We, the undersigned organizations representing civil society, nonprofit institutions, and technology companies, write to express our strong opposition to Google’s announced policy requiring all Android app developers to register centrally with Google themselves in order to distribute applications outside of the Google Play Store, set to take effect worldwide in the coming months.

Discord cut ties with its age-verification partner after exposed code fueled federal-reporting concerns, months after a breach hit 70,000 users.

Name: The accidental hacker.

Age: It doesn’t matter how old Sammy Azdoufal is. What he did is what’s important here, and what he did is very much of the age.

And what did Azdoufal do? He hooked up his DJI Romo vacuum cleaner to his PS5 controller.

Why? Because, he told the New York-based tech news publication the Verge, it sounded fun.

OK, each to their own. And how did he do this? He used an AI coding assistant, Claude Code, to reverse-engineer how the home robot vacuum communicated with DJI’s remote cloud servers …

Whoa, you’re losing me. I’m losing myself too, to be honest. Look, Azdoufal is a software engineer, he’s the head of AI strategy at a holiday rental company, he knows how to do this stuff. But what’s interesting is what happened next …

What happened next? Presumably he lay on the sofa, directing his vacuum cleaner with his joystick – which does actually sound fun, even if it slightly negates the whole point of a robot. He found that not only could he control his own robot, but that he had gained access to data from other robot vacuum cleaners.

What kind of data? Live camera feeds, microphone audio, maps from nearly 7,000 devices across 24 countries.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7760707

"Death to Germany because they say their reason for existing is to support 'Israel'^[Not a joke, they call this "Staatsräson".]? That's genocidal against Germans."

Sorry, but I don't care about your colonizer fragility.

I enjoy derping around w/ virtual machines b/c not only can I revert to a clean snapshot, I can grab screenshots of pretty much any screen in the VM, including on the initial boot screen.

Is there some way for me to get a similar experience to using VMs except instead of a virtual machine, I'd be derping with a spare laptop next to my main daily driver PC? I don't care about snapshots, I'm mostly concerned about being able to record a video or grab screenshots of the boot screen and BIOS settings without having to use my phone to take the video/photo. In other words, like a remote desktop experience that persists during reboots of the "guest" laptop.

What equipment would I need for this? Should I look into video capture cards or KVM switches? Both the "host" and "guest" systems will be running one of the mainstream Linux distros (Mint, Fedora, etc).

Part of the challenge for me is actually articulating what it is I'm trying to do and knowing what terms to search for on DDG, so please feel free to ask questions to clarify my requirements. Thank you!

EDIT: Thanks to everyone who chimed in. Although your comments definitely piqued my curiosity in devices such as JetKVM, I ordered this video capture card, since in my case, the machine I want to capture images/videos from will be next to my "host" machine. That said, I'll definitely keep these KVM devices in mind in case my needs change down the road.

This was alluded to in the GOG AMA on reddit recently, but here it is. It might explain why FF7 on Steam only recently got its atrocious DRM removed. There was a set of four Final Fantasy games about a month ago, and this one seems to be releasing on GOG by itself. And yes, before anyone mentions it in the comments, this company uses AI in some capacity, if that matters to you. I tested this release of FF7 for about 15 minutes via Heroic/Proton, and it seems to work great, though it does have a config launcher that we may want to disable via launch params.

The creator of Nearby Glasses made the app after reading 404 Media's coverage of how people are using Meta's Ray-Bans smartglasses to film people without their knowledge or consent. “I consider it to be a tiny part of resistance against surveillance tech.”

more at: @feed@404media.co

https://tech.lgbt/@yjeanrenaud/116122129025921096

From time to time I like to review my network to see where I can tighten up. Review logs, check out the landscape, and make sure there are no gaps. Today, I have some downtime, so I figured it'd be a good for it. Since I am not a certified IT professional, this is what I have cobbled together reading, and seeing what others have done. I'd like to bounce this off you guys who are more experienced than I and get your impressions. If you have any recommendations, I'm always down to be schooled.

