I need a video of that.
voluntaryexilecat
joined 2 years ago
My vote is Archlinux. Debian is sometimes a little too "optimisitic" when backporting security fixes and upgrading from oldstable to stable always comes with manual intervention.
Release-based distros tend to be deployed and left to fend on their own for years - when it is finally time to upgrade it is often a large manual migration process depending on the deployed software. A rolling release does not have those issues, you just keep upgrading continuously.
Archlinux performs excellent as a lightweight server distro. Kernel updates do not affect VM hardware the same they do your laptop, so no issues with that. Same for drivers. It just, works.
Bonus: it is extremely easy to build and maintain your own packages, so administration of many instances with customized software is very convenient.
Yes a council will form and I think it is very bad for everyone.
I stand by my word, admin controlled choice of individual federation weakens the network. I understand the motivation and the need for a solution, but we will only really thrive if the choice is to either federate every instance or none.
Oh, it will work to keep spam out - I'm just not sure if it will ultimately become the border keeping the fediverse from growing when a "council of elders from the big instances" has first established itself. If the council is not diverse enough, it will be able to dictate the rules for "trust" beyond mere spam. All with good intentions of course.
From an admin's point of view, I do not want this "power" because it will corrupt me. From a user's point of view, I would rather be able to decide this for myself.
You asked for oppinions...
Yes, but this opens up another problem with a federation controlled by the server admins and not the communities. Trust can be withdrawn as a punishment or due to a disagreement or just different views.
We just saw that with instances defederating others due to incompatible views on politics. I expect more of that for much smaller disagreements until its just clusters of like-minded people in their own bubble. At least I want to see what others say that does not agree with my own views and values - how would I keep a realistic perception of reality otherwise? If I stay in my bubble too long then I might start thinking "everyone" thinks foo=good and bar=bad, while it might be the opposite.
Other networks like freenet use a wot, but for each user. TOR does not filter out relays, but allows its users to do so. And, yes, they all have their own issues with their approach.
What I am trying to say is: I had hoped for the fediverse instance admins to not consider themselves as lords of each their own feudalistic dukedom with "trade agreements", but instead to consider themselves as mere service providers for the greater good, sworn to neutrality when it comes to opinions being discussed (abiding to law where required to not get sued or worse of course). Our strength lies in the federation network itself, without it we would just be a bunch of forums. If we allow the network to fragment more and stop talking to each other, the monolithic pseudonetworks of the big corporations will stay in power.
I know this might be unachievable, or even undesired, but at least a web of trust that is controlled by its users, instead of the admins, is much more appealing to me.
Hashcash would slow spammers down without troubling regular users too much. It would be scalable and with a meld-based algrithm it might be future proof. It could even complement a wot.
I saw that. But I'm having flashbacks from email WOT and it did not converge to the interconnected mesh we had hoped it to be. Sooner or later larger nodes will exists who will not simply trust a key signed by a mere "tier3" instance. If a selfhoster wants to federate with their tiny 1-user instance, how do we differentiate between bot instance and genuine user instance?
I'm still very concerned a whitelist scenario will ultimately lead to just a few megalithic instances without a chance for new, small instances to ever join the federation.
Like the nightmare scenario for email where the big providers just decide one day to drop any mail that does not come from another large corp or from someone who paid money for some id certification. Even now running your own mailserver is a major pain and requires a lot of attention, receiving mail is fine, but sending... oh my.
So the hashcash solution proposed elsewhere still seems better to me. If I wanted to host my own instance I still could federate without begging the "council" for admission. The thought of burning energy just to prevent spam is repulsive but walling ourselves in and creating a gated community sounds even worse...
May I suggest to get a foldable potty instead? They are super light and the size of an original Gameboy when folded. Combined with plastic bags and silicapowder (do not eat) it will help you stay healthy instead of dehydrated and constipated. If amazon is not fast enough, check the nearest baby mart. If you are just shy, there are also foldable privacy shields (camping section) available to let you do your business with privacy.
Oh, of course there is a way. Just open the binary in radare2/rizin/ghidra and look for suspicious code. Of course this is quite time consuming to do this with a binary file, so if you compile opensource code yourself you can at least read the annotated source. If you do not have the expertise to do this, you have to choose who you trust and be careful in general.
A sandbox VM can be just a Linux or Windows VM that is running on your local hypervisor and properly firewalled and configured for security, or in a container (less secure). If a software goes rogue it will likely infect only the VM (unless it knows a hypervisor escape). Proper virtual firewalling can help protect your home LAN.
An operating system that helps you do all this without requiring too much manual work is for example QubesOS.
Don't know about that app, but it is very easy to create a file that contains malicious code that is not flagged on virustotal at all.
'joe sandbox' and 'hybrid analysis' offer online services where the file gets executed to test it for malicious behaviour. Of course a seasoned malware developer can detect sandboxes and make the malware hide itself while inside the default sandboxes.
Just avoid running random binaries from untrusted sources; prefer open source or, if you must, use a hardened sandbox VM yourself to run untrusted code.
Indoor gardening/hydroponics. Even in the smallest flat you can grow your own salad, peppers, radish, tomatoes, microgreens, etc.
Like a tiny stardew valley at home.
if you enjoy this, there are various CTF "crackme" challenges available - the most famous one being the radare2 tutorial crackmes. The have different diffuculties from really easy to mind-bendingly difficult.