Paco Hope

Amateur professional #selfhost sysadmin. Professional amateur #cloud #security at #AWS. Also fond of #cats, #cigars, #whiskey and #pipes. I like board games and some video games. I am #covid cautious and I still #wearamask. Opinions are my own, but they can be yours too. 100% Organic:,No artificial colors, preservatives, or intelligence added.

Interests: [#cloud](https://infosec.exchange/tags/cloud ), [#security](https://infosec.exchange/tags/security ), [#cigars](https://infosec.exchange/tags/cigars ), [#travel](https://infosec.exchange/tags/travel ), [#overwatch](https://infosec.exchange/tags/overwatch )
Blog: https://blog.paco.to/
Pronouns: He/Him
Masks?: https://shouldyouwearamask.com/
Monsterdon: https://gallery.don.monster/
John Mastodon Day: https://www.johnmastodon.me/

Public Key

npub18mdv65n7xqd0dhu0895tw6xkkxmhereksgqs60087ng855cmeqkqmedgg0

NIP-05 Address

paco_at_infosec.exchange@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsrakkd2flrqxhkm78nj69hdrttrdmu3umgyqgd8hnlf5r62vdustqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsqp5sss

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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npub18mdv65n7xqd0dhu0895tw6xkkxmhereksgqs60087ng855cmeqkqmedgg0

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Published at

2026-10-19T01:02:29Z

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Event JSON

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Last Notes

2026-10-14 17:56:28 UTC

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I'm sure these executives are convinced that every developer is using AI a lot. But I don't think they realize how this is actually playing out.
"All our developers say they are using AI!"
"What would you do if a developer said they weren't using AI."
"We'd fire them"
"Why do all your developers say they are using AI?"

2026-09-28 20:19:13 UTC

When I rented a house outside London, we had 2 ovens in the kitchen. Two ovens from the exact same manufacturer. One day I happened to walk into the kitchen at midnight and noticed something different about them.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/117/350/509/160/185/938/original/98b3c3ab6bae570c.jpg

2026-09-11 12:35:36 UTC

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the good news is that the US healthcare industry is going all-in on AI. So cybersecurity won’t be their biggest problem, anymore.

2026-09-07 22:21:00 UTC

I call this three nines of downtime.
#beer
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/117/232/054/869/365/544/original/668a45e906f9f58f.jpeg

2026-09-02 12:35:44 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.social/@EricAlper/117201332050034866
But how do -I- use… *spatial relations*?

2026-09-01 19:06:24 UTC

I know working at Amazon is not very popular here. But this software development engineer role is recently opened on my team.
it doesn't report to me, but for better or for worse, it would work closely with me.
It's Amazon so: on-site, in the office is a non-negotiable requirement. 2 offices are assigned: Seattle, WA and Herndon, VA. Also non-negotiable. It reads heavy on AI. Everything has to be AI-washed now.
My leaders and recruiters are completely mystified why we struggle to hire people in this job market.
What am I doing down here in this deep hole? And what's my best shovel doing down here with me?
#jobs #sde
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/10477936/senior-software-development-engineer-engagement-security

2026-08-30 03:32:02 UTC

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I think the blog and the reasoning in it is really good. I’m going to use it in the future. But I also agree with you that LLMs really strain the definition of “tool”.
The same person giving the same LLM the same exact input more than once to solve the same problem more than once will get 2 different outputs (probably similar, but not at all identical). That makes it a strange “tool,” indeed.
And there’s so much cargo culting around just the right phrases to prevent this problem or that problem. People can develop expertise with a tool. But LLMs’ non-determinism limit the value of past experience with respect to future performance.
[@iris_meredith](https://mastodon.social/@iris_meredith )

2026-08-22 02:49:15 UTC

What’s a film that is bad and it’s a little embarrassing that you like it?
I’ll start. *Johnny Mnemonic*

2026-08-21 18:27:20 UTC

This one boggles my mind. I use DNSMadeEasy as my public DNS for my high-traffic domains. I give them my records, they publish them. No biggie.
My monthly quota is 10M queries. On a web site that has 30 MAU, the DNS requests should be WAY under that number.
But I'm seeing these super regular spikes and they're high. I'm 21 days into the month and I'm 9.6M queries so far. If I exceed 10M queries, I'll end up paying $6 for another 1M queries. But I don't know how to stop the queries. Unlike a CDN, where I could receive the HTTPS request and say "no page for you," I can't stop UDP DNS requests (can I?)
So if these are real DNS requests (e.g., from scraping bots) what can I do? I do not have a lot of Latin American or South American traffic. These spikes can't be related to real usage.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/117/134/890/588/541/548/original/7778d62c225ca070.png

2026-08-19 12:47:12 UTC

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It is such a toxic view that everything is zero sum. And so many people accept that framing without even questioning it.

