Orthanc
@orthanc.nz
Semi-professional bad influence, secret santa imp, comfort food influencer, and all around good guy, He/Him, Orthanc of the Bluesky.
Tāmaki Makaurau
Tāmaki Makaurau
Pinned
Orthanc
@orthanc.nz
· Nov 22
Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be powerful posters.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
This post is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!
Reposted by Orthanc
Being exhausted, with deteriorating mental heath, won’t win this war. It’s ok to:
* limit the news you watch
* step away completely
* turn auto play off on videos
* mute words
* block people
Don’t obey in advance. Do what you can. But prioritise your well-being. YOU matter, not just the fight.
* limit the news you watch
* step away completely
* turn auto play off on videos
* mute words
* block people
Don’t obey in advance. Do what you can. But prioritise your well-being. YOU matter, not just the fight.
January 9, 2026 at 7:34 PM
Being exhausted, with deteriorating mental heath, won’t win this war. It’s ok to:
* limit the news you watch
* step away completely
* turn auto play off on videos
* mute words
* block people
Don’t obey in advance. Do what you can. But prioritise your well-being. YOU matter, not just the fight.
* limit the news you watch
* step away completely
* turn auto play off on videos
* mute words
* block people
Don’t obey in advance. Do what you can. But prioritise your well-being. YOU matter, not just the fight.
So my baseline for a lot of this stuff is "If I think about it and protect against it building the secret santa app, a company dealing with health data should sure as hell be thinking about it".
Maybe that's unfair, I mean, I used to deal with health data, I'm actually pretty good at what I do.
Maybe that's unfair, I mean, I used to deal with health data, I'm actually pretty good at what I do.
I think it's important for the non-technical people to understand: this is dumb. This is not an elaborate hack. This is an exploitation of a very big mistake.
January 8, 2026 at 8:13 AM
So my baseline for a lot of this stuff is "If I think about it and protect against it building the secret santa app, a company dealing with health data should sure as hell be thinking about it".
Maybe that's unfair, I mean, I used to deal with health data, I'm actually pretty good at what I do.
Maybe that's unfair, I mean, I used to deal with health data, I'm actually pretty good at what I do.
Reposted by Orthanc
I wrote a thing for Herald! The main point is that, between the injunction and statements by the company itself, we have a pretty good idea what happened now - and it's a pretty basic failure of access control. It's low hanging fruit for hackers.
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/why-manag...
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/why-manag...
January 8, 2026 at 7:47 AM
I wrote a thing for Herald! The main point is that, between the injunction and statements by the company itself, we have a pretty good idea what happened now - and it's a pretty basic failure of access control. It's low hanging fruit for hackers.
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/why-manag...
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/why-manag...
Right, finally setting up proton mail. I'm going to thread it here. By all accounts it should be simple, but ya know, email.
Email for a bunch of my old domains is on a Go Daddy cPanel instance and I was pulling it from there into GMail using PoP3. But that's going away now, so time to finally move
Email for a bunch of my old domains is on a Go Daddy cPanel instance and I was pulling it from there into GMail using PoP3. But that's going away now, so time to finally move
January 8, 2026 at 6:51 AM
Right, finally setting up proton mail. I'm going to thread it here. By all accounts it should be simple, but ya know, email.
Email for a bunch of my old domains is on a Go Daddy cPanel instance and I was pulling it from there into GMail using PoP3. But that's going away now, so time to finally move
Email for a bunch of my old domains is on a Go Daddy cPanel instance and I was pulling it from there into GMail using PoP3. But that's going away now, so time to finally move
We should return to a simpler time.
When's government minister's appeared from the bush to the Shire theme.
More camp ground press conference s on matters of national importance.
More than interviews with the Auntie of ministers about who's accessories they borrowed to look professional.
When's government minister's appeared from the bush to the Shire theme.
More camp ground press conference s on matters of national importance.
More than interviews with the Auntie of ministers about who's accessories they borrowed to look professional.
January 8, 2026 at 6:20 AM
We should return to a simpler time.
