Discussion

I never thought I’d see the day when Ross Ulbricht received a pardon. The creator of a dark web market that sold illegal drugs, stolen passports and hacking equipment using Bitcoin has been pardoned by President Donald Trump. Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole, in 2015 in connection with his ownership and operation of the hidden website. The then-26-year-old was also ordered to forfeit $183.9m (£120.2m). https://news.sky.com/story/who-is-ross-ulbricht-founder-of-drug-marketplace-silk-road-now-pardoned-by-trump-13294204 Ross Ulbricht was eventually apprehended by stupidly using his own GMAIL address to identify himself on a website discussion around magic mushrooms. More like Ross “Not so bright”. The fact this criminal has been released by Trump is simply unbelievable. This comment alone says it all “Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people,” said Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York

An interesting topic for debate. I totally support and understand the genesis here, but my question is, how do you realistically enforce it? I suspect there is typically an age barrier of sorts, but how to do you circumvent the obvious, such as lying about your age in order to access? https://news.sky.com/story/australia-passes-social-media-ban-for-under-16s-13262282

As I have multiple email accounts to manage (wife, dad, parents-in-law, myself, Sudonix etc) I decided to use an email client - something I’ve not done for years on the personal front. However, flipping between online only accounts is never a great experience, so I wanted something with a bit more flexibility - and more importantly, a unified view for mail in terms of all inboxes. My question here is basically, which email client do you prefer?

I was wondering what everyone uses for a note taking app? For work and home I have been using OneNote. For home use I would like to move away from OneNote to something open sourceish. I have tried Joplin in the past, along with evernote. I did a search on the interwebs and found this app that someone made https://github.com/TriliumNext. This is a fork of the original that is in maintenance mode. I also found this one https://github.com/FoxUSA/OpenNote. These are ones that you install and run on your own server. I like that, cause it would give you full control of your notes and such. Then I thought, well I could just run a nodebb for my own personal use and use that as a note application too. I am curious on hearing all your thoughts on this.

I used a mixture of https://www.google.com, https://duckduckgo.com and most recently https://www.startpage.com. I hate the Captcha’s when using Google, as I mostly use a VPN I do sometimes get these, I use DuckDuckGo and a chat on Reddit suggested to use StartPage which I’m enjoying using, a few of the comments suggest StartPage was all above board but is now owned by an advertising company . My question is should I stop using it? https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/s/qu0K7SLTD2

I’ve been a consumer of RSS feeds since the 90’s (yes, I am that old) and find them increasingly useful given my role in information security. Using an RSS aggregator for example enables me to consume data from multiple sources, and only those that I choose. RSS (for me at least, and likely other security professionals) continues to be a mainstay and staple technology in order to gain access to content considered useful and valuable. From its humble beginnings in the late 1990s to its peak in the mid-2000s and its resilience in the face of challenges, RSS has played a vital role in shaping the way we consume content online. While it may no longer be the dominant force it once was, its enduring presence and potential for future innovation ensure that RSS will continue to be a valuable tool for information dissemination and consumption in the digital age. I’ve read a number of articles where people consider RSS to be “dead technology”. However, if you look around Github (for example) for RSS feeds relating to information security, you’ll find literally thousands of them. Sadly, many of these have been removed - much to the dismay of those (like me) who appreciate the valuable content they provide. What’s your view on RSS feeds? Do you use them?

Reddit users have been reacting with deep gloom to the firm saying it plans to sell shares to the public. The “beginning of the end”, “good while it lasted”, and “they ruined it”, are just some of the comments made by Redditors, as they are known, since the announcement on Thursday. The company has said its plans are “exciting” and will offer the business opportunities for growth. However many users worry the move will fundamentally change the website. Reddit, which was founded almost twenty years ago, is an online forum where users can post questions and comment on topics that interest them. Source - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68372755 Whilst I have my own views surrounding this (it’s something I’ve seen before elsewhere where an IPO and rounds of fundraising were attempted) and this fell flat on its face - to the point where the community and ultimately, the brand folded as a result., I think this is certainly worthy of discussion. Think what you may of Reddit, but it’s one of the oldest and largest forums on the planet. There is also the distinct possibility that the IPO is a step in the direction of attempting to make the platform more appealing to investors - in the form of potentially a sell off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68727857 Seriously Google? For a company that makes billions to charge a premium fee to access it’s AI services is taking the p***. This in my view amounts to nothing more than corporate greed. The company, owned by Alphabet Inc, is said to be revamping its business model and looking at putting some of its core product behind a paywall. It would be the first time Google had charged for any of its content. Google said it did not have anything to announce “right now”. But you know for sure they will announce “something” soon. In 2023, Google turned a profit of approximately $305.6bn (£241bn), so it’s not like they need the money. As I said, nothing more than greed

It appears that we are entering a new age… I guess soon we will be wearing glasses that can listen us and analyze statements/commands and make reservations, create alarms, send messages etc. With the GPT-4 Turbo (more powerful, faster, and most importantly cheaper), assistants (plug-ins), and a GPT store (specialized gpt versions created by users)… I wonder if there’s a potential to leverage NodeBB forum data to train GPT-4 Turbo in a way to create a chatbot, and when users write a question, this bot will give a concise information/answer to users and guiding them directly to relevant topic(s) in the forum by sharing the topic links?