2026-08-17 02:26:26 UTC

I was expecting her to start taking clothing off...
#monsterdon
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/117/108/478/505/198/296/original/0db023ac5f4d5ca5.jpg

2026-08-15 23:00:58 UTC

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He did the music for a lot of his films… *badly*

2026-08-15 17:42:42 UTC

I didn't realise that John Carpenter wrote the theme song to *Big Trouble in Little China*. "The Coupe de Villes" was a synth band he had in the 1980s!
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/john-carpenter-1980s-synth-band/
#KungFuSat
I'm also tagging #Monsterdon because we just watched a Carpenter film last week (In the Mouth of Madness).
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/117/100/747/839/506/903/original/5a95cc5fc4112d77.jpg

2026-08-14 12:13:54 UTC

RE: https://flipboard.com/@axiosnews/axios-1ijujvslz/-/a-nn41_gNZTJqagWVe01jvQA%3Aa%3A2150299410-%2F0
Greed greed greed. Top executives get the biggest payoffs. Fewer executives means fewer to share with. That, and they’re desperately trying to make the finances look less cartoonishly bad
#note14lw…38yc

2026-08-14 02:27:29 UTC

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Right. But isn’t it floating on steam or something else in the air? It’s not pure capsaicin molecules in the air, is it? It’s steam or smoke that has capsaicin in it. The mask stops that kind of big stuff.
I don’t know. I’m just guessing. Maybe it’s just a placebo and I *think* it helps.

2026-08-12 22:31:04 UTC

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I wasn’t even aware of that use case. But if that was the goal, instead of a coincidental benefit, they’d be designed very differently. Thanks for pointing it out.

2026-08-12 21:16:12 UTC

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nice. Mine is so amateur hour by comparison. 😂😂
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/117/084/604/365/933/404/original/01a3b0a1cd9b9cb6.jpeg

2026-08-11 02:11:58 UTC

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Thanks! I’ll have to take a closer look.

2026-08-11 01:19:56 UTC

Harvested a lot of hot peppers tonight. [@steggy](https://sunny.garden/@steggy ) did an amazing job planting and tending to them. This is probably 2/3 of the harvest. There’s still some more stuff out there, but this is most of it. We’ve got fresno, poblano, Hungarian wax, and Serrano. I make a hot pepper chutney that these will probably go into. Maybe some salsa too. 6 inch ruler for scale.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/117/074/237/251/193/223/original/7c080f566a2d9b96.jpeg

2026-08-10 19:32:15 UTC

Graphs are hard. I got a graph of my charging right after I started. To be fair, there really are only 2 minutes to graph here. But this is the wrong way to do the X axis.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/117/072/872/064/198/152/original/0f8fc714f9da8b90.png

2026-08-09 16:11:55 UTC

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One more comment on #EV charging is that everything is DC fast charging. I see why that is, since most people want to charge as fast as possible. But my user manual warns not to do DC fast charging too much. I think the car will only allow 2 in a 24-hour period. So I need to be on the lookout for L2 AC chargers, too. My car takes like 8 hours on L2 AC. So it would need to be an overnight option.

2026-08-09 16:05:16 UTC

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Found a charger on the way home using plugshare. Costs $0.39 per kWH. I understand that’s regarded as expensive. Here’s the stats. $14 and 45 minutes. The 2 main complaints about the BZ4X is charge capacity and charge speed. But this is a rare thing for me. The commuting and running around town are awesome.
The only part that wasn’t great is that it was a truck stop. So food options were poor. Gas station packaged snacks, popeye’s chicken, and Pizza Hut. None of which really appeals to a vegetarian looking for breakfast.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/117/066/365/024/320/129/original/1d8ef9600af347a5.jpeg

2026-08-09 03:10:10 UTC

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Connecting this with my hotel that advertises “EV charging” that’s actually Tesla-only, and you can see why I’m annoyed. I planned to charge up to 100% at my hotel, and then drive straight home tomorrow morning. Instead, I’ll stop halfway at a place plugshare says is compatible and reliable. Good enough, but not what I planned. Expect more ranting about 10:30 EST tomorrow while I wait for my car to charge…

2026-08-09 02:16:39 UTC

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So here's the second charging frustration today. Bear in mind this is literally the first time I've ever charged away from home. So I'm a n00b learning it all for the first time. I'm not looking for help, I'm venting my spleen.
I am visiting family and friends and my #EV gets about 230mi (370km) on a full charge. My mom's house is about 205 miles. So I roll into her house with 24 miles range left.
I go to my friend's house and I have like 15 miles range left. I charge off his house (level 1) for a couple hours. Back to 24 miles. I look up on EVGo and find 2 chargers, both open, with the CCS1 port that I need. I drive over to them and I have 15 miles left when I get there. Both say chademo is available, but CCS1 is not. Thanks a fucking lot, EVGo. I call their support number because I don't have enough juice to hunt all over the city for something that actually does what the web site says it does.
They find me one that's not far away that really does have CCS1 working. I roll in with my car warning "Battery exhausted, power output reduced." It was estimating 8 miles of range left.
So I dropped it off, went to dinner. Ended up at 73% and all is well. I'll need to do the same thing tomorrow on my way home.
Infuriating that the EVGo web site says something is available and offers a certain connector when... it doesn't. That web site basically has one job.

