Today I found the weirdest bug in my life. I was making a chatbot for Signal using Ollama in Rust. I finished a basic demo and tried it. For any message I would get { }, {}, {} or { } .

Do you know how hard is to debug something like this???

What was the problem? Not my program. Ollama bug combined with ollama-rs bug (rust library for ollama). And both bugs are not even bugs if you don't combine them.

Ollama released a new feature yesterday called "Structured outputs". Basically you can specify a format of the output using format field in json request. Format field already existes for something but I don't know for what. In ollama-rs you can specify the format to json or leave it empty. By default its empty. Where is the bug?

There is a difference betwen "format": null and not specifying the format at all. Ollama-rs will set format to null if you dont specify it. Ollama will interpret null as a valid format. What happens? LLM WILL ACTUALLY GIVE YOU FORMAT OF OUTPUT AS NULL - { }!

Around a year ago my grandparents asked me to update their computers to Windows 10. One from 7 and one from 8.1. I couldn't update from 7 to 10 so I just reinstalled directly to 10. The license was lost but grandfather didn't mind that "activate windows". And for office I installed libreoffice (or onlyoffice, I dont remember). On 7 he was using Chrome so I installed him Brave, which is similar enough and has an adblocker. He never complained about anything... until now.

Both grantfather and grandmother on the same day they got some notification (probably fullscreen, otherwise they wouldn't even told me) about end of 10 and that they should upgrade. So I told them Windows 10 support is ending in about a year. I gave them 3 options:

1. Buy a new computer for windows 11
2. Use windows 10 without updates - more likely to be hacked.
3. Try linux. As soon as I said "Linux" my grandfatger said: "Linux, thats something... lightweight... right?". I'm a gentoo user and I forced my brother and sister to install linux but I never mentiond a word to my grandparents. I have no idea where he heard that. But I'm happy he did!

So the main question: What distro? I'm thinking of Fedora with Gnome. Something stable, modern, secure, and simple. Gnome is different, I know, but I also think Gnome is the simplest. Should I go with Silverblue or normal version? I will also definitely install rustdesk and make backups of windows. And I will first try liveusb so they can decide if they like gnome.

Edit: I'm currently trying to liveboot linux. I rebooted the computer and windows started updating...

Edit: I livebooted Fedora and Mint DE, they said they like Mint more so I installed Mint. Grandfather's scanner and printer were detected out of the box with preinstalled apps, ptinter sadlly doesn't work but that was also with windows - probably hardware failed. Now I'm Installing Brave for grandfather and uBlock Origin for firefox for grandmother. Everything good so far!

So I'm trying to parse school's website for some info. I'm trying to get some values using xpath. So I found a html 5 parser and it can't properly parse the first line. Then I figure you it's actually XHTML and not HTML. After quick Google search I found out XHTML can be properly parsed using any XML parser and so I found one and... It can't parse the first line. So I ask LLama3.1 (like a real programmer) why I can't parse the first line with any parser. It explained so nicely that I did not destroy my keyboard when I was told that this document is "XHTML 1.0 Transitional" and it's a mix of HTML 4 and XHTML and can't be parsed with HTML nor XML parser. I hate the guy that invented that so much...

So I can't find a crate to parse XHTML 1.0 transitional? Or a crate to convert xhtml to something else? Any advice?

Maybe a little weird question but do you maybe know a smart watch that can run rust? I got running Egui on my Galaxy Watch 4 with WearOS and I'm thinking if any other watch (other than Galaxy and Pixel) can do that?

Hi! 2 and 4 months ago @Hellfire103 and @Charger8232 made a post about their privacy setup. So I though I would also share mine.

Remember these rules:

• Be respectful! Some people are early on in their privacy journey, or have a lax threat model. Just because it doesn’t align with yours, or uses some anti-privacy software, doesn’t mean you can downvote them! Help them improve by giving suggestions on alternatives.

• Don’t promote proprietary software! Proprietary software, no matter how good it may seem, is against the community rules, and generally frowned upon. If you aren’t sure, you can always ask! This is a place to learn. Don’t downvote people just because they don’t know!

-** Don’t focus solely on me!** I want to mention that this thread is not designed to pick apart only my setup. The point is to contribute your own and help others. That doesn’t mean you can’t still give suggestions for mine, but don’t prioritize mine over another.

