Mossad gotta budget

As in introduction into "threat modeling" this articles comes highly regarded by me. 

Not because it's a deep analyses, but because it isn't. 

Also, it's highly funny.

Basically, you and I should worry about fishing links and ex girlfriends who are going mad with our email, and not about the Mossad. 

Not that the Mossad (or another group with an abbreviated name and bland office building) isn't dangerous, but they have a higher budget than you and I so we can't defend against them anyways. Why worry about Russia invading if we can't defend against it anyways. But a good fence may keep the foxes 🦊 away from our chickens. 🐓

Link: https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/formal-methods-cant-fix-everything-and-thats-okay/

 

buttondown.email

Title: Formal Methods can't fix everything and that's okay

Threat modeling is fundamentally about cost-benefit analysis, on both sides of the threat.

Attacking a weak password is really easy, so it pays to attack even low-value targets. Adopting a strong password is also easy. If you're a low-value target, this will protect you from a lot. But if you're a high-value target, attackers will be willing to spend more resources attacking you. So you'll need to invest more in your defenses, which makes fewer people able to attack you. As this escalates, both the attacks and defenses get more and more expensive, as ever smaller groups of people can afford them

Leave Elon's walled-garden and take your goodies with you.

One reason for not having deleted my twitter/x account yet is that I can't easily export all my stuff and import it on Mastodon or Nostr. 

That changes now that I have found Exit.pub. 

exit.pub

This tool helps you step by step to export all tweets, and import them into your Nostr account (no Mastodon support, yet). 

Organic Maps: An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck



The chicken and egg problem of Open Street Map data coming from volunteers is as old as, well, as old as chickens, I guess?

Organic Maps: An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck hardfault.life

Organic Maps uses an open map database called OpenStreetMap. Although OpenStreetMap has very accurate data about streets, addresses, and highways, its knowledge of what's actually located at any given address is spotty at best. Thankfully, Organic Maps has a half-solution to this problem: contribute OpenStreetMap data yourself! Organic Maps lets you contribute data to OpenStreetMap. Simply press and hold where the business should be, tap "add a place to the map," and fill out the form. I ended up spending an hour of downtime adding information about various restaurants, libraries, museums, and stores around town. It would take far longer to add every business in the area, but it's a good start. I love being able to contribute to OpenStreetMap, and Organic Maps makes it easy to do that.

To usual solution to a problem like this is gamification. And that is exactly what Every Door solves for.

Every Door every-door.app

This app makes it fun and interesting to check the freely accessible OSM data, and chance it when necessary. Have fun 🤩 

Organic Maps: An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck

The chicken and egg problem of Open Street Map data coming from volunteers is as old as, well, as old as chickens, I guess?

Organic Maps: An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck hardfault.life

Organic Maps uses an open map database called OpenStreetMap. Although OpenStreetMap has very accurate data about streets, addresses, and highways, its knowledge of what's actually located at any given address is spotty at best. Thankfully, Organic Maps has a half-solution to this problem: contribute OpenStreetMap data yourself! Organic Maps lets you contribute data to OpenStreetMap. Simply press and hold where the business should be, tap "add a place to the map," and fill out the form. I ended up spending an hour of downtime adding information about various restaurants, libraries, museums, and stores around town. It would take far longer to add every business in the area, but it's a good start. I love being able to contribute to OpenStreetMap, and Organic Maps makes it easy to do that.

To usual solution to a problem like this is gamification. And that is exactly what Every Door solves for.

Every Door every-door.app

This app makes it fun and interesting to check the freely accessible OSM data, and chance it when necessary. Have fun 🤩 

Why not upgrade to Podcasting 2.0? A solution to the chicken&egg problem.

How does podcasting work?

 

The idea of podcasting, as invented by the "podfather" Adam Curry was a simple one: 

1.     Anyone can record a song, interview, medley of music or whatever he pleases.

2.     You put this audio file on your own server or hosting space. Back then, many internet providers would give customers 10 to 250MB of storage and an e-mail address with an internet plan. 

3.     Add your RSS feed to Adam's database of all known podcasts, with its URL and a brief description. This database or list quickly became known as the "podcast index."

4.     Let your subscribers know about your latest episode by adding a record on your personal RSS feed. 

5.     Usually, your podcasting app is set up to check periodically all the RSS feeds of all the podcasts that you are subscribed to. The app will then download the audio file with its description and shows you a new episode. 

 

Who hosts the RSS feed and audio file?

 

RSS is a brilliantly simple and still very vibrant technology today. Chances are, you are reading this blogpost on your favourite RSS reader.  

