When an entire class of technology states on the packaging that it was made in China but intended "for overseas use only," this should really give you pause before plugging it into your network.
You will find this verbiage on a lot of Android TV streaming boxes for sale at the major retailers. There's a very good reason the country that makes this crap doesn't want it on their own networks. My advice: If you have one of these Android streaming boxes on your network or get one as a gift, toss it in the trash. I'll have a lot more about this in the New Year, but these things are responsible for building out a botnet that currently has ~2M devices and is growing rapidly. blog.xlab.qianxin.com/kimwolf-…
Kimwolf Exposed: The Massive Android Botnet with 1.8 Million Infected Devices
Background On October 24, 2025, a trusted partner in the security community provided us with a brand-new botnet sample. The most distinctive feature of this sample was its C2 domain, 14emeliaterracewestroxburyma02132[.Wang Hao (奇安信 X 实验室)
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@briankrebs@infosec.exchange I don't think China is a country. I think China is a stateless territory infested by a communist criminal terrorist organization whose kingpin is Xi Jin Ping.
If you're planning to give your child a phone for Christmas, please do not install any monitoring apps on it!
I know, you're just trying to protect them. As you should! But if we accustom children to constantly being monitored, they won't protest surveillance once they become adults.
So please, teach them to use technology responsibly, even when Big Parent isn't watching!
Thank you, and have a great time with your loved ones!
--
#privacy #DataProtection
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If you're lonely or isolated or finding the Christmas period difficult for any reason, you might want to follow the hashtag #JoinIn and follow the group !@joinin
These are intended for people to start friendly chats about everyday stuff they're doing like making food, going for walks, listening to music etc.
It's fine to reply to posts with the JoinIn tag or in the JoinIn group, as the person who made the post is actively seeking conversation 🙂
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Thanks for keeping it alive.
I think it's important to acknowledge that it was started by comedian Sarah Millican, who started it on Twitter back in the day (I think she did eventually step back from it in 2023).
#joinin | Sarah Millican | Official Website
If you're not looking forward to Christmas Day, maybe jump on Twitter and follow the hashtag #joinin for some chat and company. I'll be there and so will lots of other lovely people. It's our 8th year and is always so bloody lovely.Sarah Millican | Official Website
The Asexual Manifesto, Lisa Orlando and Barbara Getz, 1972.
Anyone else having trouble unlocking your iPhone/iPad with FaceID after updating to iOS 26.2? Mine just insists on using the passcode every time. Says it’s needed to enable FaceID but never enables after entering.
Found some reports that the update introduced bugs with the TrueDepth front camera and this is why FaceID is borked for some people. Grrr. 😠
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I haven’t had any noticeable problems with Face ID.
Something that may help a bit while you try to figure it out is to enable your Apple Watch under Unlock with Nearby Devices in the Face ID & Passcode settings.
Hey linux folks who are aware of the changes in Fedora 43 for Audio. I noticed that this command,
sudo sh -c ' echo "load-module module-loopback" >> /etc/pulse/default.pa '
is not working anymore in Fedora 43. (it did in Fedora 42.) Anyone know if there has been a change in formatting or if there is a new command that will do what this did? It was meant to permanently turn on loopback so that you could hear what was coming into Line in on your speakers. For some reason the temporary command
pactl load-modiule module-loopback
still works, but it looks like the file that the echo command was supposed to write to is no longer used. (at least it's not on my computer anymore, and making one doesn't seem to do anything.)
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Kansas Resident Patrick Roach Successfully Sues Verizon For Refusing To Unlock His Phone (And Wins)
If you’ve been around a while, you might remember that Verizon used to be completely obnoxious when it came to forcing you to use their phones and their shitty apps. At one point, Verizon wou…Techdirt
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instagram.com/reel/DSni88mAdpL…
Here's the 60 minutes piece on CECOT that they said we didn't need to see
Elizabeth Warren on Instagram: "This is what Trump and CBS executives wanted to bury. It deserves to be seen."
A 60 Minutes segment that CBS refused to air after Trump criticized the show exposes the harsh conditions and human rights abuses in Seacott, a prison in El Salvador.Instagram
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"where were all the trans people before?"
We hid. And if we didn't hide, we died.
- we were deemed clinically insane.
- we we imprisoned.
- we were put in institutions.
- we were forcibly medically castrated.
- we were tortured with electric shocks.
- we were lobotomized.
- we were hunted down and killed.
- our murderers claimed "panic" and were set free.
- many of us chose the "easy way out" instead.
Helping trans people exist is good, actually.
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I already went through this with gay people. (Took me some time to grow up on that topic.) Society stopped persecuting them, and suddenly "everyone" was gay. And I was like, this is ridiculous, they must be imagining it.
Eventually I figured it out. Just like you said.
And these days, I sometimes find myself thinking, "Come on. All these people are trans?"
And then I think, "Yes. Always have been. I just know it now."
