"The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie." --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Read This Before You Buy That TV Streaming Stick – Krebs on Security #privacy

TV ON? PROXY. TV OFF? AD FRAUD

Pedro Falé is a threat researcher with the security firm Bitsight. Falé told KrebsOnSecurity he was able to peer inside a vast and complex ad fraud network by registering an expired domain name that was used to coordinate fake ad clicks across a particularly popular brand of these streaming devices known as H96.

Bitsight found the H96 devices were either relaying residential proxy traffic or participating in ad fraud, but never both at the same time. In fact, they concluded that when these TV boxes detect an HDMI signal from an attached television — indicating the user intends to stream video content — the box is usually functioning as a residential proxy. When the TV is off, it switches back to waiting for ad fraud jobs.

Falé said he believes the TV boxes are set up this way because its ad fraud activities are far more resource intensive and could interfere with the device’s stated purpose — streaming video content over the Internet.

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EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation #privacy

“Hardware-bound attestation is a requirement of this project, not an implementation detail we can simply drop,” a maintainer responded. The project invited alternative architectural proposals and said a dedicated security review and threat model would be published soon.

The solution lets users prove they are over a certain age without revealing their name, exact birth date, or full identity document. To prevent credentials from being copied, cloned, or reused by modified clients, the project relies on keys stored in protected hardware like Android TEE, StrongBox, or Apple’s Secure Enclave.

How the Words We Teach English Language Learners Changed #linguistics #longread

These “essential vocabulary” lists are called the General Service List (1953) and the New General Service List (2013, revised in 2023).

They were designed as teaching tools for people learning English as a second language, built from real-world usage data and extensively tested. The aim was a vocabulary list with as few words and as much coverage of everyday English usage. That coverage is high, over 90% for the 2023 list1 and about 84% for the 1953 list.2 To account for that much of the language, they had to track a significant portion of whatever people were actually reading and saying. A word earned its place by appearing often enough, across enough contexts, to be hard to avoid for the average person in an English-speaking society. Open the word lists panel on the right to browse through all the entries in both lists.

Plug-in solar is coming. Plug-in batteries should follow. #technology #energy

Plug-in batteries could significantly reduce household electricity bills, particularly for renters, flat dwellers and low-income households, who are largely excluded from installing traditional home battery systems today. The government has already announced regulation changes to make plug-in solar panels available as part of its response to the rise in energy costs caused by the US war with Iran. In this blog, Regen argues they should go one step further and make standalone plug-in batteries available too.

brolly.sh - plain text weather forecast #interesting

Turning a Dumb AC Unit Smart (Without Losing my Security Deposit) :: prilik's blog #diy

TL;DR: DIY home automation is ezpz with nothing more than a stepper motor, an esp32, and a high tolerance for Jank.

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Dainius