Today, 19 June 2025, the Dutch-language 𝗪𝗶𝗸𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝟮𝟰𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝗿𝘆! 
One of the largest sources of knowledge in Dutch, supported by thousands of volunteers.
Celebrate by reading an article, adding to it or adding a photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Most people here may already know about #AnnasArchive – but maybe you’re one of today’s Lucky 10,000 (https://xkcd.com/1053/):
"The largest truly open library in human history. We mirror Sci-Hub and LibGen. We scrape and open-source Z-Lib, DuXiu, and more."
"Behold, the third coming of the AI scripture, now available for free to nullify any excuses for ignorance. Complete with deep thoughts on deep learning and societal woes—because what’s AI without a sprinkle of moral panic? 
Just what the world needed, a book that’s basically a textbook with a conscience." 
https://artint.info/index.html #AIliterature #MoralPanic #DeepLearning #FreeKnowledge #TechEthics #HackerNews #ngated
Ah, yes, the age-old tale of #AI companies as the evil #overlords, cunningly plotting to destroy free knowledge! 
While we wait for the robots to steal our open-access lunch money, this newsletter almost makes you nostalgic for the days when "citation needed" was more than just a punchline.
https://www.citationneeded.news/free-and-open-access-in-the-age-of-generative-ai/ #FreeKnowledge #CitationNeeded #Nostalgia #TechHumor #HackerNews #ngated
Konservative US-Denkfabriken wollen Wikipedia-Autor:innen enttarnen. Ein Angriff auf freie Meinungsäußerung und Wissen! #FreeKnowledge #Privacy
@rcx Amazing how that works. I've noticed a similar situation with companies that steal wages from employees. Maybe they pay a fine. Jail is never considered.
But corporations are given all the rights of people, in accordance with the Citizens United decision…why don't they have any of the same responsibilities and legal liabilities as people?
I know I'm crossing streams a little here, but something needs to change.
It just came out that Meta downloaded via Torrent over 80 terabytes of books taken from LibGen, Anna's Archive, and Z-Library to train their AI models, and nobody is guilty. In contrast, in 2010, Aaron Swartz downloaded just 70 GB of academic articles from JSTOR (only 0.0854% of what Meta took) and faced $1 million in fines and 35 years in prison. Unable to bear the situation, he took his own life in 2013.
Leanne O'Donnell just drew my attention to WikiTok, random Wikipedia articles presented in a social media-style feed.
https://wikitok.net/
Just what we need, another way to rabbit hole down Wikipedia! 
#Wikipedia #FreeKnowledge @wikimediafoundation @wm_au
Zeit für den alljährlichen Reminder an Aaron Swartz
und die Empfehlung für den Film The Internets own Boy - die Welt hat ihm viel zu verdanken und "sorry, we as society failed you hard"
« No, you can’t force other people to change. You can, however, change just about everything else. And usually, that’s enough. »
AARON SWARTZ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaronSwartz
#TIL about #AnnasArchive;
"The largest truly open library in human history. We mirror Sci-Hub and LibGen. We scrape and open-source Z-Lib, DuXiu, and more."
I fuck with Wikipedia. Might even not ignore the donation page today... might fuck around and give them a few bucks.. who knows...
Q1: Do you think a world would work where everything necessary (basic supplies, care & services) and easily reproducible (digital goods, knowledge, information) was free for everybody - including not paying with data or through ads?
Q2: Do you think a world works, where these things are not free?
As the new President of Wikimedia Australia I have put down some thoughts on potential areas for the organisation to focus on going forward: growing free knowledge, striving for knowledge equity, getting better at governance and celebrating our community.
https://eb.wtf/4gAFba3
#Wikimedia #WikimediaAustralia #Wikipedia #FreeKnowledge @wm_au
Manifest Hacker
Manifest Hacker
El Manifest del Hacker, també conegut com The Conscience of a Hacker, és un dels textos fundacionals de la cultura hacker. Escrit per The Mentor (Loyd Blankenship) el 8 de gener de 1986, poc després del seu arrest, aquest text va ser publicat en el setè número del magazín electrònic Phrack, una publicació icònica en els cercles underground de la informàtica.
El manifest reflexiona sobre la mentalitat, la frustració i el món dels hackers, tot reivindicant la curiositat i la recerca de coneixement com a motors d’aquesta subcultura. Va aparèixer en una època en què els hackers estaven en el punt de mira dels mitjans de comunicació, sovint demonitzats per unes accions que, segons l’autor, tenien més a veure amb el desig d’aprendre i explorar que amb intencions malicioses.
Aquest text no només parla d’ordinadors i xarxes, sinó també d’un sistema educatiu, social i econòmic que, per als hackers, es percebia com opressiu i obsolet. A continuació, la meva traducció lliure d’aquest text tant important.
Un altre ha estat atrapat avui; és a tots els diaris. “Adolescent detingut per escàndol de delictes informàtics”, “Hacker arrestat després de manipular un banc”…
Maleïts nanos. Són tots iguals.Però vosaltres, amb els vostres cervells de tecnòcrates dels anys 50 i les vostres titulacions de psicologia encartonades, heu mirat mai darrere els ulls d’un hacker? Us heu preguntat què el fa funcionar, quines forces l’han modelat, què l’ha format?
