Komunitas
lemmy.ml
It’s not me not agreeing with your drivel, it’s literally every piece of empirical research showing that you’re spewing utter nonsense. Life expectancy decreases by 10 years. 2. 7.7 million excess deaths in the first year. 2 40% of population drops into poverty. GDP instantly halves. One in ten children now live on the streets. Infant mortality increases. Was 29.3 in 2003 which is around (current) Syria and Micronesia, 7.9 in 2013. Infant mortality in USSR was 1.92, literally the lowest in the world. 1996 election rigged by the US, Yeltsin sends in tanks to disperse the supreme soviet. Adult mortality increased enormously in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union when the Soviet system collapsed 30 years ago. https://archive.ph/9Z12u Former Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx Professor of Economic History, Robert C. Allen, concludes in his study without the 1917 revolution is directly responsible for rapid growth that made the achievements listed above possible: https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044114/https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdf Study demonstrating the steady increase in quality of life during the Soviet period (including under Stalin). Includes the fact that Soviet life expectancy grew faster than any other nation recorded at the time: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2672986?seq=1 A large study using world bank data analyzing the quality of life in Capitalist vs Socialist countries and finds overwhelmingly at similar levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/pdf/amjph00269-0055.pdf This study compared capitalist and socialist countries in measures of the physical quality of life (PQL), taking into account the level of economic development. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/ This study shows that unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the 1990s, causing around 7 million excess deaths. The first quantitative analysis of the association between deindustrialization and mortality in Eastern Europe. https://academic.oup.com/cje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cje/beac072/7081084?guestAccessKey=01c8dd9f-af1c-48b3-b271-eb5d3a45017c&login=false Romania, the inustrialization of an agrarian economy under socialist planning https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/888851468333915517/pdf/multi0page.pdf We can also look at how people who lived under communism feel now that they got a taste of capitalism? A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country’s economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country’s switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary’s integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process. The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied. Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an “illegitimate state.” In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR. A poll shows that as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -“during the time of socialism”. The survey focused on the respondents’ views on the transition “from socialism to capitalism”, and a clear majority said they trusted social institutions the most during the rule of Yugoslav communist president Josip Broz Tito. The standard of living during Tito’s rule from the Second World War to the 1980s was also assessed as best, whereas the Milosevic decade of the 1990s, and the subsequent decade since the fall of his regime are seen as “more or less the same”. 45 percent said they trusted social institutions most under communism with 23 percent choosing the 2001-2003 period when Zoran Djinđic was prime minister. Only 19 per cent selected present-day institutions. 75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union over the years. Only a small portion of those surveyed said they had negative associations with the Soviet Union. The economic deficit, long lines and coupons were named by 4% of respondents each, while the Iron Curtain, economic stagnation and political repressions were named by 1% each, the Levada Center said.
Komunitas
sh.itjust.works
What killed my interest in Linux in highschool. Kept trying to get Ubuntu working but couldn’t get the internet to work for anything. Given that every help guide boiled down to “Go to this website and download x” and I didn’t have internet because… no wifi, I ended up getting frustrated enough to quit the whole thing. Maybe someday.
Komunitas
lemmy.curiana.net
We all know how common terminal one liners have became as a installation method on GNU/Linux and what are the issues with it but let’s recap quickly. You go to a pager of some project and it tells you to do curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs/ | sh or curl -fsSL https://deno.land/install.sh | sh. The only way to verify that this command will not delete all your files or install malware is to manually review the entire script. So… why not create a secure script repository? On a central website you would create an account for a project and submit a script. On the other side we would provide a binary client that will download and execute the script (we can call it grunt from get and run it). So as a user you would run for example grunt rustup and it would get and execute the script created by rustup project. I imagine it shouldn’t be that difficult to add a tiny package to the major distros. I believe this would be a fairly simple project that would solve all the security issues typical terminal one liners have. On the website for uploading scripts we could introduce: multi user approval flow for script updates 2FA static checks of the scripts reporting system for compromised scripts verified project status On the client side we could: provide info about this script’s security (how many people reviewed it, when was it last updated, is the project verified) provide info about downloads (how many time was this script downloaded since the last update) do additional checks (maybe the project could provide MD5 of the script on their servers and grunt could verify it?) So it would look something like this: # grunt rustp Downloading rustp.sh from https://getandrun.it/... Last updated 30 days ago. Downloads since last update: 5 Verified project: No Reviewed by 1 user Execute script [y/N] Clearly something is wrong… # grunt rustup Downloading rustup.sh from https://getandrun.it/... Last updated 60 days ago. Downloads since last update: 5342 Verified project: Yes Reviewed by 3 users Comparing MD5 checksum with https://rustup.rs/grunt_md5... Passed Execute script [y/N] That’s better! Right? So why don’t we have something like this? Or we do and it simply didn’t get enough traction? ======== So just to address some of the comments. No, it’s not a package manager. Package managers are complex tools that handle versioning, dependencies, updates, uninstalls and so on. Package mangers are also distro specific. A lot of devs decide not to use package managers and use bash scripts that are distro agnostic and don’t rely on external maintainers and packagers. It would be ideal if everyone used secure package managers but the reality is they don’t. This solution is a compromise that offers devs full control of software distribution while introducing decent security. ======= Someone suggested brew. How do you install brew according to https://brew.sh/ ? /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" See the problem?
Komunitas
lemmy.ml
for the first time we have one file you can download and run on any linux (the only requirement being that the architecture matches!). This is a pretty big boon for people who want to use fish but sometimes ssh to servers, where they might not have root access to install a package. So they can just scp a single file and it’s available. That is really nice, damn. We often don’t have internet on the hosts we work with, so it’s really painful to try to install a distro package. But we are able to SSH into them, so I might genuinely start just pushing Fish binaries onto the hosts we work with. Fish is particularly neat for this, because its defaults are so good. cargo is great at building things, it is very simplistic at installing them. Cargo wants everything in a few neat binaries, and that isn’t our use case. Fish has about 1200 .fish scripts (961 completions, 217 associated functions), as well as about 130 pages of documentation (as html and man pages), and the web-config tool and the man page generator (both written in python). Yeah, we’ve run into that problem, too. The most promising approach in my opinion is cargo-xtask, which is a really sad thing to say, because that’s not a tool, it’s just a pattern of how you can use Rust to write your own build tool. I’ve been hacking away at a library to try to eliminate pain points and common pitfalls with that, and I have been looking for other repos with complex packaging needs to try to see, if my approach holds up. Sounds like I’ve just met my final boss. 🙃
Komunitas
lemmy.world
This is the main takeaway that people seem to be missing: follow good computer hygiene, and you’ll be fine. Keep your shit updated, and don’t download/run things you don’t trust. Keep an unintrusive anti-virus running in the background as a backup just in case there’s a supply chain attack, but don’t rely on it to make your decisions on whether to open a file or not.
Komunitas
feddit.de
Because… They are? Whenever there is a problem in Windows itself, they release an update to fix that ASAP. Defender doesn’t just work against viruses that exploit weaknesses in Windows. It also works against viruses in programs the user installs. The purpose of Defender is the same as any other antivirus software, to detect known virus signatures in downloaded software, as well as attempt to detect programs that display virus-like behaviour. It also attempts to ensure that users only install software from sources they trust. For these purposes, Windows Defender is at least as good as most other antivirus software on the market. I would also generally recommend using an antivirus program on a Linux/OSX machine, unless you really know the risk you’re accepting by not using one. Even then, I recommend occasionally running ClamAV or a Malwarebytes scan. There is a misconception of “there are no viruses for non-Windows platforms”, but the thing is that a lot of viruses these days are cross-platform compatible, and all it takes is one program or dependency becoming an infection vector. Keep yourselves safe, people!
Komunitas
lemmy.ca
For F-Droid in specific, you’ll need an F-Droid client. I use Droid-ify (GitHub) (F-Droid) (IzzyOnDroid), but you can use whichever you prefer. F-Droid is a good source for open source apps. If you’re sideloading from different sources, Obtanium (GitHub) (IzzyOnDroid) is useful to download apps, and keep them updated. You can even kinda use it as an F-Droid client. Google is pretty lax on what it allows on Google play, so unless you’re trying to avoid using Google services or you want to install apps that aren’t on the play store, you don’t need to do it. If you want adbocking and extra features in some apps (especially YouTube), check out ReVanced. Google isn’t lying - there are risks to sideloading if you don’t know what you’re doing. Make sure what you’re downloading is coming from legitimate sources you trust. For example, if you look up ReVanced, some unofficial websites show up which may have malware. Triple check everything is coming from an official source.
