toad.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Mastodon server operated by David Troy, a tech pioneer and investigative journalist addressing threats to democracy. Thoughtful participation and discussion welcome.

Administered by:

Server stats:

218
active users

#stack

0 posts0 participants0 posts today
Continued thread

State-sponsored exploits are often far more complex than typical vulnerabilities, and they're not always immediately obvious. Rather than being blatant or easily detectable, they're often crafted more like poison. At first glance, a piece of code in a random library may seem perfectly benign, serving a valid and useful function, as do many other independent libraries and functions scattered throughout the system. But when combined with other seemingly harmless pieces, these isolated bits of code can create something far more concerning. It's subtle and easily overlooked — yet, together, they could have a devastating effect.

This kind of stealthy, integrated attack is difficult to uncover because each individual part of the code appears legitimate on its own. Only when the system as a whole is carefully scrutinized in a holistic way can these potential threats be detected — if they're detected at all.

While FOSS does offer a great deal of flexibility, there are still practical concerns around jurisdiction, especially when it comes to legal matters, security audits, and the involvement of major corporations. Even though the software itself is open and can be modified, the infrastructure and support around it — such as funding, legal protections, or compliance — can still be influenced by where the project is based or the entities involved. Moving to a more independent, EU-based model could help mitigate some of those risks and offer more sovereignty in the long run.

Furthermore, the concern remains that the U.S. government could potentially order a company to introduce a hidden backdoor into the software, and the corporation might not be free — or even able — to disclose this information. This is a serious issue, especially as political pressures grow. In a broader sense, the U.S. is increasingly resembling more authoritarian regimes like Russia or China when it comes to digital policies, where control over software and data is prioritized over privacy or transparency.

Even though FOSS allows you to examine the code, the reality is that no one can continuously monitor the entire system at all times. The complexities of modern operating systems make it incredibly difficult to scrutinize every line of code, especially as it evolves. This is why reducing dependency on American corporations and jurisdiction could be an essential step toward ensuring true independence and security.

#stack : a number of flues embodied in one structure, rising above the roof

- French: empiler

- German: der Stapel

- Italian: cumulo

- Portuguese: pilha

- Spanish: pila, apilar

------------

Thank you so much for being a member of our community!

a #german #stack ...

a #french #stack ...

a #danish #stack ...

this german/dane wonders ...

a #eurostack ....?

thoughts?

"Wildberger is concerned with how a uniform digital architecture can be created .... He advocates the development of a “#Germany IT stack”. .. a uniform infrastructure with clearly defined interfaces, cloud services and standards. So far, a #EuroStack has been the main topic of discussion in specialist circles. ..

heise.de/en/news/New-Digital-M

heise online · New Digital Minister: Data protection must not become a brake on innovationBy Stefan Krempl

"I wish I could believe you: the frustrating unreliability of some assessment research
T Hunt, S Jordan"

scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?a

At the STACK25 conference earlier this month watched Sally Jordan present the keynote. I was very impressed and found this research paper from 2016. The co-author Tim Hunt is the main architect of the #Moodle #Quiz #engine and co-maintainer of the #STACK question type.

scholar.google.co.ukGoogle Scholar
Replied in thread

@looopTools

Fair enough. Because recursion always has a limit, in any language, the tutorials probably assume you're aware of this already. The specific limit in Python is adjustable, but there's no way to eliminate it altogether.

Do the tutorials actually include data/examples that run into the recursion limit? Or is it only when applying code like that to other data that you run into issues?

I ask because the easiest way to smash the limit is to create a cyclic data structure, which is trivial in Python. If you naively recurse such an object, it goes on forever - until it hits the configured limit or the machine runs out of memory, anyways. i.e. this case:

>>> foo = ["bar"]
>>> foo.append(foo)
>>> foo
['bar', [...]]

If you think it's possible your recursion code might have to deal with something like this, you usually end up keeping track of the objects you've already processed, and skip them if you see the same object again (typically by the object ID).

In many cases, you can also rewrite recursive code so that it's not recursive, and cannot run into this problem. As a bonus, problems that can be refactored this way usually run faster without the recursion.

Today's work. Sorry, murky low light photo, finished at sunset as usual.

Still space for more!

Can see the difference between birch and alder nicely there. The orangey stuff on the right is alder. Slightly less energy than birch but easier to light. Good firewood and what mostly grows in our forest as it thrives in the swampy parts near the river.

Those last two stacks are from a few fallen trees that were blocking the forest road.