 

As mentioned before, the technology of RSS feeds and hosting audio files is trivially simple, but the costs are non-zero. Also, those hip-and-happening kids that all want their own podcast show might not know how to rent a VPS, set up a web server and register their RSS-URL-feed at Apple's podcasting index. 

 

To fill up this gap, companies like Anchor.fm stepped in and made simple to use apps available that let you record audio, do some editing, and upload the audio file with the press of a button. The business case for these companies?  Stick some advertisements in these audio files and rake in some advert €€€. 

 

Spotify recently bought Anchor.fm, and other small podcast-hosting-supported-by-ads-companies are merging or being bought as well. More and more of these companies now follow the Spotify and Amazon model of only letting paying subscribers listen to the shows they host. 

 

This means that, slowly, the wonderful world of free-for-all podcasting is disappearing. The open web is dying by a thousand cuts, and this particular movement cuts deep.

 

Who hosts the Index?

 

Steve Jobs was very much taken in by the idea of podcasting. I guess the independent guys and gals that do artsy stuff in their garages with vintage guitars and new MacBooks spoke to him on a personal level. Steve proposed in 2005 to Adam that Apple take on the heavy burden of hosting the podcast index. To the best of my knowledge, the usage of Apple's podcast index is free until now. Having a company with 'deep pockets' take care of your hosting needs is a fine solution indeed. Until it needs changing in a way said company doesn't appreciate. [imagine ominous music here].

 

What if Apple pulls 'a Google' on the world and pulls the plug on this free and open index? Various podcasting apps and content providers saw wisdom in making periodical copies of Apple's podcast index and hosting their own copy that is only known and accessible from inside their own products. 

 

This is the reason why after adding a new podcast to Apple's index, it will show up in different podcasting apps at different times: these apps might be querying a self-hosted and slightly out-of-sync copy of the index instead of the prime one. 

 

The next step for some of those podcast app makers was a predictable one: "exclusive podcasts." If you have your own version of the index, you could add stuff that nobody else knows about! Spotify and Amazon now have a bunch of "podcasts" that are only accessible to paying customers and only via their apps and API's (for smart speakers, for example). I put the word between quotes because a true podcast is supposed to be accessible to all. Calling these shows, great as they might be, "podcasts," is misleading. They aren't freely accessible any more. 

 

If bribing paying the makers of these shows to be exclusively on your platform is raking in more money than it costs, then it makes business sense. So how can we re-make the open podcasting ecosystem so that it becomes financially more interesting to stay open instead of becoming unfindable behind one of the various paywalls?

 

Can we break out of the ever more walled gardens?

 

We have so far found these problems with podcasting 1.0 (as we shall now call it because there is a podcasting 2.0):

1.     The podcast index is currently freely hosted by Apple, but who knows for how long? 

2.     Podcast makers, no matter how popular they become, have only limited options to monetize their growing labour of love: 

a.     Read out cheesy adverts beginning, during and at the end of every show you record.

b.     Sell out to a big publisher who sells access to your show.

c.     Beg ask nicely for donations via Patreon and the likes. I know some sell merch on their websites (like the wonderful Ologies podcast by Alie Ward) 

d.     Have the good grace to be self-funded 

3.     Hosting of the RSS feed and audio files must be done by somebody somewhere.

4.     What if I really like a certain fragment of a podcast? How can I let the makers know I really liked that point?

5.     How can a guest that is in one (part) of an episode profit from his guest-appearance, if at all?

 

Most of these limitations of the old model of podcasting are solved by Podcasting 2.0.

 

1.     There is once again an open index, independent of Apple's generous hosting provisions. This index can be downloaded as a Sqlite3 database file. The hosting of this file, and the API's that provide free access to it, are supported by donations.

2.     Podcast makers can receive per-minute micro-transactions for their content, totally omitting the need for adverts or selling merchandise. 

3.     Hosting of audio files and the RSS-feed is still not fully decentralized, but since the podcasting 2.0 metadata is in the index and hosted separately from the audio files, you can add data to your podcasts show that isn't supported by Anchor/Spotify/Transistor/Captivate or whichever hosting provider you use.

4.     After you add your podcast to the podcasting 2.0 index, you can start receiving per-minute and/or one-time donations right from the listeners' podcasting apps. I'm counting 10 podcasting apps that support this new feature. My favourite podcasting 2.0 app is Breez, but I'm hoping that the old-tech podcasting app that I also still use, called Overcast, will start supporting podcasting 2.0 soon too. 

5.     If you are a bit more technically inclined, you could alter the meta-data per episode and make it so that any donation that comes in between minute X and Y is split in Z ways, between you, the co-host, your guest and the default 5% to your audio technician (for example). This means that guests on the show can get their fair share of donations!

