The U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”), Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”), recently issued a proposed rule aimed at preventing foreign actors from utilizing U.S.
Pushover consumers accepted “Know Your Customer” abuses to their 4th Amendment rights in the banking sector, so why wouldn’t the same work when it comes to internet service? I have no doubt that the privacy apathetic masses will accept this in a heartbeat.
what happened here? Looks like you tried summons an autotldr bot, but it did not do its job, correct? That’s kind of a shame. Indeed theregister.com is an exclusive website and direct links to it should not be shared. A privacy-respecting infrastructure would block such links or replace them with archive.org variants.
I’m not on a good enough connection to watch videos but when I read “How the Religion called Atheism…” I know it cannot be coming from any sort of credible source. Atheism is absence of religion, not a religion in itself. It includes both agnostics and gnostics (both those who are convinced there is no god and those who are unconvinced either way). So I don’t suppose it’s worth it to note the URL and try to fetch the video when I have a good connection.
The bank requires customers who use their phone app to:
- buy a new recent smartphone, repeatedly (because the bank’s app detects when it is running on an Android emulator and denies service)
- subscribe to mobile phone service (which also costs money and also in some regions requires supplying national ID to the mobile carrier to copy for their records which customers then must trust them to secure)
- share their mobile phone number with a power abusing surveillance capitalist who promotes the oil industry (Google / Totaal)
- create a Google account and agree to their terms (which includes not sharing software that was fetched from the Playstore jail)
- share their IMEI# with Google
- share all their app versions with Google, thus keeping Google informed of known vulns for which they are vulnerable
- share with Google where they bank and trust Google not to sell that info to debt collectors
- install proprietary non-free software and trust the security of non-reviewable code
- share the mobile phone number with the bank
Why are so many people okay with this?
Are those heuristics low bandwidth or is audio involved?
I disable images because of bandwidth consumption. So I’m wondering if it makes sense to install a screen reader in my case.
The state of medical privacy has become quite appalling lately. I started using a young doctor in a new office and they are gung ho on modern tech. That’s fine to some extent but they want to send me invoices and all correspondence via e-mail. No PGP of course. I did an MX lookup on their vanity email address & it resolves to an MS Outlook server.
I asked them for my test results. They offered to email them.
My response: I do not want sensitive medical info coming by e-mail via Microsoft’s servers. I did not give you a copy of my email address for that reason. It needs to be snail-mailed to me.
Perhaps of greater concern is that the receptionist acted like I am making a unusual request, and that they do not mail things. Apparently I am the only patient who has a problem with sensitive medical info going to Microsoft. So the receptionist is investigating whether she can get approval to mail me my results by post.
I wonder if someone in that clinic will have to run out and buy stamps because I have a problem with Microsoft.
Microsoft faces criticism for funding Israeli facial recognition company AnyVision, reportedly carrying out surveillance on Palestinians and working in Hong Kong and Russia.
cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/984895
> Microsoft finances #AnyVision to produce facial recognition technology that the Israeli military uses against the Palestinian people. > > So if you oppose Israel’s brutality then #Microsoft should be on your boycott list. > > If you are undecided, these stories might help with your decision: > > * snipers target a red-cross medic for execution (2018) → https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/03/middleeast/razan-al-najjar-gaza-nurse-killed/index.html > * Hind Rajab (6 year old; 2024) → https://www.guardian2zotagl6tmjucg3lrhxdk4dw3lhbqnkvvkywawy3oqfoprid.onion/world/2024/feb/10/im-so-scared-please-come-hind-rajab-six-found-dead-in-gaza-12-days-after-cry-for-help > > For Hind Rajab, my boycott is on until I die.
cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/125466
> My credit card issuer apparently never gets to know what I purchased at stores, cafes, & restaurants -- and rightfully so. The statement just shows the shop name, location, and amount. > > Exceptionally, if I purchase airfare the bank statement reveals disclosures: > * airline who sold the ticket > * carrier > * passenger name > * ticket number > * city pairs > > So that’s a disturbing over-share. In some cases the airline is a European flag carrier, so IIUC the GDPR applies, correct? Doesn’t this violate the data minimization principle? > > Airlines no longer accept cash, which is also quite disturbing (and illegal in jurisdictions where legal tender must be accepted when presented for PoS transactions). > > Has anyone switched to using a travel agent just to be able to pay cash for airfare? > > UPDATE > > A relatively convincing theory has been suggested in this other cross-posted community: > > https://links.hackliberty.org/comment/414338 > > Apparently it’s because credit cards offer travel insurance & airlines have incentive to have another insurer involved. Would be useful if this were documented somewhere in a less refutable form.
I’ve been out of the loop on games for a while but ReactOS may be worth a look.
The 1st ½ of your comment sounds accurate. But...
And also in Foss there are highly opinionated software where the devs completely ignore users, ban them from GitHub when they post issues,
Right, but to be clear non-free s/w is worse - you can’t even reach the devs, generally, and there is no public bug tracker. FOSS is an improvement in this regard because at least there is a reasonable nuclear option (forking). The nuclear option for non-free software is writing it yourself from scratch.
That all sounds accurate enough to me.. but thought I should comment on this:
However - in larger enterprises there’s so much more, you get the whole SDL maturity thing going - money is invested into raising the quality of the whole development lifecycle and you get things like code reviews, architects, product planning, external security testing etc. Things that cost time, money and resources.
It should be mentioned that many see testing as a cost, but in fact testing is a cost savings. In most situations, you only spend some money on testing in order to dodge a bigger cost: customers getting burnt in a costly way that backfires on the supplier. Apart from safety-critical products, this is the only business justification to test. Yet when budgets get tightened, one of the first cuts many companies make is testing -- which is foolish assuming they are doing testing right (in a way that saves money by catching bugs early).
Since the common/general case with FOSS projects is there is no income that’s attached to a quality expectation (thus testing generates no cost savings) - the users are part of the QA process as free labor, in effect :)
There is a common theme pushed by fanatics of capitalism that never dies: that a profit-driven commercial project ensures higher quality products than products under non-profit projects. Some hard-right people I know never miss the chance to use the phrase “good enough for government work” to convey this idea.
I’m not looking to preach to the choir here, but rather to establish a thread of scenarios that correspond to quality for the purpose of countering inaccurate narratives. This is the thread to share your stories.
In my day job I’m paid to write code. Then I go home write code I was not paid for. My best work is done without pay.
Commercial software development
When I have to satisfy an employer, they don’t want quality code. They want fast code. They want band-aid fixes. The corporate structure is too myopic to optimize for quality.
Anti-gold-plating:
I was once back-roomed by a manager and lectured for “gold plating”. That means I was producing code that was higher quality than what management perceives as economically optimal.
Bug fixes hindered:
I was caught fixing some bugs conveniently as I spotted them when I happened to have a piece of code checked out in Clearcase. I was told I was “cheating the company out of profits” because they prefer if the bugs each go through a documentation procedure so the customer can ultimately be made to pay separately for the bug fix. Nevermind the fact that my time was already charged anyway (but they can get more money if there’s a bigger paper trail involving more staff). This contrasts with the “you get what you pay for” narrative since money is diverted to busy work (IOW: working hard, not smart).
Bugs added for “consistent quality”:
One employer was so insistent on “consistent quality” that when one module was higher quality than another, they insisted on lowering the quality of the better module because improving the style or design pattern of the lower quality piece would be “gold plating”. This meant injecting bugs to achieve consistency. The bugs were non-serious varieties; more along the lines of needless complexity, reduced performance, coding standard non-compliances, etc, but nonetheless something that could potentially be charged to the customer to fix.
