This OpenWrt-Based Router Has Swappable Wi-Fi Modules for Future Upgrades “Their Turris router project started as an internal research effort focused on understanding network threats that has now evolved into offering commercial products with rock-solid security and convenient features. Now, they have launched the Turris Omnia NG, the next generation of their security-focused router line. Like its predecessors, the router is manufactured in the Czech Republic.” Yes, part of the news is the swappable Wi-Fi hardware modules, but also very interesting is that the router comes with an open source operating system based on OpenWrt. I really like that! That means that you can do a lot more with it than just being a basic, cripple proprietary router. It can work as a NAS, VPN gateway, run LXC containers or even full Linux distributions like Ubuntu or Debian on virtual machines, or a self-hosted cloud server running Nextcloud. Try doing that on a commercial Asus or T-Link router! See

It's FOSS

This OpenWrt-Based Router Has Swappable Wi-Fi Modules for Future Upgrades

The Turris Omnia NG promises lifetime updates and a modular design for a real long-term use.

#technology #opensource #routers #openwrt

Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out How to Transcribe Your Thoughts From an MRI Scan “They’re calling the technique “mind captioning,” and it may represent an effective way for transcribing what someone’s thinking, with impressively comprehensive and accurate results.” It is certainly not reading of specific thoughts, but nonetheless statistically the results are way above just random guesses, with some sounding impressive. And yes, it seems AI does the number crunching to arrive at suggestions. As with any technology, there can be good and bad applications for it. The usual culprits will try to exploit the bad side, but think of the good for those with seriously impaired communication capabilities (stroke, aphasia, and other medical difficulties). Right now, of course this is not possible yet to use without an MRI machine, but it is quite promising so far, and possibly better ways to scan will be found. See

Futurism

Scientists Say They've Figured Out How to Transcribe Your Thoughts From an MRI Scan

The team showed that the brain scan analyzing technique could generate accurate descriptions of a video someone was watching.

#technology #health

Why self-hosting matters now more than ever in the age of cloud "A little over a week ago, a DNS update conflict brought down AWS, crippling hundreds of apps and services worldwide. Along with many of Amazon’s own platforms, Netflix, Spotify, Google Drive, Zoom, and many others were affected by the failure. At ground level, online shops went silent. One Reddit user lamented that they had missed out on thousands of dollars in profit because their trading platform couldn’t execute a trade, while another unlucky person’s bed stopped functioning." And just this morning there we suffered a Teraco outage for an hour and a half that affected Internet services too. All my self-hosted services in the house continued to work so I could watch movies, read my RSS news feeds, update my notes management, etc. The linked article goes on to show many other advantages too of self-hosting. That said though, you do at least want to have two hard drives so that there is a rsync backing up daily to the second drive. Just because self-hosting may save you money, does not mean you should skimp on the essentials. You have to take accountability for your data if you self-host. See

XDA

Why self-hosting matters now more than ever in the age of cloud

Break free from reliance on the cloud and build digital independence.

#technology #selfhosting

Lock Company Sues Man Who Picked Its Lock, Gets Horribly Humiliated This is often the typical; reaction of an organisation when someone shows their product or service has some serious defect or flaw. The problem is, then we all get to hear about it, and are less than impressed with their attitude. Rather than acknowledging something and fixing it, let's attack the messenger. How does this help the many other consumers who use the product or service? I'd never heard of the lock company Proven industries, but now I do know all about them after they sued Trevor McNally. It is worth remembering that no software or hardware is foolproof, just ask Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, and every other big IT company. As the judge said in this preliminary hearing, someone can say something as long as it is not false (my note: or a politician). See

Futurism

Lock Company Sues Man Who Picked Its Lock, Gets Horribly Humiliated

The company charged him with eight separate offenses, including copyright infringement and "defamation by implication"

#technology #security #legal

TT-RSS Shuts Down, but the Project Lives On Under a New Fork “In a surprising move, Andrew Dolgov (known online as “fox”), the original developer of the popular self-hosted open-source RSS reader and news aggregator Tiny Tiny RSS (TT-RSS), announced that on November 1, 2025, he will dismantle all infrastructure powering tt-rss.org, including its Git repositories, cgit instance, and user forum.” TT-RSS was one of the options I was tossing up between, before I decided on FreshRSS. It has been going for a long time though, so kudos anyway to its dev for supporting it for 20 years already. But it is important for any users to note there is a fork available, and they may want to just check out the details for any migrations required. In most cases, for self-hosted instances, that may just be the change of the image name to source the updates from. See

Linuxiac

TT-RSS Shuts Down, but the Project Lives On Under a New Fork

Tiny Tiny RSS is shutting down, but a new fork will keep the popular open-source RSS reader and news aggregator alive and maintained.