Komunitas
programming.dev
What you are doing is exposing ports to the internet and advertising you home IP. Which is fine, mostly. A better way has been mentioned with cloudflare tunnels. This means your server connects out to cloudflares servers, instead of cloudflare forwarding to your IP. It would then leverage all the protections that cloudflare offers (ddos protection, client filtering etc). However, cloudflare then has access to everything that goes through it. It’s very secure, chances are cloudflare doesn’t care about your traffic, and as long as everything is legal you will be fine. If you don’t want cloudflare knowing all of your servers served traffic, then you either need to run your own reverse-proxy-over-vpn style endpoint on a VPS (that you trust), or accept the additional risk of leaking your home network public IP. If you accept the additional risk of leaking your home IP, then it’s worth making sure your firewall/router is up to scratch. Make sure it has active development (which is why most people use something like opnsense), and is always up to date (to ensure any vulnerabilities are patched). Beyond that, the system is as secure as you want it to be. The more secure, the more maintenance and upkeep it needs. There are many things you can do. The easiest is to firewall on your devices. So the reverse proxy will only accept inbound from WAN, cannot establish its own connections to WAN, and whatever connections are required for forwarding to the pi. And the pi would be firewalled to only allow incoming connections from the reverse proxy, cannot establish connections to wan, and whatever else is needed for it to function. Where these rules are established is up to you. They could be on the router/firewall with each device on its own vlan (or pvlan if you are fancy). This is the most secure, but harder to implement. Or they could be on the device itself, as long as the processes that are “doing the thing” cannot change the firewall rules (ie, don’t run them as root or as a privileged user). Correctly configured, this is as secure as doing it on the router/firewall. The idea here is to prevent any hacker moving sideways (ie from the device they own to another device). If they own a device, then they can’t do anything with it - even if they extract all keys, passwords and secrets from it. Another interesting thing is to run an (outbound) proxy on your firewall. Force all outbound 80/443 through the proxy (via dnat rules), and have your servers trust the proxy’s root CA. What this means is that the firewall can then decrypt all outbound http connections, allowing for easy packet inspection. If a server is downloading dodgy scripts, then hopefully your Deep Packet Inspection tool will catch them and shut it down. You can do the same for DNS resolution (dnat redirect to a DNS resolving service), and whitelist only the DNS entries your services require. Most basic attack would be easily caught it completely shut down by these kinds of things. There is also crowdsec. It can do a bunch of things. It can run on things like opnsense, or the servers themselves. It can then detect malicious traffic according to crowd sourced detection/metrics (which, I believe, you contribute to by using it) and block it. But, honestly, might as well just use Cloudflare Tunnels. Security is about layers. What if someone manages to get Remote Code Execution on this service? How do I detect it? How to I prevent it? How do I limit it to that device? And have regular offline backups. So if something gets hacked and bitlocked, you can wipe the server and restore from a backup (and practice this. No point having a backup strategy if it ends up not working when you need it). But honestly? Do you need to expose this to the internet? Would it be easier to run a VPN, so only trusted devices can connect to it in the first place? (Wireguard would be my recommendation here)
Komunitas
lemmy.world
I think there are a couple of things to consider. Number one is that Android at the very beginning never was designed for large touchscreen phones, rather it was supposed to be a small portable Software Stack that would run on digital cameras where Java would be good enough. Another historic thing that must have played into this is that Android was fighting an uphill battle. At the time iOS, PalmOS, BlackberryOS, Symbian and Windows Mobile all were shipping units. So I think they knew they had to keep the barrier of entry for creating Apps as low as possible and Java was (and still is) an incredible easy to understand language with a very gentle learning curve. Plus it was one of the most widley used language with robust tooling. Also for implementation - Android actually was AOT compiling Apps during installation during the Android 5 and 6 days however starting with 7 they went away from that by using a hybrid approach. Basically if you download an App and launch it the first time, it would run in JIT mode and collect data and than compile and optimize cirtical parts while the phone is idle and charging. There even is an adb command (adb shell cmd package compile -m speed -f my-package) to manually compile apps. But I have played around with this a lot, trust me, and I can’t notice a difference. Also more generally I think that Android Apps being mostly made up of intermediate bytecode instead of raw CPU instructions is overall a massive benefit for security and incredible futureproofing. It allows for things like x64 Chromebooks and Asus Zenfones with Intel Atom SoCs (yes that was a thing) and would make a transition to a new ISA like RiscV somewhat managable I think. Also I don’t think Java and its performance overhead matters - usually its badly coded Apps or these god awful wrapped webview “apps” that cause issues. Simple as that. If you today compare a Nexus 5 and an iPhone 5S, the Nexus 5 is faster 8/10 times, and that despite having a slower CPU and the whole java stack.
Komunitas
rss.ponder.cat
If you have, at any point, attempted to wrestle the PC version of Nier: Automata into submission, odds are you’ve downloaded and installed Special K, a graphics and performance enhancement suite that you can plug into all manner of games (both Niers, Elden Ring, Persona 4, and plenty else besides) to hopefully get them running a little smoother. It’s been supplanted by other mods—at least for some games—over the years, but the self-described “Swiss army knife of PC gaming” marches on. What doesn’t march on, though, is its creator’s Steam account. Kaldaien, Special K’s creator, took to GitHub yesterday to announce that they had “deleted my Steam account after 20 years,” posting an eight-point denunciation of the platform over its update policies, indifference to feedback, and general impact on PC gaming as a whole. Kaldaien’s post is pretty long, but to boil it down, their frustration with Steam revolves mostly around its update policies. “In 2002, the client ran on Windows 98. Over the years, they bloated the living hell out of the DRM client with all kinds of unnecessary and undefeatable features that hinder software compatibility. Games you purchased on a Windows 98 machine later had their system requirements bumped up to Windows XP, then to Windows 7, then to Windows 10.” In other words, if you bought a game for Windows 98 on Steam and did nothing, it would eventually stop working not because the developer had updated the game or because you had changed your PC, but because Steam itself—the store you bought it from—would no longer run. As a result, continues Kaldaien, “You no longer have the liberty of buying a game from wherever you want. You must consider whether your store is going to continue receiving patches, whether the store itself is going to continue supporting your hardware and software, and whether your friends online bought the game from the same store.” It’s rough out here in the ‘illustrative pictures of Steam for use by press’ mines, folks. (Image credit: NurPhoto (Getty Images)) At root, Kaldaien’s frustration lies in the way that Steam as a platform extends itself into the games you buy, in such a way that you can’t deal with one without dealing with the other. That applies to Steam Input, too: “The native Steam Input API is an abomination, many games that use it have fallback code to use Operating System input APIs… however Valve’s unbelievably short-sighted design deliberately hooks and blocks access to those APIs as part of Steam Input’s initialization.” We could get deeper into Kaldaien’s gripes, but I think you get the gist by now—the modder doesn’t like the way Steam has developed in such a way that it’s become a quasi-insurmountable aspect of dealing with PC games and that the platform, rather than game owners, decides how and when to update games. Kaldaien writes that, although they were a Steamworks partner, “By the end of my bitter dealings with Valve I was simply working-around bugs in the Steam client, not even wasting my time reporting the bugs because there was zero hope.” Which, okay. Frankly, I don’t think Kaldaien is entirely wrong here (though I might question the props they give to storefronts like Epic and the Microsoft Store). The fact of the matter is that PC gamers have concentrated an enormous amount of power in Valve’s hands, and—although it’s done pretty well so far, at least by consumers—I simply don’t trust any private company to use that power wisely in perpetuity. There probably will come a day when we collectively regret putting all our eggs in the Valve basket, and making Steam such a keystone of PC gaming in general. But at least some of what Kaldaien complains about isn’t necessarily on Steam’s shoulders. It’s well within devs’ powers to provide players with access to older game versions on Steam (KOTOR 2, which I recently replayed, lets you access its pre-Aspyr version via a beta branch, for instance), but many of them elect not to. That strikes me as an issue with individual devs rather than Steam as a whole, and as for Steam Input? Well, again, if there’s a problem there it’s with developers electing to use that API over OS-native ones that’s the issue. Steam deserves scrutiny, no doubt, and many of the broader things Kaldaien points out aren’t unreasonable. But it would seem to me that, insofar as the modder’s specific complaints are concerned, the problems are perhaps a lot broader than a single storefront. From PCGamer latest via this RSS feed
Komunitas
rss.ponder.cat
From a cluster of call centers in Canada, a criminal network defrauded elderly victims in the US out of $21 million in total between 2021 and 2024. The fraudsters used voice over internet protocol technology to dupe victims into believing the calls came from their grandchildren in the US, customizing conversations using banks of personal data, including ages, addresses, and the estimated incomes of their victims. The proliferation of large language models (LLMs) has also made it possible to clone a voice with nothing more than an hour of YouTube footage and an $11 subscription. And fraudsters are using such tools to create increasingly more sophisticated attacks to deceive victims with alarming success. But phone scams are just one way that bad actors are weaponizing technology to refine and scale attacks. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT Synthetic identity fraud now costs banks $6 billion a year, making it the fastest-growing financial crime in the US Criminals are able to exploit personal data breaches to fabricate “Frankenstein IDs.” Cheap credential-stuffing software can be used to test thousands of stolen credentials across multiple platforms in a matter of minutes. And text-to-speech tools powered by AI can bypass voice authentication systems with ease. “Technology is both catalyzing and transformative,” says John Pitts, head of industry relations and digital trust at Plaid. “Catalyzing in that it has accelerated and made more intense longstanding types of fraud. And transformative in that it has created windows for new, scaled-up types of fraud.” Fraudsters can use AI tools to multiply many times over the number of attack vectors—the entry points or pathways that attackers can use to infiltrate a network or system. In advance-fee scams, for instance, where fraudsters pose as benefactors gifting large sums in exchange for an upfront fee, scammers can use AI to identify victims at a far greater rate and at a much lower cost than ever before. They can then use AI tools to carry out tens of thousands, if not millions, of simultaneous digital conversations. Download the full report. This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff. This content was researched, designed, and written entirely by human writers, editors, analysts, and illustrators. This includes the writing of surveys and collection of data for surveys. AI tools that may have been used were limited to secondary production processes that passed thorough human review. From MIT Technology Review via this RSS feed
Komunitas
rss.ponder.cat