 

How to win over old school podcasters who haven't upgraded yet?

 

Currently, only 0.35% of all podcasts have upgraded to Podcasting 2.0, if we take the number of upgraded podcasts to be 15126 out of a total of 4224060. 

 

Why should a popular podcasting app upgrade to support value4value if only 0.35% off all podcasts supports new features? And why should any podcast upgrade to podcasting 2.0 if most podcast players (and hosting platforms) don't support micropayments out-of-the-box?  To break this chicken-and-egg problem, I propose a few solutions:

1.     Podcast players that support Podcasting 2.0 should make no (or minimal) visual distinction between podcasts with and without the value4value tag in their RSS feed.

2.     When a podcast that is playing doesn't have the value4value tag the donations that are streaming to the podcast are not lost in the void, but are reserved in a way that is keyed to the know email address in the podcasting 2.0 directory.

3.     Once a sizable sum (let's say €100) is accumulated into the account that goes with the known email address, the good people of podcasting 2.0 send out an email letting the podcast makers know that by making an account they can receive their donations. Of course, the stupid simple easy of adding a value-tag in the RSS feed van be explained in the same e-mail. 

4.     This way some new podcasts are slowly won over to upgrade to podcasting 2.0, while I as a listener to a podcast that has not yet upgraded can already start donating to my podcast of choice today 😍

 

Join in on the conversation by commenting on Stacker News (supports value4value) or Hacker News (doesn't support value4value, yet).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Receiving contributions and donations. Micro transactions are coming alive

I've written before about how we can (and should) fight advertising on the web by giving writers, artists, and creators another viable alternative to make an honest living: via microtransactions and micropayments.

Too bad, not enough is written about how we could do this. Until today, even the idea of posting my lighting address on this blog had not occurred to me. And I read and write about this kind of stuff every week!

So here it is. This blog now has my lightning address in a meta tag embedded in the <header> of this blog. 

From now on, any browser that supports this out-of-the-box or via a plugin, can make a donation to me with a few simple clicks. 

So, how did I propel my blog, from its late '90 root in arcane HTML, into the bright light of this glorious 21st century?

By opening the Blogger Theme explorer, clicking the "edit HTML" button and adding one line of code under the <header> tag. This was the line of code:

<meta name="lightning" content="lnurlp:theothertwo@getalby.com"/>

That was it. That was all that I needed to do. No angels wept nor thunder did strike when I pressed "save changes" and yet, now I'm ready for the value4value future that I keep reading and hearing about.

Are you interested in how you can receive payments directly from a Twitter/x account, YouTube account or personal blog? The team at Alby have a solution and step-by-step explainer and for you here: https://getalby.com/value4value. 

What was missing at Apple’s announcements this year?

I was in full expectation to see Greta Thunberg walk into Apple HQ. Too bad she wasn't available. So Mother Nature showed up instead 🌳

Lots of talk about carbon-neutral, but no mentioning of nudging people to keep using their watch of phone a year longer instead of upgrading again. Maybe an Apple Care package for 3 instead of 2 years would help a lot? 🤔

The Apple Watch 9 will support a new gesture. This new, universally understood "shush your mouth" sign will ensure that more smug looking hippies will get a fist in their face once in a while. The built-in fall detection and emergency SOS features will be helpful. 🤏

The Apple Watch ultra 2 now has a screen with even more nits, meaning it can now be used as an outdoor bear repellant. No mentioning of this, sadly. 🐻 

The new iPhone 15 gets lasts years iPhone 14 pro's SOC. That is good news. You can now buy a new iPhone and be behind in tech right away. 😅

Furthermore, the capability to talk to satellites is still not combined with global iMessage coverage. Another great selling point to bring Signal users "back into the fold" seems lost on Apple 📡 

The main camera of the iPhone 15 now has a 48MP chip, but saves photos in up to 12 MP. All the extra pixels will be put to good use, though. Photos were already wonderful, but will now be Even More Slightly Better™️

iPhone 15 pro, thank God, is not increasing in price. The price hikes were introduced some months ago here in Europe, so we got time to get used to the "new normal." 

We live in the Space Age, so of course our new gadget is now made of "grade 5" titanium, the same stuff that a Mars Lander was once made off, apparently. Feels like overkill. Lastly, thanks to the iPhone 5 Pros' support of USB 3 via the USB-C connector, we can now enjoy a relaxed cup of coffee while our data crawls over a slow line. Seriously, Apple, why not include USB 4 (Thunderbolt) support? 🐌

Anyway, I will order the 15 Pro this Friday. 

 

To discuss this article, you can comment here on Hacker News.