When's government minister's appeared from the bush to the Shire theme.
More camp ground press conference s on matters of national importance.
More than interviews with the Auntie of ministers about who's accessories they borrowed to look professional.
When's government minister's appeared from the bush to the Shire theme.
More camp ground press conference s on matters of national importance.
More than interviews with the Auntie of ministers about who's accessories they borrowed to look professional.
Whelp. I guess I'm working out how to setup Proton mail for my old domains this weekend.
I really shouldn't be surprised at this point, but this is really not how you tell people a feature they rely on is being removed in a short timeframe.
I really shouldn't be surprised at this point, but this is really not how you tell people a feature they rely on is being removed in a short timeframe.
So I have only just discovered at some vague point in the next couple weeks Google is going to break the way my work email works, and the company has done nothing to alert people to it.
www.theregister.com/2026/01/05/g...
www.theregister.com/2026/01/05/g...
Gmail preparing to drop POP3 mail fetching
: It's January 2026, and Google is finding innovative new ways to make one of its services worse
www.theregister.com
January 8, 2026 at 4:25 AM
Whelp. I guess I'm working out how to setup Proton mail for my old domains this weekend.
I really shouldn't be surprised at this point, but this is really not how you tell people a feature they rely on is being removed in a short timeframe.
I really shouldn't be surprised at this point, but this is really not how you tell people a feature they rely on is being removed in a short timeframe.
Reposted by Orthanc
Some mental health first aid if you've watched something that's fucking you up. I'm a qualified and registered therapist, and EMDR practitioner. 👇
January 7, 2026 at 7:50 PM
Some mental health first aid if you've watched something that's fucking you up. I'm a qualified and registered therapist, and EMDR practitioner. 👇
Reposted by Orthanc
Daily bunny no.3192 is tampering with the past
January 7, 2026 at 4:52 AM
Daily bunny no.3192 is tampering with the past
Reposted by Orthanc
Non-consensual image creation / "deep-fake porn" has been a problem for a while that the legal system has only just begun to grapple with but part of what makes the Grok thing much worse is that it's delivered instantly & directly into replies to punish women for publicly speaking or even existing.
X basically industrialized the creation of fake porn of women who don't consent. Others did it first, but Grok made it normalized and centralized: publicly visible, instantly creatable by anyone, regardless of who's being targeted and dehumanized. Only question now is will X suffer any consequences
January 7, 2026 at 4:46 PM
Non-consensual image creation / "deep-fake porn" has been a problem for a while that the legal system has only just begun to grapple with but part of what makes the Grok thing much worse is that it's delivered instantly & directly into replies to punish women for publicly speaking or even existing.
Reposted by Orthanc
I’ve been mopping up shit like this for longer than most of you have been alive and I cannot recommend this thread enough. It’s a masterclass.
Pretty textbook on how not to do crisis communication for this type of attack. So here’s a little thread on what to do instead. 🧵
If you don’t know, I’m Hadyn Green, Principal Communications advisor at @first.org and my job is to go around the world teaching people how to do to cybersecurity comms
If you don’t know, I’m Hadyn Green, Principal Communications advisor at @first.org and my job is to go around the world teaching people how to do to cybersecurity comms
Manage My Health CEO: 'Trust us even though we've dropped the ball'
The chief executive of beleaguered patient portal says he is open to standing down if required.
www.rnz.co.nz
January 6, 2026 at 9:14 AM
I’ve been mopping up shit like this for longer than most of you have been alive and I cannot recommend this thread enough. It’s a masterclass.
Reposted by Orthanc
Generative AI is an engine for churning out contaminated information faster than people can produce safe information, let alone fact check and correct it.
And corrections never remove the original contamination, it's an attempt to stem the metaphorical bleeding and hope for the best. 11/
And corrections never remove the original contamination, it's an attempt to stem the metaphorical bleeding and hope for the best. 11/
January 6, 2026 at 3:12 AM
Generative AI is an engine for churning out contaminated information faster than people can produce safe information, let alone fact check and correct it.
