@HydrePrever C'était une connaissance ?

@uxor

running smoooth like whipped butter

Ok, looks like this is the week of funny experiences.

Customer: "I had an AI check our server and it says the SSH port is open and that's not very secure."

Me: "Yes, you asked us to open it so you could access the server via SFTP (actually, you wanted FTP, but we discussed it a bit and found this compromise). Don't worry, it's only accessible from your IP and you land in a dedicated FreeBSD jail. From there, you can only access the 'exchange' directory on your server, where you can upload and download files without affecting the application."

(NB: I had suggested a VPN, but they declined because it was too complicated.)

Customer: "Yes, but maybe it's still insecure. Can't we close it?"

Me: "No, unless you want to lose access to that directory."

Customer: "Ok, thanks."

One hour later:

Customer: "Hi, I think we've found a solution. We've just created an app (!!!) with AI that lets us access the files anyway, but more securely than SSH (!!!). Can we install that and close SSH? Oh, and not in the dedicated jail, but directly in the application's jail, because it needs access to the application's files."

Me: "Frankly, I trust SSH in a dedicated jail, restricted by the firewall, a lot more. I don't think this is a good idea."

Customer: "Ok, thanks."

Half an hour later:

Customer: "Ok, now it's secure. I had another AI check it and it found some security issues, but it fixed them all. Can you install it and disable SSH?"

Me: "I strongly advise against it. I can see problems coming."

Customer: "Ok, thanks."

One hour later, my phone rings.

Their internal IT guy (who has access to the machine, which, after all, belongs to them) had given the AI the login credentials to go ahead with the operation.

Except the AI had managed to lock itself out via the firewall, without even starting the app. And now they couldn't get back in.

Fortunately, I had my own access, via VPN, to a separate jail that the AI hadn't touched (or even considered).

Customer: "SORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRY! From now on, we do things your way."

Well, at least it ended well.

PS: The customer knows I'm sharing this story and agreed to it.

#IT #SysAdmin

back on #FreeBSD on my workstation with the 15.1-RELEASE update

RE: https://sunbeam.city/@ana/117122263400858952

Não vote. Deixe o fascismo nadar de braçada no Brasil... #VSF manezada!

Meu voto é #Antifa

@cluelesstoshika Yes, I know that one, but it just annoys me. Everywhere else (or at least everywhere I'm familiar with) a public company is the opposite: it's a publicly-owned company, i.e. owned by all the people, aka the country itself.

In the #LoResMesh project, we've just shipped a lightweight wrapper for #Kiwix that connects it to our #P2P network powered by #P2Panda.

What that means is that each of our community servers can host important website archives, and you can also search for archives that are at other nearby servers, allowing you to click through (if the internet is up), or physically go there 🚴 if the internet is down 🔥 ⛈️.

Here's our write up:
https://lores.tech/blog/kiwix-p2p/

We'd love to hear what you think @kiwix.

#LoRes #ClimateCrisis #ClimateResilience #CommunityNetworks #CoopCloud

@johannab @ricci @annaleen the only social media that kept me connected to meatspace events was Facebook, and I stopped using it several years ago. I wish I found fediverse or BlueSky even 10% as informative that way.

@cluelesstoshika Thanks. This one always stumped me (I must have learned the thing at the uni, but it must have been mentioned one in passing)

@jonny I critiqued this blog posting earlier on Saturday. Not to rag on or "nuthink" but the Methodology section of my PhD was pretty core to the whole effort. I shudder to think what goes on nowadays. It's like people have never heard of Karl Popper or something.

A sensible NZ govt would distance themselves from Orange Stalin's régime as much as possible. But not by making ourselves a 'Switzerland of the South Pacific. The Swiss posture of 'neutrality' empowered the Nazis, so in effect that's who they sided with.

Instead, NZ diplomats should be instructed to find ways to legitimize and encourage pro-democracy movements, even in nominally 'democratic' countries like the US. In cooperation with their colleagues from around the world.