2026-08-09 01:33:47 UTC

Fuck Elon Fucking Musk.
I needed a hotel tonight. I’m on my first long distance trip with my new EV (Toyota BZ4X). The Marriott web site says this hotel has 8 EV spaces. Nice.
I ask at the front desk. “Oh yes. They’re just there, first level of the parking garage. Can’t miss them.”
Giant sign in the public lot says “EV chargers”. They are all Tesla. Only Tesla connectors. If my car’s plug fit (it doesn’t) it would mean paying money to the world’s worst living human. I won’t do that if I can avoid it.
So these are not “EV” charging spots. They are #TESLA charging slots. Neither the hotel nor the city knows the difference. Neither the hotel nor the city’s information says ANYTHING about what the spots are. Lucky for me, I have enough juice to go to a non-nazi charger tomorrow.
Makes me so angry. I was counting on this and now I have to deal with it tomorrow. Watch this thread for the OTHER EV charging frustration I ran into today. First; I need to go to the hotel bar and get a drink.

2026-08-06 12:32:24 UTC

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ah. I say they need to reload. I should say they need to fire more than once. I don’t intend them to retrieve one they shot and fire it again. (They will stand still during this part) Like an archer with a quiver, I expect them to pull out a second, third, etc. and shoot them. They will retrieve them all at the end.
I want to give them a pouch of prepared items that are simple enough to pull out, load, and fire. Thinking about a ball with a ribbon wrapped around it, the balls will roll around in pouches for 10 minutes of marching before someone pulls one out to shoot. So it has to stay prepared a while and then be easy enough to “arm” right before firing.

2026-08-06 00:39:45 UTC

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I have a few constraints:<li>The "50 yard rule*. People are sitting 50 yards (50m) away. It's often night time with stadium lights. This has to be visible from a distance. It does not need to look like an arrow.</li><li>Each person will launch their thing more than once, (minimum 2, maximum 5 times, depending on how well we make it) so it has to be reloadable in a few seconds.</li><li>I have to make between 4 and 10 of these. (Depending on how easy/reliable/cheap they are to make)</li><li>These are high school kids. They're all named Murphy and they all obey his Law. 😊 They will break, tangle, and load things backwards. I have to make stuff simple to do right.</li><li>We have to do 10 shows in a season plus at least 10 dress rehearsal practices. They have to be reset for each one. They could be disposable, or they can be reusable.</li>
2/3
#marchingband

2026-08-04 12:47:03 UTC

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8:30am. We have been open 2.5 hours. We have had 5 people come through the door and 3 voted. 2 saw the ballot, realised it was a republican party primary, and decided not to vote. This happens a lot on primary days like this. People just see the sign and think “election? I need to go vote!” And then they find out what’s on the ballot.
From our perspective, it’s worth a bit of extra time to make sure that people want to vote. Because if we issue a ballot and then they choose not to vote (because they see the ballot), then it’s a bunch of extra paperwork. If we don’t check them in and don’t issue a ballot, that’s best for everyone.
3/

2026-08-04 10:37:13 UTC

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It’s going to be a sleepy election day. There’s only 1 race on the ballot: republican primary for US Senate. This is Virginia voters deciding which person will be the republican candidate for US Senate at the election in November. The county organises this vote for the parties. We run it the same as any other. Some areas have a democratic primary also.
So far we have had ONE voter. He was here at opening time. Good for him. But that’s it. That’s our 1 voter. #electionofficer
2/

2026-08-04 10:33:46 UTC

It’s 6:30 local time, polls are open, so this is the root post for my #electionofficer thread. I’ll try to make all messages replies to this one and tag them.
1/

2026-08-03 13:39:23 UTC

I just answered a survey at work that asked this question. Now I'm interested in what my fediverse peeps would answer. Boost for fun.
**If you could have only one of the following be wireless, which would you choose** (The implication being the others would be USB-connected to a laptop/docking station)

2026-08-02 17:30:16 UTC

No matter how complicated I think a problem is, there’s someone on mastodon convinced they can fix it in a single message.

2026-08-01 15:47:42 UTC

RE: https://aus.social/@bastardsheep/117019312956430753
I bought a used Toyota EV and wanted to rip the telemetry device out of it. They make it SUPER hard. It’s buried deep in the dashboard. I went on a Toyota forum asking about whether anyone had done it on a BZ4X. (I’ve seen the one where the guy did it on a RAV4). People cynically replied that it wouldn’t make any difference. Everyone is surveilled all the time, one thing won’t make a difference etc. I’m gonna go back and post this. This is a SECOND reason why the car should be disconnected from the internet.
#note18j2…zt0t

2026-07-26 21:50:03 UTC

I’ve never done a #kickstarter or made a #boardgame . At this point in history, it must be pretty well known. Anyone have pointers to companies to use to produce one? I only need a game board, printed cards, player score sheets, and printed instructions. (No dice, no figurines, no complex things)
I have an idea I want to create. I’m open to suggestions and boosts.
#boardgames #creator

