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Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
mhoye wrote:

Introducing my kids to Highlander (strong candidate for best soundtrack-to-movie ratio), now and then I think about this scene. Our guy on the right here has just been sent by Roxanne Hart's character, Brenda Wyatt, to figure out who our main character is. In this scene - about 1:25 into the movie - he's found and proved that whoever he is, he's been kicking around New York for longer than New York has been New York.

Then the story... just lets him go.

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Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
thedarktangent@defcon.social ("Jeff Moss") wrote:

The flight attendant said our flight to Vegas is 80% full. I asked if they fly this route frequently and they said three days ago the flight was empty.
#RoadToDefCon #DefCon

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Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

@thedarktangent Hmm. Must be some sort of convention in town. Maybe COMDEX?

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Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam"):
nsmsn@social.lol ("Nick Simson") wrote:

Update: I am ordering more stickers, to meet the demand.

I got some fun laptop stickers printed recently.

I opened a little shop to sell these: https://ko-fi.com/nsmsn/shop

You can order 2 for $6 USD or 4 for $10 USD.

Intel Inside…only it says Luddite Inside

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jack_daniel ("Jack Daniel (often offline)") wrote:

Not trying to sell anything, but I just found that North American Rescue is having a sale, August 1-5. If you were going to purchase CAT tourniquets or other first aid stuff, might be worth a look.

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
michi@wetdry.world ("Michi") wrote:

UK App Store charts be like

iOS App Store top download charts, the first four apps are VPNs while the fifth is Death Stranding.

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jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

“Physics is like sex. Of course it can give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.”

—Richard Feynman

from “Hammered” by Elizabeth Bear

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Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

@Professor_Stevens Is this a perfect solution. No; see above. Might reasonable people make other choices about how to deal with this sort of thing? Absolutely.

But our diversity and differences are ultimately a thing to celebrate. In the end, it's what makes the world go round.

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Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

@Professor_Stevens I posted about it because people have been asking about a nonsensical conspiracy post that's been gaining a bit of traction. I don't want to give it more attention, but I do want to help people recognize BS when they see it.

So I stake out a position in an imperfect tradeoff space with no clear Nash equilibrium, which is to explain some useful facts that people should know and might help them if they come across the aforementioned nonsense, but without linking to it directly.

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Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

@Professor_Stevens I am sorry you find my tradeoff frustrating, but it's a tradeoff. No perfect answer.

I don't link to bullshit.

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mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

We can make our elections trustworthy in spite of the inevitable security weaknesses in equipment!

How? By using an architecture that *tolerates* security flaws instead of requiring you to eliminate them. This is called "Software Independence", formalized by Ron Rivest (the R in RSA) about 15 years ago.

Ron is giving a talk at the Voting Village this year.

Software Independence is achieved with something called "Risk Limiting Audits", invented by Philip Stark.

Philip is also giving a talk.

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Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam"):
brie@social.lol ("🐈‍⬛ brie") wrote:

✨ I love #OMGLOL so much that I had to get an account for my cutie @plop

📸 Here's a photo of us together!

#catsofmastodon

A tabby cat with a red, white and blue collar is being held in the arms of a woman wearing a black and white headband. The cat's front paws are resting on her forearm. She is smiling at the camera but her face is obscured partially by the cat.

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Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam"):
purplerabbit@social.lol ("Omega :prami_pride_trans:") wrote:

did you know you can tap/click on many elements of the omg.lol illustration to animate them? you can make the wind turbines turn, the windows glow, the flag wave and more... :prami:

#omglol

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mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

Anyway, if you're interested in actually learning about this this stuff - which is interesting and important - and you're coming to DEFCON, come join us at the Voting Village!

https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/VV2025-schedule.pdf

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mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

You should also know that:

- There really are security vulnerabilities in election equipment. Because there are security vulnerabilities in just about every large, complex software-based thing.

- The mere existence of a security vulnerability, in an election system or anything else, is not evidence that it has been exploited

- We should absolutely improve our election infrastructure. But fortunately, there is thus far no evidence that any election outcome has been maliciously altered.

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mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

Once again, I'm not going to link to this BS, which deserves no oxygen. However, in case you come across it, you should know that:

- The NSA, a branch of the US Department of Defense, isn't involved in any way in US elections, which are run by states.
- The NSA doesn't audit elections, or "authorize" election audits.
- Even if they did audit elections - and they do not - a "former CIA operative" wouldn't be involved. The CIA is a completely different agency.
- Come on, use your brain.

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Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

We are pleased to announce the final* schedule of talks for the 2025 Symposium on Election Security at the DEF CON Voting Village, August 8-10, in quiet, sleepy Las Vegas.

Hope to see you there!

https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/VV2025-schedule.pdf

* -subject to change

#VotingVillage #DEFCON33 #Elections

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jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

welcome to fire season - and then some

screen snapshot of “watch duty” app showing map of western US covered in fire sites

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
katzenberger@tldr.nettime.org wrote:

There are but a few people from #Gaza on the #Fediverse that somehow manage (I don't know how) to report what they see and experience, every few days.

Out of them, I'm currently following these accounts whose posts I have come to trust in:

Please follow them, and educate yourself via their first-hand accounts on what people are enduring in Gaza.

If you take offense at them and others asking for donations, to feed and save their own and other families, consider what you'd do yourself if you had to pay $60 / 50€ for a single kilogram of flour.