• Be polite! This falls under “Be respectful”, but be kind to everyone! Say please, thank you, and sorry. Lemmy is really good about this, but there will always be someone.

Here is my setup:

Web browsing

• I use Librewolf for almost everything.
• For 3D stuff (games, 3d modelling) I use Brave.
• On mobile I use Vanadium.
• My preferred search engine is Kagi.
• Most if the time I have MullvadVPN enabled.

Desktop and laptop

• I have self-build Ryzen + Radeon PC and Ideapad with Ryzen CPU.
• I use Arch Linux BTW!
• I have disk encryption and Nitrokey as a decryption key (or a long password of course).
• I have secure boot with locked BIOS.
• I'm running self-compiled linux-hardened kernel.
• I'm using Gnome (Wayland).
• I have only open-source apps installed.

Mobile

• I have Google Pixel 7a with GrapheneOS.
• I have different 5 profiles: main, google, school, finance, anonymous.
• I have PIN on every profile and also fingerprint for main and school profiles.
• I always use VPN, either Mullvad or self-hosted Wireguard.
• I don’t use a privacy screen protector (for now).

Messenger

• Signal for my family.
• Viber for my schoolmates.
• MS Teams for school.
• Matrix for help with some open-source projects.
• Discord for voice chat and local scouts group. I have Aliucord on mobile and Armcord on desktop.

Online accounts

• Passwords are safe in self-hosted Bitwarden (Vaultwarden).
• I use 2FA if I can. Either hardware 2FA - Nitrokey, or TOTP with Aegis.
• I use SimpleLogin for email aliases and randomly generated usernames and passwords.

Video streaming

• I watch only Youtube. Newpipe on mobile and Invidious on desktop.

AI

• I do not use AI a lot, but if I do I use locally running LLama3 8B or Duckduckgo's LLama3 70B

Social Media

• I had Instagram, Snapchat and Viber accounts, but I've deleted them.
• I use only Lemmy on clearweb and Dread on darkweb.
• I have Mastodon account, but I don't use it.

Email

• I use ProtonMail.
• One of the best privacy things you can do is use SimpleLogin (or other email alias service).

Shopping/Finance

• IRL I use cash most of the time.
• Online I use Monero if I can, otherwise just my credit card.
• Cashew app for helping managing my purchases.

Music streaming

• I use only RiMusic on my phone, that's it.

TV shows

• I use a VPN, that's all I'm gonna say...

Gaming

• Minecraft, Veloren, SuperTuxKart, and some Steam games.

Programming

• I forgot how to code in Python, because Rust is so much better.
• VS Codium.

Productivity

• LibreOffice for simple stuff.
• Typst for proper documents.

Paid services

• ProtonMail - 4$ per month
• SimpleLogin - 30$ per year
• MullvadVPN - 5$ per month
• Kagi - 10$ per month. For 5$ you get 300 searches, I use ~350 searches so I will try to lower my searches.
• Domain - 13$ per year

Self-hosted

• Everything runs on Raspberry Pi 4 with encrypted micro SD card.
• Pi-Hole for blocking ads on network level.
• Bitwarden (Vaultwarden) for storing all my passwords.
• Wireguard server (with pihole as DNS) for connecting back home from anywhere.
• Ntfy for self-hosted push notifications.
• MollySocket for Signal push notifications.
• FindMyDevice if I lost my phone.
• Cloudflare DDNS, because I don't have static IP.
• Nginx Proxy Manager.
• Watchtower automatically updates docker containers.
• My website.

Misc

• I have Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 classic. I'm trying to do something about it...
• I'm using Syncthing to sync documents and pictures between my devices.
• I don't have a car (because I can't - I'm 17) and I won't have one for quite some time. I have a bicycle and my parents have 2 (smart/spy) cars.
• I'm into crypto (mostly XMR) and I'm trading a little (making a trading bot) on MEXC. I also have Ledger Nano S Plus.
• I have a 3d printer and it's fun and usefull :)

TODO

• self-host Git repos for my projects.
• Buy a privacy screen protector when I break my current one.
• Buy a faraday bag, just in case.
• Do something about my spywatch (maybe sell).
• Make backups... Yep, I don't have any yet.
• Monitor and harden all my devices.
• Memorize cryptowallet's private key in case it gets lost.

