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23andMe to pay $30 million in genetics data breach settlement
  • https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/genetics-firm-23andme-says-user-data-stolen-in-credential-stuffing-attack/

    The information that has been exposed from this incident includes full names, usernames, profile photos, sex, date of birth, genetic ancestry results, and geographical location.

    The threat actor accessed a small number of 23andMe accounts and then scraped the data of their DNA Relative matches, which shows how opting into a feature can have unexpected privacy consequences.

    • Usernames Profile Photos DoB

    They can be linked to other online accounts. This allows for phishing, potentially scamming or getting additonal information on them which can lead to more sophisticated/personalised scams. Older, less tech savvy users are better targets for scammers.

    • Username Sex DoB Genetic Ancestry Location data

    Data aggregators can sell this info to Health Insurance Companies or any other system who can then discriminate based on genes sex age or location

    • All of this information

    Can contribute to people committing fraud with their information if they collect enough information from different sources.

    • DNA relatives

    Having enough information about a user to use it to target their now known relatives in personalised scams.

    The people that did this probably didn't know what information they were going to get, maybe they were hoping for payment info, and settled for trying to just sell what they got.

    Any information, no matter how useless it might seem, is better than no information and enough useless information in the wrong hands can be very valuable.

    Theres countless data breaches every year and people will collect it all and link different accounts from different breaches until they have enough information. Most people use the same email address for every website and a lot of people reuse the same passwords, which is how this data leak occurred. Knowing that these users reuse the same email/password combination here means theres a very good chance they've reused it elsewhere.

    You can check out what data breeches have occured and if your email or password has been posted in any of these dumps here https://haveibeenpwned.com/

    Once the information is out there, its out there for good and what might seem trivial now to you could be valuable tomorrow to someone else

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    Microsoft Windows kernel changes don't suddenly mean big things for Linux gaming
  • Finally a good take. Or maybe I'm just a pessimist lol

    Microsoft are masters at dancing around anti competitive regulation. Xbox is struggling, they've said so themselves. I think they're going to focus more on Gamepass and the Windows Store so making it as difficult as possible for the likes of the Steamdeck to succeeded is in their best interest. If they can push companies to adopt their new framework and at the same time make that framework almost impossible to implement into wine then its a win win. They can hurt wine while painting it as better security so they're isn't another CrowdStrike incident.

    Anticompetitive practices disguised as user security.

    I know linux isn't very popular for the general public but Apple has their own implementation of wine in development and Google has flooded schools with Chromebooks. If I was Michaelsoft, I'd want to crush the competition quickly and discreetly now before I implement my Windows subscription so people don't have any good alternatives left

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    Several windows programs won't work with Wine. Would running a Windows VM be a better option?
  • Yeah, sometimes there just isn't another option. I have a 60GiB Win11 VM for things I use every few months for a couple of minutes at a time

    I'd recommend https://www.qemu.org/ for virtualisation

    https://virt-manager.org/ for a gui to manage VMs, you can easily add or remove cores, memory, internet, directories etc really easily.

    https://github.com/winfsp/winfsp lets you add a directory from your host to the VM to easily share files

    https://github.com/virtio-win/virtio-win-guest-tools-installer makes the cursor seamlessly move between the VM and host instead of pressing ctrl alt g to escape.

    Win11 23H2 still allows for offline set up. Just press shift f10 when you're at the internet set up and type

    oobe/bypassnro
    

    The VM will reboot and give you the option to select I don't have internet so you can just use a local account

    https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat/ for getting rid of the unwanted bloatware

    Theres also an easy way to activate windows for free, I don't think I can link it here but its on github and MAS-sive amount of people have starred it.

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    Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 1st
  • I started The Witcher 3 for the second time. I tried it a year ago and I kept getting absolutely wrecked by the ghost thing in thr very first crypt so I gave up but this time I killed it straight away so who knows what I was doing wrong last time! Also, probably a bit controversial but I refuse to learn how to play Gwent, I don't have the time or patients to learn a card game inside an already massive game

    I also started and finished American Arcadia this weekend and I absolutely loved it. I'm trying to play shorter games that I wouldn't usually play in between The Witcher 3 since its long. AA is probably one of the best games I've played. The story is fantastic and the gameplay is pretty basic, which suits me. It doesn't take itself too seriously and has some fun twists at the end.

