Merrymount

Disguising itself as the innocuously-titled “Android Developer Verifier” (ADV) process, this trojan horse runs surreptitiously in the background as a system service with full root privileges, quietly awaiting an activation signal. The service cannot be blocked, disabled, or removed. Unlike a commonplace bit of malware, this extraordinary strain won’t be detected and neutralized by Play Protect (the malware scanning and remediation service that is installed on all Android Certified devices). In fact, Play Protect is itself the vector through which this virus is transmitted and installed.

What happened to the fight for the Internet?

via lobste.rs

Skyrim — what did the Greybeards want that horn for anyway?

As AI companies get ready to go public and we get a deeper look at their inner workings, it’s only natural to have questions about their finances, like “Do they make money?” and “How?” Here are a few examples to help the average layperson understand the business side of AI.

Environmental groups said the proposals would gut Canada’s environmental laws simply to fast-track infrastructure projects.

“The government’s main rationale is, it’s complicated and it takes time. Basically, our job is too hard. This is also not a convincing argument for removing environmental assessment for pipelines and nuclear projects,” said Marc-André Viau of the environmental group Équiterre.

“This policy paper rather suggests they only want to rubber stamp any projects that are put in front of them. They don’t want to assess, they only want to approve.”

They kept saying "cyberhacker" on the evening news and it sounded funnier each time.

It's like waking up one day and finding that everyone is suddenly saying poochie-woochie instead of dog, even in formal contexts.

Letter signatories include the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council (CMPAC), the Canadian Council for Refugees, Centre for Free Expression, Clinique pour la justice migrante, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, Ligue des droits et libertés, Migrant Workers’ Alliance for Change, OCASI, OpenMedia, and individual experts including Ron Deibert (Director, Citizen Lab), Teresa Scassa (Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy), and Michael Karanicolas (Dalhousie University).

It's another open letter opposing C-22, this one with imo a more clear explanation of the many things that are wrong with it. There is also this: Tell your MP

The undersigned civil society organizations, companies, and cybersecurity experts, including members of the Global Encryption Coalition, urge the federal government to withdraw Bill C-22, An Act respecting lawful access.

The Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act, will force services to install “technical capabilities” to access Canadians’ communications and sensitive data. The consensus among cybersecurity experts is clear. There is no way to provide backdoor access to encrypted data and communications without compromising the privacy and security of millions of law-abiding citizens.

I have just noticed that there is a hole in my boots.

To test the hypothesis that modern materials science and manufacturing techniques had rendered obsolete Sam Vimes' famous saying about boots, last autumn I bought the cheapest winter boots available at Walmart.

They are not fashionable, well-fitting, or particularly warm, but they looked indestructible and waterproof — made of seemingly tough material with good think soles. The soles probably are indeed indestructible, but just at the heel where they meet the other part of the boot, some kind of design flaw has resulted in a hole in exactly the same spot on each boot after only one winter of light use.

I will patch them and see if the repair holds next year.

Bicycle Day is an unofficial celebration on April 19 of the psychedelic revolution and the first psychedelic trip on LSD by Albert Hofmann in 1943, in tandem with his bicycle ride home from Sandoz Labs.

I just did 20 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise per day for 8 weeks.

It was pretty good, I guess. My fitness is much improved. 150 minutes per week is what all the public health information websites recommend that everyone should get, so according to them I'm almost doing the bare minimum for the first time in my life. I'm pretty old, so it took some time for it to start having an effect. It feels like it will probably take another 8 weeks before my body actually starts getting used to it and stops getting stronger so quickly as it still is doing for now.