Jo sóc un hacker. Entra al meu món.
El meu és un món que comença a l’escola… Sóc més llest que la majoria de companys, i aquesta merda que ensenyen m’avorreix.
Maleït dropo. Són tots iguals.Estic a l’institut. He escoltat els professors explicar per quinzena vegada com es redueix una fracció. Ho entenc. “No, senyoreta Smith, no he fet els càlculs en paper. Ho he fet de cap…”
Maleït nano. Segur que ho ha copiat. Són tots iguals.Avui he fet un descobriment. He trobat un ordinador. Un moment… això és increïble. Fa el que li dic. Si s’equivoca, és perquè m’he equivocat jo, no perquè no m’agradi…
Ni perquè se senti amenaçat per mi…
Ni perquè em trobi impertinent…
Ni perquè odïi ensenyar i no hauria d’estar aquí…
Maleït nano. Només juga a videojocs. Són tots iguals.I llavors va passar… es va obrir una porta cap a un altre món. Travessant la línia telefònica com l’heroïna per les venes d’un addicte, un pols electrònic m’empeny a buscar refugi de les incompetències del dia a dia… i trobo un fòrum.
“Això és. Aquest és el meu lloc.”
Conec tothom aquí… encara que mai els hagi vist, encara que mai els hagi parlat, encara que mai els torni a sentir… us conec a tots.
Maleït nano. Tornant a ocupar la línia telefònica. Són tots iguals.I tant que som iguals! Ens han alimentat amb farinetes a l’escola quan estàvem famolencs de carn… I els pocs bocins de carn que ens donàveu estaven mastegats i sense gust. Hem estat dominats per sàdics o ignorats pels apàtics. Els pocs que tenien alguna cosa per ensenyar-nos ens trobaven alumnes motivats, però eren com gotes d’aigua al desert.
Aquest és el nostre món ara… el món de l’electró i del switch, la bellesa del baud. Fem servir un servei que ja existeix sense pagar per una cosa que seria ridículament barata si no fos gestionada per golafres explotadors, i ens dieu criminals. Explorem… i ens dieu criminals. Cerquem coneixement… i ens dieu criminals. Existim sense color de pell, sense nacionalitat, sense prejudicis religiosos… i ens dieu criminals.
Construïu bombes atòmiques, feu guerres, assassineu, enganyeu, mentiu i intenteu fer-nos creure que és pel nostre bé… però els criminals som nosaltres.Sí, sóc un criminal. El meu crim és la curiositat. El meu crim és jutjar la gent pel que diu i pensa, no pel seu aspecte. El meu crim és ser més llest que vosaltres, una cosa que mai em perdonareu.
Jo sóc un hacker, i aquest és el meu manifest. Podeu aturar aquest individu, però no podeu aturar-nos a tots… al cap i a la fi, som tots iguals.
Podeu trobar l’original aqui: https://phrack.org/issues/7/3
It's #Wikimania2024 in #Katowice and here is a little impression on this year's designs inspired by local history, fairy tales and polish embroidery art. Beautiful, isn't it?
I was accepted to speak at SANS Cloud Security CloudSecNext Summit in Denver, CO Sept 30 - Oct 1.
CloudSecNext is a wonderful conference - it's immediately available, online, for free! I'm a huge proponent of working hard to give away knowledge for free, and this org helps do just that.
This will be my third time speaking at CloudSecNext, and I'm going to do my best to go there in person this year and say hi to some folks. Keep your fingers crossed I'll be there in person 
This year I'll be speaking about what to do when your InfoSec team asks for you to implement a feature using terraform, and terraform doesn't yet support it. Namely, GO AND BUILD IT. We'll be talking about how to build features you need into Terraform Providers when they don't exist.
Previous talks:
* 2022 talk on using Terraform to make IAM at scale reliable and secure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEGqC1tuO4E&t=22888s
* 2023 talk on migrating 1.5k repos to GitHub without breaking stuff: https://www.youtube.com/live/UrYesg5dQ9k?t=24079s
Here's more info on CloudSecNext, and where you can register (for free!) to see all content, including my talk. Please check it out!
https://www.sans.org/cyber-security-training-events/cloudsecnext-summit-2024/
“Software Commons is a great name. But for what?”
Y’all, that already means something to a lot of very passionate people and communities… please don’t try to commendeer it for profit.
https://github.com/softwarecommons/softwarecommons.com/issues/3
"They have come to the garden that we all built with our goodwill and creative labor, a place where all are welcome, and they strewed leg-hold traps all around." - @pluralistic
Whether it's failing to attribute a CC license, or not understanding what it means to "compete", it's the same trap.
When you make your work publicly available and say "this contributes to the Commons" while waiting to assert your exclusive rights to serve your own (to be fair, potentially legitimate) interests, it's totally a trap for those expecting a garden that is free for all to use.
This is why https://softwarecommons.com grates on me so.
The idea that making your software available to others—as long as you don’t compete with me—is such a “brain worm” as @pluralistic might call it.
Asserting exclusive rights *erodes* the Commons. It doesn’t *enrich* the Commons.