(Offer rescinded, people are being crappy in the replies, I can't keep up with this bc it broke containment, I have to step away from this):
I used to work at Starbucks. I know exactly how they make every drink. If you ever want an at-home dupe, let me know what one and I probably know how to make it. If not, I guarantee I can figure it out easily enough. Screw Starbucks and their union busting and various other issues, save yourself a few bucks.
For instance: Their mocha is literally just hot cocoa mix with a pinch of salt, and a little extra sugar, mixed with water. Use a hot cocoa packet, add just enough milk to make it into a thinned paste/thick syrup, and add coffee (instant coffee absolutely works for this) and hot milk. It'll taste better and you can get hot cocoa packs that'll work at a dollar tree for 2 for a buck.
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After killing the CECOT story in the USA, CBS goofed and aired it in Canada. Last night, as Canadians were uploading it to YouTube, CBS was filing copyright violations to block its further release.
But it's too late. Under Bari Weiss, CBS is state run media desperately cosplaying as legitimate journalism.
Watch the full CECOT episode CBS tried to ban: youtube.com/watch?v=F81WnOyDXD…
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.www.youtube.com
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Additional sources:
d.spitfiresam.com/60_minutes_c… (~100MB 720p)
d.spitfiresam.com/60minutesCEC… (~1.3GB 1080p)
BitTorrent spreads the load over hundreds or thousands of individual users, rather than hammering archive.org:
mstdn.ca/@JustinDerrick/115766…
Justin Derrick (@JustinDerrick@mstdn.ca)
@misty@digipres.club Here are some random digits that can be pasted into pretty much any BitTorrent Client, and you'll receive the video -- be patient! 1080p: c538dfa4efef531a4a6f18493d9ff9553ae32290 720p: ec3ac02094d701f4a454ccd44cc315b5592bc676…Mastodon Canada
Everything Is Becoming a Bank
jacobin.com/2025/10/bankificat…
Everything Is Becoming a Bank
Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks.jacobin.com
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So no real blogging tonight
Didn't get to it this morn either, actually didn't surf the web at all, just wasn't feeling it, and won't be bothering tonight. Woke up a bit meh, dragged and ran errands before going to work a bit early, including hitting MickeyD's as I had a craving.
Tonight is much the same, mostly skipping the web, I'm tired, and my shoulder hurts bad. Ice and reading.
Reading is the big reason, although some of the stories I'm tracking on FiM Fiction do have updates, I'm not feeling it, so I started reading some of my Read It Later stories. Right now I'm on the 5th chapter of A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - The Philospher's Stone, and I'm rather taken with it.
Sunset Shimmer in the Harry Potter universe isn't unknown, but it isn't super common. However, those always use canon SS, a teenager who uses a portal mirror after the mirror showed her a future where she was an Alicorn, because Princes Celestia won't make her one. This one is more mature, what if anything she saw wasn't brought up, instead, she's gotten fed up with Celestia not teaching her like she used to, so she decided to go somewhere else where she can learn more. None of the desire for alicornhood, nor a plan to conquer Equestria, just a desire to learn more. Despite expecting to come out of a statue by a high school, what happened in canon, she comes out of a mirror in the Grainger household, something she blames on Philomena, her pet phoenix that came with her, because she perched on the top of the mirror where the focus is before they used it.
Any how, I'm finding the writing to be to my taste, and while SS is overpowered, the way they're handling it is quite good, she's happy to learn, experience new things, and help people. It makes it quite enjoyable to see how she interacts with the world.
What really has me engaged at the moment? I just reached the point where she tells Hermine's parents that she can give them magic, or more correctly, she can unblock their thaumic passageways. Apparently this is a known problem in Equestria, and she's been reading an advanced medical magic book, and feels capable of fixing it for them. Interesting idea, muggles, or at least muggles that have magic capable children, are capable of magic themselves but have a malady that stops them, wonder where this'll lead.
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Moon Bugs, released in 1983, is one of the earliest IBM PC games ever released.
And to be precise, Moon Bugs is not a DOS game. It is a PC booter. The disk bypasses the operating system entirely and boots straight into the game. No command line. No DOS prompt.
Technically, it is impressive. Despite using CGA, Moon Bugs displays 16 colours instead of the usual 4. Very few CGA titles pulled that off, and almost none did it this early. In 1983, this was pushing the hardware harder than most developers bothered to try.
The gameplay is another story. Moon Bugs follows the familiar Space Invaders, Galaxian, and Defender lineage. Fixed patterns. Predictable enemy behavior. Competent, but routine. You can enjoy it for a while, but it will not surprise you.
If you run it in an emulator, throttle the CPU hard. At modern speeds, it becomes unplayable almost instantly.
For retro computing enthusiasts, Moon Bugs is a genuine curiosity. For modern players, it is mostly a historical artifact rather than a compelling game.
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Sylkykat (she/her) 📚🖖🦉🐱☕️🇺🇦
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