Funds privacy tech/open search @NGIZero@mastodon.xyz

Alright #ActivityPub folks, I really need some #help.

I'm trying to get an extremely basic AP setup going where people can follow a single account on a server and get automatically-generated updates when actions are performed. Specifically, I want to process followers and send a post to followers when someone adds a book to or removes one from Little Library. It's pretty much 100% server to server with very little client input beyond prompting the server to post.

So far, I have an outbox and a way to view posts. I'm trying to get that set up so I can start researching what I receive from a Mastodon follow request in order to learn what data to save and send Create activities to. But when I search for a specific post from Mastodon, it errors out with a 503 error from the Masto server...

Here is the folder of the repo with my implementation so far:
https://github.com/Alamantus/little-library/tree/activitypub/routes/activitypub

And here is my (temporary) live AP actor endpoint with a piece of live data:
https://ap.library.alamantus.com/activitypub/actor

Thanks in advance!

The German city of Bühl created "Palim! Palim!" as a #FreeSoftware #video #conferencing platform on top of #Jitsi. The feedback they received is encouraging:

"Many citizens express their personal thanks to us and we have stopped counting how many municipalities have approached us with great interest. I believe that Free Software is currently experiencing an incredible boost and that the sensitivity for data sovereignty is growing rapidly."

https://fsfe.org/news/2020/news-20200630-01.html

#publiccode @fsfe

Yikes, a scary email phishing attempt for this person’s GitHub credentials. Shows how using a browser web extension for your password manager can help detect this by its autofilling.

https://nitter.snopyta.org/jedisct1/status/1278353703456706567

#Phishing

Folding@Home became the first Exascale supercomputer in the world and actually discovered SARS-CoV-2 structures that give hope for a new anti-viral drug.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.27.175430v1

Introducing dns-tor-proxy tool, a simple local #DNS server for you to do all DNS calls over encrypted connections via @torproject https://kushaldas.in/posts/introducing-dns-tor-proxy-a-new-way-to-do-all-of-your-dns-calls-over-tor.html #privacy #security

BITBUCKET IS DELETING HG REPOSITORIES TOMORROW!!!

Steps to save your code:

1) clone locally and keep it somewhere findable/your personal archive
2) deposit a copy in Software Heritage with this form: https://archive.softwareheritage.org/save/
3) deposit a copy in Zenodo (zenodo.org) or use the Open Science Framework's (osf.io) integration with Bitbucket to drag and drop the files into OSF storage (or GL or GH) for persistence

Hello Tag, a new feature that allows you to publicly or privately tag people and accounts in your posts.

Think of it like a mention but with more privacy!

It will be rolling out later this week, we look forward to your feedback.

#pixelfed #tagPeople

Tails 4.8 will ship with an persisting option to disable the so called "Unsafe Browser".

The Unsafe Browser exists to access captive portals.

Unfortunately this is also an attack surface.
To everyone who is using public internet access points is the "Unsafe Browser" an essential tool. Just getting rid of that function would be a decision against those needing Tails probably the most.

Tails will instead minimizing more of the attack surface.

Tails 4.8 is scheduled for 2020-06-30.

Tagging is an exciting new feature for Pixelfed but it does present some challenges.

It could be abused, so I have added some new privacy settings to allow users to control who can tag them.

It will only federate with other Pixelfed instances until I can consult with other implementations on the federated aspects. #pixeldev

FBI Expands Ability to Monitor Social Media, Location Data

Recent contracts with Dataminr and Venntel show a growing focus on harnessing the latest private sector tools for mass surveillance.

https://theintercept.com/2020/06/24/fbi-surveillance-social-media-cellphone-dataminr-venntel/

The Senate’s New Anti-Encryption Bill Is Even Worse Than EARN IT, and That’s Saying Something

Right now, we rely on secure technologies like never before—to cope with the pandemic, to organize and march in the streets, and much more. Yet, now is the moment some members of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees have chosen to try to effectively outlaw encryption in those very...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/senates-new-anti-encryption-bill-even-worse-earn-it-and-thats-saying-something

@eff

Apple Safari will start blocking Google Analytics from cross-site tracking. Site owners now fear that Google Analytics stats may become less accurate.

Here are reasons why you should consider removing Google Analytics

My latest on the TheStartup

https://medium.com/swlh/safari-to-block-google-analytics-e68f4078d473

Hey everybody!

I'd like to do some tiny open-source projects. But I need your help to know what to build.

I'm extremely adept at writing dependency-less JavaScript and CSS. An ideal project would be a riff on something you use or would like to use, but is convoluted as a developer or a user.

Looking to make things that are plug-n-play and do one thing well, with all bases covered to be production ready-- performant, accessible, enjoyable.

So, what problems can I help you solve?

"Cloud is an abstraction and a distraction. Like so much digital, it gives the impression of lightness, impermanence, of something that is benign, of something that is good for the environment. Cloud and digital act to remove us from our physical environment and its responsibilities. We don’t see the impact of our actions. We don’t feel or sense that what we do in cloudland affects the land and the sea."

World Wide Waste

Since yesterday, there is a first release of Delta Chat Desktop on the official Microsoft app store -- this took a year or so to take all the hurdles, phew! https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/deltachat/9pjtxx7hn3pk?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

RT @RiotChat@twitter.com

The world is changing... heads up that Riot (and @NewVectorHQ@twitter.com and @ModularIM@twitter.com) will soon be getting a new name!! 💥🙀💨 https://blog.riot.im/the-world-is-changing/

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/RiotChat/status/1275361129867481088

If you’re operating an open XMPP server and let people register through the web interface you need to check out this: https://github.com/iNPUTmice/Conversations/issues/3796

Basically if you display a QR code after registration with JSON containing the JID and the password Conversations.im users can just scan the code to add the account to their app.

Very nice!

Footnote: this will be available in Conversations 2.8.8.

Other enterprise companies like Slack, Microsoft, and Zoom’s direct competitor Cisco should follow suit with their own privacy and security features and recognize, in Zoom’s words, “the legitimate right of all users to privacy” on their services. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/victory-zoom-will-offer-end-end-encryption-all-its-users

Language-specific tracks at #DebConf20 online https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2020/06/msg00005.html

This affects a team member who contributes to two open source projects. @LumoSQL and @librecast. Bad enough twitter doesn't seem to care about #accessibility I expect better of @github.
---
RT @brett_sheffield
We have outstanding accessibility issues with @github that prevent members of our team from using the site and which we've been trying to get you to fix for months. Instead of fixing them you're faffing about with little styl…
https://twitter.com/brett_sheffield/status/1274238873510588416