So if you'd like to participate in my audit, I have a home network as follows:

• Modem receiving IP from ISP. Modem to router. Router to stand alone pfsense firewall. Router has a 54 character complex password for WiFi. There are no guest provisions for WiFi.
• Pfsense firewall with pfblockerng & suricata running on both lan and wan, both with a full array of rules/feeds updated daily. pfsense has tailscale as an overlay vpn. Server traffic and PC traffic have their own VLAN provided by pfsense. My approach is to deny all until something complains and address that on a case by case basis. Additionally ntopng is utilized for traffic analysis. IPv6 is disabled.
• Server running Tailscale as an overlay VPN, UFW deny all posture, and fail2ban with an aggressive posture. Server has been hardened against Lynis spec where applicable. Not all recommendations apply to my server. Server is utilizing host deny/host allow and SSH keys.
• Server is utilizing containers for services.
• Server is using Cloudflare tunnel/zero trust.
• Server and pfsense communicate via Tailscale encrypted tunnel. PC/Phone/mobile device can communicate with pfsense via Tailscale.
• Server services are accessed via https.
• PC connected to pfsense firewall with same rules as server. PC is using a VPN with Cloudflare 1.1.1.1/1.0.0.1 for DNS queries. Firefox is using 1.1.1.1/1.0.0.1. Settings for Firefox are the strictest for Enhanced Tracking Protection, and DOH. HTTPS-Only mode enabled. PC is also running a soft firewall.
• All other devices such as phones, laptops, and tablets run a VPN with Cloudflare 1.1.1.1/1.0.0.1 for DNS queries.
• IoT devices are isolated. Phones are isolated. Smart TVs are isolated.

How secure would you say this network is and give any recommendations to further harden the network besides keeping up with current updates, monitoring and auditing logs.

Thanks

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/55839289

A Financial Times report suggested that the 'Board of Peace' established by Donald Trump is considering stablecoins as part of its efforts claiming to help rebuild Gaza.

According to a Monday Financial Times report, the board is in the preliminary stages of discussing whether a stablecoin could be used to help rebuild Gaza’s economy. A person familiar with the project reportedly said the stablecoin would not be a meme coin or a replacement for fiat currency, but rather “a means to allow Gazans to transact digitally.”

Original article (paywalled)

I co-teach AP Computer Science A through Microsoft's TEALS program. The classroom runs on Chromebooks, Google Classroom, and code.org (AWS). Corporate infrastructure top to bottom. This year I added an AI tutor. That's apparently the controversial part.

The research is interesting: a Wharton study found students using standard ChatGPT performed 17% worse on exams—the "crutch" effect. But students using AI with pedagogical guardrails showed no negative effect. The problem isn't AI in education. It's unguided AI. So I built a tutor that asks probing questions instead of giving answers. I'm sharing the prompt I use and how to set one up yourself.

While, China made AI education mandatory for six-year-olds this year. We're still deciding whether to block ChatGPT.

Hey all,

What games have you guys been playing with your friends?

Doesn't necessarily need to be a steam game.

I am looking for something that fits our group...we usually end up playing Counter strike, but really enjoyed pico park and move or die, as well as pummel party. Pubg was a fun game to mess around on but we only play on Linux now.

However I have trouble finding other games for us. The problem is one of my friends is kind of picky and can be lazy about learning complex game mechanics, they just want to have fun and dont like learning hard stuff.

The other friend games all day every day, so they are a pro at everything. If we play a game that has any element of "grind", this friend will play it for 20 hours in 3 days and be completely ahead if us in all aspects, plus they watch every video of every game so they know how to play through the whole thing, ruining any surprises or secrets.

That's why games like cs or pico park work well, because its individual effort plus group effort. Any game where its group effort, other friend just takes over the whole game. I love games like quake that are fast but they make other friend sick (and I'm too good at them to be fun for all of us)

It seems so many games I see that look super cool just end up being grind games that aren't fun. Like that fog train game looked great but then it looks like a big time suck.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43529382

Kinda funny that they waited before announcing this.

"Don't miss the Gameplay Preview Video for Overwatch Rush, an upcoming mobile top-down hero shooter developed by Blizzard. Players will duke it out in a new experience within the Overwatch Universe to take the fast-paced 4v4 action on the go with characters, abilities, and weapons from the core Overwatch game.

Get an early look at a development build for Overwatch Rush, coming soon to iOS and Android."