    I've also been playing Supraland, its a pretty fun, chill game. The areas aren't very difficult and the upgrade system is fun. I love the funny dialogues from the NPCs and again its a fun game that doesn't take itself seriously and I find myself smiling while playing it

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    So technical question...
  • I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Manjaro, is in fact, Arch/Manjaro, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Arch plus Manjaro. Manjaro is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning Arch system made useful by pacman, yay and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

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    The eagerness to grave dance on unpopular games has become a bad habit
  • Over and over and over and over the gaming community has been screwed over by Publishers so I'll stop grave dancing when Corpos stop being so horrible

    • Requiring a third party account to play a game months after it was released and after selling it to customers who can't legitimately make an account because you don't feel like their country can make you enough profit. Helldivers 2

    • Attempting to take away peoples digital "purchases" of media because you can't be bothered to pay licencing. Sony

    • Changing the definition of "purchase" an established word in English and not defining your new definition until page 22 of a EULA that you know nobody is going to read. Sony, and everyone else

    • Shutting down a server and rendering a game with a whole single player aspect completely useless and not telling consumers this at the time of purchase. The Crew (https://www.stopkillinggames.com/)

    • Selling a terribly incomplete game filled with glitches for the price of a full game. Cyberpunk 2077 and so many others.

    • Selling Pre-Purchases to let people play the game early but really its just another way to get people to pay to be Guinea pigs in your buggy game. That new Star Wars game and so many others.

    • Adding so many stupid "micro transactions" to games to milk players as much as possible for useless skins and camos etc. Diablo 4 and so many more.

    • Adding a "Season Pass"???? I don't even understand what this is??? Buy a full priced game and then buy a subscription to that game??? But still not have access to all of the content and then be shown a magic glove that costs €500, why is this not part of the subscription or is it???? I hope it is. New COD and probably others

    • "Making" a game and selling it to people but really its just a scam where they got "volunteers" to work on the game for free. Then shutting the game down instantly. That zombie game with Will Smith.

    • Something, something Overwatch 2 is a totally brand new game.

    • Shutting down third party mods for an unsupported and dangerous game just after the sale for that game is over. Fine, they didn't own all of the assets used but they did fix the issue where people could infect your system with malware. COD

    • Increasing the prices of all of your subscriptions and making those subscriptions worse by offering less while your parent company is posting ~$20 Billion profits in the most recent quarter, yes quarter, thats like 3 months...

    Btw all of these examples have happened within the last 4 years. Its pretty sad that I can list these off the top of my head. I only play single player games and I only got back into gaming a couple of years ago after ~10 years of not really playing anything

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    The Italian Far Right’s Beef with Vegans and Immigrants
  • Wow that's crazy, banning specific types of restaurants in cities has to be one of the weirder things I've heard of. Also, there are loads of vegan restaurants in the main cities in Italy so no need to worry if you plan to visit!

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    Vegans Have Quite the Positive Effect
  • I think it means lives, as in you don't eat a whole pig but if you have some bacon that could come from one or more pigs that have had to be murdered for you

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    Help with LineageOS
  • If your phone has a password on it then its data is going to be encrypted until you unlock the phone.

    You can temporarily boot a twrp recovery image. It will let you put in your password and decrypt your storage.

    You should be able to transfer the files to your PC with a cable then

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    Do Gnome PCs become tiny little mind flayers?
  • No, its the same character model as a normal Mind Flayer. At least it was a few months ago when I did it but I doubt they've changed it since then

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    #StopKillingGames update: Finland just passed the threshold.
  • Even if your coutry reaches 100% and you haven't signed, please still do incase some signatures are invalid

    TIP – It is better to collect more signatures than required. Sometimes the national authorities might not be able to validate all the statements of support you provide.

    https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/how-it-works_en

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    How big is YOUR collection?
  • Around 16 TiB and I keep 3 copies of everything so 48 TiB used of around 65TiB. I encoded all my TV shows and most of my movies with AV1 and keep most of my files compressed, which saves a bunch of space so hopefully I won't need more drives any time soon

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    Proton just joined the AI clown car show
  • For me the issue here is, why put so much time and energy into basically rebranding an LLM. I've seen LLMs running on RPi and android phones. Why not write a blog post showing how to run LLMs locally with existing tools for the best privacy instead and put more focus on their existing services. It just seems like they're jumping on the AI bandwagon and charging a premium for an already freely available LLM.

    I see some benefits of AI like quality tts when using OSM and stt when transcribing/translating audio but other things like Googles AI answers and Microsofts Copilot leave me scratching my head wondering why consumer would want this

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    Proton just joined the AI clown car show
  • Am I out of touch?

    a writing assistant was one of the most requested features in our recent survey

    Apparently, I am. People actually want this

    For Proton Mail, 59% of respondents want an easier way to send end-to-end encrypted emails to non-Proton users, while 29% want a writing assistant for proofreading, grammar, and composing emails.

