News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

holri

WhatsApp just implemented cross messaging using the open Signal Protocol forced by the EU. We will see if the Signal messenger enables interop with WhatsApp, they are not forced to do this.
WhatsApp uses the open Signal Protocol.
Re:TI-99/4A: Leaning More on the Firmware on Friday January 23, 2026 @06:47AM (#46731380)
same story here :-)
A relevant talk from 39C3 Congress regarding Russia:

https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-coding-dissent-art-technology-an...

Coding Dissent: Art, Technology, and Tactical Media

This presentation examines artistic practices that engage with sociotechnical systems through tactical interventions. The talk proposes art as a form of infrastructural critique and counter-technology. It also introduces a forthcoming HackLab designed to foster collaborative development of open-source tools addressing digital authoritarianism, surveillance capitalism, propaganda infrastructures, and ideological warfare.

In this talk, media artist and curator Helena Nikonole presents her work at the intersection of art, activism, and tactical technology — including interventions into surveillance systems, wearable mesh networks for off-grid communication, and AI-generated propaganda sabotage.

Featuring projects like Antiwar AI, the 868labs initiative, and the curatorial project Digital Resistance, the talk explores how art can do more than just comment on sociotechnical systems — it can interfere, infiltrate, and subvert them.

This is about prototypes as politics, networked interventions as civil disobedience, and media hacks as tools of strategic refusal. The talk asks: what happens when art stops decorating crisis and starts debugging it?

The talk will also introduce an upcoming HackLab initiative — a collaboration-in-progress that brings together artists, hackers, and activists to develop open-source tools for disruption, resilience, and collective agency — and invites potential collaborators to get involved.

Re:Odoo: Open-Source ERP on Sunday January 04, 2026 @12:58AM (#46485387)
This is open core. An old free fork: https://tryton.org
I would call it the ELIZA bubble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect
Re:The Future of Software Development Is Software Developers on Tuesday December 30, 2025 @02:27AM (#46430509)
It is just the Eliza effect on a massive scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect

Reading Weizenbaum today is eye opening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Power_and_Human_Reaso...

Re:The biggest heat pumps in the world on Wednesday December 17, 2025 @12:56AM (#46298716)
In Vienna, a hospital is heated by a neighboring data center using a heat pump, while the hospital cools the data center.

https://www.wienenergie.at/blog/fernwaerme-zukunft/#Abw%C3%A...

Re:The biggest heat pumps in the world on Tuesday December 16, 2025 @12:13PM (#46291174)
> The only options to get around was the expensive train system

can be cheap when you book early. Vienna -> Graz -> Vienna: ~20€

Re:Has the cost of building software just dropped 90%? on Tuesday December 09, 2025 @03:02PM (#46209873)
LLMs are calculating probable text/code. A lot of it in very short time. Probable text/code is not the same as correct/proper text/code. It is a huge mass of probable and maybe correct/proper text/code. That is very dangerous as it looks correct but maybe it is not. It is likely that the cost of software will increase because of the unmanageable mess that this creates.
Re:CSS now has an if() conditional function on Friday December 05, 2025 @03:31AM (#46158079)
> The distinction between code, config and data is being erased.

This distinction never existed in LISP. Greenspun's tenth rule in action.

The year of the Linux phone in India is coming.
Re:A New AI Winter Is Coming on Monday December 01, 2025 @12:28PM (#46110187)
> The argument that computational complexity has something to do with this could have merit but the article certainly doesn’t give indication as to why.

OP says it is because that predicting the next token can be correct or not, but it always looks plausible because that is what it calculates. Therefore it is dangerous and can not be fixed because it is how it works in essence.

Re:GNU Health on Sunday October 12, 2025 @12:38AM (#45555276)
I am happy to live in a country that values data safety for critical patient data.
Re:GNU Health on Saturday October 11, 2025 @02:00PM (#45551222)
This is meant to be used in hospitals. Where I live no hospital personal uses phones to manage healthcare data. They have PCs.
We united coders have the power to change that. We have done it in the past. We are going to do it again.
Austria
The solar panels are connected to a converter which is connected to the normal grid with a standard plug.
I have cut my warm water costs by 80% with balcony solar panels. I have a warm water heating pump with 600 W electrical power. My little server turns it automatically on when the solar access power is greater than 540 W (measured by the smart meter). This generates usually enough warm water for our household. Also the solar panels cover to idle power of the house of 50-100 W very easily during daytime. This pays off in a few years and it reduces my carbon footprint and that of my neighbors.
There is also jolla / sailfishos built by ex Nokia engineers. The Russians forked it and are useing it in government / industry.
The year of the Linux Phone is coming!
Re:F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree on Monday September 29, 2025 @05:39AM (#45411860)
Maybe a sufficient number off hackers are offended enough now and contribute to really free platforms, like PostmarketOS or Mobian. There has been great work there in the last years. I think we are not very far away from a really usable free phone, we need device drivers and android emulation / f-droid as long as native apps did not catch up.
Re:Programming Deflation on Monday September 15, 2025 @01:51PM (#45252796)
Based on my experiences with LLMs and the hype around it, we will need more experienced programmers. Because they will have to clean up the huge mess that will come.
Re:This blog is running on a recycled Google Pixel 5 on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @03:00AM (#45113009)
Depends. If you reuse otherwise wasted electronic it is efficient in avoiding extracting resources / energy building new hardware and avoids recycling energy or waste polluting earth. A big picture analysis of reusing old hardware would be very interesting.
Thank you for the post, very informative. I do this half manually. I have a cgi script on the always on very power efficient sbc server that wakes up the bigger server if someone needs it. The big server powers itself down when no backup is running at a time everybody using the server usually sleeps. I thought about improving this and measure server usage and solar power generation to decide the shutdown, maybe with an additional warning email. for example: "The server shuts down in 5 minutes due to no demand and no solar power, if you want to prevent this click this link: http://server.lan/cgi-bin/keepalive "
Since 2019 there is also the ARM64 MNT Reform Laptop https://mntre.com/reform.html
Re:What LLMs Know About Their Users on Sunday June 29, 2025 @03:17PM (#44415547)
That the LLM is in control of us.
Re:What LLMs Know About Their Users on Sunday June 29, 2025 @02:52PM (#44415389)
where is the nearest McDonald's? 18:51

I'm sorry, but I don't have the capability to access real-time location data to find the nearest McDonald's for you. However, you can easily find this information by using a maps application on your phone or computer.

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