Thanks for reading!

I have Galaxy Watch 4 and Pixel with GrapheneOS. Currently I have second profile with galaxy wearable and google play services for connecting to the watch. Before I've installed graphene I was using my watch as any other person, for notifications, sports, etc. Now I use it only for checking what time is it and developing apps. I can see my sports activity only for a week back, because samsung health only works on main profile.

Is there a way for me to use my watch on main profile without google and samsung apps? Maybe with some alternative app? Or should I sold my watch and buy a new one? I've heard good things about garmin and polaris? I would love option to develop my own apps on them.

I found a few old phones from my family. II cleaned them, installed LineageOS and rooted most of them. On one I installed postmarketOS, one is still stock Android and one is lets say bricked (after installing lineagesos it stay on boot logo for ever, before that I installed lineageos and nethunter on it). One one disk encryption doesnt work for some reason.

Phones (all samsung galaxy):

• S4
• A5
• A5 (bricked)
• A5 (postmarketOS)
• J3
• J4+ (no encryption)
• A31 (stock)

What can I do with them? Something like Monero node or Tor relay, but I'm already running that on old pc. For something that needs speed I have rpis (like a website). Camera security system? Tracking device?

Is it possible to run (and autorun) cli apps and/or services that can access interent, bluetooth, gps, sensors, camera, files, etc. just like on linux? I'm a programmer and I don't like making normal android apps for a simple project.

Hi, I'm working on a PQC key establishment and authentication protocol. Currently it works like this:

1. Client and server each generate ECDSA and Dilithium identity keys and share them between each other, with usb for example.
2. Client sends to the server single-use ECDH public key, single-use Kyber public key, timestamp, ECDSA and Dilithium signature of everything before it.
3. Server verifies the message using clients identity keys, generates 2 secrets, one from ECDH and one from Kyber and then it uses blake3 kdf to derive a key from both secrets. Then it sends response with single-use ECDH public key, Kyber ciphertext, timestamp, ECDSA and Dilithium signature of everything before it.
4. Client verifies the message using servers identity keys, and generates 2 secrets, one from ECDH and one from Kyber ciphertext and then it uses blake3 kdf to derive a key from both secrets.

Kyber: kyber1024 ECDH: secp256k1 ECDSA: secp256k1

I will use the key for XChaCha20-blake3 aead. I don't know yet how will I generate and keep track of used/unused nonces.

Building this was interesting and fun, but I want more. How can I improve this key exchange, make it more secure, faster, and smaller? Both messages are huge (6268 bytes), because of Kyber and Dilithium.

Any ideas for what application could be this used?

Hi, I've just paid for Mullvad VPN (personally recommend) with XMR. That looked like this:

1. I copied the address (one time subaddress) and the amount, checked if everything matched (and it did) and pressed send.
2. On my Ledger I checked the fee, accepted, checked the amount, accepted, checked the address... REJECTED, because the address was different.
3. Repeated the step above probably 2 times, installed ClaimAV and started full scan of my machine for malware.
4. Because the Monero Wallet GUI was freshly installed from official Arch Linux repo and it showed the right address I decided to still accept the transaction. Worst case I lose 10 €.
5. While the transaction was pending I tried to prove payment using LocalMonero's block explorer and I got an error. So I basically got hacked and lost 10 € ...
6. Checked Mullvad VPN app and... it was paid???

Can someone explain me what just happened? My ledger showed a different address than what I copied, but the transaction still went to the right person. I started using Ledger only a month ago and I haven't been paying with it much. If this is all good and right, how can I tell if I'm being scammed on my Ledger?

OXEN is a fork of Monero that uses proof of stake instead of proof of work and supports instant transactions. Lokinet (onion router, like tor) and Session (messanger) are build on top of it. I just discovered it a week ago and I'm suprised that I hadn't heard of it before. In my opinion It's a better Monero (except that Monero has higher and more stable price)? What do you think about OXEM? Is it better or not, and why?

Hi, I want to pay with online prepaid visa in person. I could add it to Google Pay, but Google Pay doesn't support NFC payments on GrapheneOS. Do you know any other app that lrts you do that?

I want to make my own website, like a blog where I talk about tech and tutorials and such. Something like https://kerkour.com and https://lukesmith.xyz. Any ideas for simple but modern design?