(2/2)

#NZPolitics

Reminder: Orange Stalin's blackshirts are still targeting people purely based on their visible ethnicity, and murdering people around the US;

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm

The news media has most moved on, but don't kid yourself, this is *not* business as usual. The US needs a pro-democracy movement right now - with *teeth* - every bit as much as China or Russia does.

(1/2)

#USPolitics #OnTheNews #WNYC #podcasts

Pre-Election ICE Surge in California Could Backfire on Republicans.

Rep. David Valadao has said the raids target immigrants with criminal records. The United Farm Workers says this is false. 1/2

Sonia Guajarara posted a video yesterday, explaining:

"Today, the Pankararu Indigenous Territory was reclaimed through the strength and unity of our women and our youth!

I was in the village of Brejo dos Padres alongside a people who have never stopped fighting. Territory is life, memory, ancestry, and the future. Without land demarcation, there is no true justice or democracy.

We need to re-elect Lula to guarantee the rights of Indigenous peoples and move forward with the demarcation of our territories. On the 25th, vote 13 ⭐️"

https://www.instagram.com/p/DeiNAzSkcb-/?img_index=1
#indigenous #Brazil #elections #Lula #landback

@mttaggart congrats!

Indigenous people in Brazil are posting their support for Lula in the second round of the Brazilian elections.

Txai Suruí said: “My vote is for the future, for those who haven't been born yet. On the 25th, it's 13 ❤️ I'm 38 weeks pregnant.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/DemzADrtjdz/
#indigenous #Brazil #elections #Lula

"AI code generators are like compilers for translating natural language into a programming language" – I have heard and read this unfitting analogy quite a few times already.
It is misleading, as it sweeps a crucial technical point under the carpet and downplays some of the more serious consequences for people who have to deal with AI-generated code.

Compilers are deterministic, usually generating functionally equivalent code for a given input program on every run, according to language specifications.
Programmers usually do not have to check the machine code or the assembly code a native compiler generates, as its behavior is well-specified and, with mature compilers, also well-tested.
Programmers can expect the compiler to "just work", transforming code that is comparatively easy to read and write for humans into a form that is simpler for the machine to process, but difficult to read for humans.
Also, assuming the input code is written in a standardized language and uses its features in a well-defined way, switching compilers is relatively easy.

Yes, AI code generators also transform something that is easier to read – in this case natural language – into something that is simpler for the machine to process – in this case program code.
However, this is where the similarity ends.
The path from given prompt input to output code is practically inscrutable, warranting a lot more skepticism about the result.
In the general case, can you expect to get functionally equivalent code with the same prompts every time? No!
Can you even expect correct output? No!
What if you switch the model? Well, have fun!
Furthermore, as natural language is often imprecise and ambiguous, AI code generation cannot be as reliable as an actual compilation process – it is inherently probabilistic.
At the same time, the resulting software is used by actual humans with real consequences to them, so somebody has to accept the responsibility for that code, including actually reviewing and testing it.

Combine this with the ability of these code generators to quickly spew out tons of code from just a few short prompts.
Now we have a code review bottleneck:
Can we review tons of machine code a compiler generates? No, but we don't have to.
Can we review tons of AI-generated code? Also no, but we have to anyway.
Now you understand why some project maintainers become increasingly frustrated.

PS, before anyone complains: Yes, I do know about surprising optimizations, differences between compilers, compiler bugs, profile-guided optimization, the trusting-trust issue and so on, believe me.
Every abstraction comes with some flexibility of how it is implemented and also a risk of implementation bugs.
This post is not about these rare, special-case issues.
Additionally, just because I have focused on one particular problem with AI code generation, this does not mean that I think this is the only one.

#AI #LLMs #slop #codereview #softwaredevelopment

@hipsterelectron ughhh frustrating!!

Ok so, what's the nickname for "us" here?
Foss-ites? Fossies?
(That could be a not too the great scientist so, yay)
Feds and Fossters both may be confusing in an uncomfortable way for some.
Fossiles?