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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2023-56/

    That’s a link to the most recent release of Firefox and the security vulnerabilities that were fixed.

    You’ll notice the first one listed says, “This issue could allow an attacker to perform remote code execution and sandbox escape.”

    So if you visited a site that exploited that bug, it escaped the sandbox and ran whatever code it wanted to. Since you were running as root it could do anything it wants. Your device is now the property of someone else. Potentially all your data has been stolen. You probably didn’t even notice.

    Now. Realistically. You probably didn’t get exploited. Your device may not be vulnerable to that particular bug. But new bugs are found, and fixed, and created every day. Can you be sure you weren’t exploited?

    Let’s look at it a different way. Think of it like driving a car with no seatbelt or airbags. As long as you don’t crash, you’re fine. The car still works fine without seatbelts and you have more freedom to move your arms around.

    Let’s look at it a different way. Do you ever lock the door to your home/apartment? Heck do you even close the door? Why not leave it wide open?

    At the end of the day security is about layers and the trade offs for convenience. You can run KDE as root, and you can run Firefox as root. You’ll probably be fine. It’s like driving without a seatbelt or leaving your front door wide open, but you can do it. If you do drive with a seatbelt and at least close your front door, you can probably run KDE and Firefox as a regular user.





  • This is hugely important. Since Windows is what they use now, I’d start by seeing if any peers are using macOS. See what issues, if any, they have. If you can find someone who uses ChomeOS, ask them too.

    Linux will likely have a solution to any sort of compatibility problems, but I imagine folks who have already moved off of Windows will share similar problems.



  • For your second point, do you say that you use Adobe or Windows?

    Or how about if I said I made this cool image using Linux? More likely I’d say I used GIMP or ImageMagick or some specific command line tool.

    Linux is just the kernel. It’s an amazing kernel, but it’s only half the story. The tools on top of it are just as important as the kernel. That’s the point of saying GNU/Linux is to call out the other half of the whole experience.

    The reason GNU/Linux isn’t popular to say is that it doesn’t provide any real information. “I run Linux” and “I run GNU/Linux” doesn’t really tell you anything. “I run Debian”, “I run Fedora”, “I run Arch BTW”, those all tell you something different.

    I can’t speak to the OS landscape when Linux was released. Maybe saying that you ran GNU/Minix or Bell/Unix or whatever combinations might have existed would have made sense. However at this point it doesn’t.


  • On the one hand I agree.

    I remember when I first learned about Linux, specifically an early version of KNOPPIX. Computers ran Windows. Mac whatever existed but was niche. The idea that I could boot a new fully functional OS from a CD was an absolutely crazy idea. I thought I had an understanding of computers but this changed everything.

    This rant talks about users being unwilling to branch out but I think it’s more that they’re unable to. They lack the understanding of what question to ask. They’re not making the choice to not try Foo, they lack the understanding that alternatives exist. If someone told you “Actually cars don’t need wheels” and then took the wheels off and drove away you’d be completely flabbergasted. Turns out cars move based on magic not wheels.

    On the other hand.

    I don’t think it’s unreasonable for folks to be a little more attentive in the choices they make. When you buy a car you don’t just show up to the dealership and grab the first one you see. You choose gas, electric or hybrid. You choose a car, a truck, a van, etc based on your needs. You might pick a specific brand/make/model based on other requirements.

    It’s fine to choose the most popular option, it’s popular for a reason, but you should understand a little bit about your choice. You chose Lenovo. You chose Windows. You chose Edge. You chose Bing.

    I’m not asking if you know if you have an HDD or an SSD. I’m not asking if it’s an NVME drive. I’m not asking which generation/model CPU it has.

    I think the frustration being expressed is the type you see from the classic “The Website is Down”.



  • Not even just “certain countries”, in the U S of fuckin A.

    The first four seasons, arguably the best seasons, were only available to HBO subscribers. The only way to get HBO was to be a cable subscriber. So you were paying probably $100 a month to watch one show. There is NO WAY that was going to be successful. This was the rise of Netflix. I could pay $100 per year for their content. By 2014/2015 I was getting House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Bojack Horseman, it was a great time.

    Now lucky for HBO Game of Thrones is a powerhouse. So what do they do in 2015? They launch HBO Now… as an iOS exclusive. I want to pay you but you cut out half your audience? Guess I’m pirating Season 5 too.

    Finally by season 6 HBO Now is available for everyone. I’ve now watched the majority of the show by pirating it. I don’t fault anyone who continued to do so. And this was the American experience. I can only imagine how other countries handled it.

    Game of Thrones wasn’t in jeopardy because of piracy. Game of Thrones only succeeded due to piracy. It was a fantastic show (in the early seasons) but doomed to “cancelled too soon” without piracy.