lcamtuf

Seeing that some online "photos" of it were inexplicably AI-generated, I drove a fair distance to capture some real photos of Mathatronics Mathatron, one of the first electronic calculators (and in my opinion, perhaps the prettiest one). The calculator has no display; instead, it prints results on ticker tape. ( If you're interested in more calculator history, check out https://blog.coredump.cx/p/a-brief-history-of-counting-stuff )

This is what smartphones took from you.

But I gotta hand it to AI labs that "WE MUST BE STOPPED AT ANY COST OR WE'RE GOING TO KILL YOU ALL" is one of the most original marketing pitches I've heard in my life

BREAKING: due to ongoing safety concerns, we decided not to release this account's latest toot. During testing, the toot scored dangerously high on insight and humor benchmarks. Following the completion of additional safety testing, we'll release a less insightful version of the toot

Worried about AI? Don't be. Using agents at work simply empowers you to focus on more meaningful tasks, similarly to how self-checkout allowed cashiers to pursue higher-impact projects at the grocery store

But who's *really* behind all this AI craze? You think it's AI labs? Think again

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@ciaranmartin/117355764515246691 MAY LORD HAVE MERCY

How to tell which platform you're posting on: 1) If you get unhinged responses from NFT / crypto / AI bros, it's Twitter, 2) If you get unhinged responses from communists, it's Mastodon, 3) If you get no responses, it's Bluesky

Not exactly fine furniture, but a simple utilitarian bookshelf for my wife's workshop. The lumber is local birch, the back part is to prevent sagging in an otherwise open-frame bookshelf.

Oookay, let's say it's done

Please stop staying that this is somehow wrong. If you want your package, simply bid accordingly.

What is consciousness? Do we need to be nice to chatbots? How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real? https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/cword/?n

"The Secret Life of Circuits" is here and looks really, really nice. Check out this write-up for a sample chapter, a short sales pitch, ordering info, and other goodies: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/slc/

First HN endorsement for the book!

@catsalad@infosec.exchange THIS ACCOUNT WILL NEVER BE FOR SALE. Unless someone offers a reasonable price. And really, we're not picky. We can do $50. Please, I need this

OK, I just had to write it up: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/hope/

With all the advances in breaking RSA, when can we expect the successful factorization of AES-128?

@catsalad@infosec.exchange I have the following SKILL.md in https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/soft/remote_includes.tgz

OK, this is gonna be fancy

Did you know that before LLMs, people sometimes actively sought "knowledge" and turned to so-called "books"? If you want a sense of how our ancestors lived, "The Secret Life of Circuits" is shipping in just a few weeks: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/electronics/ ToC & sample chapter included.

According to HN, I'm endangering the sizeable segment of kids aged 12 to 15 who have not yet internalized that "hot = ouch"

And to be clear, I don't judge what people do in their own time, but when you invite your congregation to an orgy in the congregation's compound, you kinda-sorta have a sex cult.

For far too long have mathematicians hogged the limelight and amassed ill-gotten fortunes. I say we strip-mine it all.

More seriously, the attached image - my 90-day stats from Google - really shows that if you like an author, you gotta subscribe. For non-commercial stuff, discoverability via search is more or less dead. Social media posts on most platforms are on average shown to <5% of followers unless one pays for "boost". It's pretty much down to email or RSS.

Step 1: buy a domain Step 2: get a HTTPS certificate for the domain Step 3: sell domain Step 4: free MITM

I put together a short page with a selection of blog articles that never made waves on social media, but that I think are interesting. It’s mostly a monument to my saltiness, but if it's a slow weekend for you, it could be a good way to to kill time: https://blog.coredump.cx/p/regrets

User: I want to be better at coding! MonkeyPawGPT: OK, but now everyone is and nothing matters anymore

I tempted to do a small giveaway: reply with your best success *or* horror story related to electronics. I'll pick ~3 winners around EOW and send them a copy of The Secret Life of Circuits. Plz no AI slop. Won't ship to Russia.

So, read any interesting books about electronics lately?

@siddhesh_p@mastodon.social segments

@adamshostack@infosec.exchange Google increasingly only returns obfuscated URLs that need to go through their infrastructure to navigate to the target. So they get a true count for clicks for these users. But even if you're getting raw URLs as a signed-in user in good standing, it's what... let's say that 50% of tech-savvy users have ad blockers. These numbers don't look better if you multiply them by 2...

@jpaskaruk@growers.social Funny because I had the same lazy setup for a crappy modem back in the day (except I used BeagleBone, not RPi).

@jpm@aus.social I mean, this *will* work as a drill, but more importantly, I think it revolutionizes eating spaghetti

On occasion, I delete old blog posts; it's almost always current-event punditry. These posts have two possible outcomes. You were wrong and look dumb. Or you were right, and two years later, everyone "has always known" what you're trying to say and you look dumb anyway.

PSA: if you read my blog via a web-based feed reader, be aware that Inoreader and Feedly fetch once and never update their copies. I regularly make substantial updates published articles, so if you're using these tools, you're getting a subpar experience. The Old Reader is fine.

@dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz It's Sunday, the Bible forbids work.

@aburka@hachyderm.io Wait why is your IP in North Korea

I guess now could be a good time to repost https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/punditry/

@johntimaeus@infosec.exchange I can't believe you have to ask: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/49346

@atax1a@infosec.exchange now, you're not being rational

@jpm@aus.social Neat! I guess UPS finally managed to find Australia on the map?

So I guess hacking is legal now and Lapsus$ folks were just visionaries ahead of their time

Know your paradoxes: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/paradoxes/

Lord, keep me from ever giving any money to a HNer

@jschauma@mstdn.social thanks!

Apparently, in the contest between wooden panel-meter calculators and wooden panel-meter clocks, clocks win easily

Essay idea: the importance of reproducible builds for vibecoded apps

What I love about philosophy is that it's probably the only field where you can still get tenure in the philosophy department when your stated position is "philosophy isn't real"