sh.itjust.works

Tech billionaire and shadow president Elon Musk’s personal brand and fortune are linked to the cars. They are a visible reminder to people everyday that Musk is tearing through the federal government and destroying things with no oversight or regard for the human cost of the damage he inflicts. It’s pissed people off and they’re taking it out on Tesla.

Protestors are standing outside Tesla lots and waving anti-Musk signs. Celebrities and influencers are going viral with videos announcing the sell-off of their Musk-branded EV. People are throwing molotov cocktails at Teslas, spray painting them with swastikas, stealing their tires, and setting them on fire. During a Mardis Gras parade earlier this month, revelers repeatedly pelted a Cybertruck with beads, bottles, and other debris for three hours as it weaved its way through the parade route.

Good.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27006450

The State Department has announced that South Africa's ambassador to the United States must depart the country by Friday.

This decision came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio concluded that Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was no longer welcome in the U.S.

He shared this determination on social media, prompting the South African embassy staff to be called to the State Department, where they received an official diplomatic note regarding the situation.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/25826615

For those not familiar, there are numerous messages containing images being repeatedly spammed to many Threadiverse users talking about a Polish girl named "Nicole". This has been ongoing for some time now.

Lemmy permits external inline image references to be embedded in messages. This means that if a unique image URL or set of image URLs are sent to each user, it's possible to log the IP addresses that fetch these images; by analyzing the log, one can determine the IP address that a user has.

In some earlier discussion, someone had claimed that local lemmy instances cache these on their local pict-rs instance and rewrite messages to reference the local image.

It does appear that there is a closed issue on the lemmy issue tracker referencing such a deanonymization attack:

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/1036

I had not looked into these earlier, but it looks like such rewriting and caching intending to avoid this attack is not occurring, at least on my home instance. I hadn't looked until the most-recent message, but the image embedded here is indeed remote:

https://lemmy.doesnotexist.club/pictrs/image/323899d9-79dd-4670-8cf9-f6d008c37e79.png

I haven't stored and looked through a list of these, but as I recall, the user sending them is bouncing around different instances. They certainly are not using the same hostname for their lemmy instance as the pict-rs instance; this message was sent from nicole92 on lemmy.latinlok.com, though the image is hosted on lemmy.doesnotexist.club. I don't know whether they are moving around where the pict-rs instance is located from message to message. If not, it might be possible to block the pict-rs instance in your browser. That will only be a temporary fix, since I see no reason that they couldn't also be moving the hostname on the pict-rs instance.

Another mitigation would be to route one's client software or browser through a VPN.

I don't know if there are admins working on addressing the issue; I'd assume so, but I wanted to at least mention that there might be privacy implications to other users.

In any event, regardless of whether the "Nicole" spammer is aiming to deanonymize users, as things stand, it does appear that someone could do so.

My own take is that the best fix here on the lemmy-and-other-Threadiverse-software-side would be to disable inline images in messages. Someone who wants to reference an image can always link to an external image in a messages, and permit a user to click through. But if remote inline image references can be used, there's no great way to prevent a user's IP address from being exposed.

If anyone has other suggestions to mitigate this (maybe a Greasemonkey snippet to require a click to load inline images as a patch for the lemmy Web UI?), I'm all ears.

It's always the ones, (i.e republicans)you suspect

Last week’s executive order targeting Perkins Coie represented an unprecedented abuse of executive power to punish lawyers for representing political opponents. The court’s swift rejection made clear just how far beyond constitutional bounds Trump had stepped. But rather than accept those bounds, Trump has decided to test just how many law firms he can threaten before someone stops him.

Good times.

Source

Summary

Hungary’s parliament passed a law banning LGBTQ+ Pride events, including the annual Budapest Pride march, in a 136-27 vote.

The ruling Fidesz party and its coalition partner fast-tracked the measure, arguing that Pride events harm children. The law allows authorities to fine attendees up to $550 and use facial recognition for enforcement.

Opposition lawmakers protested with smoke bombs, while Budapest Pride organizers condemned the law as political scapegoating.

Critics view the move as part of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s broader crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights amid economic struggles and upcoming elections.

Israeli assaults across Gaza resume, effectively shattering the fragile ceasefire with Hamas.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250318055132/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/18/israel-launches-gaza-assault-killing-hundreds-and-shattering-ceasefire

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Goat to Self

Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday, March 18, passed a law banning Pride events and allowing authorities to use facial recognition software to identify attendees, continuing a crackdown by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's right-wing populist party on the country's LGBTQ+ community.

The measure passed in a 136-27 vote. The law, supported by Orbán's Fidesz party and their minority coalition partner the Christian Democrats, was pushed through parliament in an accelerated procedure after being submitted only a day earlier.

A pair of Long Island Trump voters visited Ireland recently. I think they were in their late 60s / early 70s. It looks like the current administration will be downsizing or disbanding the organisation their daughter works at and she'll likely lose her job.

Some other changes made by this administration mean that several of their investments are losing value. So they're very unhappy about him being in power now, although apparently the rape thing and being an overall creep was never an issue.

Anyway, Id' read that people like this exist and never actually saw / heard them before. It's real folks. They don't seem particularly bright but it seems they've done well for themselves in life.

My first photo of a Chiffchaff this year. The sound of the woodland changes when these birds return

#nature #birds #Wildlife #photography #NaturePhotography #BirdPhotography #BirdsOfMastodon #UK #BirdScrolling