*Regarding Beehaw defederating from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, [this](https://beehaw.org/post/567170) post goes into detail on the why and the philosophy behind that decision. Additionally, there is an update specific to sh.itjust.works [here](https://beehaw.org/post/594843).* For now, let's talk about what federation is and what defederation means for members of Beehaw or the above two communities interacting with each other, as well as the broader fediverse. *Federation is not something new on the internet*. Most users use federated services every day (for instance, the url used to access instances uses a federated service known as DNS, and email is another system that functions through federation.) Just like those services, you elect to use a service provider that allows you to communicate with the rest of the world. That service provider is your window to work with others. When you federate, you mutually agree to share your content. This means that posting something to a site can be seen by another and all comments are shared. Even users from other sites can post to your site. Now when you defederate, this results in content to be no longer shared. It didn't reverse any previous sharing or posts, it just stops the information from flowing with the selected instance. This only impacts the site's that are called out. What this means to you is when a user within one instance (e.g. Beehaw) that's chosen to defederate with another (e.g. lemmy.world), they can no longer interact with content on another instance, and vice versa. Other instances can still see the content of both servers as though nothing has happened. - A user is not limited to how many instances they can join (technically at least - some instance have more stringent requirements for joining than others do) - A user can interact with Lemmy content without being a user of any Lemmy instance - e.g. Mastodon (UI for doing so is limited, but it is still possible.) Considering the above, it is important to understand just how much autonomy we, as users have. For example, as the larger instances are flooded with users and their respective admins and mods try to keep up, many, smaller instances not only thrive, but emerge, regularly (and even single user instances - I have one for just myself!) The act of defederation does not serve to lock individual users out of anything as there are multiple avenues to constantly maintain access to, if you want it, the entirety of the unfiltered fediverse. On that last point, another consideration at the individual level is - what do you want out of Lemmy? Do you want to find and connect with like-minded people, share information, and connect at a social and community level? Do you want to casually browse content and not really interact with anyone? These questions and the questions that they lead to are critical. There is no direct benefit to being on the biggest instance. In fact, as we all deal with this mass influx, figure out what that means for our own instances and interactions with others, I would argue that a smaller instance is actually much better suited for those who just want to casually browse everything. Lastly, and tangential, another concern I have seen related to this conversation is people feeling afraid of being locked out of the content and conversation from the "main" communities around big topics starting to form across the Lemmiverse (think memes, gaming, tech, politics, news, etc.) Over time, certain communities will certainly become a default for some people just given the community size (there will *always*be a biggest or most active - it's just a numbers game.) This, again though, all comes down to personal preference and what each individual is looking to get from their Lemmy experience. While there may, eventually, be a “main” sub for <topic xyz> (again, by the numbers), there will also always be quite a few other options for targeted discussions on <topic xyz>, within different communities, on different instances, each with their own culture and vibe. This can certainly feel overwhelming and daunting (and at the moment, honestly it is.) Reddit and other non-federated platforms provided the illusion of choice, but this is what actual choice looks and feels like. [edit: grammar and spelling]

hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout, its aftermath, and what's happening going forward, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! thanks! we'll see if we need to cycle the thread again before the end of this week, but i don't know that we'll need to

hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout today, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! Thanks!

Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place, but I see Reddit developments as Tech news right now. Wanted to share a website that is tracking Subreddits that have/will be going dark. It even has a sound notification for when they change their status. Edit: Adding the stream https://www.twitch.tv/reddark_247 Double Edit: Data visualization https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/

About two days ago we found a bug with the registration system on lemmy. Because of this we have updated our registration process a few times, and cannot deny any applications as the person registering does not receive any message and cannot re-apply. We currently have several hundred people that we are waiting to deny, and some unknown amount of people that we denied prior to finding this issue which we would really like to contact and give them a chance to register as they didn't write enough in their registration for us to really evaluate if they were a good fit for this instance. If you're a developer please take a look at this [github issue](https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1096) and please work your magic to help fix this problem. As an aside, we also have a list we've been working on for enhancements that would make moderating and administering this instance a lot easier, and enhancements we think users would enjoy in terms of UI and UX. We'd love to share these as well as facilitate a discussion to surface more ideas (and we plan to in the future), but right now we need to focus on the most pressing issue to us running this website, whether people can create an account here and participate.

[Atlantic Paywall link](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/computer-science-degree-value-generative-ai-age/675452/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us)

An iPhone to HDMI adapter was discovered that, when plugged in, runs a program prompting users to download an app. This EZ Cast app collects extensive personal data and sends it to China for ad targeting. It requires location access, photos, and installs tracking cookies. The adapter appears designed to mimic official Apple products. While its intentions are unclear, it demonstrates how such devices could enable privacy risks by introducing untrusted software into a user's devices. Analysis of a similar EZCast dongle found it was vulnerable and not designed with security in mind. Reviews complain the app is useless or a scam. The adapter may have originated as unsold Amazon returns later acquired by electronics recyclers. Its existence relates to concerns about privacy and navigation issues on online marketplaces.

Archive https://archive.ph/E1JN9

While LLMs have been used for... a lot, it seems like this use might be one where it's not only reliable but it appears to outperform existing methods of image compression. Being able to cram more data into less space tends to lead to interesting developments, so I will be keeping my eye on this. What do you guys think? Seem like it's deserving of less hype than I'm giving it? What kind of security holes do you think this could open?

cross-posted from !android@lemdro.id > - Operation Zero, a Russian company, has increased its bounty for zero-day exploits on iPhones and Android devices from $200,000 to $20 million. > - The company sells these exploits exclusively to Russian private and government organizations, specifying that the end user is a non-NATO country. > - The high bounties may be temporary and are a reflection of market demand and the difficulty of hacking iOS and Android platforms. > - Unlike traditional bug bounty platforms, Operation Zero sells vulnerabilities to governments without alerting the affected vendors. > - The zero-day market is largely unregulated, but affected by geopolitics, such as new regulations in China that aim to corner the market for intelligence purposes.

According to its current privacy policy, with an account, Hue gets access to the configuration of your system to provide the right software updates to the devices. It can only use your data for marketing or share it with third parties if you provide additional consent. However, in a change to the current policy, Yianni says Hue will not collect usage information from users without additional optional consent. “So, we do not require users share anything about how they use our products,” he says. “Previously creating an account was consent for usage data processing that we are in the process of decoupling and will be decoupled before accounts become essential — that makes sure it’s possible to create an account without sharing usage data,” says Yianni. However, if you choose to use the cloud services for things like out-of-home connectivity, you will need an account, and Hue will process your data, he says. If this change to the privacy policy does happen, Home Assistant’s Schoutsen agrees that it would make the requirement for an account more palatable. “But it all depends on the exact changes,” he says.

**TL;DR:** Reddit is removing the option to opt out of ad personalization, targeting ads based on user activity. Some specific ad categories can still be limited, but there's no more opt-out option.

This would lead to some very large cost savings if AI could compress video/audio even better than current compression algorithms. Data borders unite!