Syntactic dumbing-down:
When making full use of the language constructs (as intended by the language designers), I am often forced by an employer to use a more basic subset of constructs. Employers are concerned that junior engineers or early senior engineers who might have to maintain my code will encounter language constructs that are less common and it will slow them down to have to look up the syntax they encounter. Managers assume that future devs will not fully know the language they are working in. IMO employers under-estimate the value of developers learning on the job. So I am often forced avoid using the more advanced constructs to accommodate some subset of perceived lowest common denominator. E.g. if I were to use an array in bash, an employer might object because some bash maintainers may not be familiar with an array.
Non-commercial software development
Free software developers have zero schedule pressure. They are not forced to haphazardly rush some sloppy work into an integration in order to meet a deadline that was promised to a customer by a manager who was pressured to give an overly optimistic timeline due to a competitive bidding process. #FOSS devs are free to gold-plate all they want. And because it’s a labor of love and not labor for a paycheck, FOSS devs naturally take more pride in their work.
I’m often not proud of the commercial software I was forced to write by a corporation fixated on the bottom line. When I’m consistently pressured to write poor quality code for a profit-driven project, I hit a breaking point and leave the company. I’ve left 3 employers for this reason.
Commercial software from a user PoV
Whenever I encounter a bug in commercial software there is almost never a publicly accessible bug tracker and it’s rare that the vendor has the slightest interest in passing along my bug report to the devs. The devs are unreachable by design (cost!). I’m just one user so my UX is unimportant. Obviously when I cannot even communicate a bug to a commercial vendor, I am wholly at the mercy of their testers eventually rediscovering the same bug I found, which is unlikely in complex circumstances.
Non-commercial software from a user PoV
Almost every FOSS app has a bug tracker, forum, or IRC channel where bugs can be reported and treated. I once wrote a feature request whereby the unpaid FOSS developer implemented my feature request and sent me a patch the same day I reported it. It was the best service I ever encountered and certainly impossible in the COTS software world for anyone who is not a multi-millionaire.
Linux won’t be viable for blind people unless major distros have full time accessibility folks, and refuse to accept inaccessible packages and patches.
Sure, but you need to read what I quoted. I purely addressed the flawed claim that better code comes from those paid to write it. The opposite is true. It’s unclear to what extent that bias has influenced @noahcarver@rblind.com’s thesis. Though I have no notable issues with anything else @noahcarver@rblind.com wrote (much of which is beyond my expertise w.r.t accessibility).
And to be clear, “better code” strictly refers to quality, not accessibility. Accessibility is a design factor.
But that code you write at home is probably not accessible.
That’s right. But then neither is the commercial code I worked on. That would be outside of my domain. I do backends for the most part. The rare UI work I did was for a tiny user base of internal developers within the org and accessibility was not part of the requirements. I worked on a UI for external users briefly but again no requirements for accessibility (which would be very unlikely for that particular product).
In any case, this sidetrack is irrelevant to what you replied to. It’s important to correct bogus claims that being paid to write code is conducive to quality. Some right-wingers I know never miss the opportunity to use the phrase “good enough for government work” because they want to push the mentality that capitalism promotes superior quality. It’s a widespread misconception that needs correction whenever it manifests.
Paying someone to write accessible code should theoretically work on both free software and non-free software. AFAICT the reason non-free software would accommodate blind users is that the market share is large enough to justify the profit-driven bottom line and those users are forced to pay for it (as all users are). In the FOSS domain, payments (“bounties”) are optional. Has this been tried? If not, then you’re relying on blind FOSS developers to suit their own needs in a way that benefits all blind users.
and that someone who is paid to write accessible software is generally going to produce and maintain better code.
In my day job I’m paid to write code. Then I go home write code I was not paid for. My best work is done without pay.
