“People are arseholes. They’re just always gonna be that way.”

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  • 16 Posts
  • 23 Comments
Joined 4 months ago
Cake day: July 23rd, 2026
  • modem_down@thebrainbin.orgtoOpen Source@lemmy.ml•The gpg.fail aftermath: On responsible disclosure, GPG, and the state of security in 2026
    1·
    2 months ago

    How could something designed for human communication be so utterly cumbersome and confusing ?

    Several reasons, I guess?

    1. The PGP (later, OpenPGP) protocol.

    The proprietary PGP software, which was the initial implementation of the PGP protocol(s) also suffered from usability problems:

    2. GnuPG maintainers are implicitly using asymptotic software versioning

    Donald Knuth was probably the most notable proponent of the idea that software packages should increasingly tend toward stability, with fewer and fewer patches needed. He used explicitly asymptotic version numbering for TeX and Metafont.

    Some of the quotes in OP’s video make imply GnuPG’s maintainers are implicitly following a similar approach, e.g. the section about “Sequoia’s need for churn”.

    With encryption software, there is an especially strong argument for being conservative about changes. Patches may have unforeseen consequences, adding subtle vulnerabilities.

    However, the downside of this, as the gpg.fail team pointed out, is that it biases the GnuPG maintainers towards excessive rejection of patches. Especially patches that would improve usability. Arguably, TeX suffered from a similar bias; hence the development of LaTeX and newer TeX front-ends to improve usability.

    3. Changing the interface would be effortful

    Improving GnuPG’s interface would require quite a lot of work in itself, both to the codebase and the documentation.

    Releasing a version with those changes would also require fielding a lot of support queries for many years, because decades of software manuals all over the web were written for the traditional GnuPG interface, and aren’t going to be updated overnight. Some of those manuals will surely never get updated, because they are no longer maintained even though they are still online and still used.

    I can sympathise with the GnuPG maintainers for finding this daunting. But the improvements are needed. Thankfully, developers of tools like minisign, age, and sequoia are taking on much of this work; it’s just a pity that the work had to be done in this fragmented way through third-party efforts, instead of in GnuPG itself.

  • modem_down@thebrainbin.orgtoscience@lemmy.world•Takeaway cups release microplastics into your coffee, study finds
    1·
    2 months ago

    They throw out far more than that in unsold food at the end of the day.

    Again, if the store is wasting food, boycott it (or persuade it to stop doing so).

    Decent coffee shops partner with local homeless shelters, or food apps / messageboards (Olio, Too Good To Go, …), to find takers for their leftovers.

    It’s not really about the cost of the cup.

    Indeed, which is why I did not say that it was “really about the cost of the cup”. The latter is, as you correctly imply, only one factor.

  • modem_down@thebrainbin.orgtoPrivacy@programming.dev•The Flock Sock
    0·
    3 months ago

    It’s run by Bambu Labs, a Chinese state-subsidised company that’s notorious for nudging users globally to let Internet-connected 3D printers map their home LANs and upload that info, plus name, address & other billing details, plus all their 3D models, to Chinese “cloud” servers where the CCP can siphon off any models useful for advancing Chinese industry.

    They’re also notorious for letting Makerworld users rip off each others’ designs in flagrant violation of the design licenses. Look on Reddit or 3D printing forums and you’ll see tons of people complaining about this.

    Bambu Labs also recently egregiously violated the AGPL by threatening a lawsuit against Pavel Jarczak, a hobbyist who found a perfectly legal workaround to reduce BL control over people’s printers. This was a big deal: the Software Freedom Conservancy, Louis Rossmann, and Gamers Nexus all pledged action.

    Bambu Labs and Makerworld stand for dictatorship, authoritarianism, and kleptocracy.

    If you support FOSS, user rights, and democracy, you really ought to boycott them.

    https://sfconservancy.org/news/2026/may/18/bambu-studio-3d-printer-agpl-violation-response/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLLVn6XT7v0