2026-07-26 20:33:58 UTC

It’s #boardgames day and the most amazing thing just happened. We are using these wooden dice that have the corners rounded. One of my friends rolled it and it **landed on the corner**! It sat like that long enough for me to get a photo.
#games #gamenight #boardgame
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/988/168/742/718/562/original/87683fd393eea1f0.jpeg
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/988/170/731/200/370/original/aff3b7049b6fc65a.jpeg

2026-07-24 02:04:01 UTC

Is that #azure outage still going on? I can't do shit* with #amtrak and I think that's part of it. I know they use MS for login, probably more than that.
*: login on web, access reservation on mobile

2026-07-22 16:20:16 UTC

My project manager for my team showed up to a team meeting with a Linux kernel panic on her skirt. She is good at her job and perfect for my team.
(Photo shared with permission)
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/964/530/447/883/428/original/3c96d89e85634773.jpeg

2026-07-13 12:08:26 UTC

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Yeah, “Better Offline” is #EdZitron. I’ve been a subscriber to his newsletter for a while. So I haven’t heard the podcast, but I know his stuff. Seems like smarter commentary than a lot of people.

2026-07-13 01:46:07 UTC

Are we just not going to discuss the guy passed out on the table?
#monsterdon
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/910/138/972/356/259/original/82ae1c2bb0055946.jpg

2026-07-13 01:36:42 UTC

Gentrification of the werewolf district begins.
#monsterdon

2026-07-12 23:22:07 UTC

This is funny:
> Citi sent employees another email asking them to not use the more powerful models unless they absolutely had to.
You have told a bunch of non-tech people to go hog wild using unlimited magic. Then you tell them to make a technical decision like determining what model they "absolutely have" to use. These people have no frame of reference for that.
In there mind, the best is always the best. Why would they use something less? They don't have any concept of understanding the nature of the problem, or how different LLMs vary. These are people that, until a year ago, couldn't write an excel formula. They can't determine the right model to use for a problem.
https://www.404media.co/companies-are-throttling-employees-ai-use-because-its-too-expensive/

2026-07-11 02:19:18 UTC

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I think you conflated 2 unrelated things. Data centers don’t provide internet service to residents. The amount of data center space required to supply internet service is minimal. If the goal is tech and ISP for locals, it could be scaled way down.
Maybe you’re thinking that data centers can get a lot of money into a community, but they come with all these negatives. So the plan is alleviating the negatives. I don’t know if you’ve looked at the long-term viability of data centers, or the profit margins. They are very low profit. Sometimes the companies using a data center are very profitable. But the renting of computers in racks is a low-profit business.
So I like the thinking and the goal, but I think the data centres are a bad long-term bet for a community. They are so capital intensive, single-purpose, and super slow to build. A community starting today would cut the ribbons in like 2-3 years. And the AI/data centre landscape will be radically different at that time. I think it’s a bubble, not a permanent change to bank on.

2026-07-08 21:03:15 UTC

This is a legit AI prompt injection. But the advice they offer is absurd. It’s right up there with a pen tester telling you “you should validate all your inputs” without even the slightest clue how to do that.
> Noma Recommendations for Builders/AI Security Officers: Never treat user-controlled content as trusted instruction input for an AI agent
This is not actually possible.
https://noma.security/blog/gitlost-how-we-tricked-githubs-ai-agent-into-leaking-private-repos/

2026-07-07 22:40:01 UTC

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There was a thread on here a year or two ago from folks in academia. They were saying that the first thing they have to teach grad students in any science field is this basic file system concept stuff. Physics, chemistry, engineering, whatever. People can get all the way through a BS and not really encounter how the computer organizes storage
As I recall, one academic posted it and then a bunch piled on saying “yeah!” And “me too!”

2026-07-07 22:36:18 UTC

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12 bay hot-swap? Do tell!

2026-07-06 02:23:01 UTC

I can't figure out what time of day this is supposed to be. One minute it looks like day, then it looks like day-for-night.
#monsterdon #monsterdondoublefeature #monstermiru

2026-07-06 01:23:37 UTC

Did every small town in the 1950s have a tanker truck of pesticide handy? Like ready to go at a moment's notice?
#monsterdon

2026-07-04 03:46:24 UTC

I just got this bill from #microsoft for #github usage. See if you can spot what is ridiculous about this bill.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/859/636/217/655/477/original/d1f01f7d7a47fb4b.jpeg

2026-07-02 23:06:42 UTC

If you have not seen this video from #kitboga, I beg you not to eat or drink while watching it. It nearly killed half my family at the dinner table. We were laughing so hard we were crying and occasionally spitting out bits of food.
He calls a scam number where an AI bot answers. Then he proceeds to jailbreak it with some pretty tame stuff. It goes right off the rails and quickly gets funny. If you have kids, it’s safe. They will probably wet their pants laughing at the bot.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lk3jCuITwcE

