Trying to protect everything from everyone all the time is a good way to drive yourself crazy. This is why we threat model. Here is EFF's Surveillance Self Defense guide to putting together your security plan, also known as threat modeling: ssd.eff.org/module/your-...

UK Orders Ofcom to Enforce Encryption Backdoors https://alecmuffett.com/article/140694 #ClientSideScanning #EndToEndEncryption #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #surveillance

What’s this?! An Atari TT030 running UNIX as it was meant to. With some difficulty due to massively out of date install guides and hacky loaders and an installer which isn’t the best I’ve managed to get NetBSD 10.1 installed. Not quick but at least X and networking work unlike Debian 3.0.

Previously (2024) a reminder that whatever you think of the Trump government and its illiberal approach, CCDH is not a friend of online digital rights and free speech: alecmuffett.com/article/110320

And the 800XL became unstable again. *sigh* Opened it up and it's the GTIA socket again. Cleaned the chip pins (again), more Electrolube EML on the socket and bent the pins in a bit. Those single wipe sockets are a pain. Took the opportunity to do the same for other socketed chips.

Today my "new" eBay purchase arrived, an Atari 800XL. After checking the power supply I plugged it in and switched on... Went to self-test and bad RAM. Decided to piggy-back and the first chip I tried fixed the problem... Then another issue, caused by cruddy GTIA pins. Now cleaned and working.

Whistleblowers raise ‘extreme’ concern about security of government’s Digital ID | ITV News https://alecmuffett.com/article/136503 #DigitalId #IdCards #OneLogin

I am both a network & software engineer, and speaking as someone who did this for Facebook: Beyond IP-address & AS-number reputation databases, automated identification of VPN & proxy users is a subjective black art that frequently risks disconnecting millions of users via false positives.

What I've been saying for years... techtrenches.substack.com/p/the-great-...

I think the fundamental gap here is that non-creative people think that creative people make things for the end product, when in fact it’s the act of creation and not the end point that makes it worthwhile.

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

With the latest MiNT kernel and n2kenec.xif driver I’ve now, somehow got a working NetUSB-lite network interface on the TT. So my filter card has got everything working on the cartridge port.

Today has been a bumper day for the UK turning into Orwell's nightmare: U16 Ban from Social Media bsky.app/profile/alec... ID & Age Verification & U16 Ban from VPNs bsky.app/profile/alec... Client-Side Scanning of all Content bsky.app/profile/alec...

My Atari TT has never been able to use "smart" cartridges in the cartridge port, they've never worked. I've now got around to trying to diagnose and fix this. I've made a filter/breakout PCB which isolates the bus and adds pull-ups to stop the ringing. For the first time I can boot Spectre GCR.

EU’s Top Court Just Made It Literally Impossible To Run A User-Generated Content Platform Legally The Court of Justice of the EU—likely without realizing it—just completely shit the bed and made it effectively impossible to run any website in the entirety of the EU that hosts user-generated…

Is welfare spending ''out of control''? It's estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP this financial year. That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️ buff.ly/s5mz97u

I’m a past winner of the Orwell Prize & won partly because I exposed Vote Leave’s unlawful activities. Michael Gove was its co-convener & refused to answer a single q. He’s now a judge of the prize & our world is truly one that Orwell would recognise bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...

If Ofcom want to stop UK people visiting a non-UK website, they need to stop the UK people, not tell the non-UK website to work to prevent the UK hordes https://alecmuffett.com/article/128354

The BBC’s own “impartiality briefing” for freelancers included not doing anything to annoy the DM. So - not impartial! Also not great for freedom of speech.

Which version of national security is more important: The one that would mandate secure software by law with the threat of fines for failing adhere the rules, or the current one requiring software be made insecure by order of the Home Secretary with the threat of prison for failing to comply?

Proposal: British people should be able to sue any MP or former-MP who made promises in support of #Brexit which were later found to be either inaccurate or not delivered.

I've just posted a video on how to replace, relatively safely, the battery in a Dallas Semiconductor NVRAM/Clock chip with a CR2032 socket with the assistance of hot air. No Dremelling involved. (Excuse the echo in the middle of the video, Final Cut Pro messed up.) youtu.be/sqhAvTRjNHc?...

In Case You Missed It This Week: Ofcom, pursuing its lawful duties, is about to drive the UK over a cliff and into online censorship; here’s how… https://alecmuffett.com/article/125827 #AgeVerification #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #ofcom #surveillance #vpn

I picked up a Sun SPARCstation 2 at the weekend from another exhibitor at the Retro Computer Festival. Over the last day and a half I’ve been cleaning it, getting the power supply fan working and generally doing a bit of restoration. Passes all the diagnostics too. Looks a lot better.

