In the context of a prohibitions or limits on the deployment of end to end encryption, I've heard the argument that one should distinguish between: services which enable contact between "known" Read more
Installing Twitter client cawbird from the official Debian 11 Bullseye repo
cawbird is a superb GUI Twitter client for Linux. It's easy to use, it has none of the distractions of the Twitter web interface, and it supports multiple accounts. I'm a fan. (If there was a client Read more
Fixing "tee: command not found" on Debian 11 Bullseye
I get this error whenever I try to use tee on my Debian 11 Bullseye installation: tee: command not found tee is part of coreutils: Specifically, this package includes: arch base64 basename cat chcon Read more
A prohibition on end to end encryption could leave you with #NoPlaceToHide. And that's not a good thing.
The government's #NoPlaceToHide campaign (I've intentionally not included a URL) got me thinking: if end to end encryption on popular messaging services was prohibited, how many users would be left Read more
Age verification: an Epic mess
I have a Gmail account which I use for testing purposes. I get a lot of spam to it. Presumably, there are lots of people called "Neil Brown" who forget, or mistype, their own email address, and so Read more
The Curious Case of the Spurious CLI
Here's a bit of an odd one. And it's rather dull, if you're not interested in telephony and calling line identifiers. And probably dull even if you are. A call from 0330 001 XXXX The background is Read more
The end to end encryption debate: 1: the (very) basics of "encryption"
Some time back, someone - sadly, I cannot remember who, but - asked if there was a good, neutral, explanation of the end to end encryption debate. I have not found one, and I think it would be Read more
GNOME display fractional scaling
gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']" Tested on a Surface Go on Debian 11 running GNOME 3. It previously offered 100% or 200%. Now I get 100%, 125%, Read more
Book review: Anne E Currie's "Panopticon" series, books 1 and 2
I asked recently for recommendations for sci-fi books that I might enjoy, and a few people recommended Anne E Currie's "Pantopticon" series. "It will be right up your street!" one of them said. And Read more
What happened to Internet radio?
I don't hear about "Internet radio" that often, and that surprises me. Perhaps I'm odd in that I don't subscribe to any music streaming services (Spotify etc), but I listen to hours and hours of Read more