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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • ever since libraries have been a thing, the majority of developers have just used the libraries without really understanding what goes on inside them. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing — the entire point of abstraction is so that developers can focus on the stuff they need to get done while ignoring the already solved problems.

    Nobody but nobody has time to know what’s in every library they might need to use. Who among us truly understands their network stack, all 8 layers?

    senior devs have to spend all their time doing code reviews and editing and refactoring codebases that nobody else understands.

    That’s OK we will just train AI to review and refactor for us! I’m sure everything will be fine.

    Vulnerable code will be with us forever. The system will always be Swiss cheese. If you think you understand common mistakes, enough that you can review other peoples’ code for them, there’s work for you in infosec for sure.









  • We think of measles as a minor viral infection of kids that causes fever, rash, and a runny nose, and goes away without major complications. Unfortunately, that is not always so. Nervous system disease is a particular problem. SSPE occurs as a late, fatal measles complication in one out of 1,367 cases of measles in children younger than 5. One out of 1,000 children with measles gets an infection of the brain (encephalitis) early in the course of measles. About 15% of children with measles encephalitis die. Measles encephalitis led to the death of the writer Roald Dahl’s daughter Olivia.

    Children’s brains can also develop an allergic reaction to the measles virus several weeks after infection. This is called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). Children seem to recover, then get fever, confusion, headaches, and neck stiffness. Like SSPE and measles encephalitis, ADEM occurs in about one out of 1,000 cases of measles. It is fatal in 10% to 20% of patients. Survivors of measles encephalitis and ADEM often have epilepsy, brain damage, or developmental delay.

    Measles has other serious complications. During pregnancy, it causes miscarriages. Measles can infect the cornea, and was once a common cause of blindness. Ear infections and hearing loss are frequent. Measles virus also infects the lungs, causing pneumonia in 3% to 4% of cases. Measles weakens the immune system for at least two months. Sometimes patients die of other infections immediately after they recover from measles. In a measles epidemic that killed more than 3,000 soldiers in the US Army in 1917–18, bacterial pneumonia was the major cause of death.

    Measles: The forgotten killer - John Ross, MD, FIDSA, Contributor; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing



  • You’re thinking about the results of the audit, the final report, which a court might use to apply consequences after the fact. That’ll be good documentation to have, but it isn’t the real benefit.

    The real benefit is getting inside the organization, getting in the way of whatever they’re currently doing, making them explain what they’re doing while they’re doing it, keeping tabs on everybody, making them feel watched. The benefit is slowing them down right now, for as long as the audit goes on. If they obstruct the audit, I hope the auditors drag their feet and make everything take longer, and extend the audit for another year or two. Question everything, be the most annoying looking-over-your-shoulder assholes they can be.


  • I mean… you can really fuck an operation up with an audit. If you have enough backing that the organization being audited can’t get rid of you, then you can basically grind everything to a halt and get dirt on everyone involved. They better be prepared for all the retaliatory shit they’re gonna be targeted with though.

    This is the first step of just freezing everything that Musk’s group of cronies is trying to do. It’s a good first step because it has some official authority. I just hope the Democrats start throwing out “if you’re not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to hide!” when the shit hits the fan.








  • Beyond just the general tankiness that others have mentioned, I think the worst thing about Hexbear is how they aggressively claim to be pro-LGBTQ+ while zealously supporting Russia and China, nations which actively persecute anyone who is not hetero-normative. Putin actively jokes about killing homosexuals, and the PRC will black-bag you and put you in a reeducation camp.

    I’ve always felt there was something deeply sinister in this hypocrisy, probably having to do with intentionally targeting marginalized people and attempting to influence and/or radicalize them - your basic cult recruitment tactics.