    Nothing I hate more than not giving a link to the repo

    Scribe relies on open source code and models, and is itself open source and therefore available for independent security and privacy audits

    Not on their support page specifically for it either

    Had to got to Reddit and look at their comments to find out they're using Mistral

    https://reddit.com/comments/1e68sof/comment/ldsbs24

    We built Scribe in r/ProtonMail using the open-source model Mistral AI to empower anyone in need of email productivity to use a privacy-respecting alternative to r/ChatGPT or r/GeminiAI that:
     ❌ doesn't log or save prompts
     ⛔️ doesn't use your data for training
     🔎 open-source code that anyone can inspect
     🖥️ can be run locally, so your data never leaves your device
     
    See the official announcement here: https://proton.me/blog/proton-scribe-writing-assistant

    https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-7B-v0.1/discussions/8

    Hello, thanks for your interest and kind words! Unfortunately we're unable to share details about the training and the datasets (extracted from the open Web) due to the highly competitive nature of the field. We appreciate your understanding!

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    How can I transfer non-steam games between Linux devices.
  • I've run into issues where a game will work with a specific version of wine but then not work with a newer version but then other games that don't work with the older version, work with the new one.

    Theres also potentially issues of dependencies for one game breaking another game. Separate prefixes just make it easier to troubleshoot a game not working since you can just install/uninstall whatever dependencies that it might need without worrying about messing up other games.

    Its also just easier to delete the entire prefix when you realise you've installed too many useless dlls and you've finally found the one thing you do need to make the game work lol

    I also like to archive games I like since companies can just decide to remove their games from existence whenever they want. So I just add the separate prefix that has any extra dlls or tweaks to the archive so that the game should still work in 3 years without having to try and download dependencies that may not be as easy to find in the future

    But if you don't have issues I don't think its a big deal and if you do have issues with a game, you can just make a separate one for that anyway.

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    GDPR Account deletion
  • You could chance it, but they probably have logs of your IP/location data or they bought your data somewhere and so they could check, if they cared enough, but if you're not an EU citizen and you live in an EU country then GDPR applies to you

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    How can I transfer non-steam games between Linux devices.
  • Guide is maybe not the right word lol, it just exactly what I click to set up the majority of my games

    I'm not 100% sure, but from my understanding yes the regisrty in the "prefix" folder would be changed. You can manually edit the wine prefix registry with regedit https://www.winehq.org/docs/wineusr-guid<br />e/using-regedit and Lutris supports this, just click the arrow that brings up the winetricks option and its under Wine Registry

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    GDPR Account deletion
  • Every few months I like to clear out my password manager of any accounts I don't need anymore, usually just throwaway emails aliases.

    I'll usually attempt to log into any services that I know I've deleted/requested to delete to make sure they're not accessible anymore and so far I haven't been able to log in to any of them so I can only assume my requests are working.

    I suppose if a service had a data breach, after my information was meant to be deleted, and I found my information there then I'd make a complaint to my regulator about not deleting my data. I would have proof of my request and their acknowledgement of the request so it'd be pretty silly of them not to delete it after saying they did

    I rarely use anything but email aliases and fake information anyway and I never let online retailers save my card information. And if my address in on my account I change it to P. Sherman 42 Wallabyway Sydney before I delete/request to delete my account.

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    GDPR Account deletion
  • I spend too much time reading emails so I try to keep mine short, especially when they're going to a generic email like support or privacy.

    https://gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/

    The GDPR does not specify what a valid request to erasure entails. An individual can make a request for erasure verbally or in writing. This request can also be made to any member of your organization, not just to a designated contact. As long as a request meets the conditions above, it is valid, even if it does not refer to “Request for Erasure” the “Right to be Forgotten,” Article 17, or the GDPR.

    There's no template to follow for a request. Once GDPR is mentioned, they usually just email back saying that they're doing it or its done.

    I haven't come across any difficult companies but I've heard some make it as hard as possible and follow the Erasure Request form template in the link above and ask for proof of I.D etc

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    How can I transfer non-steam games between Linux devices.
  • I use Lutris and set up my directories a "GameName" and then 2 subdirectories "game" "prefix" and point Lutris to these.

    All of the game files go in "game" and the prefix is created in "prefix" when I press play in Lutris. Any extras dlls that are needed can be installed with winetricks within Lutris to that specific prefix

    This way you can just compress and decompress "GameName" folder and point Lutris to these locations on whichever machine.

    You can choose which prefix version you want in Lutris and it will download that version for you. I'm pretty sure it saves the version to somewhere in ~.local/share/lutris I'm not at my PC now so not 100% sure of the path.

    It saves it to ~.local/share/lutris/runners/wine and you can put a custom wine build here and Lutris should recognise it when configuring the runner options

    So you could copy this over to the corresponding location on the deck and Lutris will automatically detect this version as installed and won't have to download it again but its not necessary unless you don't have internet on the deck, or you're like me and want to keep an archive of the working prefix for the future in case the prefix version is no longer available for whatever reason and other version just won't work.

    If you're new to Lutris, I wrote a step by step guide on how I use Lutris on a different community

    https://sopuli.xyz/comment/9858101

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