Commercial software development
When I have to satisfy an employer, they don’t want quality code. They want fast code. They want band-aid fixes. The corporate structure is very short-sighted. I was once back-roomed by a manager and lectured for “gold plating”. That means I was producing code that was higher quality than what management perceives as the economic sweet spot. I was also caught once fixing bugs as I spotted them when I happened to have a piece of code checked out in Clearcase. I was told I was “cheating the company out of profits” because they prefer if the bug goes through a documentation procedure so the customer can ultimately be made to pay separately for the bug fix. Nevermind the fact that my time was already compensated by the customer anyway - but they can get more money if there’s a bigger paper trail involving more staff. So when you say you get what you pay for, that’s what you pay for -- busy work (aka working hard not smart). They also want “consistent quality”. So if one module is higher quality than another, there is pressure to lower the quality of the better module because improving the style or design pattern of the lower quality piece is “gold plating”. When I make full use of the language constructs (as intended by the language designers), I am often forced by an employer to use more basic constructs. Employers are worried that junior engineers or early senior engineers who might have to maintain my code will encounter language constructs that are less common and it will slow them down to have to look up the syntax they encounter. Employers under-estimate the value of developers learning on the job. So I am often forced avoid using the more advanced constructs to accommodate some subset of perceived lowest common denominator. E.g. if I were to use an array in bash, an employer might object because some bash maintainers may not be familiar with an array.
Non-commercial software development
Free software developers have zero schedule pressure. They are not forced to haphazardly rush some sloppy work into an integration in order to meet some deadline that was promised to a customer by a manager who was pressured to give an overly optimistic timeline. #FOSS devs are free to gold plate all they want. And because it’s a labor of love and not labor for a paycheck, FOSS devs naturally take more pride in their work. I’m often not proud of the commercial software I was forced to write by a corporation fixated on the bottom line. When I’m consistently pressured to write poor quality code for a profit-driven project, I hit a breaking point and leave the company. I’ve left 3 employers for this reason.
Commercial software from a user PoV
Whenever I encounter a bug in commercial software, there is almost never a publicly accessible bug tracker and it’s rare that the vendor has the slightest interest in passing along my bug report to the devs. The devs are unreachable by design (cost). I’m just one user so my UX is unimportant. Obviously when I cannot even communicate a bug to a commercial vendor, I am wholly at the mercy of their testers eventually rediscovering the bug I found, which is unlikely when there are complex circumstances.
Non-commercial software from a user PoV
Almost every FOSS app has a bug tracker, forum, or IRC channel where bugs can be reported and treated. I once wrote a feature request whereby the unpaid FOSS developer implemented my feature request and sent me a patch the same day I reported it. It was the best service I ever encountered and certainly impossible in the COTS software world for anyone who is not a multi-millionaire.
Some Lemmy instances (e.g. Beehaw) do not support down votes. When an instance does support down-votes, authors often get zero feedback with the down votes which ultimately supports obtuse expression, shenanigans and haters. The status quo suffers from these problems:
- down voters do not need to read the comment they are down voting
- down votes empower non-moderators to suppress comments and posts
- some communities struggle to get content because of some malicious down voters who down vote every post to discourage activity and effectively sabotage the community; voting privacy shields malicious down-voters from discovery and supports their attack
- silent down votes are non-constructive
- some people make heavy use of down votes to suppress civil comments purely because of disagreement; other (more civil) users only use down votes to suppress uncivil dialog. This inequality ultimately manifests to reduce civility.
- transparency: kids and adults are accessing the same forums and adults are blind as to whether down votes are coming from kids (the rationale can reveal this)
The fix:
An instance admin should be able to flip a switch that requires every down vote to collect a 1-line rationale from the voter. These one-liners should be visible to everyone on a separate page. Upvotes do not need rationale. So instance owners should have 3 configuration options:
- down votes disabled (beehaw)
- down votes require rationale (proposed)
- down votes out of control (the most common status quo)
Perhaps overkill, but it might be useful if a moderator can cancel or suppress uncivil down votes.
---
BTW, the reason this enhancement request is not in the official bug trackers:
- Lemmy’s bug tracker is in MS Github (#deleteGithub)
- Kbin’s bug tracker is on codeberg, who silently deleted my account without warning or reason, and #Codeberg reg forces a graphical CAPTCHA (which fails on my non-graphical browser).