Ratatan, the spiritual successor to the wonderful PSP rhythm game Patapon, turned up at the PC Gaming Show earlier this year to reveal a new trailer, as well as a demo on Steam and an early access release date of July 25. But with that date now just a few weeks away, developer TVT Co. has decided to push it back, and for that you can blame—or thank, as the case may be—the demo. The Ratatan demo was downloaded more than 200,000 times, the team said in a Steam update, resulting in more than 1,200 Steam user reviews and 2,000 comments sent directly to the developer. “The sheer volume of responses has exceeded the team’s expectations!” the studio wrote. Unfortunately, that feedback was not entirely positive. There are five “main points” that players weren’t happy with: The tutorial and UI being difficult to understandThe roguelike structure and reward pacing feeling unsatisfyingFrustration over some Ratatans being unable to use skillsLack of impact in visuals and presentationRequests for improvements to content structure, pacing, and mid-term gameplay flow And, simply put, there’s not enough time between now and July 25 to address the complaints—thus the delay. A new release date hasn’t been finalized yet but will be announced as soon as possible; TVT Co. warned that even with the delay, “it may not be possible to address all of these requests by the time we launch [into] Early Access.” The studio also reminded followers that “Ratatan is not Patapon,” seemingly a response to complaints from some players that the new game is not what they were expecting. “[Ratatan] is an indie game aiming to deliver a completely new experience,” TVT Co. wrote. “So there will naturally be some differences in direction.” TVT Co. also said it’s looking into “making adjustments” to rewards for its Kickstarter backers to ensure they’re treated “fairly and appropriately,” including possible additional rewards for console backers “since they will have to wait longer to play the game”—PC backers will get the early access version, but people who want to play on console will have to wait for the full release—and “establishing thoughtful measures tailored to the support tiers and chosen platforms of our backers.” I have no idea what that means but TVT Co. said details will be shared in a future update. (If you really want to play Patapon, by the way, it’s finally coming to PC on July 10.) 2025 games: This year’s upcoming releasesBest PC games: Our all-time favoritesFree PC games: Freebie festBest FPS games: Finest gunplayBest RPGs: Grand adventuresBest co-op games: Better together From PCGamer latest via this RSS feed
Komunitas
lemmy.ca
cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/221713 Born out of governance concerns in Organic Maps, CoMaps has been created with a goal of restoring transparency, community control, and privacy-focused navigation. It’s a fully open source navigation app that works offline and doesn’t track users. A few weeks after the project began, CoMaps has officially launched with apps for both Android and iOS. Join me as I take you through its key features and what makes it stand out. CoMaps: What to Expect? A screenshot of CoMaps showing the Wikipedia entry of a location for additional information. We begin with its most handy feature, offline navigation and search. With CoMaps, you can download entire regions before you begin a trip for easy navigation in places without an internet connection or mobile network connectivity. The user interface is clean and intuitive. You won’t need a manual to figure it out. Whether you’re a daily commuter or a weekend hiker, everything is simple, fast, and clear. Moreover, privacy is baked into the app. CoMaps doesn’t track you, collect data, or run background analytics. You are responsible for what you share, and your location stays on your device. Before you ask, what makes this different from Organic Maps? CoMaps can remember your navigation routes as tracks, making it easy to revisit past trips or explore alternate routes. It also includes a re-mappable action button (just below the search bar), letting you customize it for quick access to your favorite function. The map style itself is another highlight; it feels fresh, modern, and thoughtfully designed without being cluttered. Roads, paths, and terrain are clearly differentiated, making it easier to plan routes at a glance. Bonus Tip: You can pair the default map view with the “Outdoors” map style to highlight more navigation routes. It’s a small change that makes a big difference when exploring. Get CoMaps The latest builds of CoMaps are available on F-Droid and the Play Store for Android users, and on the App Store for iOS. If you’re looking for APK files or want to explore the source code, then you should visit the project’s Codeberg repository. CoMaps Suggested Read 📖 Organic Maps Forked Over Governance Concerns: CoMaps is BornAn Organic Maps fork has emerged due to broken trust.It’s FOSS NewsSourav Rudra From It’s FOSS News via this RSS feed
Komunitas
rss.ponder.cat
Born out of governance concerns in Organic Maps, CoMaps has been created with a goal of restoring transparency, community control, and privacy-focused navigation. It’s a fully open source navigation app that works offline and doesn’t track users. A few weeks after the project began, CoMaps has officially launched with apps for both Android and iOS. Join me as I take you through its key features and what makes it stand out. CoMaps: What to Expect? A screenshot of CoMaps showing the Wikipedia entry of a location for additional information. We begin with its most handy feature, offline navigation and search. With CoMaps, you can download entire regions before you begin a trip for easy navigation in places without an internet connection or mobile network connectivity. The user interface is clean and intuitive. You won’t need a manual to figure it out. Whether you’re a daily commuter or a weekend hiker, everything is simple, fast, and clear. Moreover, privacy is baked into the app. CoMaps doesn’t track you, collect data, or run background analytics. You are responsible for what you share, and your location stays on your device. Before you ask, what makes this different from Organic Maps? CoMaps can remember your navigation routes as tracks, making it easy to revisit past trips or explore alternate routes. It also includes a re-mappable action button (just below the search bar), letting you customize it for quick access to your favorite function. The map style itself is another highlight; it feels fresh, modern, and thoughtfully designed without being cluttered. Roads, paths, and terrain are clearly differentiated, making it easier to plan routes at a glance. Bonus Tip: You can pair the default map view with the “Outdoors” map style to highlight more navigation routes. It’s a small change that makes a big difference when exploring. Get CoMaps The latest builds of CoMaps are available on F-Droid and the Play Store for Android users, and on the App Store for iOS. If you’re looking for APK files or want to explore the source code, then you should visit the project’s Codeberg repository. CoMaps Suggested Read 📖 Organic Maps Forked Over Governance Concerns: CoMaps is BornAn Organic Maps fork has emerged due to broken trust.It’s FOSS NewsSourav Rudra From It’s FOSS News via this RSS feed
Komunitas
rss.ponder.cat
“I need to get my degree safely,” the student told me. A Chinese national and doctoral candidate in social sciences at an American university, she’d recently heard that her social-media messages might be checked at the U.S. border. “Safely,” for her, meant a series of measures to avoid anything incriminating: She downloaded the end-to-end-encrypted messaging app Signal and set her messages to disappear after 24 hours, and she also no longer sends sensitive links in group chats—that is, anything involving Donald Trump, Israel, or DEI. She’s not the only one with a new sense of anxiety. Whenever her Chinese classmates talk about American politics at the campus cafeteria or in school, she told me, they lower their voices. The day she and I spoke, June 10, was the final day of China’s university-entrance exams. She had been watching videos on the Chinese social-media platform Weibo of students back home being cheered on to the examination venues by crowds, of flowers being handed out, and of police asking motorists not to honk so that students could concentrate on their test. She said it felt as though the whole society was behind them, willing their success. Earlier that day, she had received an email from her U.S. university department that provided an emergency plan for sudden visa revocation. The memo included a recommendation to make a contact list of immigration attorneys, and a notice to save both digital and printed copies of the plan. The email even came with guidance on securing temporary housing, implying that students needed a backup plan. Seeking clarification, students were told that they were responsible for covering any costs. “We’re students; we don’t have lawyers,” she said. “We just don’t know how to navigate this.” The administration’s actions had led to rising defensiveness and pessimism in her circle. And the housing advice prompted her to ask, half-jokingly, “Are we at war, or what?” I spoke with five Chinese nationals for this article: an undergraduate, a master’s student, two people pursuing Ph.D.s, and one newly tenured faculty member. None of them wanted their name used. The younger students—less tethered to the United States—spoke openly about considering other options: countries with clearer rules, less visa ambiguity and angst. The doctoral students were more invested in trying to stay and, despite growing uncertainty, wanted to build a career in the United States. I have been writing about China, from Beijing, for the past few years, so I’m used to my sources asking for anonymity. People in China are acutely conscious of the limits of permissible speech there and how crossing those lines can affect their future. But this time, I wasn’t speaking with Chinese people in China; I was speaking with Chinese people in the United States. This time, they weren’t afraid of their own government back home, but the American one they were living under. The grounds for their fear were not hypothetical. The United States is trying to draw a red line to keep out Chinese students it perceives as a national-security threat. The problem is that no one knows exactly where the line is. From 2009 to 2022, Chinese students were the largest group of international students in the United States. At peak, in the 2019–20 academic year, some 370,000 Chinese students were enrolled at American universities. Numbers have since tapered off, initially because of the pandemic. Then, on May 28, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the U.S. would begin “aggressively” revoking visas of Chinese students, including those studying in “sensitive” fields or with Chinese Communist Party links. A Republican-backed bill currently in Congress goes further still—it would ban visas for all Chinese nationals looking to study in the United States. The authors of the bill point to China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires citizens to support intelligence-gathering for their home country even when abroad. Although the GOP bill may not pass, its hard-line stance underlines the level of uncertainty students now face. In June, President Donald Trump appeared to give Chinese students in the U.S. a reprieve when he announced that they would remain welcome, pending a putative trade deal with China. But by making plain that the students were a token in his trade war, Trump only increased the uncertainty of their predicament. The Chinese students I spoke with were intently parsing official edicts in an effort to work out which course subjects were sensitive and which weren’t. What I detected from my conversations with them was their sense of being caught in a guessing game. A formerly innocuous decision about whether to leave the U.S. for a trip now seemed like a high-stakes gamble. In the country that they had believed offered the freest and most resource-rich research environment, they were now carefully policing their own discourse. Back in China, students know the score, but they never expected to be contending with these worries in the United States. In its nationalist rhetoric and sweeping use of state-security justifications, the U.S. was starting to mirror aspects of the very system it has long denounced. “The White House website looks like a Chinese government site now,” the newly tenured professor told me, referring to the oversize portraits of President Trump. [Read: The Trojan Horse will come for us too] When the social-sciences Ph.D. student first applied to study abroad, she regarded the U.S. as the world leader for research in her field. Among her peers, the opportunity to pursue postgraduate studies at an American university was the runaway first choice. She had graduated from China’s elite Tsinghua University, known especially for its STEM programs, so America’s close ties between research and business, with proximity to venture capital, were part of the draw. “You want to see your work realized in real life,” she told me. That optimism has faded as she’s seen the heightened U.S.