Quite true that you may not be able to trust the OS or other application for such detection if someone has already accessed your device. Although this is not foolproof across all devices, they have made pretty good progress, and it may have useful applications too for areas where recording is prohibited, as it is applied externally from any device.

TickTock as a prototype consists of a near-field probe, a radio-frequency amplifier, software defined radio (SDR) and a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. The researchers envision the device's final form will be similar to a USB drive, one that can be placed next to, or clipped to, a laptop to alert the user to any change in the device's mic status.

See https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/12/mic_monitoring_spying/

#technology #spying #recording #microphones #privacy

“The fact that Facebook and Twitter control the business models of so many media corporations, at some point becomes untenable.”

“And those corporations, if they're smart, will move to models they can control the economic model a little bit more.”

A movement is now underway to make that happen; to turn back the clock on what might have been and force future social networks to give control back to their users. Fed up with watching from the sideline while others try to make this happen and fail, Henshaw-Plath, who also goes by Rabble, is now the CEO of Planetary.Social, one of dozens of networks being built by developers who have decided the risks of so much power centralized in one company aren’t worth the benefits.

An interesting article explaining the background to the Secure Scuttlebutt peer-to-peer network, which because it has no central managed server and is based on an open standard, allows other client applications to hook into it and communicate. Patchwork was one of the original clients (no longer being developed), and there are also Planetary, Manyverse, Patchfox, and others. I did a video a while back about what Patchwork looks like at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbzGpKffQuM.

Scuttlebutt itself isn’t supported by venture capital. Instead, taking a page from the way Tim Berners-Lee funded the creation of the World Wide Web, Scuttlebutt is backed by grants that helped jumpstart the process. Similar to a distributed autonomous organization (DAO) that connects groups on a blockchain, there are now hundreds of users who personally donate to the cause and an estimated 30,000 people using one of at least six social networks on the protocol.

But without central server hosting and storage requirements, nor a large team of developers, Secure Scuttlebutt does not chew up operational expenditure.

"Though decentralized social networking is proving a difficult way to make money, Henshaw-Plath has plans to sell support services." And there's the rub for companies and marketing firms wanting to profit out of social media, and Secure Scuttlebutt is a whole different paradigm to centralized social media. One example also is, who can't just look up your friends off a contact list...

“The software we're building, when we're building decentralized social media, when we're building new social media platforms, they need to be about people and human connection, not structuring our world through algorithms,” he says.

See https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2022/09/11/jack-dorseys-former-boss-is-building-a-decentralized-twitter

#technology #socialmedia #securescuttlebutt #decentralised #P2P

Lock-in is not a healthy model. A company can lock in customers by making parts of service so proprietary that moving elsewhere becomes a very disruptive and expensive choice. It's essentially an artificial inconvenience. It may inspire feelings of elitism among some customers, especially with consumer brands, but it's not a situation business customers appreciate.

The practice leads to at least two major consequences. It dampens emphasis on good customer services and reducing churn, since customers are now just shy of being product hostages, and it limits agility and innovation. From car spares to phone apps, lock-in tends to favour the supplier, not the customer. Technologists know lock-in is a constant risk that results in supporting legacy systems and spending more on keeping the lights on.

Perhaps worse, lock-in creates stagnation inside the customer's environment, says Karl Fischer, Automation Lead at Obsidian Systems: "If you're locked into a specific way of doing things, you can get stuck there.

It is unfortunate though that many decision makers (the non-tech folk) get very caught up in the marketing proposals of opex vs capex, fewer local skills required, etc. But they don't think about exiting a cloud, interoperability, open standards, abstraction, etc.

There are ways of leveraging cloud without necessarily getting locked in. But realise that if you have become locked in, it can be very difficult (read expensive and time-consuming) to exit or migrate elsewhere, especially if your data is now locked into that cloud in a proprietary format. With the type of investment in involved, it may also well be worth getting an independent consultant to consider the pros and cons, and specifying what exactly what your requirements are.

I know this is not a brand new article, but in discussion recently with the author, he reminded me about it.

See https://www.itweb.co.za/content/rW1xL759wo57Rk6m

#technology #cloudservices #cloudhosting #openstandards #opensource

Three sisters — Kholeka, Tobeka, and Bongeka Lwana — have launched an Internet service provider to make connectivity more accessible in South African townships.

Lokshin WiFi, a low-cost wireless Internet service provider (WISP), launched on 12 August 2022.

WISPs are Internet service providers offering subscribers a point-to-point wireless connection to the Internet, usually over a technology that uses unlicensed radio frequency spectrum like Wi-Fi.

