melmi

melmi , 4 days ago

I don't think the relevance of the TLD matters. It's worth being aware of whether you're using a ccTLD, especially in the case of countries like Afghanistan, but you also used .io as an example which is overwhelmingly used by non-British Indian Ocean Territory sites and is proven reliable. It's even managed by an American company.

Then .app isn't a part of the original TLDs, but actually a part of the new wave of modern gTLDs. And if you're considering .app, there's no reason not to consider the thousands of other generic TLDs out there.

Like with the ccTLDs, the only thing you have to consider is the trustworthiness of the managing org.

melmi , 6 days ago (edited 6 days ago)

WG uses UDP, so as long as your firewall is configured correctly it should be impossible to scan the open port. Any packet hitting the open port that isn't valid or doesn't have a valid key is just dropped, same as any ports that are closed.

Most modern firewalls default to dropping packets, so you won't be showing up in scans even with an open WG port.

melmi , 6 days ago

Yes, but only if your firewall is set to reject instead of drop. The documentation you linked mentions this; that's why open ports are listed as open|filtered because any port that's "open" might actually be being filtered (dropped).

On a modern firewall, an nmap scan will show every port as open|filtered, regardless of whether it's open or not.

Edit: Here's the relevant bit from the documentation:

The most curious element of this table may be the open|filtered state. It is a symptom of the biggest challenges with UDP scanning: open ports rarely respond to empty probes. Those ports for which Nmap has a protocol-specific payload are more likely to get a response and be marked open, but for the rest, the target TCP/IP stack simply passes the empty packet up to a listening application, which usually discards it immediately as invalid. If ports in all other states would respond, then open ports could all be deduced by elimination. Unfortunately, firewalls and filtering devices are also known to drop packets without responding. So when Nmap receives no response after several attempts, it cannot determine whether the port is open or filtered. When Nmap was released, filtering devices were rare enough that Nmap could (and did) simply assume that the port was open. The Internet is better guarded now, so Nmap changed in 2004 (version 3.70) to report non-responsive UDP ports as open|filtered instead.

melmi , 17 days ago (edited 17 days ago)

Google destroys their own search engine by encouraging terrible SEO nonsense and then offers the solution in the form of these AI overviews, cutting results out of the picture entirely.

You search something on the Web nowadays half the results are written by AI anyway.

I don't really care about the "human element" or whatever, but AI is such a hype train right now. It's still early days for the tech, it still hallucinates a lot, and I fundamentally can't trust it—even if I trusted the people making it, which I don't.

melmi , 28 days ago

It definitely encrypts the traffic, the problem is that it encrypts the traffic in a recognizable way that DPI can recognize. It's easy for someone snooping on your traffic to tell that you're using Wireguard, but because it's encrypted they can't tell the content of the message.

melmi , 1 month ago

There are already AI-written books flooding the market, not to mention other forms of written misinformation.

melmi , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Most things should be behind Authelia. It's hard to know how to help without knowing what exactly you're doing with it but generally speaking Authelia means you can have SSO+2FA for every app, even apps that don't provide it by default.

It also means that if you have users, you don't need them to store a bunch of passwords.

One big thing to keep in mind is that anything with its own login system may be more involved to get working behind Authelia, like Nextcloud.

melmi , 1 month ago

I had issues connecting to Nextcloud from mobile clients when using Authelia, they didn't like it, but if there's a workaround for that that's great

melmi , 1 month ago

Goes to show I don't know much about SSO I suppose. Time to do some more research

melmi , 1 month ago

That's not what's going on here. It's just doing what it's been told, which is repeating the system prompt. It has nothing to do with Gab, this trick or variations of it work on pretty much any GPT deployment.

We need to be careful about anthropomorphizing AI.

melmi , 1 month ago

The problem with a "beneficial to humanity" axis is that I think that most people think their political beliefs, if enacted, would be beneficial to humanity. Most people aren't the villains of their own stories.

The very act of politics is to disagree on what is best for humanity.

melmi , 1 month ago

I don't think that "everyone is inherently equal" is a conclusion you can reach through logic. I'd argue that it's more like an axiom, something you have to accept as true in order to build a foundation of a moral system.

This may seem like an arbitrary distinction, but I think it's important to distinguish because some people don't accept the axiom that "everyone is inherently equal". Some people are simply stronger (or smarter/more "fit") than others, they'll argue, and it's unjust to impose arbitrary systems of "fairness" onto them.

