Joe

This was similar to a trick that a few smaller (less serious) hobby-ISPs did back in the days of 14.4k/28.8k modems to take advantage of the “reasonably priced” business plans for ISDN. They’d register multiple businesses at a single address to qualify for the plans, then balance new egress connections across the pool using squid and other magic. Fun times…

I find it pretty useful to help get me over mental hurdle of starting something. So it’s faster than me procrastinating for another day. ;-)

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hacker

“The media’s definition of the real term malicious cracker. A hacker used to be a well respected individual who loved to tinker with gadgets.”, plus a few other definitions.

Judges usually don’t know this stuff, but they primarily work with systems and software supplied by the state…whose experts should know what they are doing.

My bet is that this guy decided to work on personal equipment, probably in violation of the rules. Being a judge, he’s unlikely to be sanctioned for it, and will certainly learn from the experience. If anything, there may be some internal discussions which we’ll never hear about.

Law is an area where AI can add value, though… searching through past rulings and legal opinions is tedious, and anything that can assist to find needles in haystacks would be welcome. It shouldn’t be used to write legal judgements or arguments though…

They could. The protocol also supports IP spoofing, so doxing could also be a thing.

For individuals, it is a time consuming and costly legal process, whether justified or not. For the law firm, it costs a few cents per letter, but they get a few hundred (or more) euros when some sucker pays.

In Germany and no doubt some other countries, private law firms can (on behalf of the copyright holders) request people’s identity based on residential IP addresses and then send extortionist legal threats. Apparently an IP appearing on a public tracker can be enough to trigger it, without any confirmed data transfer.

VPNs are common and usually sufficient.

Not everything will be open source. For whatever reason, they decided to make this obfuscator open source. It might also just be an interesting side project that someone got permission to release.

Obfuscation can make it harder to reverse engineer code, even if the method is known. It might also be designed to be pluggable, allowing custom obfuscation. I haven’t checked.

We also know that obfuscation isn’t real security … but it’s sometimes it is also good enough for a particular use case…

Except my crazy relative (just 1, thank dog) also has telegram and feels the urge to forward every damn whackjob conspiracy theory reinterpretation of truth that they find to me and my wife, despite us never replying except to ask them to stop. eg. Cloud seeding, windmills and electric cars are responsible for destroying the atmosphere (not co2 and other greenhouse gases); Bill Gates etc. are spreading microchips through vaccinations; judges ruling that measles doesn’t exist; Ukraine is full of nazis; and yes, even regurgitated feelgood fairy tales and random cat pictures from Facebook. So glad they are in a country far far away from me. They “do their own research”, of course.

So bloody sad that so many people are in a similar situation of avoiding friends and family for their own sanity (and sometimes safety).

Don’t they know that the kids deserved it, because they like Hummus. Yes, I’m sure that was it.

I used to love Pocket … I remember they changed something, and then I refused to use it since. I don’t remember what it was now, though. I assume enshittification of some kind.

It would be naive to think this isn’t already in widespread use.

Challenge accepted.

There have been a few cases, of course. There have also been investigations and prosecutions. But it is NOTHING LIKE russia’s forced conscription in LPR / DPR.

The anti-Ukraine propaganda effort is very real, and organized. You can see the propaganda-boys/bots in the comments here - just look at the frequency and content of their posts and comments.

Pfft. That sounds like something a pocket calculator would say.

Hah. I was just playing a YT video of modem sounds for my son, after showing him some “history” videos about early PCs, BBS’s, text adventure and early commodore* and PC gaming.

History? I lived it, son.

Grey-stubble Gen-X’er here… The 80s and (moreso for me) 90s were a great time to get into tech. Amiga, DOS, Win3.11, OS/2, Linux… BBS’s and the start of the Internet, accompanied by special interest groups and regular in-person social events.

Everyone was learning at the same time, and the complexity arrived in consumable chunks.

Nowadays, details are hidden behind touchscreens and custom UXs, and the complexity must seem insurmountable to many. I guess courses have more value now.

Only in the US, and for mapping companies that now have to treat the US as a “sensitive” country.

The rest of the world can continue to call it by its internationally recognised name.

Don’t know about “happily”. “Readily” might be more accurate.

Not sure it’s essential, but it seems the norm.

Anything that helps breaks the twit’s influence is useful for now, though.

Nokia Jaws was the best.