And corrections never remove the original contamination, it's an attempt to stem the metaphorical bleeding and hope for the best. 11/
And corrections never remove the original contamination, it's an attempt to stem the metaphorical bleeding and hope for the best. 11/
The word "chips" is unambiguous!
This place needs some Innocuous Discourse pronto. Quote this with a take that’s not political or aggressive
January 6, 2026 at 5:14 AM
The word "chips" is unambiguous!
I feel o must confess....
That while I occasionally grow tomatos, and I understand laterals are a bad thing for growing tomatos, I do not know what a lateral is.
That while I occasionally grow tomatos, and I understand laterals are a bad thing for growing tomatos, I do not know what a lateral is.
a person is behind a fence with the words `` father , forgive me for i have sinned '' written on it .
Alt: father , forgive me for i have sinned
media.tenor.com
January 6, 2026 at 4:23 AM
I feel o must confess....
That while I occasionally grow tomatos, and I understand laterals are a bad thing for growing tomatos, I do not know what a lateral is.
That while I occasionally grow tomatos, and I understand laterals are a bad thing for growing tomatos, I do not know what a lateral is.
Reposted by Orthanc
Come be a nerd about your hyperspecific interests. Makes for a more vibrant, less toxic community.
And is definitely no more self indulgent or real world inconsequential than 95% of politics posting on here.
And is definitely no more self indulgent or real world inconsequential than 95% of politics posting on here.
i think this site really needs to figure out how to grow the non-politics verticals (the baseball moment was a good thing!) because i suspect a lot of the bad clusters come out of the political clusters driving 95% of ENG-lang posts
I'd be happy with big non politics accounts.
January 6, 2026 at 1:00 AM
Come be a nerd about your hyperspecific interests. Makes for a more vibrant, less toxic community.
And is definitely no more self indulgent or real world inconsequential than 95% of politics posting on here.
And is definitely no more self indulgent or real world inconsequential than 95% of politics posting on here.
Just found out that a forum that was my home on the internet in the days before twitter shut down mid last year.
I haven't been active in well over a decade, but it still feels a bit weird that it's gone.
All things end I guess, but still.
I haven't been active in well over a decade, but it still feels a bit weird that it's gone.
All things end I guess, but still.
January 5, 2026 at 8:16 AM
Just found out that a forum that was my home on the internet in the days before twitter shut down mid last year.
I haven't been active in well over a decade, but it still feels a bit weird that it's gone.
All things end I guess, but still.
I haven't been active in well over a decade, but it still feels a bit weird that it's gone.
All things end I guess, but still.
Reposted by Orthanc
MMH update with comment from me. Key points:
* this type of crew goes after low hanging fruits - which means this vulnerable is going to be something basic, well-known, and preventable
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
* this type of crew goes after low hanging fruits - which means this vulnerable is going to be something basic, well-known, and preventable
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
ManageMyHealth breach: Patients at risk of identity theft, extortion - experts
The hackers say they will leak more than 400,000 files if a ransom isn't paid, in what an expert says is "the worst data breach that I recall seeing in New Zealand".
www.rnz.co.nz
January 4, 2026 at 8:21 PM
MMH update with comment from me. Key points:
* this type of crew goes after low hanging fruits - which means this vulnerable is going to be something basic, well-known, and preventable
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
* this type of crew goes after low hanging fruits - which means this vulnerable is going to be something basic, well-known, and preventable
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
Wow, I got blocked for this reply to someone making a joke about sending unsolicited nudes.
I guess everyone has the right to curate their own feed the way they like, but I don't feel like I'm losing out by not having that.
I guess everyone has the right to curate their own feed the way they like, but I don't feel like I'm losing out by not having that.
This might just be me, but kinda feels not that funny when you think of how many guys do send unsolicited nudes to people who do wish they'd stop.
January 4, 2026 at 8:16 PM
Wow, I got blocked for this reply to someone making a joke about sending unsolicited nudes.
I guess everyone has the right to curate their own feed the way they like, but I don't feel like I'm losing out by not having that.
