“Suck who? I’m gonna do what you tell me.”

Trump.

Edit: QuarterSwede beat me to it, so I’ll go for Musk as a close second.

It’s not really a fatal flaw as other users have pointed out.

The ATP protocol could be improved by including a published “delete” request for the content ID of an item, so that the receiving instance would get notification that the item had been removed. This could then be automated to push a delete action on the receiving instance, or manually removed by the receiving instance admin.

Regardless, however, you’d have to trust that the “delete” tag was being respected by your federating instances.

However, one interesting element is that editing your content is actually more effective in the Fediverse than deleting it, as it will overwrite the content on remote servers when they re-query your instance. You’re still relying on that remote action before the old content changes, but at least it doesn’t just stay up while the content is deleted on your site.

Depends…

Your points are valid, but I look at AI as an unavoidable trend in the tech space, which is why I experiment with local models. I’d rather understand how they work (and how to protect oneself from them) as I believe avoiding them isn’t really possible in my field.

Thus far, the local models I’ve worked with have gotten a C- on coding, but an A+ on bullshit. I think the tech still has a long way to go before it lives up to the hype, both negative and positive.

Ok, this part is pretty cool:

Thunderbird Assist will also be available. This experimental feature, developed in collaboration with Flower AI, offers optional artificial intelligence functionalities for users who want them while also addressing privacy concerns head-on. On devices robust enough to handle AI models locally, Thunderbird Assist processes everything on the user’s own machine.

However, for users on less powerful hardware, the development team has integrated NVIDIA’s confidential computing to keep any remote processing secure. Rest assured, those who prefer to skip AI services can continue using Thunderbird without these extras.

I’ve been unwilling to touch cloud based AI, much less expose my emails to it as there’s no guarantee of privacy, but being able to run a local model allows you the functionality without the risk. Haven’t used Thunderbird in years, but this is tempting me to give it another shot.

Project manager’s response:

Thank you sir - I’ve posted an edit with a credit to your astute eye.

It apparently scrapes everything on the public feed. So when I subscribed to users on Mastodon server A from Wordpress, DMs from Mastodon server A going to Mastodon server B became visible.

I had a separate account on Mastodon server A to confirm that I couldn’t see these DMs as Mastodon user on server A, and that the Wordpress scrape was grabbing messages normally not meant for public view.

This was using the ActivityPub plugin for Wordpress about six months ago.

EDIT: I should be clear that I was as surprised as the other commentators that the DMs weren’t encrypted and that I could see them at all through a 3rd party software. I did NOT see DMs between local users - only cross-instance.

They would have to hack the individual servers to get at the DMs, because they’re encrypted in transit. All the public stuff is trivial to scrape.

Nope, ActivityPub DMs are not encrypted between servers - if it’s on the feed, it’s public- or at least it was as of six months ago. I found this out when I attached a Wordpress site to a Mastodon instance and suddenly found i could read anyone’s DMs to users on other servers. Totally unencrypted. I actually paused development and working with ActivityPub because of it.

This doesn’t mean that messages to users on the same server are necessarily exposed, but the potential is there if you don’t have a filter for local publishing only engaged on your Mastodon instance.

Thanks for the list. Unfortunately, they list “Fediverse” which likely means they’re scraping ActivityPub. They’re also going after your Steam account, Twitch, YouTube, and porn.

In other words, this is so much worse than the headline makes it out to be.

Surprisingly, Reddit is NOT on the list.

EDIT: I was wrong - thanks to Da Cap’n for the correction.

Here’s the full list of names:

4chan Archives

Discord Archives

21Buttons

500px

about.me

AllMyLinks

AllTrails

Amazon

Ameba

Amino

AnimePlanet

Apple Music

Artists&Clients

Asciinema

AudioJungle

AudiUSA

BabyCenter

Baidu

BeReal

Bigo Live

Bing

Biolink

BitChute

BlackPlanet

Blogger

Bluesky

Bodybuilding

BookCrossing

Breaches

BuyMeACoffee

Cash App

CastingCall Club

Chaturbate

Chess.com

Cigar Dojo

CityXGuide

CloutHub

Cocolog

Companies House

Cozy.tv

Cracked

Creema

Dailymotion

Danbooru

Dark Web

DeepL

DeviantArt

Disqus

DLive

Dot.cards

Douyin

Drum

DuckDuckGo

Duolingo

E621

eBay

Eporner

Etsy

Facebook

Fansly

FastPeopleSearch

Fediverse (likely ActivityPub - possibly DMs between servers)