2026-06-30 00:09:07 UTC

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The word cloud for Sunday, 28 Jun 2026. Words are larger the more frequently they appeared in posts. There were 8291 unique words posted, and the wordcloud shows the 200 most frequent. The top 10 most frequent words were: zarkorr: 420, zarkorrtheinvader1996: 183, monster: 109, think: 95, will: 81, kaiju: 80, really: 75, cop: 72, time: 69, giant: 65,
These words were excluded from the word cloud:
movie, movies, film, films, watch, now, one, guy, got, going, good, well, see, know, monstermiru, yeah, monsterdondoublefeature, zarkorrtheinvader, thunderofgiganticserpent, zarkorr1996, and the hashtag monsterdon.
#monsterdon
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/836/148/624/206/110/original/2c5edd1fa2fa9bdb.png

2026-06-30 00:09:03 UTC

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A histogram showing posts per minute on Sunday, 28 Jun 2026. Each bar represents one minute. The event was 75.5 minutes long. There were 2532 posts during the event with an average of 33.54 posts per minute.
The busiest moment was at 7:00 from the start with 60 posts in that minute. The quietest moment was at 62:00 from the start with 19 posts in that minute. The yellow line is a 15-minute moving average.
#monsterdon
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/836/148/407/275/099/original/89c1f79a2ffcef0a.png

2026-06-30 00:08:50 UTC

Summary of #monsterdon generated at Mon 29 Jun 2026 19:30 EDT.<li>We looked at 3265 toots posted between Sun 28 Jun 2026 21:00 EDT and Sun 28 Jun 2026 22:15 EDT by 139 different participants across 77 different servers. mastodon.social contributed the most toots at 552</li><li>Most toots were from 'David Zaslavsky' (diazona@techhub.social) who posted 139</li>
Additional details are replies to this toot. For stats from past watch parties, [visit the gallery.](https://gallery.don.monster/ )
#monsterdon 1/5

2026-06-25 15:33:46 UTC

My father-in-law was a very early computer programmer. Like 1960s/ 1970s FORTRAN. We were looking through a cookbook that we inherited from my in-laws, and we found this marking a recipe. I don’t recognise the language.
#retrocomputing
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/811/093/455/197/528/original/0716bcb1697bfae8.jpeg

2026-06-22 01:07:02 UTC

This is what my code looks like, too.
#monsterdon
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/791/077/274/976/354/original/f5591d031fcb7d38.jpg

2026-06-15 03:08:33 UTC

Gappa, the tri-but-not-succeed-phibian.
#monsterdon #monsterdondoublefeature

2026-06-15 02:32:36 UTC

Underwater earthquake. Felt on a boat? Is that actually possible?
#monsterdon #monsterdondoublefeature

2026-06-15 01:58:25 UTC

Did he **hear** something? Because we sure as fuck didn't.
#monsterdon
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/751/642/620/982/695/original/9be4be65bce6ec56.jpg

2026-06-15 01:16:51 UTC

Everyone has a topographic relief model of their house, right?
#monsterdon
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/751/473/135/260/040/original/3c7f3809e4d41803.jpg

2026-06-14 11:24:31 UTC

I need to read it more and more carefully. But I’m going to quote 4 lines in the opposite order in which they appear in the article. This doesn’t make sense.<li>More code is entering production with no review at all.</li><li>The engineers with the deepest knowledge of the system are spending their most valuable hours unraveling plausible-looking code that should never have reached them in the state it did.</li><li>What started as a productivity conversation has become a reliability problem.</li><li>AI productivity gains at the business level are real, and engineering leaders are right to want more of them.</li>
The evidence for that last statement is (in my opinion) stupid. It’s basically tasks closed on project boards going up. It’s not features shipped. It’s definitely not revenue or profit. It’s not customers acquired or retained. It is tasks on a board getting marked complete.
https://www.faros.ai/blog/ai-acceleration-whiplash-takeaways

2026-06-12 12:22:21 UTC

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people who say it’s not possible are dumb. Like this guy. I mean, he wants you to think he knows what he’s talking about. But he’s nothing more than “a former NASA engineer/scientist with a PhD in space electronics [who] also worked at Google for 10 years, in various parts of the company including YouTube and the bit of Cloud responsible for deploying AI capacity.”
So what would he know? Fake news.
https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horrible-no-good-idea/

2026-06-07 00:37:22 UTC

RE: https://toad.social/@jimstewartson/116705853162661231
Back in 2008, there wasn’t a lot of safe stuff to invest in. Almost everything went down. I’ve already moved a shit ton of stuff into bonds and non-tech funds and non-tech stocks and stuff. But I don’t hold out much hope that it will save me.
#note1tr9…k76v

2026-06-06 11:25:31 UTC

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A person who works for me is based in London. Her passport is from the Middle East, a nation we are not friendly with. We are having an in-person team meeting in NYC next month. International travel is approved so she could attend.
I told her no way. Do not come. There is nothing so important gonna happen at that meeting to justify the bodily risk of harm if she were to attempt that border crossing.
We discussed Canada as a possibility. Unfortunately, a second person working for me in the US also has a similar Middle Eastern passport. So if we all went to Canada to make it easy for her, he’d have the international border crossing.
Sucks. It’s shameful. I could never live with it on my conscience if something were to happen to one of them because we had a stupid team meeting and they ended up imprisoned by this cruel regime.

2026-06-05 14:24:37 UTC

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Where's the step of contivoucly morging? You can't do real AI development without it.

