New virtual reality-tested system shows promise in aiding navigation of people with blindness or low vision sciencedaily.com/releases/2024…

Tusky localizations, help wanted

Sensitive content

Paris and Berlin are now linked with an 8 hour daily rail service, that starts at €59. It produces 100th of the emissions of flying between the cities.
euronews.com/travel/2024/12/13…

You know how many of the popular apps we use to check the weather offer the data of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute as an option? Having recently learnt that Norway has one of the most stringent laws on accessibility in Europe, I have decided to check their official app for iOS and am not disappointed. It found my current location in Poland without a problem, albeit with a typo for some reason. It also provided webcam imagery from my hometown - this of course is not accessible. It remains to be seen how accurate the data really is long-term. About the accessibility: the data presented is grouped as it should so it is read out in one cluster for each 3-hour segment. Custom hints will let you know that by tapping twice, the hourly forecast is expanded. In the 10-day view, each day is a heading. Unfortunately, the graphs are not accessible despite the API's for this being available for some years now. Other than that, the app is very simple and convenient to use so if you're looking for something uncomplicated to check your local weather, you can try YR. No idea how accessible that is under Android but I expect the experience might be similar apps.apple.com/pl/app/yr/id490… #Accessibility #A11y #Blind

Úsměv na rtu, dobrou kartu,
k tomu dobrých lidí partu.
Zdraví, štěstí, hodně lásky,
žádnou starost, žádné vrásky!

Šťastné vykročení do nového roku vám všem, přátelé!🤞🍀🥂

I když naše cesty někdy vedou do neznáma, věřím, že za mlhou nejistoty svítí sluníčko každému. ♥️
#PF

#pf

"Handing the reins to Harris in July, rather than sticking it out, wasn’t one of his mistakes. His mistake was that he didn’t do so sooner."

New from @wsaletan on the fantasy that Biden would have beaten Trump: thebulwark.com/p/biden-world-h…

Tom Baker has been honoured by King Charles with a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) award for services to television.
cultbox.co.uk/news/doctor-who-…

John @tuckner sent me on an interesting wild goose chase. He is investigating the Cyberhaven extension compromise, trying to find out more. And he found something that he considered another campaign compromising browser extensions, related to the sclpfybn[.]com domain: secureannex.com/blog/sclpfybn-…

Edit: Just to make sure this is clear: so far there is little indication that these two campaigns are somehow related. Both being present in one extension was most likely a coincidence.

One of the extensions that used to contain the code in question was Visual Effects for Google Meet – which brought him to me because I recently covered that extension in my Karma Connection article: palant.info/2024/10/30/the-kar…

I checked my data but couldn’t find sclpfybn[.]com domain mentioned in any extensions other than the ones @tuckner found already. I then looked for similar code and immediately found it in Urban VPN Proxy.

First thought: Urban VPN Proxy has the legitimate version of a library that was trojanized elsewhere. Taking a look at the communication of Urban VPN Proxy disproved that theory almost immediately – not only was it communicating in exactly the same way, but also to an unknown domain, namely ducunt[.]com. Yet the same endpoint existed on the official urban-vpn[.]com domain as well.

So not only did Urban VPN Proxy contain essentially the same code, it was likely added there by the developers themselves. Further investigation increased the suspicion that all these extensions haven’t been compromised, that this was rather some monetization SDK.

At which point @tuckner found the sales pitch for that SDK, detailing how it would add ad blocking functionality to the extension at the cost of exfiltrating very detailed browsing data (of course anonymized and aggregated before being sold to everyone asking for it, we know the drill). And explanations on how to make sure Google won’t object.

And that explains it all: before the Visual Effects for Google Meet developer sold their extension to Karma, they tried to monetize it with this “ad blocking library.” The sales pitch doesn’t mention who develops the library but everything points to Urban VPN.

According to Urban VPN privacy policy, they are selling the data they collect from their users via BIScience Ltd. Who are most likely the hidden owners of Urban Cyber Security Inc., a company registered to a virtual address in the USA.

Edit: Updated link to Tuckner’s blog post, he split it away from the original investigation.

This entry was edited (11 months ago)

Another great podcast episode from @RyanAndrosoff this time with Andres Raieste from Estonia.

This is the second podcast from this year's #FWD50 conference in Ottawa. I would definitely recommend that folks in government listen to Trust is Everything | Ep 27

I liked the line about the importance of demonstrating incremental improvements. Starting with the tax department is also interesting.

youtube.com/watch?v=FzbyuwzRcr…

#Estonia #DigitalTransformation #Government #Trust #LetsThinkDigital

#NCP

A reminder, a week on after this news broke, if you have the HONEY browser extension from PAYPAL installed, you should uninstall it immediately and delete all its cookies.

