u/kaptnblackbeard

New fingerprinting method using javascript to read SSD activity

New fingerprinting method using javascript to read SSD activity

> Now sites have a new way to spy on their visitors: measuring subtle interactions with their solid-state drives. The technique, named FROST (fingerprinting remotely using OPFS-based SSD timing), allows sites to monitor other sites a visitor is viewing and what apps are open on their devices.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/05/websites-have-a-new-way-to-spy-on-visitors-analyzing-their-ssd-activity/

> The technique has its limitations. First, the OPFS file must be extremely large—likely a gigabyte or more. That requirement means that attacks at scale would inevitably be detected by many users. Additionally, the OPFS file must be stored on the same SSD the visitor is using. This isn’t usually a problem for tracking open websites, since the OPFS file is stored in the browser’s default location. In the event apps are using a separate SSD drive for apps, those apps couldn’t be detected by FROST.

An OPFS explainer: https://renderlog.in/blog/origin-private-file-system-opfs/

u/kaptnblackbeard — 12 days ago

Please boost my request to have djvu format added to the Firefox PDF viewer

I've created a request to have the djvu format added to the Firefox PDF viewer. It'd be great if you could boost it.

The djvu format is often used in a similar way to PDFs but they provide a much smaller file size and better image and text quality. It is often used to preserve books, manuscripts, and mixed media publications. Currently it requires an addon to work in Firefox, however I believe the framework used for PDFs is already built in and djvu format support could simply be added to use the same infrastructure.

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/add-djvu-support-to-the-firefox-pdf-interface/idi-p/126358

More about the djvu format:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DjVu

reddit.com
u/kaptnblackbeard — 16 days ago

venv and cloned git repositories - best practice?

I have a handful of git repositories cloned locally in order to customise the code for my use and all use different versions of packages so I know I should use python virtual environments. My question however is what's the best way to do so? All the guides I find online mention setting up the virtual environment, then setting up git within that, and cloning the repo.

Contrastingly my initial thoughts were to clone the repos, then setup virtual environments within each repo that requires python, but I can't find any info on doing it this way other than the python venv documentation stating that the venv is ignored by git.

What is the best approach that gives me clean environments for each project whilst maintaining the integrity of the git repositories?

reddit.com
u/kaptnblackbeard — 26 days ago