I work for University of Warwick publishing higher education jobs. Not just academic but support staff as well. We've seen a drop off in the number of jobs being advertised since the restrictions on foreign students came into force. Foreign students provide jobs, help the balance of payments.

And @heredragons.be had a load of, let me check, erm…. Dragons

Of course, @binarydinosaurs.co.uk hatched a plan to have most versions of Chuckie Egg on his table.

How from th @computinghistory.org.uk Retro Computing Festival. Thank-you to everyone who turned up and especially those who tried to play Xpilot-ng this weekend.

Four and a half hours to drive from Oxford to Cambridge today, when it usually takes two. I couldn’t go my usual route due to the Black Cat junction and Caxton Gibbit works. Was not helped by the Škoda satnav insisting to try to use a B road rather than the A14 and that road was closed.

IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act | Hacker News https://alecmuffett.com/article/119703 #AgeVerification #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #PrestonByrne #censorship #ofcom #surveillance #vpns

What did science PhD students get up to when they weren't doing science on their UNIX workstations in the 1990s? Well, gaming of course! Come and play some networked (and non-networked) games on a couple of old Sun Microsystems gaming rigs! (Gaming rigs need lights inside, right?)

Analysis: The Online Safety Act is still on a faltering upswing, it will take 5…10 years to mitigate (and 10…30 to undo) the damage being caused https://alecmuffett.com/article/119268 #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #surveillance #vpns

Seeing as the Sun Ultra 45 is going to the games themed Retro Computing Festival in Cambridge next month to play 1990s UNIX games and it has a transparent side, it needed to be pimped out with some coloured lights inside... Had to, right? Well, £5 for five sets of battery LED strings was cheap. :-)

Working on the 5th(?) replacement display for the games themed RetroFest in Cambridge next month. So my last best hope for a display, my Babylon 5 as it were, is a couple of Sun workstations with xpilot, netrek & maybe Quake & Quake II on them. Much installing & upgrading today. Just like work.

UK MPs demand Home Secretary call on Apple to make iPhone more resistant to data exfiltration, backdoors, hacking, and third-party repair… https://alecmuffett.com/article/118602 #HomeOffice #PhoneTheft #RightToRepair #backdoor #censorship #encryption #surveillance

UK Expands Online Safety Act, Forcing Preemptive Censorship https://alecmuffett.com/article/118629 #AgeVerification #ChildSafety #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #surveillance #vpns

Ofcom have just clothed themselves not as an independent regulator, but as part of the sovereign British Government. This means that the British Government is attempting to prosecute/enforce UK state censorship in the USA. This will not land well in first-amendment America.

🌍 | Natural hydrogen, long overlooked as a viable energy resource, is emerging as one of the most exciting frontiers in sustainable energy. Discover how Oxford research is positioned firmly at the forefront of this global pursuit. ⬇️ @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social | #OxfordClimate

Getting things ready for this weekend’s Cyber Legends 2025. Testing the projector… Maybe a retro enough video source?

#OTD 45 years ago (7 Oct 1980) according to my diary, I drew these images for the Hitchhiker's Guide BBC TV series. Douglas Adams as both the ad exec and as Paula, the worst poet in the universe. I was 19 years old and having fun.

Discord Age Verification Data Hack: ‘The unauthorized party also accessed a “small number” of images of government IDs from “users who had appealed an age determination.”’ https://alecmuffett.com/article/115973

China threatened to retaliate against UK over foreign influence rules

This article manages to name her husband before it names… her.

And yet this staggeringly incompetent govt has severely damaged its own case for digital ID. First by framing it as just a means to stop illegal migrants working. And now by (again) demanding Apple provides a “digital backdoor” to our data - destroying trust in how secure our ID data might be.

The big lie about #DigitalID www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics...

And some text regarding how easy it is to fake a utility bill, how hard it is supposed to be to fake a digital ID, and where that all falls down

Amongst the many things I don't like are the government lying about how #DigitalID will make people's lives "easier" - when they are not empowered to deliver that, and make no mention of their underwriting the cost of weakening authentication - as well as the lies about "stopping illegal migration".

Online Safety Act: A well-intentioned disaster? | Professional Security Magazine https://alecmuffett.com/article/115334 #AgeVerification #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #surveillance #vpns