2026-06-05 01:20:20 UTC

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Ironically, I looked more closely, and the site was offering a link to www.google.com/search?q=authenticator+apps+for+android.
At first I thought about changing that to noai.duckduckgo.com instead of www.google.com. But no matter which way you go, Google authenticator is at the top of the list.

2026-06-05 00:56:28 UTC

For an MFA app, my web site encourages people to download the Google Authenticator. I want to send them to a FOSS or non-Google app instead. Ideally the same app on iOS and Android. Anybody have recommendations of mobile authenticator apps that are not Google, Microsoft, etc.?

2026-06-03 12:33:28 UTC

Always fun to see what kinda things come #StraightOuttaShanzen. I want to see a guy wearing both of these at the same time.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/686/184/439/329/227/original/13e23357abd82d71.jpeg

2026-06-02 19:12:10 UTC

I just got a Microsoft Excel update at work. A popup says "Added support for Edit with Copilot in modern Excel workbooks stored on your device, giving you the flexibility to query Copilot Chat no matter where your files are located."
Then it has a link that is labeled "Learn More." Clicking the link goes to the top-level update notes page adn the word 'Local' is not on that page. So I poke around. Eventually I find [Release Notes for Office for Mac](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/release-notes-office-for-mac ) and it says exactly the same words. No more, no less. Exactly the same.
**Narrator**: *he did not, in fact, learn more*.
Now I need to figure out how to disable that shit.

2026-06-01 18:42:45 UTC

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I took a quick skim through the data and didn't find any posts that were only the word 'really'. Can you link me to an example? I want to see if there's a bug in my data capture.

2026-06-01 14:36:35 UTC

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The word cloud for Sunday, 31 May 2026. Words are larger the more frequently they appeared in posts. There were 7434 unique words posted, and the wordcloud shows the 200 most frequent. The top 10 most frequent words were: seedpeople: 470, people: 85, seed: 84, really: 68, think: 64, time: 63, monster: 55, thing: 54, back: 54, alien: 52,
These words were excluded from the word cloud:
movie, movies, film, films, watch, now, one, guy, got, going, good, well, see, know, remonsterdon, monsterdondoublefeature, waxwork, waxworkii, waxwork2, monstermiru, seedpeople1992, waxworkii1992, and the hashtag monsterdon.
#monsterdon
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/675/352/656/371/473/original/be52932cf43af77a.png

2026-06-01 14:36:34 UTC

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A histogram showing posts per minute on Sunday, 31 May 2026. Each bar represents one minute. The event was 81.2 minutes long. There were 2163 posts during the event with an average of 26.64 posts per minute.
The busiest moment was at 12:00 from the start with 53 posts in that minute. The quietest moment was at 61:00 from the start with 14 posts in that minute. The yellow line is a 15-minute moving average.
#monsterdon
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/675/352/577/448/140/original/9ef7d9597b550e29.png

2026-06-01 14:36:29 UTC

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The top 3 favourited toots:<li><a href="https://retro.pizza/@CactuarJoe/116672448842886463" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This toot</a> from <a href="https://retro.pizza/@CactuarJoe" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Cactuar Joe (CactuarJoe@retro.pizza)</a> had 22 favourites.</li>
<li><a href="https://timeloop.cafe/@apLundell/116672326787988923" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This toot</a> from <a href="https://timeloop.cafe/@apLundell" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Andy L. (apLundell@timeloop.cafe)</a> had 17 favourites.</li>
<li><a href="https://timeloop.cafe/@Taweret/116672194647977868" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This toot</a> from <a href="https://timeloop.cafe/@Taweret" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Void Chicken (Taweret@timeloop.cafe)</a> had 16 favourites.</li>
#monsterdon 3/5

2026-06-01 14:36:29 UTC

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The top 3 most-replied-to toots:<li><a href="https://me.dm/@kshernandez/116672116448744068" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This toot</a> from <a href="https://me.dm/@kshernandez" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">KSHernandez ♊(she/her/they) (kshernandez@me.dm)</a> had 35 replies.</li>
<li><a href="https://social.jlamothe.net/display/c35d279b-496a-1cd7-3b0f-4b9088396963" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This toot</a> from <a href="https://social.jlamothe.net/profile/me" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Jonathan Lamothe (me@social.jlamothe.net)</a> had 13 replies.</li>
<li><a href="https://freeradical.zone/@ax6761/116672166610646638" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This toot</a> from <a href="https://freeradical.zone/@ax6761" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"> (ax6761@freeradical.zone)</a> had 11 replies.</li>
#monsterdon 4/5

2026-06-01 14:36:28 UTC

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The top 3 boosted toots:<li><a href="https://infosec.exchange/@paco/116672117571308582">This toot</a> from <a href="https://infosec.exchange/@paco">Paco Hope (paco@infosec.exchange)</a> had 18 boosts.</li>
<li><a href="https://timeloop.cafe/@wohali/116672144397377606" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This toot</a> from <a href="https://timeloop.cafe/@wohali" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">wohali (wohali@timeloop.cafe)</a> had 8 boosts.</li>
<li><a href="https://timeloop.cafe/@Taweret/116672225712658540" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This toot</a> from <a href="https://timeloop.cafe/@Taweret" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Void Chicken (Taweret@timeloop.cafe)</a> had 7 boosts.</li>
#monsterdon 2/5