Or, alternatively, again and again, had to fear for the life of a family member that's away, walking miles and miles to queue up at an "aid distribution" site where soldiers have killed more than a thousand desperate people already, merely for trying to get hold of something to eat.

Yes, there are many fraudulent people trying to exploit your sympathy, on the back of the #Palestinians in Gaza. No, its not impossible to find at least one trustworthy human being in need, and to help them survive.

[Update 2: Upon further interaction, the removed account proved to be fraudulent, it'll stay removed]

[Update: temporarily removed one of the accounts mentioned, since it needs further verification]

// @palestine @israel

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Boosted by andreu@andreubotella.com ("Andreu Botella :verified_enby:"):
miiamustang@eliitin-some.fi ("Miia Mustang") wrote:

Hackers in 2003: "Hey look, I hooked up my fridge to the internet!"

Hackers in 2025: "phew, finally got my fridge off the internet! 💪"

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
EndIsraeliApartheid ("End Israeli Apartheid") wrote:

The BBC World Service said it compiled evidence on over 160 cases where children were shot by Israeli forces in Gaza, and found that in 95 cases, the child was shot in the head or chest.

Most of the victims were under the age of 12, according to the investigation.

The cases, which stretch from the opening weeks of the conflict through to July this year, paint a grim picture of the war’s toll on Gazan children.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/investigation-finds-israeli-forces-shot-95-gaza-children-in-head-or-chest-in-over-160-examined-cases/3649091

🕎 🇵🇸 ☮️
#Gaza #Palestine
#Press #News

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
Sherifazuhur@sfba.social ("Sherifa Zuhur") wrote:

“I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump” Rashid Khalidi
@palestine
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/01/columbia-historian-rashid-khalidi-open-letter

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"The debate over whether or not Gaza is a genocide is, effectively, over. So can we now also stop pretending that we are mere bystanders to this genocide? That our sin is one only of omission rather than commission? Because the inconvenient truth is that the US has not just looked the other way, as tens of thousands of Palestinians have been besieged and bombed, starved and slaughtered, but helped Israel pull the trigger."

~ Mehdi Hasan

#Israel #Gaza #genocide
/5

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/02/the-us-complicit-genocide-israel-gaza

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"What Israel is pursuing, in the words of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is 'indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians,' not from 'some disproportionate outburst by some soldiers in some unit' but through 'government policy—knowingly, evilly, irresponsibly dictated.'

Growing up, every aspect of my Jewish identity was connected to the Holocaust…."

And to the insistence that Jews could not let this happen to anyone...

#Israel #Gaza #starvation #genocide
/4

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"Gaza now has the highest number of amputee children per capita in the world, Gazan children are being purposely targeted by IDF snipers, all civilian infrastructure across the region is being systematically leveled, Gazans are being regularly massacred at Israeli-run food distribution sites, and mass starvation is underway. This isn’t a war Israel is prosecuting, and hasn’t been for a long time, if it ever was."

#Israel #Gaza #starvation #genocide
/3

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

Aaron Regunberg writes a letter to his Jewish American mother, who refuses to oppose Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza:

"Dear Mom,

It’s time for us to talk about Israel. …

I need to express what it’s doing to my heart to see you—and much of your generation—fail to grapple with Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Because that is what we’re talking about here."

#Israel #Gaza #starvation #genocide
/2

https://newrepublic.com/article/198202/israel-gaza-genocide-never-again-happening-again

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"All I can tell the world is that we are dying slowly, save us from this tragedy."

~ Gaza resident Jamil Mughari, quoted by Malak A Tantesh and Julian Borger

#Israel #Gaza #starvation #genocide
/1

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/02/gaza-famine-starvation-crisis-israel

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
unir@chaos.social ("hope") wrote:

Blue whales are falling silent from hunger. The krill are gone. The sea is too warm. Their songs fade away.

This is no anomaly. Humanity is deaf to a symphony of grief and warnings.

Blue whales are going eerily silent—& scientists say it’s a warning sign

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/ocean-heat-wave-blob-whale-songs

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
Faithslayer202 ("Nathaniel Gregory") wrote:

Join us on August 17th show the #university administration that they can’t do this without any resistance! Share and invite your friends!

#Politics #Democrats #Republicans #Liberals #Conservatives #Vote #Election #DemocraticParty #RepublicanParty #DonaldTrump #Trump #JDVance #Vance #JoeBiden #Biden #KamalaHarris #TimWalz #Democracy #USA #Musk #Fascism #Fascist #BernieSanders #AOC #FraudSquad #Progressive #ICE #MartialLaw #NationalGuard #Protest #Activism #Protesters #AbolishICE #Kentucky #KY

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Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
Faithslayer202 ("Nathaniel Gregory") wrote:

We want to start off this #semester by making it clear that #students at #EKU make up the very demographics that are targeted by these policies, & that we do not stand for it. They can’t keep pushing us & expect us to be idle!

#Politics #Democrats #Republicans #Liberals #Conservatives #Vote #DemocraticParty #RepublicanParty #Trump #Biden #KamalaHarris #TimWalz #Democracy #USA #Musk #Fascism #Fascist #BernieSanders #AOC #FraudSquad #Progressive #Protest #Activism #Protesters #Kentucky #KY