iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 30/04/2026

An overdue personal update: I'm excited to say that I'm officially a dual American/Canadian citizen!

Me holding my Canadian passport outdoors against a blue sky. The dark navy cover has gold embossed text reading "CANADA / PASSPORT / PASSEPORT," a gold maple leaf outline, and the Canadian coat of arms.

000

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 24/03/2026

Now might be a good time to see if your router is compatible with DD-WRT or similar. dd-wrt.com

dd-wrt.com

Making sure you're not a bot!

000

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 03/02/2026

Maybe a bit out-of-scope, but it also might be worth giving a mention to the Molly FOSS Signal client for Android. It has a handful of extra features like at-rest encryption, de-Googled notifications, and TOR support. Great for if you need to be even more cautious. molly.im

molly.im

Molly

Molly is an improved Signal app for Android

110

Reposted by Max Dale

Distributed Denial of Secrets @ddosecrets.org · 22/12/2025

The censored 60 Minutes' segment, Inside CECOT, is now available. Download from @ddosecrets.org: data.ddosecrets.org/Inside%20CEC... Download/stream from @archive.org: archive.org/details/insi... The original video was recorded by @jasonparis.bsky.social, and cleaned up by @emma.best

013

Reposted by Max Dale

Taylor Shelton @jtsphd.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

I wonder if Santa knows the locations of all 60,000+ surveillance cameras the Atlanta Police Department has access to? Maybe he can give that data to the public as a kind of collective Christmas gift?

1186

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 21/11/2025

Great podcast, great guest, great book. All-around banger.

030

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 19/11/2025

@emma.best Pardon my ignorance, but have you ever done something like this before?

000

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 19/11/2025

Check the link to the direct download. There are more files in that directory.

100

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 19/11/2025

This surely won’t be used against queer communities. Surely!

010

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 18/11/2025

RE: The Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill ICE Raids Nearly 3/4s of my cousin’s majority hispanic elementary school class didn’t show up today. Profoundly grim.

011

Reposted by Max Dale

Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

The legendary HOPE hacking conference has been banned from its venue at St. John's University over what the university seems to be calling an "anti-police agenda." Part of a broader crackdown on security research / hacking / open source: www.404media.co/hope-hacking...

404media.co

HOPE Hacking Conference Banned From University Venue Over Apparent ‘Anti-Police Agenda’

"The lack of due process on its own is extremely disturbing," the conference said.

213967

Reposted by Max Dale

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 18/11/2025

Charlotte and Raleigh in North Carolina became the latest cities to see federal forces move in. Here’s a rundown of how President Trump has used ICE, and what’s going on in each place he's sent them.

nyti.ms

How Trump Has Used ICE, the National Guard and Other Federal Forces Across the U.S.

Charlotte and Raleigh in North Carolina became the latest cities to see federal forces move in. Here’s a rundown of what’s going on in each place.

226624

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 18/11/2025

I got to do a really fun demo yesterday where I did a small-scale recreation of Apple’s “Illusion of Thinking” study using GPT-OSS. I’ll be out of town for next week’s paper on the Spectre vulnerability (might do a demo remotely), but we’ll be hands-on with NixOS the week after! 🤖

010

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 18/11/2025

Hey everyone! I wanted to share that Dr. Kaki Ryan and I have put together a systems research reading group for UNC computer science majors — or really, anyone who just thinks computers are neat. Meetings are Mondays at 4 PM in FB141. Great turnout so far, but we’d love to have more people join us!

cs.unc.edu

Kaki Ryan

110

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 18/11/2025

I can’t stop chuckling as I read more about this company. Everybody on their executive team is some level of Q-Anon crank and/or has a background in surveillance.

150

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 30/10/2025

This is so frustrating. I admire and agree with the principled stance that the PSF is taking on this, but principles don’t pay the bills. If you benefit from Python at all, toss them a couple of dollars. www.python.org/psf/donations/

python.org

Support the PSF with a Donation or by becoming a Supporting Member!

The official home of the Python Programming Language

121

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 02/07/2025

Respectfully, it seems a bit unfair to tell people that ICEBlock could help to invest in new hardware that’s both subject to local availability, and is going to have support dropped this autumn with iOS 26. I understand that Android support can be fragmented, but this being dropped is a guarantee.

040

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 02/07/2025

Why not release on F-Droid or push the APK to GitHub to load with Obtainium? Android is more accessible to lower-income communities, and its marketshare vastly outstrips that of iOS’s in international markets. There are plenty of reasons for the communities at risk here to opt for an Android device.

090

Reposted by Max Dale

Vaidehi Patil @vaidehipatil.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

🚨 Introducing our @tmlrorg.bsky.social paper “Unlearning Sensitive Information in Multimodal LLMs: Benchmark and Attack-Defense Evaluation” We present UnLOK-VQA, a benchmark to evaluate unlearning in vision-and-language models, where both images and text may encode sensitive or private information.

1128

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 07/05/2025

I get extended time through my university's disability office that offsets the slowness quite a bit, and I've considered pursuing this too. It's just difficult as a disabled person to not feel like you're constantly asking for the world with these things.

1160

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 07/05/2025

This is exactly my feeling. I've got joint hypermobility that forces me to grip pencils in the most ridiculous way, so writing by hand is very slow and tiring. My writing process is also super non-linear. Awful that AI has infringed on my ability to use the tools that let me best express myself.

1270

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 28/04/2025

Update: Just figured out how to do this, actually. New weekend project!

010

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 28/04/2025

I just upgraded to a Kona EV with BlueLink support and would love those features, but Hyundai's privacy policy is just far too egregious. The car is great, but I miss my old one's option to swap out whatever's in the DIN slot with something that allowed me to physically disconnect the radios.

