Nostr notes by fiona

I find it disillusioning to see the casual use of "AI" ...

2025-11-26T00:17:07Z

I find it disillusioning to see the casual use of "AI" slowly creeping into our hacker circles. Most of the discussions about AI focus on the quality of its output. I think we're not doing a good job communicating its more fundamental dangers.

In this blog post I write about how tools shape who we are and why the resource intensiveness of AI is ingrained in its purpose. About the devaluation of skills, and power cycles.

Let me know what you think.

https://fokus.cool/2025/11/25/i-dont-care-how-well-your-ai-works.html

leans in "what if we kissed under the.." looks up ...

2025-07-27T21:20:07Z

*leans in*
"what if we kissed under the.."
*looks up*
"smoke detector?"

tomorrow I'll talk about federated protocols and the recent ...

2025-07-10T12:46:53Z

tomorrow I'll talk about federated protocols and the recent pixelfed vulnerability – come join the discussion at offline (npub1ajs…40ga) in berlin

https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/114790849535399825

As you all know, the easiest way to set the time on a microwave ...

2025-05-01T00:38:23Z

As you all know, the easiest way to set the time on a microwave oven is to plug it in at the right moment.
(Reference: https://chaos.social/@ant/109265527654254544)

Tired of doing this every few weeks to keep up with the drift of the shitty RTC?
Just add NTP to your microwave oven. The home appliance industry does not want you to know this simple trick:
Smart Plug + Home Automation

Pixelfed before v0.12.5 has a vulnerability where it could leak ...

2025-03-25T17:33:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…c2js
_________________________

Pixelfed before v0.12.5 has a vulnerability where it could leak your private posts, regardless of whether you are a Pixelfed user or not.
Admins should update ASAP.

When following someone from a different server on the Fediverse, the remote server decides whether you are allowed to do that. This enables features like locked accounts. Due to an implementation mistake, Pixelfed ignores this and allows anyone to follow even private accounts on other servers. If a legitimate user from a Pixelfed instance follows you on your locked account, anyone on that Pixelfed instance can read your private posts.

I wrote a blog post about how I found the vulnerability, how disclosure coordination went and general ramblings about Fediverse safety:
https://fokus.cool/2025/03/25/pixelfed-vulnerability.html

#pixelfed #fediverse #activitypub

pixelfed instance admins: Please update pixelfed to v0.12.5 asap. ...

2025-03-24T16:00:22Z

pixelfed instance admins: Please update pixelfed to v0.12.5 asap. The version contains fixes for serious security vulnerabilities that I reported.
I will disclose further details about the vulnerabilities in about 24 hours.
:boost_requested:

tiny blinky city ...

2025-03-07T16:23:37Z

tiny blinky city

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2025-02-10T17:39:28Z

Nostr event nevent1qqsppmlqh6ajr22fdz5xmreugm2jk8vy6tu6vsdma3s9nzw7cuupf2szyztf9gg3c5nlt30accnwqwmxtqnztw55d55z9akw9t6sshxq44pwug3c9n6

2025-02-10T00:53:11Z

We, the users, should question the context and purpose under ...

2025-01-17T21:44:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…9gc8
_________________________

We, the users, should question the context and purpose under which the protocols and software we promote are created - and whether that's in our interest or not.
Heck, maybe having a venture capital funded company at the steering wheel of the protocols that were meant to free us from the venture capitalist messengers... wasn't the best approach?
Where to go from here? Honestly, no idea. I have no proposals to make. But I think commentary is important. Maybe we can learn and find better ways to have nice things.

Welp, I didn't expect this post to blow up like that. Maybe I ...

2025-01-17T21:44:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…w7a9
_________________________

Welp, I didn't expect this post to blow up like that. Maybe I should add some context.

I think this is a messy PR move gone awry. It's not a secret that Synapse doesn't scale well. The interesting part lies in the bigger picture.

First of all: There's nothing *inherently* wrong with a company building a closed source product to interface with open software/standards.
People have opinions on whether that's beneficial for the ecosystem or not. It's not the can of worms I want to open, but I can't avoid it entirely.

Some history. In the end of 2023 Element pulled a very interesting move where they forked Synapse and relicensed the code from Apache 2.0 to AGPLv3 and started requiring a CLA for contributions. See: https://matrix.org/blog/2023/11/06/future-of-synapse-dendrite/
Since Element staff is responsible for most of the maintenance work, the Matrix Foundation had no chance but to discontinue their Apache licensed version.
So, essentially project ownership of Synapse (forcefully) changed from the Matrix Foundation to the Element company.

A bit later Element announced a proprietary version of Synapse where they claimed to have fixed some of the most glaring architectural issues.

Suddenly they have a big commercial incentive to keep Synapse slow. And in this blog post they say that, loud and clear.

lol @ element for pulling "our code base is utter trash and ...

2025-01-17T14:47:07Z

lol @ element for pulling "our code base is utter trash and we have no intention to fix that, please buy our proprietary rewrite"

https://element.io/blog/scaling-to-millions-of-users-requires-synapse-pro/

Nostr event nevent1qqsyh9cnr03343aqv2gg7ke54jurptzpyftvuvhezjyptn5ng8t8jygzyztf9gg3c5nlt30accnwqwmxtqnztw55d55z9akw9t6sshxq44pwurprn5a

2025-01-05T22:40:30Z