 20:29:01 UTC

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@nprofile…vdjy I'd love to read it, but Lobsters blocks the Brave browser.

2025-04-04 02:15:10 UTC

On March 31, I ran the Grand Canyon R2R2R with a coworker.
We started at the South Kaibab trailhead at ~6:30 AM, made our way north to the Colorado River, crossed the bridge to Phantom Ranch, headed north through Cottonwood towards Manzanita, then made the eastward turn towards North Kaibab. Once we reached the north rim, we retraced our route back to the south rim, finishing ~9:00 PM.
44 miles, 12,000 feet elevation gain, 14.5 hours.
#running #RunnersOfMastodon
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/277/271/575/729/071/original/d3b5154363331d2a.png
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/277/273/188/309/589/original/c23cdaf863ca5fbe.png
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/277/274/015/172/045/original/208d91f797e6f95c.png
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/277/275/344/322/797/original/dee4b2c10e564c07.png

2025-04-02 21:10:52 UTC

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@nprofile…t4qe Hmm. Good question. I don't know that BSD sed(1) supports escape sequences like \x00 for null characters. How about a work around?
$ sed 's/$/\xff/g' input.txt | tr '\xff' '\0' > output.txt

2025-03-16 00:34:15 UTC

#Ubuntu is moving away from GNU coreutils to Rust-based uutils coreutils with Ubuntu 25.10. There are two big differences with this move:
1. uutils coreutils is MIT licensed, not GPL.
2. Obviously, it's written in Rust, a memory-safe compiled language, unlike C.
IMO, this is a good move.
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/carefully-but-purposefully-oxidising-ubuntu/56995
#gnu #rust #linux

2025-03-14 22:57:06 UTC

Happy #PiDay
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/163/254/538/358/737/original/bd53cb998c593556.mp4

2025-03-14 22:56:39 UTC

If USA is so great, why do we have USB?
#gnu #linux #bash
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/163/252/616/412/620/original/5c3e8888c5d3053c.png

2025-02-27 16:46:17 UTC

Google in 1999.
"Google (www.google.com) is a pure search engine - no weather, no news feed, no links to sponsors, no ads, no distractions, no portal litter. Nothing but a fast-loading search site. Reward them with a visit."
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/076/857/285/129/888/original/24c068001926bac6.png

2025-02-13 13:52:40 UTC

Aaron Swartz lost his life over a small information leak attempt making academic documents that were public domain, taxpayer funded, but locked behind obscene paywalls, accessible.
Meanwhile, FAANG et. al use copyleft, Free Software libraries to torrent petabytes of data abusing owner copyright to train their LLMs.
Laws only apply to you and me, not for the rich and powerful.
https://sfstandard.com/2025/02/08/aaron-swartz-marble-statue-unveiled-internet-archive/

2025-02-06 17:43:03 UTC

Developer applies at @nprofile…lfze, goes through extensive hiring filters and many interviews, gets an offer in hand, accepts the offer, quits their job, only for Canonical to retract the offer.
Don't work for Canonical.
#Ubuntu #Linux
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1ij4itg/canonical_what_a_shame/

2024-12-01 10:37:19 UTC

Example #521 #AI isn't taking our jobs.
Here, the prompt was asking #ChatGPT to draw a logic diagram for F=xy'z+x'y'z+xyz.
Good times.
https://redd.it/1h3vt1j/
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/113/577/111/994/241/875/original/90691fa479a0c52a.png

2024-07-16 12:29:31 UTC

Generative AI is garbage, exhibit 99:
#ai #math
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/112/796/157/528/868/994/original/20f2235235698a72.png

2024-02-16 17:13:20 UTC

NGINX's core developer parted ways with the parent company and started creating a new fork version under the name 'freenginx'
MariaDB for web servers.
#opensource #nginx
https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20240215-freenginx

2024-01-19 17:47:06 UTC

Stay in school kids.
#math
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/111/783/862/851/044/214/original/fddc993e1389689f.png

2023-05-19 22:23:50 UTC

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@npub178r…qekt @npub1aq2…4nfw I heard the next election will have full self-driving.

2023-05-19 16:16:25 UTC

I knew about reversing a file with tac(1), but I did not know about reversing lines with rev(1).
#gnu #linux #bsd #unix