-China tensions filtering down into life on an American campus. “You always walk with your Chinese identity,” she said. “It’s hard to isolate yourself from ongoing chaos.” Even during the first Trump administration, some of her friends from China had sensed that the environment in the U.S. was growing more hostile. Those who were studying subjects with potential military applications, such as robotics and information systems, applied to European programs instead. But they faced difficulties there too: After initially receiving offers from universities in the European Union, they saw their visa prospects vanish into a bureaucratic thicket of vetting checks. European countries have also increased their scrutiny of Chinese students who conduct STEM research with potential military, as well as civilian, applications. A Chinese student at New York University told me that he’d considered joining a “No Kings” rally this month but decided to stay away, fearing that he might endanger his visa. “It’s becoming the same as the situation in China,” he said. “You can talk about foreign policy, but not domestic policy.” After his positive experience of a year at a U.S. high school, he’d had no hesitation about applying only to American universities—which ranked highly for the engineering degree he expected to graduate with. But he told me he might have applied elsewhere if he had known how quickly American government policy would turn against international students, and Chinese students in particular. Now he was living with the same visa-status anxiety facing friends of his—Chinese nationals or people raised in China—who were seeing their renewals denied or delayed with vague demands for additional paperwork. He wasn’t privy to their full applications, but he believed that these obstacles were a result of their Chinese ties. The NYU student wasn’t alone in sensing a shift. A master’s student told me that during her reentry to the U.S. last year, she was pulled aside into what Chinese students colloquially call the “little black room,” an immigration-interview room at the airport. This reflects a pattern of heightened scrutiny at the border that began under the Biden administration, but Chinese citizens are familiar with the “little black room” because it’s what security officers back home use if they suspect some kind of anti-government conduct. The U.S. immigration officer checking her passport said she could leave after the student declared she was studying graphic design. If her answer had been computer science, she believed from accounts she’d seen on social media, “I’d definitely stay there for a few hours.” A Ph.D. student in a Republican state who has planned a research trip out of the country this summer told me that her adviser expressly warned her not to get involved in protests or post anything pro-Palestine online, and to watch her driving speed. She said these warnings began last year, as red states anticipated Trump’s return to power. Fearing that she could be denied reentry, she was ready to cancel her trip entirely if official U.S. announcements became more hard-line. The master’s student has exercised similar precautions. Knowing that social-media accounts are checked and have a bearing on visa issuance, she restricts herself to sharing internet memes that broadly hint at her frustration without specifically criticizing federal immigration policy. Memes live in a “gray area,” she said. Being vague makes them “safer.” [Read: No more student visas? No problem.] This moment is by no means the first time that the U.S. has viewed Chinese students with suspicion. In the 1950s, American officials placed the scientist Qian Xuesen under house arrest and eventually deported him. The U.S. authorities came to regret their action: Back in China, Qian became the father of its missile-and-space program. Relations began to thaw in the ’70s after President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China. In 1979, China’s leader Deng Xiaoping met with President Jimmy Carter and agreed to step up scientific exchanges. Implicit in the U.S. government’s motivation was a belief that if Chinese students were exposed to the benefits of democracy, they would recognize what they were missing and create a political constituency for reforming China. This spirit of engagement persisted through China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. By then, the aspiration of studying abroad had been normalized for Chinese young people—as a personal choice. The wildly popular 1990s TV show A Beijinger in New York, which aired on the state broadcaster China Central Television, was a testament to that generation’s curiosity about the outside world. This cultural trend continued into the early 2000s, when “Harvard Girl” Liu Yiting became a national sensation as an American-educated success story. Her parents’ best-selling book chronicling how they’d raised her was a model for millions of other Chinese families, all hoping to nurture their own Harvard Girl. The recently U.S.-tenured professor I spoke with came of age during China’s relatively liberal era of the late 1990s and early 2000s, under the premierships of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, so he had earned his master’s at a very different time in U.S. politics, during Barack Obama’s presidency. His own research field is national security—and he acknowledged that the United States had legitimate concerns about Chinese government–sponsored actions, citing instances of intellectual-property theft. “I just don’t think the administration is dealing with this in a targeted way,” he told me. Refusing students a visa simply because of links to the CCP was too broad, he argued, given China’s condition as a one-party state in which almost every institution has a formal party presence. He supported the vetting of students, based on solid evidence and with due process. In the student-deportation cases he was following, some were being removed because they had once been charged with a minor offense, even if the charge had subsequently been dismissed. “It’s shocking,” he said. “Their status was revoked overnight.” He said, in most instances, the Chinese students’ universities received no prior notice. “My guess is the government has adopted some kind of screening system,” he said, but one that seemed to him crude and unreliable. “There are a lot of false positives.” (I requested comment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, but received no response.) This student’s home country, he added, was not making things easier for Chinese students abroad. “The National Intelligence Law is not doing us a favor,” he said: The law includes penalties for obstructing intelligence work, which puts Chinese nationals abroad in a very awkward position. I asked what he’d do if the Chinese government asked him to share information; he said he’d call an American lawyer. On RedNote, a social-media app popular with Chinese students, posts continue to circulate about deportations over such minor infractions as speeding tickets. Some fear that if they travel abroad, they will be denied reentry to the United States. Chinese students are familiar with surveillance, scrutiny, and expansive definitions of national security. They just didn’t expect all of that from the U.S. government, as well. From The Atlantic via this RSS feed
Komunitas
lemmy.yachts
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32339854 I’m sure you’ve seen by now that I’ve been arranging interviews with developers of various Linux and Steam Deck programs and projects, done in a question-and-answer style, and posting them here to Lemmy. These have mostly been with personal friends of mine. Projects like Heroic, Lutris, RomM Project, Junk Store and so on. My idea for these is to give you all a peek behind the curtain (so to speak) as to who is behind the projects you know and love - but this time the interviewee and content is a little different. I got in touch with the lead dev and creator of what is called a ‘Nintendo Switch Freeshop’. This dev runs the biggest piracy freeshop around - over 1 petabyte at its peak - and they’re doing it right under Nintendo’s nose. I wanted to know what brought them down this road, how they justify their piracy, and what it’s like operating something so massive (and illegal) in the shadow of one of the world’s most aggressive copyright enforcers. What I got was a surprisingly candid look into the mindset of someone who sees themselves less as a thief, and more as a digital archivist, a rebel, or even a necessary evil in a broken system. This interview is conducted for journalistic and educational purposes only. The intention is to explore the motivations, ethics, and technical aspects behind unauthorized software distribution platforms this. The interviewer does not condone, support, or participate in software piracy, nor does this site provide access to or promote the use of illegal content or tools. Readers are encouraged to respect intellectual property laws in their respective jurisdictions. This post was made with the moderators’ permission. I’ve omitted both the name of the shop and the interviewee to avoid inadvertently promoting or encouraging their work. Personal Background & Development History: How did you first get into software development or programming? I’m trying to imagine how someone ends up running the most prolific Nintendo Switch Freeshop (currently)…was this one a gradual progression from ‘regular projects’ to your program? I was around 14 or 15 years old, stuck in my room during the COVID lockdown. One day, I created a simple JSON file that allowed me to install games on my 3DS using an app called Universal-Updater. The games were hosted on a free Dropbox account. Originally, I uploaded the file to a random GitHub repository — mostly just to avoid losing it. At the time, I didn’t know much. I could only build small websites in JavaScript and tweak JSON files, but that was about it. Then one morning, I woke up to find dozens of videos talking about my little 3DS script. Back then, it only had a few games and, to be honest, it was pretty bad. But I think people were feeling nostalgic about the old Freeshop, which probably explains why it got so much attention. That’s when I had the idea to create the eShop, mainly to meet a need I personally had. I was also inspired by an old, now-defunct project made by a developer on GitHub — I think his name was “Tom Stalcker” or something like that, I can’t remember exactly. His work had left an impression on me, and I wanted to recreate something similar in my own way. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one looking for something like this. Seeing how much interest the project was generating, I started working on it more seriously — but still for fun, and out of passion. I wouldn’t say it was a gradual or “traditional” progression. Once things started taking off and gaining some visibility, I focused entirely on making the kind of service I’d personally want to use as a user. So no, I didn’t start with “regular projects”, even if I’ve worked on other things since then that helped me level up my skills — both in development and in server management. Speaking of your program, can you tell those reading here who haven’t a clue – what is it, what does it do, how does it run?! This question is actually quite broad considering the number of related projects, but let’s say we’re talking about the most well-known one. To put it very simply, it’s like the Nintendo eShop — but without financial barriers. Everyone is equal, regardless of their wealth, and can download content (games, updates, additional content) without having to pay. Its main purpose is the preservation of digital heritage. Have you worked on any non-piracy-related projects in the past? Indie games, tools, programs or otherwise? Yes, I’ve personally made some mini-games before. Usually, when it’s just for fun, I like to create mashups — for example, I’ll challenge myself to mix Mario Kart with Space Invaders, just out of curiosity and for my own enjoyment. I also often build simple websites just for fun — to improve my skills, explore ideas, or sometimes simply because something made me laugh and I wanted to turn it into a little project. What drew you specifically to console hacking/homebrew/piracy scene? I didn’t have any money, and like many kids who own a console but can’t afford games, I just wanted to be able to play video games. Would you consider yourself more of a developer, a hacker, or an activist or something else entirely? I wouldn’t presume to label myself as any of those. I’d say I’m simply someone trying to do what I love, creating what I’d want to have as a user, while also trying to help as many people as possible. Are you operating solo, or is this a collaborative effort? Generally, I prefer not to answer this question, but no, I’m not working alone. It wouldn’t be possible to manage the community, handle the servers, add content, and do the programming all by myself. So yes, there are several of us, although for security reasons, I prefer not to specify how many we are or who manages what. Creation of the shop: When and how did the idea for your freeshop begin? During the COVID period in 2019-2020, refer to the first question in the previous section. What ‘technical challenges’ did you face in building a freeshop for the Switch compared to older consoles like the 3DS? On the 3DS, I wouldn’t say it was very complex, because for the app itself, we had forked Universal-Updater at the time — although that might soon change given some big projects aiming to simply patch the 3DS eShop are in development. But I’d say the biggest challenges we faced on the Switch were, first and foremost, dealing with DMCA takedowns from companies like Nintendo and Markscan… Another major challenge was bandwidth for a public, free shop. In terms of numbers, the public shop serves at least 200TB every 24 hours on a normal day. How do you source the game files and keep the library updated? I’ll answer this question in two parts. First, I’ll explain how we managed to gather over 12,000 games right from the launch. Without bragging, I’m someone who analyzes a lot, so I’m quite skilled at creating workarounds and even more so at developing automated scraping systems. Using my knowledge, I created a set of scripts that, initially, scraped the biggest trusted sites offering Switch games. This required two things: integrating an ad blocker (like uBlock) directly into all the scripts, and then scraping the affiliate links. Once all the links were collected, I wrote a simple script to bypass link shorteners stuffed with ads, to get the full list of 1fichier.com links. When the 1fichier.com links list was ready, I just used a program like JDownloader to mass-download everything. But that only worked for the first few months. Later, I was contacted by someone who had a full backup of the entire content from an old shop. Regarding adding new content, there are several sources: One external source is the scene, with dumps coming from teams like Venom, Suxxors, to name a few. Since (another shop