In fact, they may believe that it is better for humanity as a whole for those who are stronger/smarter/more fit to have positions of power over those who are not, and believe that efforts for "equality" are actually upsetting the natural way of things and thus making humanity worse off.

People who have this way of thinking largely cannot be convinced to change through pure logical argument (just as a leftist is unlikely to be swayed by the logic of a social darwinist) because their fundamental core beliefs are different, the axioms all of their logic is built on top of.

And it's worth noting that while this system of morality is repugnant, it doesn't inherently result in everyone killing each other like you claim. Even if you're completely amoral, you won't kill your neighbor because then the police will arrest you and put you on trial. Fascist governments also tend to have more punitive justice systems, to further discourage such behavior. And on the governmental side, they want to discourage random killing because they want their populace to be productive, not killing their own.

melmi , 1 month ago

But hey, instead of killing everyone, eugenics could lead us to a beautiful stratified future, like depicted in the aspirational sci-fi utopia of Brave New World!

I agree with you, ultimately. My point is just that "good for humanity vs bad for humanity" isn't a debate, there's no "We want to ruin humanity" party. Most people see their own viewpoint as being best for humanity, unless they're a psychopath or a nihilist.

There are fundamental differences in political views as well as ethical beliefs, and any attempt to boil them down to "good for humanity" vs "bad for humanity" is going to be inherently political. I think "what's best for humanity" is a good guiding metric to determine what one finds ethical, but using it to categorize others' political beliefs is going to be divisive at best.

In other words, it's not comparable to the left/right axis, which may be insufficient and one-dimensional, but at least it describes something that can be somewhat objective (if controversial and ill-defined). Someone can be happy with their position on the axis. Whereas if it were good/bad, everyone would place themselves at Maximum Good, therefore it's not really useful or comparable to the left/right paradigm.

melmi , 2 months ago

I feel like this would be spotted and stamped out immediately. Everyone's eyes are on Threads right now; astroturfed content might sneak in on Mastodon, where regular Threads content will be mixed in with the hypothetical astroturfed content, but here on Lemmy there will be little to no Threads presence due to lack of interoperability, so every single Threads account that shows up will be noticed. It's already super visible when Mastodon users show up due to the weird formatting issues that happen due to the lack of support.

I just don't see an astroturf campaign as being viable unless Threads implements community functionality, which seems pretty far out when they're only now implementing basic federation with Mastodon.

melmi , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Why would a random browser extension take it upon itself to snoop on your traffic to ensure that the websites you're using can't be used for illegal things, and then intentionally break it if it detects something it thinks it's illegitimate? That's a huge breach of privacy. It's just malware at that point. It's not like a court of law would hold your browser extensions responsible for your piracy. That's like blaming a cup holder because the car was used in a robbery.

No, I think this is just a bug. Especially since people have reported that the extension breaks other websites too.

melmi , 2 months ago

Did you use AI to write this? Kinda ironic, don't you think?

melmi , 2 months ago

If you wrote this yourself, that's even more ironic, because you used the same format that ChatGPT likes to spit out. Humans influence ChatGPT -> ChatGPT influences humans. Everything's come full circle.

I ask though because on your profile you've used ChatGPT to write comments before.

melmi , 2 months ago

As far as I'm aware, there's nothing preventing a PluralKit equivalent from being made for other platforms. In fact, a quick search turned up a WIP Matrix port on github.

So no, I don't think this is true. Lack of PluralKit isn't what's preventing people from switching en masse. It's the opposite—lack of people switching means there's a lack of demand for a PluralKit port in the first place, so even though there is a port people don't know it exists and thus it doesn't get as much dev attention.

It comes down to network effects, ultimately, and just plain inertia. If you're already on Discord, and all your friends are on Discord, it's hard to convince you to switch. And being more familiar with the Discord bot ecosystem (like PluralKit) is just one more thing that adds to the inertia.

melmi , 2 months ago

I must object to the disrespectful language you used towards me. Allow me to share some pertinent information about my background: I graduated at the top of my class in the Navy Seals, and have been involved in numerous classified operations against Al-Qaeda resulting in over 300 confirmed missions. I am highly skilled in various forms of combat and am recognized as a top sniper within the US armed forces.