2026-06-01 14:36:28 UTC

Summary of #monsterdon generated at Mon 1 Jun 2026 10:04 EDT.<li>We looked at 2725 toots posted between Sun 31 May 2026 21:00 EDT and Sun 31 May 2026 22:21 EDT by 126 different participants across 80 different servers. mastodon.social contributed the most toots at 506</li><li>Most toots were from 'Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈' (Lazarou@mastodon.social) who posted 126</li>
Additional details are replies to this toot. For stats from past watch parties, [visit the gallery.](https://gallery.don.monster/ )
#monsterdon 1/5

2026-05-31 16:41:09 UTC

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I don’t know how this #frog has survived so long. Dude! There’s a fly RIGHT THERE!
I started filming video. I thought “this will be amazing! I’ll catch a video of a frog snatching a fly right off my laptop!”
Little froggy just shrugged and hopped away.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/670/178/157/769/941/original/e0d1535bc1a824e3.jpeg

2026-05-31 16:35:28 UTC

I’m sat outside with my laptop. I guess this guy heard that I was debugging. Yes, little buddy, there were LOTS of bugs on the screen. But I’m afraid you won’t be able to help.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/670/146/829/453/640/original/ffff8542b07e71df.jpeg
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/670/147/072/435/489/original/f862e6806b9ca04a.jpeg
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/670/147/284/180/534/original/60e602d1fd8a037f.jpeg

2026-05-24 03:38:15 UTC

I bought a car. I’m trying to get Toyota to stop sending telemetry. I call support. They tell me I can just sign in with the app and make changes.
I point out that installing and using the app binds me to terms and conditions, one of which is binding arbitration. So I will not be installing the app.
No, no. The customer service agent confidently contradicts me. You don’t sign a contract by installing the app. It’s just like making a Facebook or google account.
🤦🏻

2026-05-06 02:15:26 UTC

One of the great things about getting the print version of TheOnion is the ads. Full page mock ads that are just… ouch.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/525/210/270/526/368/original/7dedf8d0ff425914.jpeg

2026-05-02 10:26:28 UTC

Wow. Richard Dawkins off the deep end.
‘So my own position is: “If these machines are not conscious, what more could it possibly take to convince you that they are?”’
First he goes on and on about the Turing test like it is some kind of law handed down. Like, the fact that sequences of output tokens so closely resemble speech they might pass Turing’s test. He views a moving of the goalpost (Turing’s test apparently isn’t enough to distinguish consciousness) as unreasonable. Like Turing got it right and it’s wrong to say otherwise.
And then he has these risible conversations: ‘I then asked her whether, when she read my novel, she read the first word before the last word. No, she read the whole book simultaneously.’ Let’s not ignore the ‘she’. The thing has a name. ‘Claude.’ It implies a gender. But Richard Dawkins genders it and genders it female. I don’t think that’s a random thing.
We know how computers work. It absolutely does read the book byte-by-byte, in a sequential series of input tokens. It does not matter that the thing output some words that said otherwise. It is wrong. Why doesn’t it matter that the output is plainly incorrect? Where does the disconnection between the reality and the words come into the picture?
This is just drivel.
https://archive.is/6RdK9

2026-03-22 14:33:52 UTC

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Goddammit. I had the probes in the wrong god damn holes! @npub1fsw…x3en

2026-03-22 14:31:30 UTC

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I think so?
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/273/307/074/847/606/original/cd8ba4fe40a79913.jpeg

2026-03-22 14:29:01 UTC

Ok #electronics nerds. I must be doing something wrong.
(Edit: *Narrator*: he was doing something wrong. As usual. Probes plugged into the wrong holes on the multimeter!)
If I put my multimeter on resistance (that’s what I have done, isn’t it?) and I touch the 2 probes together, I expect to see basically 0 resistance. But I see 12.59. Then I touch the probes to the 2 terminals of my thermistor. I get basically the same reading. That makes no sense to me.
I mean, I think the thermistor has gone bad, but I also don’t understand whether I’m doing this right. Is this actually a common failure mode for thermistors or am I doing something dumb with my multimeter?
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/273/293/510/463/420/original/9a8a83bef32afd3e.jpeg
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/273/293/830/431/691/original/4ef7cd51c16a64c3.jpeg

2026-03-20 19:23:21 UTC

I feel like I want to put at the bottom of my email signature:
> *Remember that Paco sometimes makes mistakes. Be sure to double check the information he provides you.*
That way, if I send something completely erroneous and harmful, it's no big deal.