I’m omitting the name of) closed, most new content comes from our own dumps, which we do thanks to donations and payments we receive for our professional services. We dump around 200 to 300 games per month, and up to 500 updates some months. DLCs occasionally come in dumps too, but that’s rarer — although we’re getting more interested in those lately. Do you design it to be resilient against takedowns or detection? Speaking of, can you tell me about that side of this, I can’t imagine Nintendo is unaware of your efforts, have you been contacted at all, DMCA’d, any legal notices? Regarding the systems we have in place, yes, we’ve implemented more than a hun- dred techniques, methods, and systems to ensure the entire project isn’t affected by DMCA takedowns. As for the DMCAs, we receive them — whether for content, links, or other reasons — sometimes over 500 in certain months, either directed at us or companies linked to our services. Most of these are generated by automated systems from companies affiliated with Nintendo, like Markscan, and some are directly issued by the legal team of NOA (Nintendo of America). Why create something this polished and accessible, knowing it could attract heavy legal attention? The goal isn’t focused on the legal side. Whether it’s me personally or other members of the team, we primarily want to create a trustworthy service — exactly the kind of service we’d want to have ourselves as users. Just because we’re doing something that goes beyond the legal boundaries in some countries doesn’t mean it has to seem shady, obscure, or inaccessible. Ethics, Legality, and Preservation: How do you personally justify what is undeniably piracy with the project? Personally, I don’t limit myself by legal boundaries; my limits are ethical. As long as what I do is ethical and doesn’t harm almost anyone, I’m okay with it. The most important thing is to consider who this project impacts — both positively and negatively — including our users, donors, Nintendo, game studios, and so on. The reality is that out of 100 people affected, over 98% are helped and given the opportunity to dream. So, since the project has a positive impact on more than 98% of the people directly or indirectly affected, I don’t mind it. I believe projects like this serve a necessary purpose. Is this about game preservation, access, anti-corporate stance, for monetary gain — or just practicality? I’m super curious what stance you take for justifying this kind of platform. I interviewed one of the two ‘main’ PC gaming repackers last year, who said that where he lives (a ‘third world’ country) the price of games means any and all gaming was totally inaccessible to he and everyone he knows. He did this (in his words) as a way to give those who wouldn’t be able to game a chance to do so. Our goal is both preservation and access, because by enabling access, we indirectly ensure preservation. One of the first things to understand is that if services like this exist, it’s because there is demand — and where there is demand, there will always be supply. Moreover, thanks to services like these, some games will still be available in 200 years simply because a service — whether ours or another — dumped and shared them. If projects like (shop name omitted) eShop exist, it’s to give users and people confidence that when they come to our service, they will only find trusted, high-quality files. That’s also why, for example, you won’t find any ads on our platform. Monetary gain is not something we’re interested in. Of course, what cannot be denied is that an infrastructure like this isn’t free. Generally, the people who pay or donate are not paying for the games themselves, but for the service we provide. Do you think there’s a meaningful difference between pirating current-gen games and legacy titles? Of course there is a difference. I consider that “pirating” an old game isn’t really pi- racy as soon as the game is no longer commercially available, because piracy means stealing. But at what point can it be considered stealing when the content is no longer sold? Regarding recent games, the main issue is the price, especially with Nintendo openly mocking its users by selling Mario Kart World for around $90. And we’re still talking about Mario Kart… I agree with Nintendo that purchasing power has recently increased in Japan, but they forget one important detail: the majority of their users simply aren’t Japanese. For example, the Brazilian currency is worth about four times less than the US dollar. So, I would say that people who “pirate” retro games don’t have the same needs as those who pirate recent games. Old games are mostly no longer legally accessible, whereas recent games are inaccessible mainly because of their price. How would you respond to indie devs or studios who rely on every sale? Unfortunately, some developers make great games but end up paying the price. However, blaming piracy isn’t the right target — if anyone should be blamed, it’s companies like Nintendo. This question comes up quite often, and while the impact of piracy on indie developers is one of the few real indirect effects, it largely stems from decisions made by Nintendo and others. What’s your take on Nintendo’s approach to digital rights and game availability? I would simply say that Nintendo shows absolutely no respect for their community and is now solely focused on filling their pockets. Back in the day, we had real games—not necessarily standing out for their visual quality, but for their ability to bring people together. Today, Nintendo mostly just re-releases remakes originally from old consoles, selling them for $60. It’s getting worse with the Switch 2, where they now dare to sell texture packs or minor upgrades for $5 to $10. Unfortunately, Nintendo’s priorities today are purely financial. And I’d rather not even talk about the closure of the 3DS eShop, which would have been a huge disaster if projects like hShop didn’t exist. I want to clarify that hShop is neither a competitor nor directly or indirectly affiliated with (shop name removed). Our eShop for the Switch is simply what hShop is for the 3DS. Gaming Life & Relationship with Nintendo: What’s your history with Nintendo consoles — were you a fan growing up? I mainly played on the 3DS from when I was 6 until I was 15, so I don’t have as much experience with other consoles. For many years, my 3DS was my only way to escape my reality, from a childhood that was simply very difficult… The 3DS was simply Nintendo’s best era, and I don’t think we’ll see anything like that again given the current direction of their latest consoles… Do you still play games regularly? If so, what’s your current favorite title or platform? Unfortunately, over time, I play less and less. I truly enjoy only older games now, and I have less and less time to play. It’s one of my regrets not to make more time for it, but life seems to go faster and faster with each passing year. Have your views of Nintendo changed over time — either as a fan or as a developer? Yes, a lot, as I explained earlier. Were there any particular events or decisions by Nintendo that directly motivated you? See previous answers =) Do you see a piracy front-end mimicking the Nintendo eShop as an act of protest against Nintendo’s practices? Or are you purely mercenary here – this is for money? It’s important to know that (shop name edited out by me) eShop was fully funded by myself from 2019 to 2024, so no, this is not about money. We simply want to provide a high-quality, trustworthy service that is as user-friendly as possible. The Broader Scene: What do you think the future holds for freeshops like yours I can’t give a very detailed answer to this question, but it’s important to know that the more piracy is condemned, the more accessible it becomes. The community, pirates, and hackers will always evolve and become increasingly motivated… Have you got any data for us? I’m beyond curious to know, have you got any idea of the metrics: total users, total downloads, how much data you host? I read that “at its peak the service was handling over 1 petabyte of data per day” – that’s a crazily large operation. And I really don’t expect to get an answer for this one, but how much have you made, an estimate would be nice, from your freeshop? In terms of bandwidth, yes, it has reached several petabytes per day during some peak periods. However, on quieter days now, we handle between 200 and 300 terabytes within 24 hours. As for users, we recently surpassed the milestone of 3 million across all services combined. Regarding financials, personally, this does not generate income for me. I prefer to prioritize improving our services and expanding our projects. You should know that personally, money is not an issue for me. I’m a pretty simple person— as long as I have a roof over my head, food to eat, and internet access, that’s enough. Between the ages of 18 and 20, I founded four bulletproof hosting companies, which I later sold. Today, I still own two companies—one in hosting and another providing large-scale network systems for major enterprises. When I need extra money for vacations, I sometimes take on freelance work, like building websites and other projects. So, financial gain isn’t something I’m interested in. Do you believe the piracy/homebrew community is growing or fracturing? No, the community is growing and will continue to grow. It’s important to remember that the more piracy is punished, the more services will become available. Also, as games become increasingly unaffordable, the demand will only keep rising. Are you concerned about potential legal action or consequences? We all know about Gary Bowser, who was sentenced in 2021 to 40 months prison and $14.5m USD in fines. This has to play on your mind, right? I am not worried about that at all. I’m not completely reckless—if it’s going to happen, it will happen. Life is short, so I prefer to do what I want now. Besides, I’m not acting blindly; I’ve already taken precautions and prepared for any eventuality. When you do something like this, you always need to keep some advantages. You also have to understand that Nintendo doesn’t have the same power everywhere. I could mention countries like Iran or Panama, just to name a few. Panama, for example, is one of the few countries that has no agreements with the NSA or similar agencies. Do you plan to expand features — or create tools for other platforms? By your own words elsewhere on the internet, I read it’s been quite a tumultuous year for your program…what exactly happened? We plan to eventually expand our projects across all platforms, including consoles up to the PS4 and PS5. We also aim to explore torrenting, IPTV services, and streaming platforms. Our core goal remains the same: providing access and maintaining high-quality service. This year has been quite eventful, with personal challenges as well as a tenfold growth in user numbers. As a result, we had to completely overhaul parts of our network, add new servers, improve some systems, and even rewrite others from scratch. If Nintendo offered a better digital access or preservation model, would that change your approach? Further, what would make you close shop and change your stance? Would that even be an option? I don’t think that will ever happen, but the only way to shut down services like ours would be to reduce the demand—because without demand, there’s no need for supply. Personally, I don’t see myself involved in the project much longer. I created it in 2019, and now it’s 2025. Whether we like it or not, a project like this is extremely mentally exhausting, even if it’s enjoyable to manage. It’s complex and has grown very large. But no worries—I’ve already started planning my succession, and trusted people will be ready to take over and contribute to the project. Personally, I plan to step away before 2027. It would become too costly to maintain and pointless without users. But we all know Nintendo will never admit what they are doing or change their stance. What do you think about the Nintendo Switch 2? There’s so much to say—between game prices like Mario Kart World at $90, a $500 console that only comes with a black and white theme, $10 texture packs, and even paid software just to learn how to use the console… I just hope other manufacturers like Sony, Microsoft, and the others don’t follow this same path. But honestly, it doesn’t really matter, because by doing this they’re alienating a lot of people. There are now many who are solely focused on breaking the console’s security, and the more Nintendo continues down this road, the more they’re pushing their own community away. Anything in general you’d like to say? The floor is yours! The one thing I want to say to everyone is: don’t overcomplicate things. Today’s society has become way too complex. Live and enjoy the present moment because you never know what tomorrow will bring. Do what you want, when you want — we only have one life. And remember: in whatever you do, only those who achieve less than you will try to put you down. The end! …and that’s that. Again, I’d encourage you all to remember this is not endorsing the program, it’s just a chance to have someone explain how they justify doing what they do. As I keep on saying - a ‘peek’ behind the curtain. This was quite brief, but their time was limited and I’m grateful that they even accepted my request and let me do this. I’ve edited some of their answers, as you’ll see - 99% of these edits have been to remove the eShop’s name. I have also done a few of these interviews now, and posted them here to Lemmy, if you’d like to read them: RetroDECK Heroic Games Launcher Lutris Gardiner Bryant The RomM Project …and I have more to come in the future. Mastodon: If you want more of this kind of thing, come join me on Mastodon!