130

Reposted by Max Dale

Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

"Age verification" laws are actually "upload your ID or get your face scanned to access every website, ending anonymity and associating your identity with everything you do online" laws and if more people understood that they would not be down for this authoritarian nonsense

3573810615040

Reposted by Max Dale

Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

If your organization supports censorship bills like KOSA I don’t want to see your Trans Day of Visibility post

111432

Reposted by Max Dale

Sam “The Great Pumpkin” Thielman @samthielman.com · 31/03/2025

incredibly depressing to read the replies here. "this is what they voted for" is just the stupidest, meanest response and if you start writing it please do yourself and me a favor and log off and pet the cat or something

1722026

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 31/03/2025

This isn't theoretical. It's trivial to get into most online accounts and commercially available devices if you have the resources of a state. You don't have to be notable to be worth the effort, because the effort is next to nothing. Dr. Wang is a threat to this digitally-enforced repression. Good.

011

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 31/03/2025

I cannot emphasise enough that though the best time to take your digital security seriously was years ago, the second best time is *right now*. Anything and everything in your digital footprint has the potential to be evidence of a crime if the government is motivated enough. Cover. Your. Tracks.

111

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 31/03/2025

This is harrowing. We are about to see incursions on our digital liberties so comprehensive that nobody will be spared. Develop a threat model, know your resources, and stand your damn ground.

121

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 30/03/2025

This is a tough question. Easy answers are Startpage (Dutch) and Qwant (French), but they rely on Google and Bing respectively for results. Qwant is co-developing their own index with Ecosia though, so I get the impression that their reliance on Microsoft is waning. Both are fairly private, though.

050

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 27/03/2025

We may be ruled by stupid and evil people, but at least they're stupid in a way that includes being horrible at opsec.

020

Reposted by Max Dale

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

This is inaccurate. There is no known vulnerability with Signal's core tech. The memo was discussing phishing attempts, which Signal has worked to mitigate. And it was hastily reported. It's important not to spread misinfo that can confuse people into moving away from meaningfully private comms.

1122524734

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 25/03/2025

I'm seeing a lot of misinformation re:Hegseth and @signal.org, and I think a lot of it needs to be put to rest. Signal is, and remains, secure if your opsec isn't abysmal. The weakest link in any security system is generally the person using it. That's what this is.

000

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 22/03/2025

In light of some recent painful events in my family, I'd like to remind everybody of a major accomplishment of the Biden admin. before Trump tries to kill it. The government has offered the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline since 2022. Professional mental heath support, zero wait times. Please use it.

030

Reposted by Max Dale

Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

The coolest thing I’ve seen today is that a bunch of volunteer public health professionals and developers have restored the CDC website from before January 20th 2025. This differs from an archive in that they want to rebuild the links between pages and replicate the full website.

restoredcdc.org

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

437326978274

Reposted by Max Dale

Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

THIS IS HUGE! Researchers at Stanford University have developed a dual-antibody treatment that remains effective against ALL SARS-CoV-2 variants by targeting a less-mutable part of the virus. This breakthrough could lead to longer-lasting therapies that OUTPACE viral evolution. 🧪🧵⬇️

573294227738

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 02/03/2025

Funny serendipity that this popped up at the top of my feed right as I was about to post another brief love letter to Signal. Getting all of my friends and loved ones on there made swapping from iOS to GrapheneOS a breeze. Secure *and* platform agnostic. They've got my money.

030

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 01/03/2025

"Vance skis in jeans" I would never show my face again, my god.

320

Reposted by Max Dale

GrapheneOS @grapheneos.org · 28/02/2025

securitylab.amnesty.org/latest/2025/... Amnesty International’s Security Lab has a post about 3 vulnerabilities exploited by Cellebrite to extract data from locked Android devices. GrapheneOS blocked exploiting these vulnerabilities in multiple different ways. We also patched them much earlier.

securitylab.amnesty.org

Cellebrite zero-day exploit used to target phone of Serbian student activist - Amnesty International Security Lab

Amnesty International’s Security Lab uncovers sophisticated Cellebrite zero-day exploit, impacting billions of Android devices.

17818

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 27/02/2025

Don't panic, but brace. This will not be the last that we hear of this. Build your habits. Encrypt everything end-to-end. Set messages to auto-delete. Get comfortable with TOR and/or Tails, if you can. Make them work for it.

010

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 25/02/2025

Lack of dependence on Google Play Services with the FOSS version is also a major plus. I worry a little bit about how in lockstep they are with upstream changes, but the devs seem to be pretty diligent. Highly recommend, overall.

000

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 25/02/2025

Sigh. I'm not sure how else to phrase this. I've been really enjoying using Molly lately — the Signal client, not the drug. Really awesome that I can finally pair my Pixel to my iPhone and only need one account between the two of them. The TOR integration is also extremely cool.

100

Reposted by Max Dale

Chad Loder @chadloder.dev · 25/02/2025

Waiting for federal employees to refuse to cooperate with DOGE based on a sincerely held religious belief that cooperating with Nazis is a sin.

1253763

Max Dale @maxdale.me · 24/02/2025

Every website that handles your data should have a warrant canary. Full stop.

000

Reposted by Max Dale

Chad Loder @chadloder.dev · 23/02/2025

Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) has observed increasing efforts from several Russia state-aligned threat actors to compromise Signal Messenger accounts used by individuals of interest to Russia's intelligence services.

cloud.google.com

Signals of Trouble: Multiple Russia-Aligned Threat Actors Actively Targeting Signal Messenger | Google Cloud Blog

Russia state-aligned threat actors target Signal Messenger accounts used by individuals of interest to Russia's intelligence services.

520982

Reposted by Max Dale

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

They need him to be a genius because they cannot handle what it means for them to be tricked by a fool.

332225394225