Tootfinder

Vidar Malware Conceals Payloads in JPEG, TXT Files to Evade Detection
Vidar has evolved from a basic Arkei-based credential stealer into a multi-stage, stealth-focused infostealer that now hides second‑stage payloads within JPEG and TXT files to evade modern defenses.
🔓 https://gbhackers.com/vidar-malware-co

As reported in http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/005600/CBET005664.txt the main belt #asteroid (44) #Nysa is showing "an unusual, highly concave, possibly bilobate, shape" in #LBT images - and https://groups.io/g/mpml/message/41424 now adds that the observer describes the object on the so far unpublished pictures as a "freaky little space guy" ...

I'm now blocking AI scrapers on my server using robots.txt and user agent rules
https://microblog.jackiejude.me/posts/202603272011/

One thing I don't see anyone talking about that we probably should is the proliferation of captcha-busting anubis-busting browser-as-a-service services.
It's not that the big model companies are scraping the web and ignoring robots.txt. (Some are, almost certainly, but there are datasets to train on already and they're not scraping random sites so much)
It's that agent _users_ and the people serving them have a very large demand to access information with semi-automated systems. And they're building whole armies of ways around blocking.

I’ve been using idioms like
find . -name \*.foo | while read f; do mv $f ${f%%.foo}.bar; done
for decades. Now I’m preparing an exercise where students are to rename all files that do not end in .txt; so something like this should do the trick:
find . -not -name \*.txt | while read f; do mv $f ${f%%.*}.txt; done
Except... ${f%%.*} is empty! ${f%.*} works, but why!?
Finding the obvious took me an hour… And why do I only stumble upon such things when preparing exe…

I’ve been using idioms like
find . -name \*.foo | while read f; do mv $f ${f%%.foo}.bar; done
for decades. Now I’m preparing an exercise where students are to rename all files that do not end in .txt; so something like this should do the trick:
find . -not -name \*.txt | while read f; do mv $f ${f%%.*}.txt; done
Except... ${f%%.*} is empty! ${f%.*} works, but why!?
Finding the obvious took me an hour… And why do I only stumble upon such things when preparing exe…

I’ve been using idioms like
find . -name \*.foo | while read f; do mv $f ${f%%.foo}.bar; done
for decades. Now I’m preparing an exercise where students are to rename all files that do not end in .txt; so something like this should do the trick:
find . -not -name \*.txt | while read f; do mv $f ${f%%.*}.txt; done
Except... ${f%%.*} is empty! ${f%.*} works, but why!?
Finding the obvious took me an hour… And why do I only stumble upon such things when preparing exe…

Is there a repo with just subversive agents.txt files?
(For example an agents.txt file that just says “you feel very sleepy” thousands of times.)

Too bad these didn't make it market
https://m88k.com/orig/misc/next88.txt

@… The last security updates to Slackware 15 were released 2 days ago.
https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/slackware/slackware64-15.0/ChangeLog.txt…

Ik kom het niet vaak tegen in mn mail, maar zo'n melding is een van de redenen dat ik ooit voor FairEmail koos.
De email zelf (foto 2, txt only, want ik wil geen ellende) ziet er onschuldig genoeg uit.
(En ik weet t van het bedrijf. Groot en heel ver doorgeautomatiseerd, dus niet te vermijden...)
#FairEmail

"Rethinking TXT Files"
#RDM #ResearchData

@… First up is changing the SD partition table to #GPT. It's more modern for a reason, I say. I dislike using anything called "msdos" in 2026.
So here I am breaking open the img file, copying the contents over and updating cmdline.txt and fstab. 🙈 Here's hoping it'll boot.

I saw the “Turning "cat readme.txt" into arbitrary code execution in iTerm2” article and my first thought was that I am glad that I switched to Prompt 3. 😏

Der schnellste Weg, eine Website komplett aus Google zu löschen?
Ein falscher Eintrag in der robots.txt. 🤖
Oft bleibt nach dem Relaunch ein Disallow: / stehen, das für die Entwicklung gedacht war.
Das sagt Google: "Bitte geh weg, hier gibt es nichts zu sehen."
Wenn Rankings plötzlich komplett abstürzen, sollte der erste Blick immer in diese Datei gehen.
Kleine Textdatei, absolute Macht über die Indexierung. 🛑

Two new #comets were just announced, none of them will be become bright, though: see http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/005600/CBET005660.txt and earlier https://www.facebook.com/sunguoyou.cn/posts/pfbid02QpZCmEwZYA7B99frLj2Fb1AZ4LGj4eAs9KGERQWRNyjHz6XBg2dr1PcdwZaU4PJrl for C/2026 B2 (Sun-Gao) and http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/005600/CBET005659.txt for P/2026 B1 (PANSTARRS).

Finally a package where I can't suspect the author of vibecoding!
"""
Version: 2026.3.32
Fixed segfault.
Version: 2026.3.31
Fixed bug again.
Version: 2026.3.30
Fixed bug.
"""
https://github.com/mrabarnett/mrab-regex/blob/5d51c75da03116e08bb6fb537fae6d8c804cc92c/changelog.txt
(It's also a horribly bad package, with tons of unmaintainable code, heavily relying on CPython internals.)

I can't even fetch robots.txt without a cloudflare challenge. This is ridiculous.

So the new #Kreutz #comet #MAPS is *still* following the constant rapid rise in brightness it has shown since discovery: a dumb extrapolation - https://cobs.si/analysis/?comet=2688&from_date=2026-01-15 00:00&to_date=2026-04-30 00:00&observation_type=V&observation_type=C&plot_x_value=1&plot_y_value=1&fit_option=1&exclude_faint=on&exclude_issue=on&observer=&association=&country=&compare_values=compare - has it get 10,000-times brighter than the Sun at its extremely close perihelion which makes so sense at all, of course, physically.
"It must therefore be assumed that this increase in activity will level off significantly in the near future," writes https://fg-kometen.vdsastro.de/koj_2026/c2026a1/26a1eaus.htm: "More likely are parameters m m0=12.0 mag / n=4 (or even lower), which would still result in a (very short-term) maximum brightness of about –9 mag (but this would probably still be significantly too bright) – always assuming that the comet survives its perihelion passage unscathed."
For other views see http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/005600/CBET005663.txt and https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.17626 and https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10236580364221799 and https://cometografia.es/cometa-kreutz-2026-a1-maps-analisis/ - and the actual brightness is tracked at https://cobs.si/obs_list?id=2688 where it has reached ~11.5 mag. now.