Komunitas
lemmy.world
I’m sure you’ve seen by now that I’ve been arranging interviews with developers of various Linux and Steam Deck programs and projects, done in a question-and-answer style, and posting them here to Lemmy. These have mostly been with personal friends of mine. Projects like Heroic, Lutris, RomM Project, Junk Store and so on. My idea for these is to give you all a peek behind the curtain (so to speak) as to who is behind the projects you know and love - but this time the interviewee and content is a little different. I got in touch with the lead dev and creator of what is called a ‘Nintendo Switch Freeshop’. This dev runs the biggest piracy freeshop around - over 1 petabyte at its peak - and they’re doing it right under Nintendo’s nose. I wanted to know what brought them down this road, how they justify their piracy, and what it’s like operating something so massive (and illegal) in the shadow of one of the world’s most aggressive copyright enforcers. What I got was a surprisingly candid look into the mindset of someone who sees themselves less as a thief, and more as a digital archivist, a rebel, or even a necessary evil in a broken system. This interview is conducted for journalistic and educational purposes only. The intention is to explore the motivations, ethics, and technical aspects behind unauthorized software distribution platforms this. The interviewer does not condone, support, or participate in software piracy, nor does this site provide access to or promote the use of illegal content or tools. Readers are encouraged to respect intellectual property laws in their respective jurisdictions. This post was made with the moderators’ permission. I’ve omitted both the name of the shop and the interviewee to avoid inadvertently promoting or encouraging their work. Personal Background & Development History: How did you first get into software development or programming? I’m trying to imagine how someone ends up running the most prolific Nintendo Switch Freeshop (currently)…was this one a gradual progression from ‘regular projects’ to your program? I was around 14 or 15 years old, stuck in my room during the COVID lockdown. One day, I created a simple JSON file that allowed me to install games on my 3DS using an app called Universal-Updater. The games were hosted on a free Dropbox account. Originally, I uploaded the file to a random GitHub repository — mostly just to avoid losing it. At the time, I didn’t know much. I could only build small websites in JavaScript and tweak JSON files, but that was about it. Then one morning, I woke up to find dozens of videos talking about my little 3DS script. Back then, it only had a few games and, to be honest, it was pretty bad. But I think people were feeling nostalgic about the old Freeshop, which probably explains why it got so much attention. That’s when I had the idea to create the eShop, mainly to meet a need I personally had. I was also inspired by an old, now-defunct project made by a developer on GitHub — I think his name was “Tom Stalcker” or something like that, I can’t remember exactly. His work had left an impression on me, and I wanted to recreate something similar in my own way. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one looking for something like this. Seeing how much interest the project was generating, I started working on it more seriously — but still for fun, and out of passion. I wouldn’t say it was a gradual or “traditional” progression. Once things started taking off and gaining some visibility, I focused entirely on making the kind of service I’d personally want to use as a user. So no, I didn’t start with “regular projects”, even if I’ve worked on other things since then that helped me level up my skills — both in development and in server management. Speaking of your program, can you tell those reading here who haven’t a clue – what is it, what does it do, how does it run?! This question is actually quite broad considering the number of related projects, but let’s say we’re talking about the most well-known one. To put it very simply, it’s like the Nintendo eShop — but without financial barriers. Everyone is equal, regardless of their wealth, and can download content (games, updates, additional content) without having to pay. Its main purpose is the preservation of digital heritage. Have you worked on any non-piracy-related projects in the past? Indie games, tools, programs or otherwise? Yes, I’ve personally made some mini-games before. Usually, when it’s just for fun, I like to create mashups — for example, I’ll challenge myself to mix Mario Kart with Space Invaders, just out of curiosity and for my own enjoyment. I also often build simple websites just for fun — to improve my skills, explore ideas, or sometimes simply because something made me laugh and I wanted to turn it into a little project. What drew you specifically to console hacking/homebrew/piracy scene? I didn’t have any money, and like many kids who own a console but can’t afford games, I just wanted to be able to play video games. Would you consider yourself more of a developer, a hacker, or an activist or something else entirely? I wouldn’t presume to label myself as any of those. I’d say I’m simply someone trying to do what I love, creating what I’d want to have as a user, while also trying to help as many people as possible. Are you operating solo, or is this a collaborative effort? Generally, I prefer not to answer this question, but no, I’m not working alone. It wouldn’t be possible to manage the community, handle the servers, add content, and do the programming all by myself. So yes, there are several of us, although for security reasons, I prefer not to specify how many we are or who manages what. Creation of the shop: When and how did the idea for your freeshop begin? During the COVID period in 2019-2020, refer to the first question in the previous section. What ‘technical challenges’ did you face in building a freeshop for the Switch compared to older consoles like the 3DS? On the 3DS, I wouldn’t say it was very complex, because for the app itself, we had forked Universal-Updater at the time — although that might soon change given some big projects aiming to simply patch the 3DS eShop are in development. But I’d say the biggest challenges we faced on the Switch were, first and foremost, dealing with DMCA takedowns from companies like Nintendo and Markscan… Another major challenge was bandwidth for a public, free shop. In terms of numbers, the public shop serves at least 200TB every 24 hours on a normal day. How do you source the game files and keep the library updated? I’ll answer this question in two parts. First, I’ll explain how we managed to gather over 12,000 games right from the launch. Without bragging, I’m someone who analyzes a lot, so I’m quite skilled at creating workarounds and even more so at developing automated scraping systems. Using my knowledge, I created a set of scripts that, initially, scraped the biggest trusted sites offering Switch games. This required two things: integrating an ad blocker (like uBlock) directly into all the scripts, and then scraping the affiliate links. Once all the links were collected, I wrote a simple script to bypass link shorteners stuffed with ads, to get the full list of 1fichier.com links. When the 1fichier.com links list was ready, I just used a program like JDownloader to mass-download everything. But that only worked for the first few months. Later, I was contacted by someone who had a full backup of the entire content from an old shop. Regarding adding new content, there are several sources: One external source is the scene, with dumps coming from teams like Venom, Suxxors, to name a few. Since (another shop I’m omitting the name of) closed, most new content comes from our own dumps, which we do thanks to donations and payments we receive for our professional services. We dump around 200 to 300 games per month, and up to 500 updates some months. DLCs occasionally come in dumps too, but that’s rarer — although we’re getting more interested in those lately. Do you design it to be resilient against takedowns or detection? Speaking of, can you tell me about that side of this, I can’t imagine Nintendo is unaware of your efforts, have you been contacted at all, DMCA’d, any legal notices? Regarding the systems we have in place, yes, we’ve implemented more than a hun- dred techniques, methods, and systems to ensure the entire project isn’t affected by DMCA takedowns. As for the DMCAs, we receive them — whether for content, links, or other reasons — sometimes over 500 in certain months, either directed at us or companies linked to our services. Most of these are generated by automated systems from companies affiliated with Nintendo, like Markscan, and some are directly issued by the legal team of NOA (Nintendo of America). Why create something this polished and accessible, knowing it could attract heavy legal attention? The goal isn’t focused on the legal side. Whether it’s me personally or other members of the team, we primarily want to create a trustworthy service — exactly the kind of service we’d want to have ourselves as users. Just because we’re doing something that goes beyond the legal boundaries in some countries doesn’t mean it has to seem shady, obscure, or inaccessible. Ethics, Legality, and Preservation: How do you personally justify what is undeniably piracy with the project? Personally, I don’t limit myself by legal boundaries; my limits are ethical. As long as what I do is ethical and doesn’t harm almost anyone, I’m okay with it. The most important thing is to consider who this project impacts — both positively and negatively — including our users, donors, Nintendo, game studios, and so on. The reality is that out of 100 people affected, over 98% are helped and given the opportunity to dream. So, since the project has a positive impact on more than 98% of the people directly or indirectly affected, I don’t mind it. I believe projects like this serve a necessary purpose. Is this about game preservation, access, anti-corporate stance, for monetary gain — or just practicality? I’m super curious what stance you take for justifying this kind of platform. I interviewed one of the two ‘main’ PC gaming repackers last year, who said that where he lives (a ‘third world’ country) the price of games means any and all gaming was totally inaccessible to he and everyone he knows. He did this (in his words) as a way to give those who wouldn’t be able to game a chance to do so. Our goal is both preservation and access, because by enabling access, we indirectly ensure preservation. One of the first things to understand is that if services like this exist, it’s because there is demand — and where there is demand, there will