Lokshin WiFi uses FibrePoynt’s — a fixed wireless broadband provider — cloud-based platform and solar-powered network infrastructure to provide low-cost Internet connectivity to consumers and small businesses. FibrePoynt is a technology developed by Poynting in South Africa to reduce the cost of fibre deployments in neighbourhoods.

Yes, the daily cost is a bit pricey, but that is compared to fibre, and monthly packages are more affordable especially when shared. Infrastructure has been problematic in many areas due to the workers being attacked, or the infrastructure stolen. So wireless with solar makes a lot of sense. Wireless can certainly also allow for range extending or mesh networking to reach further without having to lay infrastructure down.

But without a doubt, the value of communication and information that this access brings, is priceless to any community.

See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wireless/460117-three-sisters-launch-low-cost-wi-fi-in-townships-using-south-african-tech.html

#technology #southafrica #WiFi #WISP

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has released the first edition of a new set of standards designed to clear the way for a new breed of storage products: CSxes.

Short for computational storage devices, CSxes differ from regular SSDs or hard drives in that they handle data processing on-board, minimizing bottlenecks created by the need to pass data between storage and the CPU, GPU and RAM.

The new standards issued by SNIA were created to encourage interoperability between the various CSDs currently under development, as well as supporting the work of software architects and other programmers.

These devices will likely cost more than SSDs, and with SSDs still ramping up on capacity and lowering costs, I think SSDs will be around a long time still.

See https://www.techradar.com/news/a-whole-new-breed-of-ssds-is-about-to-break-through

#technology #storage #SSD #CSxes

If you are aware of a few known risky commands, you may avoid falling into the traps of trolls trying to trick you into running commands and messing up your system.

As you gain experience and know the meaning and usages of the commands and tools, less will be the chances of destroying your system with silly and tricky commands.

It is good to see at least for the rm command there are some failsafes.

See https://itsfoss.com/dangerous-linux-commands/

#technology #Linux #opensource

To that end, it is:

• Fully open source (licensed under GPL v2)
• Peer-to-peer whenever possible, otherwise Open Relay is used to ensure reliable peer connection
• Encrypted (via WebRTC)
• Serverless - Public WebTorrent servers are only used for initial peer handshake
• Ephemeral - message content is never persisted to disk
• Decentralized - there is no API server. All that's required for Chitchatter to function is availability of GitHub for static assets and public WebTorrent and STUN/TURN relay servers for establishing communication.

Open the website and join a room to start chatting with anyone else who is in the room. By default, room names are random UUIDs that are generated client-side. To securely communicate with someone, it is recommended to join one of these randomly-generated rooms and share the URL (via the "link" button at the top of the page) to whoever you wish to communicate with via a secure medium of your choosing (such as Burner Note or Yopass). Your static user name will be presented to you, and it would be good share that with who you will be chatting with so they know they're talking to you.

A problem with P2P is that there is a risk often of your IP address being exposed, as connections are made directly between peers. But if that is a worry then just start a VPN or a Tor session before connecting.

See https://chitchatter.im/

#technology #opensource #decentralised #P2P #Chitchatter

I was just looking at an iOS Watch app called Watchtube, but as some commented, the Apple Watch does not have the battery for watching videos. Then I saw this Android watch by Rainbuvvy...

It is certainly not everyone's cup of tea unless you keep complaining watch screens are too small and battery life is always so bad

Interestingly it also has a heart rate monitor and even takes a nano SIM with 4G cellular data connection, so could probably work stand alone without needing to be paired to a phone, but always check if your country is supported. It apparently runs Android 7.1.1 so is not that up to date (as is often the case with cheaper Chinese gadgets). It also has Bluetooth, WiFi (2.4 and 5 GHz), built-in front camera, and GPS.

Is it a watch or a phone strapped to the wrist? If it's a watch it probably is the largest watch screen ever!

See https://www.amazon.com/Refly-Android-2700mAh-Battery-Smartwatch/dp/B07YCDGSHZ

#technology #smartwatch #android

This article provides you with the best and most popular applications by categories that you can self-host on your Raspberry Pi device.

Instead of renting services from a cloud provider, for example, self-hosting involves installing, running, and maintaining the hardware locally and administering the software application. The main advantage is that the user has complete control over their data.

Nowadays, self-hosting web-facing services and applications is a popular hobby among open-source software enthusiasts. Raspberry Pi is one of the best platforms to accomplish this.

This is a list of really solid applications to consider using a Raspberry Pi for at home.

Note: Be aware this site blocked my country so you may need a VPN to access it (bit sad but I have contacted the site owner about it).

See https://linuxiac.com/best-self-hosted-raspberry-pi-apps/

#Technology #raspberrypi #selfhosting #opensource