I guess everyone has the right to curate their own feed the way they like, but I don't feel like I'm losing out by not having that.
In an attempt to break the doom scrolling habit I'm making catchup my main feed.
I think this will help in a couple of ways.
Firstly it's focused on highlighting the posts from when I was away, so should help with the fomo.
I think this will help in a couple of ways.
Firstly it's focused on highlighting the posts from when I was away, so should help with the fomo.
January 3, 2026 at 10:21 PM
In an attempt to break the doom scrolling habit I'm making catchup my main feed.
I think this will help in a couple of ways.
Firstly it's focused on highlighting the posts from when I was away, so should help with the fomo.
I think this will help in a couple of ways.
Firstly it's focused on highlighting the posts from when I was away, so should help with the fomo.
Can we all agree it's not really 2026 until Monday and have a do over?
January 3, 2026 at 7:51 PM
Can we all agree it's not really 2026 until Monday and have a do over?
Some days I regret deleting my twitter account and all the history I had there.
Today is not one of those days.
Today is not one of those days.
i opened the app yesterday and the top post on my feed was grok generated AI girl with blonde hair and blue eyes infront of a nazi flag performing a heil hitler. it had thousands of likes.
every post after was random “put me in a bikini” posts or posts from people asking for guys to stop doing it
every post after was random “put me in a bikini” posts or posts from people asking for guys to stop doing it
January 2, 2026 at 4:29 AM
Some days I regret deleting my twitter account and all the history I had there.
Today is not one of those days.
Today is not one of those days.
I mean, not what I was aiming for for, but I guess it fits
January 1, 2026 at 8:40 PM
I mean, not what I was aiming for for, but I guess it fits
Reposted by Orthanc
Okay, I will preface this with the GIGANTIC disclaimer that I promise I know how this looks, and I *swear* this is not personally motivated: If you have an old #LiveJournal account, and it has things you still care about in it, download it or import it to Dreamwidth SOON. Details:
January 1, 2026 at 11:26 AM
Okay, I will preface this with the GIGANTIC disclaimer that I promise I know how this looks, and I *swear* this is not personally motivated: If you have an old #LiveJournal account, and it has things you still care about in it, download it or import it to Dreamwidth SOON. Details:
Reposted by Orthanc
I helped a 15 year old get a late term abortion for a hidden pregnancy not that long ago.
One of the hardest parts was dealing with her GPs practice and their online system, which her parents had access to.
The GP had to sit down with me and the office manager to figure it out. It was a mess.
One of the hardest parts was dealing with her GPs practice and their online system, which her parents had access to.
The GP had to sit down with me and the office manager to figure it out. It was a mess.
Kazu, the group/individual behind the ManageMyHealth breach, has posted some samples of the data for verification and they all appear to be legitimate.
Among other things, there are test results (ie; Labtests), referral letters, patient health summaries, hospital ED summaries and other letters
Among other things, there are test results (ie; Labtests), referral letters, patient health summaries, hospital ED summaries and other letters
December 31, 2025 at 9:48 PM
I helped a 15 year old get a late term abortion for a hidden pregnancy not that long ago.
One of the hardest parts was dealing with her GPs practice and their online system, which her parents had access to.
The GP had to sit down with me and the office manager to figure it out. It was a mess.
One of the hardest parts was dealing with her GPs practice and their online system, which her parents had access to.
The GP had to sit down with me and the office manager to figure it out. It was a mess.
Well that's the first book of the year finished.
A cosy little romance with just a little kidnapping. Just a smidge.
A cosy little romance with just a little kidnapping. Just a smidge.
January 1, 2026 at 2:11 AM
Well that's the first book of the year finished.
A cosy little romance with just a little kidnapping. Just a smidge.
A cosy little romance with just a little kidnapping. Just a smidge.
Pulling this out of a thread because I really like this comic and I spent way too long alt texting it to bury it in a thread.
Always makes me think of this comic (I don't really know the original source)
January 1, 2026 at 1:22 AM
Pulling this out of a thread because I really like this comic and I spent way too long alt texting it to bury it in a thread.