#technology #opensource #RSS

Sanity Prevails Finally! Your passwords don’t need so many fiddly characters, NIST says "The US National Institute of Standards and Technology has released its latest guidelines for password creation, and it comes with some serious changes. Gone are the days of resetting your and your employees’ passwords every month or so, and no longer should you or your small business worry about requiring special characters, numbers, and capital letters when creating those passwords. Further, password hints and basic security questions are no longer suitable means of password recovery, and password length, above all other factors, is the most meaningful measure of strength." It looks like finally the last 10 years of security researchers recommendations have been taken on board. Why now suddenly? I have no idea, but I am glad that sanity is finally prevailing. It was a few years back that the originator of that d**n 30 day password change idea admitted there were no grounds actually for it. Password length is really the key criteria. So a well-chosen phrase can now be easier to remember as well as being more difficult to crack. Of the course, the big challenge will be, how many years will it be before organisations actually adopt this change... See

Malwarebytes

Your passwords don't need so many fiddly characters, NIST says

There are new rules for your password—and the passwords of your employees. Read NIST's latest guidance on password security.

#technology #passwords #security

20 Essential SSH Configurations and Security Tips for Linux SSH is an essential tool for anyone managing Linux servers, and using it correctly can make your work both easier and more secure. By following the tips in this guide, you can protect your servers from unauthorised access, simplify your logins with key-based authentication and aliases, and monitor activity with tools like fail2ban and session timeouts. Start with the basics, such as changing the default port, disabling root login, and setting up key-based login, and then gradually explore advanced features like two-factor authentication, SSH tunnelling, and verbose logging. The linked article is a really useful overview to skim though and see what you can use, and what can be locked down and even automated. See

20 Essential SSH Configurations and Security Tips for Linux

20 Must-Know SSH Security Settings for Linux Sysadmins

In this guide, we’ll cover essential SSH security tips every Linux beginner should know to keep their servers secure, efficient, and running smoo...

#technology #ssh #Linux #opensource

A Fascinating History in Photos of Tram and 'Bus Transport in Cape Town since the 1800s I was looking for the location of the old Tollgate depot in Cape Town when I came upon this really excellent Museum page on the GAB site showing a really well laid out chronological history of the various forms of tram and omnibus services over the years from the early 1800s up to around 2009. Apart from just the vehicles, they also cover a lot around the depots, the staff, and the company itself. I do vividly remember the City Tramways company when I used to catch the old double-deck Leyland diesel buses (the ones that chugged like the Routemaster buses), but I always thought that when they rebranded later to Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) that it was the usual modern naming trend. What I now see from this page was that in fact the Golden Arrow (the name) had a proud legacy itself that actually predated the City Tramways name back to 1929. Hovering over a photo also shows a lot more context and information about it. See https://www.gabs.co.za/Museum.aspx #CapeTown #History #Trams #Buses

CoolerControl is a Powerful cooling control and monitoring tool for Linux This open-source application not only has a very modern looking and configurable interface, it also has some powerful ways to control the cooling too. It can combine different device sensors (mixed profiles) to set cooling using multiple fans. Profiles for each device can be BIOS, fixed, graph curve, mix, or overlays. Thresholds can also be adjusted to eliminate false positive alerts or to smooth the response of the fans. The application can also run in headless mode on remote Linux systems, and there is a REST API that can be used to integrate remote monitoring systems. My video gives an overview of how I am using it, and what I am finding very useful. It should help you decide whether the application will be of use to you or not. Watch #technology #opensource #Linux #CoolerControl