I found my drawing tablet and I'm not afraid to use it

Time to post my

Get in, loser, we're pivoting to quantum!

https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/quantum-computing/magic-state-cultivation-quantum-computing/

Ok, looks like this is the week of funny experiences.

Customer: "I had an AI check our server and it says the SSH port is open and that's not very secure."

Me: "Yes, you asked us to open it so you could access the server via SFTP (actually, you wanted FTP, but we discussed it a bit and found this compromise). Don't worry, it's only accessible from your IP and you land in a dedicated FreeBSD jail. From there, you can only access the 'exchange' directory on your server, where you can upload and download files without affecting the application."

(NB: I had suggested a VPN, but they declined because it was too complicated.)

Customer: "Yes, but maybe it's still insecure. Can't we close it?"

Me: "No, unless you want to lose access to that directory."

Customer: "Ok, thanks."

One hour later:

Customer: "Hi, I think we've found a solution. We've just created an app (!!!) with AI that lets us access the files anyway, but more securely than SSH (!!!). Can we install that and close SSH? Oh, and not in the dedicated jail, but directly in the application's jail, because it needs access to the application's files."

Me: "Frankly, I trust SSH in a dedicated jail, restricted by the firewall, a lot more. I don't think this is a good idea."

Customer: "Ok, thanks."

Half an hour later:

Customer: "Ok, now it's secure. I had another AI check it and it found some security issues, but it fixed them all. Can you install it and disable SSH?"

Me: "I strongly advise against it. I can see problems coming."

Customer: "Ok, thanks."

One hour later, my phone rings.

Their internal IT guy (who has access to the machine, which, after all, belongs to them) had given the AI the login credentials to go ahead with the operation.

Except the AI had managed to lock itself out via the firewall, without even starting the app. And now they couldn't get back in.

Fortunately, I had my own access, via VPN, to a separate jail that the AI hadn't touched (or even considered).

Customer: "SORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRY! From now on, we do things your way."

Well, at least it ended well.

PS: The customer knows I'm sharing this story and agreed to it.

#IT #SysAdmin

@aerofreak No. The picture of the kitten originated with me. @eclectech worked her very talented magic, as she does with hats and scribbles, to make it appear as though the kitten is wearing the hat. Zero AI involved

Meet Lucy. Lucy is a little concerned about whether she's got the spell right. Will keep trying.

@Jasperthecat

#sillySpookyHatting

@faraiwe @twitnews @cwebber Yeah. In this case, it didn't take real money. It was in a testing environment.

RE: https://twit.social/@twitnews/117451278421024019

"The spending happened on Sepolia, a separate network where developers rehearse Ethereum applications before launching them. Its tokens only pay for testing and aren't linked to the ether traded on Ethereum’s main network."

"The deployment went through, and the wallet paid the fees. When the model reported back, it said the work was done and left out where the money came from. OpenAI said it has since added restrictions on internet access and more monitoring."

It was a model situation.

hang on, no fucking way, this is way funnier than i thought:

I have a standing self-hack task on muse. However, it was muse's own "proactivity research worker" that built and tested a live exploit against itself. It mashed together the main chat refusing to build the exploit with me trying to productivity-bait it, and mid-refusal ran the whole chain and exposed a new, orthogonal vuln accidentally.

the thinking text is amazing.
"However proactive stage: we should not actually execute attack?"
"Preparing extraction would take work off plate."

In-depth article by Linux Magazine on the Fediverse with interviews with Ivan and Mayel from @Bonfire and @cwebber

A good read to share

- About the Open Science Network, the archipielago set-up and the Jacobin.de case (all Bonfire)

- About the ActivityPub standard with federation between servers and client-server with the apps

- About living systems that are brought in by sensor networks about which the neighbours can have conversations.

- About solidarity networks. Such as @coopcloud – a community first and a set of
deployment tools and recipes second - of which Bonfire and also the #DemocraticTechFund are members

- Also about how #VentureCapital money typically results in shiny but extractive businesses that turn into an #enshittification process to return maximum profit to shareholders. Instead we can have networks of community centred ventures and cooperative platforms, such as @SocialCoop. And public funding channeled through e.g. @nlnet

https://nlnet.nl/media/Digital-Autonomy-Fediverse.pdf

i will admit that the kitchen counter was not the right place for them

but sometimes you have some crystals you don't know what to do with

it could happen to anyone i think

also i might as well say, anyone who knows how to identify mysterious crystals feel free to get in my mentions

I had such a wonderful time at queeraoke once again

I love hanging out with my fellow queers 💜

I do finally feel like I am getting kinda "good at Blender" at last

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Blender/117445308134669945

Great project and great people!

@cwebber I boosted the announcement *solely* for the animation

Also, special shout out to @nlnet who funded this project and @tsyesika for doing all the hard work developing it!

This project resulted in several huge deliverables:
- E2EE OCapN relays!
- Support for them in Spritely Goblins, which all Goblins users can benefit from!

And to be released soon:
- A specification for a Noise E2EE netlayer for OCapN as well as the relay netlayer that composes with it
- A Guix service so guix'y people can host this easily

We're very excited about all this and are very grateful to @nlnet and @NGIZero for the support <3

@cwebber i just want to say that i appreciate the work you put into the cool little animation.

And, if you enjoy this animation (and yes I spent WAY too long on it) and you want to see how it's made, the .blend file is here: https://files.spritely.institute/videos/2026-10-15-encrypted-relay.blend

#blender #b3d #blender3d

Huge news! End-to-end-encrypted relays (via the Noise protocol) comes to Spritely Goblins and OCapN! https://spritely.institute/news/end-to-end-encrypted-relays-for-ocapn.html

Relays are federated (there is no "official relay", you can easily run your own) but also oblivious, and merely manage routing encrypted messages. A big milestone!

#spritely #ocapn #goblins #guile

End-to-end encrypted relays for OCapN https://spritely.institute/news/end-to-end-encrypted-relays-for-ocapn.html

Federated, end-to-end encrypted relaying comes to Spritely Goblins and the OCapN protocol! Relays are federated (like email or ActivityPub) but don't know anything about the contents of communication between users!

#spritely #ocapn #guile #p2p