always be supply. Moreover, thanks to services like these, some games will still be available in 200 years simply because a service — whether ours or another — dumped and shared them. If projects like (shop name omitted) eShop exist, it’s to give users and people confidence that when they come to our service, they will only find trusted, high-quality files. That’s also why, for example, you won’t find any ads on our platform. Monetary gain is not something we’re interested in. Of course, what cannot be denied is that an infrastructure like this isn’t free. Generally, the people who pay or donate are not paying for the games themselves, but for the service we provide. Do you think there’s a meaningful difference between pirating current-gen games and legacy titles? Of course there is a difference. I consider that “pirating” an old game isn’t really pi- racy as soon as the game is no longer commercially available, because piracy means stealing. But at what point can it be considered stealing when the content is no longer sold? Regarding recent games, the main issue is the price, especially with Nintendo openly mocking its users by selling Mario Kart World for around $90. And we’re still talking about Mario Kart… I agree with Nintendo that purchasing power has recently increased in Japan, but they forget one important detail: the majority of their users simply aren’t Japanese. For example, the Brazilian currency is worth about four times less than the US dollar. So, I would say that people who “pirate” retro games don’t have the same needs as those who pirate recent games. Old games are mostly no longer legally accessible, whereas recent games are inaccessible mainly because of their price. How would you respond to indie devs or studios who rely on every sale? Unfortunately, some developers make great games but end up paying the price. However, blaming piracy isn’t the right target — if anyone should be blamed, it’s companies like Nintendo. This question comes up quite often, and while the impact of piracy on indie developers is one of the few real indirect effects, it largely stems from decisions made by Nintendo and others. What’s your take on Nintendo’s approach to digital rights and game availability? I would simply say that Nintendo shows absolutely no respect for their community and is now solely focused on filling their pockets. Back in the day, we had real games—not necessarily standing out for their visual quality, but for their ability to bring people together. Today, Nintendo mostly just re-releases remakes originally from old consoles, selling them for $60. It’s getting worse with the Switch 2, where they now dare to sell texture packs or minor upgrades for $5 to $10. Unfortunately, Nintendo’s priorities today are purely financial. And I’d rather not even talk about the closure of the 3DS eShop, which would have been a huge disaster if projects like hShop didn’t exist. I want to clarify that hShop is neither a competitor nor directly or indirectly affiliated with (shop name removed). Our eShop for the Switch is simply what hShop is for the 3DS. Gaming Life & Relationship with Nintendo: What’s your history with Nintendo consoles — were you a fan growing up? I mainly played on the 3DS from when I was 6 until I was 15, so I don’t have as much experience with other consoles. For many years, my 3DS was my only way to escape my reality, from a childhood that was simply very difficult… The 3DS was simply Nintendo’s best era, and I don’t think we’ll see anything like that again given the current direction of their latest consoles… Do you still play games regularly? If so, what’s your current favorite title or platform? Unfortunately, over time, I play less and less. I truly enjoy only older games now, and I have less and less time to play. It’s one of my regrets not to make more time for it, but life seems to go faster and faster with each passing year. Have your views of Nintendo changed over time — either as a fan or as a developer? Yes, a lot, as I explained earlier. Were there any particular events or decisions by Nintendo that directly motivated you? See previous answers =) Do you see a piracy front-end mimicking the Nintendo eShop as an act of protest against Nintendo’s practices? Or are you purely mercenary here – this is for money? It’s important to know that (shop name edited out by me) eShop was fully funded by myself from 2019 to 2024, so no, this is not about money. We simply want to provide a high-quality, trustworthy service that is as user-friendly as possible. The Broader Scene: What do you think the future holds for freeshops like yours I can’t give a very detailed answer to this question, but it’s important to know that the more piracy is condemned, the more accessible it becomes. The community, pirates, and hackers will always evolve and become increasingly motivated… Have you got any data for us? I’m beyond curious to know, have you got any idea of the metrics: total users, total downloads, how much data you host? I read that “at its peak the service was handling over 1 petabyte of data per day” – that’s a crazily large operation. And I really don’t expect to get an answer for this one, but how much have you made, an estimate would be nice, from your freeshop? In terms of bandwidth, yes, it has reached several petabytes per day during some peak periods. However, on quieter days now, we handle between 200 and 300 terabytes within 24 hours. As for users, we recently surpassed the milestone of 3 million across all services combined. Regarding financials, personally, this does not generate income for me. I prefer to prioritize improving our services and expanding our projects. You should know that personally, money is not an issue for me. I’m a pretty simple person— as long as I have a roof over my head, food to eat, and internet access, that’s enough. Between the ages of 18 and 20, I founded four bulletproof hosting companies, which I later sold. Today, I still own two companies—one in hosting and another providing large-scale network systems for major enterprises. When I need extra money for vacations, I sometimes take on freelance work, like building websites and other projects. So, financial gain isn’t something I’m interested in. Do you believe the piracy/homebrew community is growing or fracturing? No, the community is growing and will continue to grow. It’s important to remember that the more piracy is punished, the more services will become available. Also, as games become increasingly unaffordable, the demand will only keep rising. Are you concerned about potential legal action or consequences? We all know about Gary Bowser, who was sentenced in 2021 to 40 months prison and $14.5m USD in fines. This has to play on your mind, right? I am not worried about that at all. I’m not completely reckless—if it’s going to happen, it will happen. Life is short, so I prefer to do what I want now. Besides, I’m not acting blindly; I’ve already taken precautions and prepared for any eventuality. When you do something like this, you always need to keep some advantages. You also have to understand that Nintendo doesn’t have the same power everywhere. I could mention countries like Iran or Panama, just to name a few. Panama, for example, is one of the few countries that has no agreements with the NSA or similar agencies. Do you plan to expand features — or create tools for other platforms? By your own words elsewhere on the internet, I read it’s been quite a tumultuous year for your program…what exactly happened? We plan to eventually expand our projects across all platforms, including consoles up to the PS4 and PS5. We also aim to explore torrenting, IPTV services, and streaming platforms. Our core goal remains the same: providing access and maintaining high-quality service. This year has been quite eventful, with personal challenges as well as a tenfold growth in user numbers. As a result, we had to completely overhaul parts of our network, add new servers, improve some systems, and even rewrite others from scratch. If Nintendo offered a better digital access or preservation model, would that change your approach? Further, what would make you close shop and change your stance? Would that even be an option? I don’t think that will ever happen, but the only way to shut down services like ours would be to reduce the demand—because without demand, there’s no need for supply. Personally, I don’t see myself involved in the project much longer. I created it in 2019, and now it’s 2025. Whether we like it or not, a project like this is extremely mentally exhausting, even if it’s enjoyable to manage. It’s complex and has grown very large. But no worries—I’ve already started planning my succession, and trusted people will be ready to take over and contribute to the project. Personally, I plan to step away before 2027. It would become too costly to maintain and pointless without users. But we all know Nintendo will never admit what they are doing or change their stance. What do you think about the Nintendo Switch 2? There’s so much to say—between game prices like Mario Kart World at $90, a $500 console that only comes with a black and white theme, $10 texture packs, and even paid software just to learn how to use the console… I just hope other manufacturers like Sony, Microsoft, and the others don’t follow this same path. But honestly, it doesn’t really matter, because by doing this they’re alienating a lot of people. There are now many who are solely focused on breaking the console’s security, and the more Nintendo continues down this road, the more they’re pushing their own community away. Anything in general you’d like to say? The floor is yours! The one thing I want to say to everyone is: don’t overcomplicate things. Today’s society has become way too complex. Live and enjoy the present moment because you never know what tomorrow will bring. Do what you want, when you want — we only have one life. And remember: in whatever you do, only those who achieve less than you will try to put you down. The end! …and that’s that. Again, I’d encourage you all to remember this is not endorsing the program, it’s just a chance to have someone explain how they justify doing what they do. As I keep on saying - a ‘peek’ behind the curtain. This was quite brief, but their time was limited and I’m grateful that they even accepted my request and let me do this. I’ve edited some of their answers, as you’ll see - 99% of these edits have been to remove the eShop’s name. I have also done a few of these interviews now, and posted them here to Lemmy, if you’d like to read them: RetroDECK Heroic Games Launcher Lutris Gardiner Bryant The RomM Project …and I have more to come in the future. Mastodon: If you want more of this kind of thing, come join me on Mastodon!
