WebTheWitted

Some companies end their fiscal year at the end of January, i.e. FY23 ends January 31, 2024.

Why would China announce their zero day exploit to the Internet? FUDD.

"You can't trust those iPhones, only trust Chinese company phones". -- CCP, probably

Great power competition / military industrial complex . AI is a pretty vague term, but practically it could be used to describe drone swarming technology, cyber warfare, etc.

Ahh, that makes sense. I was wondering, "Why the hell are they announcing their zero day to the Internet?"

I see a number of things on your list I also enjoy (and some I haven't seen so thanks for the recs!).

I've got a pretty long list, but I think only the first three are scifi in the space faring long run series sense. Including some others in the genre more broadly, in case any look interesting too:

• The Final Architecture, Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Altered Carbon, Richard K Morgan
• A deepness in the sky, Vernor Vinge
• The Acts of Caine, Matthew Stover
• Roadside Picnic, Arkady Strugatsky
• Broken Earth Trilogy, NK Jemison
• Nexus Trilogy, Ramez Naam
• Old man's War, John Scalzi

Ditto on the Becky Chambers series. I actually liked the second book the most narratively, and if the OP likes Murderbot, they may really enjoy similar themes around artificial intelligence. I also really liked the final installment. It's a familiar setup with strangers locked in a room together, but I found it very meditative. Also, it wraps up one series character's journey to a decision that I found very profound.

I've used ente on a family plan for the last year and really like it. Although I have the aptitude to run a NAS, the last thing I want to do in my free time is look at a terminal. So for me, ente has been great - pretty plug and play.

Most people have. I was hopeful that the extension on FISA / section 702 would get removed from the NDAA today but it looks like that failed 65-35. I suppose some hope still remains as it works it's way through the house, and / or the extension ends.

Not holding my breath, though.

Oof

Following his dismissal, Brody allegedly refused to return his work laptop and instead used his still-valid account to access the bank's computer network and cause damages estimated to be above $220,000

Also

Impersonated another cloud engineer at FRB to access the firm's network and make configuration changes

I can see this at a mid size startup or enterprise, but a bank?

Agreed on all of this. There was a time that I was more worried about "the government" but the reality is that if a state level actor wants to fuck with me I'm probably screwed. I've also gotten older and realized there isn't anything about me that would be interesting for people like that, so that's not who I worry about with privacy.

These days I'm more concerned about scammers and more garden variety cyber criminals. Having a broader online presence presents more of an attack surface, a place to build out an initial profile for a planned social engineering or spear phishing campaign.

I don't really pirate anymore, but have been using ProtonMail, Proton Calendar and ProtonVPN for a few years on pure privacy grounds, and generally really like it. Their apps have gotten more stable over time and their bona fides are solid (actually fighting against subpoenas, etc).

They are actively improving things like calendar invites and integration in their suite of apps. Between that and ente for photo storage I've mostly degoogled myself over the last couple years.

I moved everything from Google photos to ente about a year ago. They have an importer that made things pretty easy. I set up my android phone to auto import too.