Something I’ve had on my mind for a while is making a one file html/javascript forum, with only the database in the cloud. I’ve made a small demo, I think there are huge advantages. It would be a lot of work to make it comparable to a full forum, and I suspect others may think my minimalist thinking is not a good idea. But here are my thoughts No CSS at all No webpack bundlers or anything Doesnt require Server hosting, Nodejs etc i.e. can be hosted easily anywhere, for example free github page. I want to develop my demo further, and then perhaps the advantages will be seen. All it needs is a cloud database with some kind of JWT auth system for users to access it. I did preliminary tests with firebase, but would people think Atlas MongoDB would be better choice? One advantage of MongoDB is the frontend only code could potentially use the same DB format as NodeBB

Here’s a great discussion topic, and one that is certainly close to my heart (some of you many know that whilst I’m not completely adverse to AI, I am concerned about the alarming pace it is being developed at). The article below goes into great depth in terms of impact, and is well with the read https://news.sky.com/story/artificial-intelligence-to-hit-workplace-like-a-freight-train-energy-boss-warns-12883712 The message here is clear, but I’m interested to understand how it resonates with others. Is AI a risk to jobs once employers realize it’s full potential and ability to replace personnel? Robots do not get ill, need holidays, and do not need pensions and other benefits. Piqued your interest?

I don’t know about you, but reading all of this makes my teeth itch - literally. I have a Facebook account to keep in touch with family which is never really used, and a Twitter account which I previously used for cyber security research - but haven’t used it in ages. In fact, I’m active here solely - even rarely on LinkedIn (mostly because that’s full of garbage these days too - much more so since it was acquired by MS) https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-reveals-why-hes-rebranding-twitter-to-x-as-police-disrupt-companys-sign-removal-12926991 If it 'aint broke, don’t fix it Clearly, Musk didn’t get the memo on this one. Twitter users are departing in their droves with the hashtag riptwitter trending like a hot potato. I get he wants to reinvigorate the brand, turning it towards X Corp - that makes sense, but to completely erase Twitter’s very existence (“bid adieu to the bird”…) isn’t something I’d agree with. As they say - “new broom, clean sweep”.

Seriously Google, have you lost your mind? Who in their right mind is going to pay the asking price for this? https://news.sky.com/story/google-pixel-fold-announced-with-eye-watering-price-tag-as-new-budget-phone-and-tablet-also-unveiled-12877274 However, on the flip side, it’s rare to find a technology company who manufactures a “lesser” budget friendly device, yet uses the same CPU and amount of RAM as their premium models.

Not before time, WhatsApp is going to allow the ability to edit a message for up to 15 minutes after it’s been sent. Interestingly, there’s no way for the original recipient to be able to tell what the original message was, but they will be notified via a simple “edited” tag https://news.sky.com/story/whatsapp-to-allow-users-to-edit-messages-but-only-for-a-short-window-12887356

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has impressed users with its incredible ability to write essays, speeches, do homework, crack computer code and pen poems - but it’s also prone to providing information that is incorrect. https://news.sky.com/story/lawyers-fined-after-citing-bogus-cases-from-chatgpt-research-12908318

Announced in the news today is the intention for two of the UK’s largest mobile operators (Vodafone and Three) to merge, forming a £15Bn entity https://news.sky.com/story/vodafone-and-three-agree-uk-merger-to-create-biggest-mobile-player-worth-15bn-12899033 It will be interesting to see how this plays out - and if it will be approved by the anti-competition regulator. Thje new entity promises an £11Bn investment in 5g networks, which if approved, would create one of the most superior 5g networks in the world. An interesting topic indeed, and one I will watch closely. Ultimately, it looks as though CK Hutchinson will disappear (Three’s parent company) and will leave the branding solely as Vodafone. As is typical of M & A, there will be fallout from the staffing perspective. However, Vodafone has been stagnant in terms of development, and lacklustre in terms of performance, so this has been on the cards for some time.

Over the last months I tried writing some small apps using Nextjs on Vercel. I’m not a technical expert, but I have never found anything so complicated, that seems to break at every step! I joined a Nextjs Discord chat and it is enlightening to see how many people have issues with so many things. In particular some functions that would work on Nodejs, or conventional hosting. I never really got into React, (because for what I do vanilla JS is enough) and I’m not onboard yet with ‘thin backends’ and the obsession to have everything in the cloud. I wonder where it will go in the future? Will Nextjs and frameworks like it be the future, or will it fade into oblivion? It is a learning curve which I am stepping off for now, but I’m curious on others opinions.