Komunitas
lemmy.ml
If you own a Samsung A or M series phone and live in the Middle East or North Africa, you are likely being monitored, with data collected through your device by the South Korean tech giant on behalf of “Israel.” This follows revelations that Samsung allowed the installation of a covert application developed by an Israeli company, IronSource, which harvests personal data, posing significant risks, especially if you are a potential target of Israeli surveillance. The latest disclosure comes in the wake of the pager explosion in Lebanon, and now, attention has turned to Samsung phones, used by millions of Arab consumers, which have been found to contain Israeli software that leaks sensitive information. Samsung entered into an agreement with IronSource, an Israeli firm, to pre-install this hidden app on Samsung phones sold exclusively in the Arab world (the MENA region), without the knowledge of the device owners. This controversial partnership raises serious concerns about possible espionage or cyberattacks, with experts warning that the software could compromise the security of these devices. The spyware could allow future attacks targeting communication networks or disrupt critical infrastructure in the region. Adding to the alarm, tech specialists have highlighted that the Israeli app is particularly difficult to remove; once deleted, it reinstalls itself automatically, making it nearly impossible for users to protect their privacy. This marks the fourth revelation of Israeli espionage tactics being used against Lebanese and Arabs, following the discovery of bombs in Pager devices, the infiltration of Walkie-Talkie communication systems used by Hezbollah, and the jamming of aviation navigation systems and GPS devices. Spyware Deal The Lebanese digital rights platform, Social Media Exchange (SMEX), which advocates for human rights in digital spaces across West Asia and North Africa, was the first to reveal that Samsung had signed a partnership agreement with the Israeli company IronSource back in 2022. The deal allows IronSource to pre-install its AppCloud application on Samsung’s A and M series phones before they reach consumers. On October 29, 2024, SMEX disclosed that the South Korean tech giant, Samsung, and the Israeli firm IronSource had agreed to load this app onto phones sold in the Middle East and Africa, including Lebanon. The app, according to SMEX, provides access to personal information from the phone’s owner, as well as other sensitive data. The AppCloud application, in turn, installs another program called Aura, which secretly downloads additional software without the user’s knowledge, particularly affecting devices distributed in Lebanon and across the Arab region. The app in question allows access to users’ data, including sensitive information such as IP addresses, device fingerprints, and personal details, enabling the identification and geographical location of the phone’s owner — potentially facilitating surveillance or even targeting for assassination. This could also help explain the mystery behind Israeli ability to easily track and target Hezbollah figures across Lebanon, Syria, and other regions, even after the dismantling of explosive pager devices. It underscores the urgent need for the Middle East to develop independent communication systems. 495590693.webp (1200×630) A report by SMEX highlights the alarming reality that the Israeli app can be installed on Samsung phones without the owner’s knowledge, with removal proving nearly impossible due to the complex technical hurdles involved. Even those who manage to disable the app find it reappears automatically, confirming its nature as high-tech spyware. The app in question, AppCloud, which has been surreptitiously embedded in Samsung devices for over a year, was first flagged by a user in an August 2023 post on the company’s support forum, titled “How can I remove AppCloud?” Spyware installation raises concerns that the app has been silently present in phones long before Operation al-Aqsa Flood and the ongoing war. Data Harvesting or Assassination? The Israeli war on Lebanon has brought renewed focus on the issue of espionage and electronic interference, with the bombing of pager devices used by thousands of Lebanese citizens, marking yet another chapter in the ongoing conflict. This raises critical questions: Is the installation of spyware on Samsung devices aimed at collecting data, or is it a more sinister effort, akin to the Pager incident, to facilitate targeted killings? Abed Kataya, media program director at the Lebanese digital rights platform SMEX, confirmed that “the Israeli application is often pre-installed on [Samsung] devices,” before purchase, and updates occur without the user’s consent. Kataya explained that this practice extends to over 50 markets in the Middle East and North Africa, indicating that the data harvesting operation is not limited to Lebanon alone. The AppCloud app installs another program called Aura, which prompts users to download additional apps, all of which contribute to collecting personal data, including device information and biometric identifiers like fingerprints. Data harvesting makes it easier to track and identify the device’s owner. Perhaps most concerning, says Kataya, is that the app’s activities cannot be stopped or any permissions it requests are denied. While AppCloud claims to uphold privacy policies by allowing users to opt out of data collection, in practice, trying to delete it from the device reveals an impossible-to-find form that must be completed. Deleting the app, according to Kataya, requires technical expertise well beyond the average user’s capacity. 1734517000.webp (770×513) Kataya explained that users can access their device settings, navigate to the Apps section, search for the AppCloud app, and press the disable button. However, they may still be unable to completely remove the app from the device, even after disabling it. The app may seem disabled on the surface but continues to run covertly in the background. Kataya argues that Samsung’s partnership with the Israeli company IronSource—a deal restricted to regions marked by geopolitical tensions and instability—suggests the South Korean giant may have knowingly or unknowingly facilitated Israeli espionage against Arabs. The exposure of this spyware raises critical questions about how “Israel” could exploit the collaboration between Samsung and IronSource to carry out cyberattacks, or perhaps, these attacks have already occurred—similar to the Pager incident—in what are known as supply chain attacks. These attacks typically involve infiltrating trusted systems, such as widely used devices and software, to gather intelligence or implant surveillance tools. As reported by Al-Estiklal, the Israeli military has consistently sought technological advantages, preparing for future conflicts in Lebanon and the wider region through proactive cyber and technological advancements. The partnership with IronSource allowed “Israel” to collect valuable intelligence on Lebanese citizens long before the current conflict erupted, including gaining access to communication devices used by Hezbollah operatives. The Israeli use of the AppCloud app to target Samsung’s A and M series phones—models marketed primarily to middle and lower-income populations—was likely strategic. Their lower price point made these devices more accessible, thus facilitating the spread of spyware and widening the scope of data collection. Could “Israel” resort to detonating devices that have been infected with malicious software, especially given that these phones are connected to the internet, unlike the pagers and walkie-talkies? A tech expert ruled out the possibility of “Israel” resorting to a mass detonation of mobile phones carrying this app or similar software in the Arab region. The expert cited economic concerns, noting the potential fallout on international trade should such an action occur, as well as Israeli commercial ties with global companies, including its American allies. He argues that if “Israel” were to somehow detonate Samsung, Huawei, or iPhone devices, it would trigger a global trade crisis that could destabilize the smartphone industry, one that neither the United States, China, nor South Korea could afford to tolerate. There are other intelligence-related reasons as well: the purpose of implanting spyware and surveillance programs is to gather information, and detonating the phones would deprive the Israeli Occupation of a crucial communication tool, one that allows it to infiltrate and eavesdrop on its targets. Companies supporting Israeli Occupation The infiltration of Israeli spyware into global tech products raises troubling questions about how and why multinational companies continue to allow their devices and technologies to be manipulated in ways that may harm their economic interests. The truth is that many of these companies, most of them American or heavily aligned with the U.S., are complicit in supporting the Israeli occupation, often out of economic considerations or due to pressure from powerful pro- “Israel” lobbies. These firms, some argue, cooperate with “Israel” to benefit from its advancements in programming and technology, or because they fear the influence of global Israeli networks. According to foreign reports, Israeli cyber operations infiltrate global tech companies—sometimes through employees who leak sensitive data or through direct collaborations with firms that support “Tel Aviv.” One prominent case involved a protest in 2021 by 300 Google employees and 90 Amazon workers who signed an internal letter demanding their companies withdraw from Project Nimbus, a controversial deal to supply the Israeli Occupation Forces with dangerous technology used to target Palestinians. Rather than halting the project, these workers faced retaliation and were fired, as The Intercept reported in November 2023. The $1.2 billion Nimbus deal, which provides cloud services to the Israeli military and government, has been a point of contention among tech workers and human rights advocates alike. The most recent incident occurred in April 2024, when 28 Google employees were dismissed after staging a protest against the project, further fueled by revelations that the technology was being used in war crimes committed in Gaza. This marks a growing trend where tech giants, rather than reevaluating their complicity, continue to back the Israeli military-industrial complex, despite rising moral and legal concerns. 1319699190.jpg (1600×1066) A report by Time magazine on April 12, 2024, revealed an internal document confirming that Google provides cloud computing services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, deepening its partnership despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza. “The Israeli Ministry of Defense, according to the document, has its own “landing zone” into Google Cloud—a secure entry point to Google-provided computing infrastructure, which would allow the ministry to store and process data, and access AI services,” as reported by Time. The contract shows that Google invoices “the Israeli Ministry of Defense over $1 million for the consulting service.” On April 5, 2024, The Intercept reported protests against Google for supplying technology to the Israeli military to carry out “robotic crimes” — namely, the killing of Gaza’s civilians. Protesters lay down on the ground wrapped in white sheets with a modified Google logo reading “Genocide,” demanding an end to the company’s collaboration with the Israeli government. According to The Intercept, the Israeli military used Google’s programs for facial recognition to track Palestinians attempting to flee airstrikes or search for food to feed their families. “Many of those arrested or imprisoned, often with little or no evidence, later said they had been brutally interrogated or tortured,” as reported by The Intercept. An Israeli official told The New York Times that Google’s facial recognition worked better than any alternative technology, helping “Israel” compile a “hit list” of Hamas fighters. Furthermore, Google Maps and Waze were used by the Israeli military to disable live traffic updates in the occupied Palestinian territories ahead of the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, according to Bloomberg. In addition, an investigative report by +972 magazine highlighted that “Israel” uses artificial intelligence to target and kill Palestinians. Interviews with six Israeli military intelligence officers revealed that AI programs in Unit 8200 — responsible for cyber security and espionage — have been used to target and assassinate Palestinians. Since the war began in Gaza, two AI-driven programs have been developed for this purpose. One, “Lavender,” helped prepare a “kill list” of nearly 37,000 Palestinians for targeting without confirming their identities. The other additional automated system, “Where’s Daddy?”, scanned Gaza’s population using big data, identifying names, identities, and addresses, leading to the mass extermination of Palestinian families. Additionally, on April 11, 2023, Citizen Lab, a Canadian research organization, revealed a new Israeli spyware program similar to the notorious Pegasus. The software, bought by governments including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Morocco, was used to target journalists and political opponents across multiple countries. The program, developed by an Israeli company called Quadream Ltd — founded by a former Israeli military officer and ex-NSO Group employees — has already been linked to espionage activities. Citizen Lab identified the victims “include journalists, political opposition figures, and an NGO worker,” confirming its widespread use in surveillance.
Komunitas
lemmy.world
Exactly what I’m talking about. It reminds me of the time microsoft introduced memory compression to compensate for every application bringing it’s own DLLs But I still think flatpak is superior to windows way of doing things because it actually has dependency management. I kinda like the idea of having multiple versions of the same library but I wish they did not come in big bundles (runtimes), but instead, came in small 1-2MB pieces. download random binaries from non-trusted distributors that contain a copy of every library that software needs to run This is overexaggeration. Flatpak, unlike places windows users get software from, is moderated, and flatpak (although chunky) has shared dependencies
Komunitas
kbin.social
As someone who recently created pivoted to Debian (for 12.0) from Windows , the website is quite the headache. I consider myself tech-literate, and have been around the internet long enough where RTFM was a rite of passage, but they really are asking a lot given how many different directions the manual went. I put about 20 minutes into it along with 10-15 minutes reading up on things that were not well explained and then just YOLO’d it. Also if 98% of people are installing via a flash drive and 2% are doing CD Rom installs, then cater towards the 98% in your instructions. Not only is the CD ROM examples more prominent, but they also end up leading to downloading the same .iso IIRC. Not saying to do away w/ the catering to obsolete technology, but maybe shift the conversation towards terminology and wording that end users can instantly identify with. It really is an example of someone updating an existing process repeatedly instead of taking a step back and seeing how things have changed over time. I suppose that’s the active theme for the entire website. The website is frustrating in that aspect. Speaking from experience, I’d venture that the majority of the traffic that is received from newbies following a YT tutorial where someone spells out where to go and what to click. Looking at the referenced video, it appears that have started to slowly make changes but there’s still work to be done. Reading this thread though, I can see how the web dev team came to their conclusion. A solid portion of this thread are people lauding a crap website like alumni who are extolling the virtues of hazing… “it was hard for me, it should be hard for everyone” or “There should be a bit of effort required to keep out the riff raff” etc.