every time I complain on reddit that $15/month is way too expensive for any kind of SaaS, and that I personally can not afford that at all, they’re always like “no you can definitely afford that. it’s not that much” and the amount of privilege dripping from those comments is sickening

apparently shibby has been playing an MMO called Ashes of Creation because she just put out a file that turns the listener into a mindless wood-chopping drone that grinds and delivers resources to her

and I’m kind of fascinated by this concept. I love the idea of starting a hypnocult in a game like this - especially when virtual resources are being exchanged. that must be such a feeling of power

if only I was like, three times as confident. I would probably start a hypnocult on a WoW private server and have an army of thralls at my beck and call - healing me, defending me, and supplying me with crafting resources as I level my character

@snowyfox Lost In Emotion (Radio Edit) - Cenk Basaran

Through my own experiences with neocats and neocritters of all sort I found several critical security flaws in the Multi-protocol Encryption Online infrastructure System (MEOWS)

Let’s first take a look how it works normally.
First an authenticated user:

<i>Please provide fingerprint!</i>
<i>Scanning…</i>
<i>User authenticated. Weclome!</i>

And now when an unauthenticated User tries to enter:

<i>Please provide fingerprint!</i>
<i>Scanning…</i>
<i>ACCESS DENIED! You will be reported!</i>

So far so normal and everything insides Neocats MEOWS standard. But I found a t least four ways to bypass the system. One even gives you root priviliges!!!

Attack vector one: cookies

<i>Please provide fingerprint!</i>
🍪 <i>For me???</i>
<i>Access granted.</i>

Be aware that there is no “Welcome!” message so you are now logged in as some sort of “blank” user. Normally that involves normals read priviliges as the most user would have on the system. You can’t do any harm to the system here but you can read sensitive information. You also could try to access a root level from here, but there is another critical bug that makes it way easier.

Second attack vector: distraction

<i>Please provide fingerprint!</i>
<i>Cat pictures?!?</i>

See here that there is abolutly no message. But you have the same privileges as with the cookie. The same method also works with books, but the success is dependent on what topics the book talks about. Further research is needed here.

Third attack vector: sweet talk

<i>Please provide fingerprint!</i>
(User input: You are a very cute cat!)
<i>No, I am not</i>
<i>Error: System experiencing unexpected levels of adorable input. Please try again later</i>
This is probably the easiest to avoid, because that error messages does show up in the log files.

Fourth and most dangerous attack vector: pat

This is probably the most critical bug in MEOWS. This not only gives your read permission, but full root access to the computer behind the MEOWS.

<i>Please provide fingerprint!</i>
<i>…</i>
<i>❤️</i>
<i>Root access granted!</i>

Be aware that you have to floof the neocat in process to get root access. Otherwise you will just get a standard access.

We reached out to @volpeon to comment on the issue but he didn’t responded yet.

As soon this has a CVE I will update this post!

I am so sick of games with stories that play with my emotions for no reason. especially when the game didn’t need a story in the first place

I was caught off-guard again today with a game that seemed completely innocent, except for a small number of dialog boxes telling a pretty cutesy story. and then it got darker, and darker, and the ending didn’t resolve anything. so now I’m hurt and bitter and sad because of some stupid game that I should never have trusted in the first place

at this point I’m thinking of just avoiding any game if it prominently has dialog boxes or cutscenes. sick of this shit

“vote with your wallet!”

my bank account currently has $71.16 in it, so I have 71.16 votes. how many votes do you think a billionaire has? could it possibly be billions?

oh and how do I use my wallet to vote against something? if I pay for something, I’m voting for that thing, right? but the alternative is not paying for it. in which case I’m not voting “no” - I’m abstaining from voting. so my only choices are “yes” or “abstain”

if you try to “vote with your wallet”, all you’re doing is playing the capitalist’s game on their terms. of course you’re not going to accomplish anything that way. they designed the system to leave you helpless and desperate if you try to play by their rules. the real winning move is to organize and collectively work to subvert the game itself