FetLife

Fiverr

Flickr

FlightAware

Foursquare

FriendFinder

FurAffinity

Gab

Gaia Online

GameFAQs

Gelbooru

GeneralMotors

Geocaching

GeoEstimation

Gettr

Giphy

GitHub

Glassdoor

GoFundMe

Goo

Google

Goodreads

Gravatar

Guancha

GunBroker

Habbo

Hackaday

Hatena

Honda

Hubski

ILoveGrowingMarijuana

ImageShack

Imgur

IMVU

Indeed

Instagram

Instructables

JudyRecords

Jugem

JustForFans

Keybase

Kick

Kik

Last.fm

LibraryThing

Lichess

Likee

Line

LinkedIn

Linktree

LiveIn

LiveJournal

Lobsters

Mail.ru

Malgari

MapMyTracks

Marshmallow

MarTech

Massage Anywhere

Medium

MeetMe

Mercari Jp

MeWe

Minds

Minecraft

Mix

Mixlr

ModDB

Mughosts

MyFitnessPal

Myspace

MySubaru

Naijapals

Nextdoor

NissanUSA

Odysee

OFAC Sanctions List

OkCupid

OK.ru

OnlyFans

Pandia

Pandora

Passes

Pastebin

Patreon

PayPal

PCGamer

Peloton

PGP

Pinterest

Plurk

Poal

Popl

Pornhub

Poshmark

Product Hunt

ProtonMail

PSNProfiles

Reblogme

Reddit

RedGifs

Replit

ReverbNation

Roblox

Rule34.xxx

Rumble

Rutube

ScoutWiki

Seesaa

Seneporno

Signal

SkipTheGames

Skype

SlideShare

Snapchat

Sogou

SoundCloud

SourceForge

Spiceworks

Spotify

Sprashivai

Steam (fuck off you fucking fucks)

StellantisEU

StellantisUSA

Strava

Stripchat

Substack

TechNet

Telegram

Tellows

Tesseract OCR

Threads

TikTok

Tinder

TinEye

ToyotaUSA

Trakt

Triller

TripAdvisor

TrueCaller

TruthSocial

Tumblr

Twilio

Twitch

Twitter

Untappd

Venmo

VidLii

Vimeo

Vine

VirusTotal

VK

Volkswagen

VSCO

WatchMeMore

Weibo

WhatsApp

Wire

Wordfeud

Xbox

xHamster

XING

XVideos

Yahoo

Yandex

Yappy

YCombinator

Yelp

YouTube

Zhihu

Zillow

ZoneH

I think I’ve seen that van someplace before…

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them… and if you’re looking for affordable candy…maybe you can hire…

The A-Team.

I say somewhat - it really depends on which server you’re on, because that defines the initial community that will be immediately available to you. There’s also plenty of mods and admins that have very pronounced political views and will exercise their power according to them.

I’ve found that the discussion is better here, although slower, and there are far fewer bots and trolls (although Fediverse trolls tend to be heartier and more persistent than their Reddit cousins).

deleted by creator

That’s one of the reasons I posted the source material as available (free) downloads as well - Day has come under criticism before by Tolkien scholars. I personally found most of his mistakes and liberties in this work to be minor, but I’m not a Tolkien scholar. Nonetheless, the work has a unique artistic touch that regardless of its accuracy, brings the novels to life in a way that surpasses later catalogues, and it was responsible for getting young readers of my generation interested in reading them.

I’ve always dug it because it was one of the first explorations of a successful invasion from another species, and it was an excellent scifi deconstruction of colonialism, one that was groundbreaking for the time it was written (right before WWII).

If you need it in other formats, this link has a great selection of free alternatives - you can filter by your preferred file format. There’s a azw3 version here that should work with Kindle.

Another great one - here’s a link to get a free .pdf copy if you’re looking to add to your library:

https://annas-archive.org/md5/ae962cb11c50e00ecdc2b50d2d813b54

I agree, Still Life is the stronger novel. I usually choose Cowgirls as the work of his to to introduce new readers to, as it’s more accessible and lighthearted, but Still Life is where Robbins really shows his chops.

Here’s a link to a free copy (.pdf download) from Anna’s if you’re looking for one: https://annas-archive.org/md5/85333852ce8e0b37dc4918f59cfb5bb1