The extension + app owners

- does NOT find you the best coupons
- does backroom deals with big retailers to drive conversions, with less discounts
- steal(s) from creators
- harvests your data for resale and manipulation
- is classified as malware

Full details here (nb, the youtube display may not work because Youtube is actively blocking their cards / videos from displaying on Mastodon because of the MastoDDos effect)

youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk

#ncp
This entry was edited (11 months ago)

A look back, a look ahead: How was 2024 at IzzyOnDroid? What might 2025 bring you there, what are we working on?

android.izzysoft.de/articles/n…

And if anybody ever tells you #security or #reproducibleBuilds are "set-and-forget", laugh straight into their faces. Software evolves, and so do their threats and risks…

German readers: Die Deutsche Version folgt in Kürze…

#IzzyOnDroid

in reply to IzzyOnDroid ✅

Jetzt ist auch die deutschsprachige Version unseres "Jahresberichts" online:

Ein Blick zurück, ein Blick voraus: Wie war 2024 bei #IzzyOnDroid? Was mag Euch 2025 hier bringen, woran arbeiten wir?

android.izzysoft.de/articles/n…

Und wenn Euch jemand sagt, #security oder #reproducibleBuilds wären (einmal aufgesetzt) reine Selbstläufer: Lacht sie laut aus. Software entwickelt sich weiter – und so auch ihre Risiken und Threats…

I'm giving away my pair of Envision Glasses (smart glasses for blind/low vision people):
letsenvision.com/glasses/home

Bought in 2020, titanium frames, in good working order, complete with case.

If interested and you're willing to cover the collection/shipping costs from the UK to wherever you are, DM me.

@RaccoonForFriendica new version 0.4.0-beta04 available for testing!

Changelog:
- fix for a bug after adding/removing a post to favorites which led to lose custom emojis;
- fix spacing between post and reply placeholders when using the new Card layout;
- fix a minor accessibility issue with the new audio player;
- fix crash when rendering some HTML posts;
- fix "floating" (overlapping) images for embedded contents;
- localization updates (included support for upcoming Romanian translation);
- library updates.

I think we are almost ready for the 0.4 version. In the meantime I've submitted both Raccoon apps to Google Play so I may be needed some volunteers to participate in the closed testing program before the apps can be made available to the general public.

Happy New Year and remember to #livefasteatrash

#procyonproject #raccoonforfriendica #fediverseapp #friendica #friendicadev #mobileapp #mobiledev #kotlin #kmp #compose #opensource #foss #sideproject

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🔵🔴🟢
ZÍNGARO O GITANO

La palabra “zíngaro” es una especie de red flag 🚩 para muchos gitanos. Cada vez que alguien, en nuestro territorio y en nuestras lenguas, escoge esta denominación en realidad a nosotros nos llega lo siguiente:

a) Evitas la palabra “gitano”. ¿Y por qué la evitas? Porque para ti “gitano” es una palabra connotada negativamente. Es decir, relacionada con elementos negativos. Quizá eres de los que dicen “gitanillos” o “de etnia” 🤮.

b) La palabra zíngaro te permite asociar elementos mágicos, místicos o espirituales especiales a las personas de las que hablas. Quieres hablar de una conexión especial con la naturaleza, una forma especial, casi mística de relacionarse entre ellos, los animales y el resto del mundo. Una visión muy similar a la que se fabrica de los pueblos indígenas de todas partes.

Todo ello contribuye a vernos como parte de un decorado de parque temático. Romantiza (sorry) la marginalización y exterminio, la prohibición de avanzar.

Para la supervivencia, algunos de nosotros hemos tenido que aprovechar estos estereotipos que podríamos considerar inofensivos (ciertamente son menos nocivos que otros). Pero también contribuyen a hacernos misteriosos, sospechosos y desagradables.

Somos gitanos. Si estás leyendo, puedes decir la palabra, dila sólo si es necesario pero siempre con normalidad, aunque la otra te parezca más poética.

Y si sigues sintiéndote incómodo, “romaní” no falla.

No seas como esos compañeros docentes con el síndrome del salvador blanco que bajan la voz para decir “gitano”. El término os lo inventasteis vosotros, pues ahora apechugad. 😅

Adjunto descripción gráfica de todo lo anterior. 🙈

I generated a 12-character commit SHA prefix collision with the start of Linux's git history. It took about 6 hours on an RTX 3080 GPU:

people.kernel.org/kees/collidi…

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#BabelOfCode 2024
Week 1
Language: Applesoft BASIC

"Advent of Code" is an online event where you're given 25 two-part code puzzles, which you're supposed to solve in 25 days in December. I was busy so instead I'm doing a slow-motion, one-puzzle-per-week version over the course of 2025, but with an added restriction: I have to do it in a different language each week.

@unjello proposed a hashtag, so maybe there are two of us on this
mastodon.gamedev.place/@unjell…
(1/2)