#lemmyBug #KbinBug
It would be useful to have more refined control over participation in a group. Someone should be able to create a group that gives permissions to specific individuals. A variety of permissions would be useful:
- permission to see that a community/mag exists (some groups may or may not want to be listed in searchable a public directory)
- permission to read the posts in a community/mag
- permission to vote in the community/mag
- permission to start a new thread in the community/mag
- permission to comment on an existing thread in the community/mag
A forum creator should be able to set the above perms on:
- individual accounts
- all users on an instance (e.g. users on an instance
@weH8privacy.commight be unfit for voting and writing comments in the community “fightForPrivacy”) - all users not on an instance (e.g. local users only for example)
- instance IP-based (e.g. users from Cloudflared instances might be unfit to participate in a group called “decentralizationAdvocacy”)
Settings for individuals should override instance-specific settings. So e.g. a “fightForPrivacy” forum might allow all forms of participation from an instance stop1984.org, but if antiprivacyMallory@stop1984.org is uncivil, a mod should be able to block all inputs from that user yet perhaps still allow antiprivacyMallory to just read the posts on the off chance of influencing the user to be more civil through exposure to civil chatter.
More background on the rationale - why the fedi needs this (click to expand)
The fedi has undergone a huge flood of new users, largely moderates from Twitter. The moderates dilute movements.
Consider the evolution of raves and Burning Man. The beginning was a rich subculture that briefly evolved in isolation apart from the ordinary world. These subcultures became more enriched within their own world whereby the core ideas spawned more culture. Then word got out and spread like brush fire. Masses of uninitiated crowds flooded into raves and Burning Man faster than they could be integrated. Commercialization took hold faster than people could be integrated. The scene became diluted with clubbers and conservatives who essentially turned raves into clubs. The way to promote raves that resembled the original experience was to selectively flyer party goers who overtly embraced the experience, who were not merely there to be seen. IOW, the fix was invite-only events.
The flood of moderates into the fedi has crippled the decentralization movement and corrupted the vision. The fedi is now swamped with people from huge instances that are centralized on Cloudflare (lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, lemmy.ca, lemm.ee, programming.dev, zerobytes.monster) and lemmy.ml. People without a firm grasp on the meaning, purpose, and benefits of decentralization and privacy still find their way into “privacy” communities and make foolish remarks (e.g. not sharing personal correspondence with Google and Microsoft “is tinfoil-hattery”). Sure, it’s favorable that the “I have nothing to hide” crowd intermingle with more sophisticated privacy-aware folks. It’s important that there be a venue where ignorance can be reversed. But--
Moderates are a drag on activism. A “PrivacyAction” forum does not benefit from a mob of idiots who see those practicing established infosec principles as “tinfoil hat” nutters to heckle. Security-wise people with infosec degrees naturally and unavoidably appear “paranoid” to normies. These normies and hecklers can only get in the way in a workshop-centric forum with the mission of strategizing activist movements and protests. Fair enough if a “climate” forum has climate deniers butting heads with those who accept the climate-relevant science. That dialog is needed. But we don’t want climate deniers in a “climate ACTION” forum. They are only there to dilute and sabotage.. to side-track the discussion. A workshop is not interested in rhetoric from those who oppose their mission.
So the status quo of #Lemmy and #Kbin disservices activism.
---
Workaround 1 (Lemmy only):
Make an announcement community and make all participants a moderator. Bit crazy unless you really trust everyone involved.
Workaround 2 (Lemmy):
One community per instance using instance-specific registration control. Still too blunt, cumbersome, excludes mods who don’t have their own instance.
Question
Sometimes I click to subscribe to a community which then goes into a “subscription pending” state. What does that mean? As a moderator of some groups I never receive a signal that someone is requesting to subscribe.
---
BTW, the reason this enhancement request is not in the official bug trackers:
- Lemmy’s bug tracker is in MS Github (#deleteGithub)
- Kbin’s bug tracker is on codeberg, who silently deleted my account without warning or reason, and #Codeberg reg forces a graphical CAPTCHA (which fails on my non-graphical browser).