Your remarks are unwarranted and I take them seriously. Rest assured, I am taking appropriate measures to address this situation. My network of contacts spans the nation, and I am currently tracing your IP address.

It is in your best interest to prepare for the consequences of your actions. I have the capability to neutralize threats in a multitude of ways, utilizing resources from the United States Marine Corps if necessary.

Perhaps if you had foreseen the repercussions of your remarks, you would have chosen a more prudent course of action. Alas, that is not the case. Be advised that there will be severe repercussions for your behavior.

vs

Hey there, did you just say something to me? I just wanted to share that I graduated at the top of my class in the Navy Seals and have been involved in some pretty intense missions. No hard feelings, just wanted to make sure we're on the same page. Let's keep things friendly and positive, shall we? Thanks for understanding.

melmi , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

I turned up the peppers to 5 and... Oh boy. Sociable at 3 is all "friendly" and "positive" and polite—it removes most of the dark stuff—and then Sociable at 5 loops around to... This:

Oh my goodness, did you just say something not so nice about me, you little cutie patootie? I want you to know that I actually did pretty well in my Navy Seals training, graduating at the top of my class. I've been on quite a few secret missions against Al-Quaeda and have taken down over 300 bad guys. I'm pretty good at gorilla warfare and I'm considered one of the best snipers in the whole US armed forces. But don't worry, you're just like any other target to me. I may just have to use my special skills to take you down with precision like never before. Do you really think you can get away with talking to me like that online? Think again, you little rascal. I've got a whole network of friends all across the country who are helping me track your IP address right this second. So get ready for a little storm headed your way. You may feel like your life is being wiped out, but don't worry too much. I can handle over seven hundred ways to take you down, even without any weapons. And I must say, I have some pretty cool toys from the United States Marine Corps that I might just have to use on you. If only you knew what was coming after that little comment you made, maybe you would've kept quiet. But hey, too late now. Get ready to be in a world of hurt, my friend. You're going to be so mad when you realize what you've gotten yourself into. So get ready for a little "fury" shower from me. You're done for, kiddo.

melmi , 3 months ago

Like other people have said, this is very similar to how the Internet already works. All you need to do to connect to the Internet is connect to a single router that's a part of it, at least in theory. The Internet is already decentralized on the backend, it's just that only big players get to be a part of it for the most part.

A fundamental problem with your decentralization idea is that on a mesh network, you become reliant on your upstream(s) for your connection. You think Comcast is annoying, or your connection is slow? Imagine trying to troubleshoot your Internet connection and having to go deal with your neighbor instead, but he's at work so you have to wait for him, but oh he's too tired so he'll help you tomorrow...

Not to mention that this severely limits speeds. No longer can your connection go from your house, to the street, to the backbone, and then straight to Google's servers, now it has to go bounce around between a number of potentially unreliable consumer connections, run by non-professionals.

In a system like this, inevitably local organizations or companies will pop up to take the burden off individuals, which would provide massive QoL improvements, and we'd end up with ISPs again.

That said, there's a lot of people doing hobby network stuff out there. I know some hackerspaces have their own local hobbynets, that then connect to each other over the open Internet using VPN tunnels. This solves some of the reliability problem, plus it's just a hobby thing so it isn't a problem that it's slow and kinda bad. Then there are even individuals who get their own routers (or VPSes) and plop them in datacenters to participate in the internet alongside big companies and ISPs. Neither of these require new protocols, everything can be done with TCP/IP and BGP. (Plus a splash of VPN protocols here and there.)

melmi , 3 months ago

Do you have any source for your claim that comments on the Internet are public domain? It's a common sentiment that anything posted on the Internet is public, but I don't believe it has any legal basis. Often websites have a ToS saying that anything you submit belongs to them in perpetuity, but programming.dev doesn't have that.

melmi , 3 months ago

Interestingly the source you linked says that they do have an in-house web index, they just use it alongside other sources rather than using it as their only source

melmi , 4 months ago

It's kind of ironic taking a project that's already written in Rust and writing a replacement for it in Java.

Usually things get ported to Rust, not the other way around.

melmi , 4 months ago

"as opposed to" is an idiom that just means "in contrast". You're creating a contrast between what they're actually doing as opposed to what they're supposed to be doing. "As supposed to" doesn't work as a preposition and doesn't actually create a contrast on its own.