Daniel Thomas

Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, Computer & Information Sciences. Measuring security and cybercrime ethically. Volunteer board member for Loco Home Retrofit. I like active travel. Environmentalist. Christian.

Personal work: https://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/d.thomas/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanielRThomas24
Github: https://github.com/drt24

Last Notes

2026-09-02 20:39:13 UTC

One of the great pains of being a computer scientist is being forced to use absolutely hideous software that is chronically unreliable and knowing full well that it could be so much better and indeed was, 20 years ago.

2026-01-13 15:14:25 UTC

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I am happy with my Epson Eco tank printer so far. Still fairly new though.

2025-12-16 08:33:58 UTC

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It is a great and powerful book. Indelibly etched on the inside of my skull. I didn't know I was getting a skull etching when I started reading it.

2025-12-05 12:12:23 UTC

Really excited to be able to share @npub1hyj…avly's Wizard Zines with all my students now that they are in the University of Strathclyde's library 😃 I meant to have this sorted for the start of semester, but instead a Christmas present 😉 Also means I have had a proper look at lots of them and they are great. #WizardZine https://wizardzines.com/

2025-11-04 11:01:52 UTC

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I don't know if this passes the Adobe Accessibility checks but this is what I use in my LaTeX beamer for accessibility:
\documentclass[14pt,t,hyperref={pdfpagelabels=true,pdflang={en-GB}}]{beamer} % increased font size and hyperref options for accessibility.
\usepackage{pdfcomment}% To add alt text for images using \pdftooltip{}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
Then use `\section` to structure the document. I have used this approach with many students with access needs. Worked

2025-08-16 13:33:37 UTC

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The ability to bridge high capacity and low capacity networks is cool though as it means that it can provide more utility in non-disaster scenarios and then keep working when the power goes out. Increasing the chance of them actually being deployed and used. I worry a bit about abuse resistance in a scenario where source addresses don't exist. Also with so many options would be easy to have lots of incompatible LoRa configs. 2/2

2025-08-16 13:32:00 UTC

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Having been nerdsniped into reading the documentation for Meshcore and Reticulum I think that Reticulum is closest to the Walkaway Network described in @npub1fdr…lvhs's Walkaway book. It is more complex though and requires cleverer nodes that can run python rather than working on purely embedded hardware and so has higher power requirements. 1/2

2025-08-15 18:46:29 UTC

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Very interested in the answers. I have been seriously thinking about this in Glasgow as I have access to an excellent location for a Meshtastic repeater node. Regrettably it looks like there are some security problems with the current implementation, but the overall approach is still useful and hopefully updated software can fix those issues. edit: on reading the links others posted much less exited about Meshtastic.

2025-07-15 12:53:26 UTC

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "The Lost Cause" by @npub1fdr…lvhs relatable human characters struggling with real problems in a believable way. Interesting technologies that we should make reality (or ensure are never built). Fun and useful tale of the future present for the #ClimateCrisis. I also enjoyed the much shorter "The Canadian Miracle" from the same universe. https://craphound.com/category/lostcause/

2025-04-25 05:46:09 UTC

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Chelsea Jarvis at Strathclyde is doing a PhD on privacy preserving age verification and has some good results.