I shared a link from NPR Tiny Desk but there was no image preview or video embed. After investigating this I learned that when you do that, each instance picks up the link and individually retrieves the link preview nearly simultaneously. For gargantuan sites like YT or Reddit, this is a trivial amount of traffic and not a problem, but for smaller sites like NPR this results in a sort of botnet DDOS attack on the site’s servers. More here. Another example here . For that reason, NPR has blocked Fediverse servers like Mastodon.

I have experienced this on my personal server as well (DDOS), but at the time didn’t know why, exactly.

This isn’t the end of the world, but certainly is not great and hurts engagement with the content. Is there a solution for this? Perhaps using some sort of webtorrent service like PeerTube where they just fetch the information from another fediverse server instead of the source server? Maybe fetching embeds client-side? At least that would stagger the requests.

the infosec industry: “we demand respect. we’re using the latest frontier models to get ahead of threat actors. you’re not an expert so you wouldn’t understand but all the CVEs it spit out are top priority and breathlessly important and worth panicking about. no I won’t do any follow-up to see if the CVEs meant anything, my good buddy claude said they were all important and you have to respect it and me”

also, the highest echelons of the infosec industry, working on highly trusted cryptographic infrastructure: “the private key is the number 4 lol”

#AIConsulting #London helps firms cut through hype, defining clear goals and prioritizing use cases that tie directly to measurable business value. The most valuable advantage #eicker [iCare] delivers is a clear diagnosis of where data, processes, and cultural resistance will kill implementation. https://AI.ConsultingLondon.UK/?AIagents.at #AIagent #AI #ML #NLP #LLM #GenAI

I probably don't have pneumonia. The doctor probably just meant it as a precaution.

@exquisite I totally understand it. We had to close signups at BSD Cafe just before EuroBSDCon, because we couldn't manage to deal with all those bots.

People can still sign up. And that extra step may be enough to stop (some) of them.

Keep up with the good work, my friend!

Meta ordered to name execs who approved torrenting for AI training

Meta argues nobody “decided” to pirate books to train AI.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/meta-ordered-to-name-execs-who-approved-torrenting-for-ai-training/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

Does anyone know how to get this in front of someone who actually works at Firefox.

https://mastodon.social/@mcc/117474338181537837

It appears that desktop Firefox is correctly picking up the Muhdra revocations but Firefox for Android is failing the https://emudhra.we-have-a-problem.com/ test at rare but not-that-rare rates

I don't want to handle this. I don't want to figure out if I still have an account on Firefox's bug tracker. I just got back from being tested to see if I have pneumonia and my body is giving out. Whiiiiiiine

@thomholwerda

Haha yeah this is a fantastic thing. Watching this unfold with a bucket of popcorn.

Troops deployed and curfews enforced to quell France riots

A massive security operation will be in place ahead of planned protests this weekend, ministers have said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-21/troops-deployed-and-curfews-implemented-to-quell-france-riots/107290576

#ProtestsandDemonstrations #CivilUnrest #Riots

Eight intermediate certificates used by eMudhra/Emsign have been compromised. These certificates are in multiple trust stores. This will require significant manual action to remediate, including the updates of several packages.

https://ifin.network/t/emudhra-intermediate-certificates-compromised/909

#ThreatIntel #ThreatIntelligence #IFIN

We've confirmed (thanks @ajn142!) that Edge remains unpatched as of this writing.

The private key (D) is 4.
No joke.

Verification:

openssl pkey -in key.pem -pubout -outform DER | openssl dgst -sha256
openssl x509 -in cert.pem -pubkey -noout | openssl pkey -pubin -outform DER | openssl dgst -sha256

@NanoRaptor resistors…maybe 500,000 of them…and I only undertake maybe a handful of projects each year☺️😂

Community update

With pain in our heart, we unfortunately have to inform you that Exquisite (Mastodon, Peertube and upcoming additions) are henceforth closed for signups.

There is a lot of context to this decision and it is not something that we take lightly. Or a step that we would like to take at all.

The main rationale behind this decision is two-fold. It mostly boils down to LLM-fueled campaigns geared towards the Fediverse (and Mastodon in particular). And to a lesser extend abuse by the folks we gave the opportunity to prove themselves to be part of the family.

This decision is hopefully not definitive. We still welcome new folks - if they are invited by a member of our community.