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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: January 17th, 2022

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  • Actually no I use it for CRYSTALS-Kyber /s

    Yes, just joking it’s not even meant for a “replacement” but rather how to give a pragmatic affordable (the 1st one I made was literally just 2 paper strips and scotch tape) fun way to explore ROT… but IMHO it can be just a starting point. You can do that and sequence them, e.g. ROT-X where X is the date so e.g. today is 06 12 2025 so you would ROT0 the first letter, ROT6 the second, etc.

    It is only meant to be fun, please don’t use this in actual serious situations.






  • utopiah@lemmy.mltoPrivacy@lemmy.mlI made a gpg Hat
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    3 days ago

    That’s the kind of things I expect somebody to be into deciphering to have already a ~/Prototypes/deciphers/ directory with a bunch of scripts with the basics and maybe a testing script that iterates through them sorted by probability (maybe based on popularity) and checks output against keywords, e.g. stop words of increasing length then dictionaries.

    TL;DR: I bet that person had automated that process.







  • Thanks for doing that.

    IMHO it’s show, don’t tell. I’m assuming you have few laptops laying around here but ideally :

    • have a working Linux computer and let them play with it. You can have few documents on the desktop to help kickstart the process, few browser tabs opened with e.g. ProtonDB to show that most games do work, etc. A little “trick” you can do is have an email client (Web based or not) opened so that they can (if they want) email to themselves a message like “I wrote this on Linux!” and a link to some documentation your wrote online about the event.
    • have another one where you can do an installation live (or play in loop a few minutes video recording where disk formatting, package download and installation, are sped up, easy to do with a VM)
    • have yet another one where … they can install themselves! I’d suggest a VM there so that they don’t fear they would wreck your computer

    Few “gotcha” I would warn people who are genuinely interested in (as I wouldn’t waste time with this for people still doubting) :

    • backup your data (documents, family photos, work, etc but NOT games, music, downloaded movies) on a USB stick before you do anything!
    • you might have to tinker with BIOS settings but that is not scary BECAUSE you backed up your data
    • there are plenty of distributions, even though that’s beautiful, … just pick a popular one at first because that’s how you get help more easily
    • peripherals are not all made equal, even though the vast VAST majority do work with Linux, they don’t have little stickers to help customers buy them so rely on standards (like BlueTooth or WiFi) AND if it’s something expensive or bulky, do check online reviews with product name + linux in a search engine like DuckDuckGo.

    Now… the actual argument I usually share with people is the browser. Most people don’t use their computer, really. They use their browser to connect to the Web THEN do their “work” or entertainment. In that case then it should be no problem because browsers are properly cross platform. I would let them potentially use Chrome (sigh) or Chromium just to show how familiar it is and hope that, as they learn more about freedom, they do consider other browsers, like Firefox or WaterFox, Pale Moon, etc but just like with distributions, starting with whatever is popular and they feel comfortable with.


    • for the Lynx (that can’t be bought rooted already but takes about 15min to root) I wouldn’t buy it right now but wait for their AndroidXR release… and see if that would be rootable. I personally share my Lynx with hardware and software hacker friends nearby because I know it’s a relatively rare device.
    • NorthStar is AR, not VR, and by default isn’t mobile but there are compute pack explorations and opaque covers. Honestly if you are not into hardware tinkering I would not recommend it. If you are though then you probably don’t need a lot of hand holding, just connecting with peers to learn from each other.
    • SimulaVR https://simulavr.com/ is very tempting but the price tag is quite high and to be honest I worry that they are following the Lynx delivery delay path. I also haven’t put my actual hands on an actual product so I can’t comment on it.
    • Valve itself has been leaving hints for mobile VR and they did IMHO an amazing job with the SteamDeck, namely something reliable (it “just works”) while running Linux proper (even though most players will be totally unaware of it) … but it’s Valve. So they will release it, if they ever do, whenever they will believe it’s ready. This is also pure speculation! They have not announced anything but they did sell the Index, SteamDeck, SteamVR on Linux, and there are bits of code hinting at a standalone HMD.

  • I would consider that VERY sophisticated. One needs to basically conduct identity fraud, so have enough information to port your SIM via your phone company. I imagine that if you do not call your phone company with your existing number they have a few extra steps to allow anything to happen.

    Anyway, beyond that, which as you shared (thanks for taking the time to put those links) is indeed not infeasible (but still requires targeted work and skills) this is only 1 step out of 2 for authentication against a bank. One still needs to know the bank and the login/password pair the Website requires.

    Even once that’s done, I believe most banks do not allow large transfers, e.g. above 10K EUR, without another verification. Typically transfers have a daily and weekly limit that can be modified temporarily.

    So… IMHO it’s sophisticated (in the sense that a “script kiddie” or scammer without technical skills can’t do it) and has limited economical value.

    I will remember it (again, thanks for pointing it out) but I won’t lose sleep over it.

    PS: I’m wondering what’s the consumer law on this actually because arguably some steps, e.g. no limit transfer or SIM porting would be on failure on the side of companies, not consumer. I wouldn’t be shocked if companies had insurance for that and might have to pay back whatever amount would be stolen. Obviously this would be regulation dependent.