2026-03-17 03:24:38 UTC

RE: https://flipboard.com/@itvnews/itv-news-im7uoakfz/-/a-lnhr2nKcRvK8vH3ESRGAFw%3Aa%3A3980387611-%2F0
I only just realised how weird this phrase is, using the word chair as a verb. “He plans to chair the cabinet.” “Oh yeah? I plan to loveseat the refrigerator.”
#note1889…9hr4

2026-03-08 03:24:50 UTC

OMG. Can you imagine publishing *Machine Code for Beginners* today??
[Usborne 1980s Computer Books](https://usborne.com/us/books/computer-and-coding-books )
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/191/405/758/658/382/original/f6574b3b082a7a24.png

2026-03-03 12:16:36 UTC

For so long I have thought Americans were remarkable in that their prescription to fix a problem is often more of the problem.
National debt? Lower taxes and increase the debt.
Gun violence kills people? Increase gun ownership.
AI is destroying the climate? Use more AI to try to figure out what to do.
Roads clogged with cars? Build more roads and sell more cars.
Public institutions doing their work poorly? Cut the funding to those institutions.
None of it makes sense.

2026-02-28 12:57:04 UTC

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No company has announced “thanks to AI, we have the same number of employees, but we have launched zillions of new services and are growing our product lines because of all the time our people get to spend innovating.”
I don’t know why that is.

2026-02-27 23:11:12 UTC

I managed to persuade a few very cool #infosec folks to join the fediverse.
Their profiles don’t look like much, yet, because some of them were munching on ramen while they signed up and all of us were busy at #Securitay2026 . But maybe we can light up their feeds a bit and show them that it’s good to be here.<li><a href="https://infosec.exchange/@boringDystopia" class="u-url mention">@boringDystopia</a> </li><li><a href="https://infosec.exchange/@w7ocx" class="u-url mention">@w7ocx</a> </li><li><a href="https://infosec.exchange/@jfitzsimo" class="u-url mention">@jfitzsimo</a></li>

2026-02-27 17:12:21 UTC

The reason AI phishing emails are effective is because they’re realistic? Why are they realistic? Because all these companies are writing legit emails with the same AI bullshit. If you as Claude to write the normal customer service emails, and then the bad guy asks Claude to write the same thing, it will be really similar.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/143/702/951/271/869/original/e6671eb1badfe90e.jpeg

2026-02-26 12:46:42 UTC

Scientists have detected another possible Monday arriving as early as next week. If true, this will be the 9th Monday this year. They warn that there are a little over 3 days left to prepare.
Mondays can be bad. Hug those you love and help them through it. Spend these remaining days wisely.

2026-02-23 03:44:39 UTC

So I did the whole #monsterdon from an airplane... on the ground. My 6:20 flight took off at 10:30, right after the film ended.

2026-02-23 02:33:08 UTC

So the plot is that these people go into a strange city. Down a dark alley, they meet some people with terrible voices who want drugs. They choose to send a girl out to the woods to find a drug dealer. She brings the drugs back, and they tell her to give her friends some drugs.
#monsterdon

2026-02-19 02:45:20 UTC

The conch, the reef, his wife, and her lobster
#SeaFoodAMovieOrPlay
#HashTagGames

2026-02-18 17:27:58 UTC

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You nailed it: remember? No one doing this shit is old enough to remember any of these lessons. And apparently we, as a society, did a terrible job of passing the lessons on to subsequent generation.
@npub1s20…twmm

2026-02-18 00:03:54 UTC

Holy shit. The #PamBondi cold open from #SNL in OCTOBER is just a transcription of her latest appearance in February!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iSfC_N8XOTE
#uspol #trump

2026-02-17 00:57:27 UTC

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Yeah. We got into Obsession the last couple years. We can get it down to 2 hours with the 4 of us because we have all played many times.
Stupid American Heiresses. Pretty gamebreaking if you ask me. We have never seen anyone get an heiress early in the game and not win.
@npub1kh3…rzfe

2026-02-16 00:32:51 UTC

It’s game night. We are playing Architects of the West Kingdom. It is really complicated. So many pieces. So many interactions. It’s not really obvious what a winning strategy is when you’re a noob. They say supposedly a 90 minute game. We are on minute 150 and we are about 2/3 to the end.
#boardgames #gamenight #games
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/077/470/906/966/328/original/aea0e0795d9b06a1.jpeg

2026-02-15 13:03:15 UTC

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If that’s the case, it would be fun (waste of time) to see if the direct quotes in the article were real and actually said by anyone. The open source maintainer who was the target of an AI’s rant saw this in an Ars Technica piece about the incident. Because his blog blocked AI agents, AI authors couldn’t read the site to actually see what he said. No worries, the AI Ars author just made up quotes and said they were in the blog post. This AI agent might have done the same. As long as it feels newsy it must be news, right?
https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me-part-2/

2026-02-13 23:07:30 UTC

Obi Wan says: “I’ve seen a security hologram of Anakin killing younglings”
Amidala replies “But the Dow is over 50,000”
#trump #uspol #dow50k
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/065/824/101/185/688/original/48b04d2af1a15438.jpeg

2026-02-07 13:28:59 UTC

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I agree with the idea of good naming and organising docs. But, as an American, I don’t think it is fair to for me to give anyone shit over not making their web site easy to use in my language. It’s not like Americans do anything for anybody else’s language.
@npub12k0…e2sz