#lemmyBug #KbinBug
Some of you might be interested in this Mastodon thread. It’s a bit of bashing PDFs for having poor accessibility, and some guidance on improving PDFs for accessibility.
Some people are saying they prefer MS Word over PDF for accessibility reasons. Of course the elephant in the room is that “accessibility” is an over-loaded word. It usually refers to usability by impaired people, but in the case of being generally usable to all people on a broad range of platforms, MS Word is obviously inaccessible due to being encumbered by proprietary tech by a protectionist corporation.
I agree.
One of the reasons no one gives a shit is there is never news about CF making use of that MitM position. But I know they hire data scientists and what corp can resist the urge to monetize data they have access to? So I think it’s just a matter of time before they get caught abusing the vast amount of valuable data they have visibility on.
cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/582272
> I have lots of old friends who I only maintained sparse contact with. When I let my personal email address die (the address they would all have records of), I did not bother to update them with a new address. > > They are all on the platform of some surveillance capitalist (e.g. Google or Microsoft). Google & Microsoft both refuse connections from self-hosted residential servers. And even if they didn’t, I am not willing to feed those surveillance advertisers who obviously don’t limit their surveillance to their users but also inherently everyone who makes contract with their users. I cannot support that or partake in pawning myself to subsidize someone else’s service. > > I just wonder if anyone else has taken this step.
Sorry I do not know if BBC interviews are transcribed.
But FWIW it will air again on BBC World Service at 02:32 GMT tomorrow and the next day (which could be useful for those on limited internet connections)
cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/609883
> This BBC interview has a #Cloudflare rep David Bellson who describes CF’s observations on internet traffic. CF tracks for example the popularity of Facebook vs. Tiktok. Neither of those services are Cloudflared, so how is CF tracking this? Apparently they are snooping on traffic that traverses their servers to record what people are talking about. Or is there a more legit way Cloudflare could be monitoring this activity?
There’s a widespread nuisance of shared e-scooters (which do not need to be locked) taking up bicycle stalls that cyclists need to lock their bikes. Are e-scooter platforms instructing users to use bicycle racks? Or are people doing that against policy?
Some banks will annually mail a paper “welcome” letter to all customers purely for the purpose of collecting bounced mail ultimately to verify if anyone has moved without telling them. The letters never state that’s the purpose.. they take that opportunity to talk about their service in arbitrary ways. Some banks even charge customers a fee for their cost in doing that. If you ask the banker about it they readily admit that it’s an address verification technique.
That’s it.. just a PSA so folks are aware, as it is a bit sneaky.
Some national postal services (e.g. USPS) sell your mail forwarding information which is how you get tracked to your new location by various entities even when you did not inform them of your new address. So obviously a good defensive measure is to never use the mail forwarding service. Select the entities you want to know your new address and inform them directly. But then to get some immunity to the sneaky trick in the 1st paragraph, perhaps give the next resident a stack of addressed envelopes and stamps and ask the next resident to forward (remail) for you.. or just ask them to trash your mail instead of returning it.
A public service started blocking access from Tor users. Blocks like this almost never have the courtesy to acknowledge why you are blocked (Tor) much less why they decided to exclude Tor users from public access. The blockades seem to always be implemented by an asshole.
So I play dumb: “your site is no longer working… here is my screenshot…('Unable to connect')”. I submit that as a complaint.
The response I would hope for: “Oh, we are sorry sir, we will send you a link to our bulletin page that publishes a chronology of all changes we make to the site and have a technician call you to troubleshoot the problem.”
My goal is to burden those behind unjustified/undocumented anti-Tor configs so they spend some time investigating as a consequence of their unannounced change and their useless error messages.
What really happens:
They reply saying: “the server works. No problems were reported. The problem is with your browser. Try another computer/browser”.
So indeed, they double-down on being assholes. They give this snap response having no idea what could have gone wrong. There is no escalation procedure in government when you reach an incompetent person. So what’s the counter-move?
Proposal: network with other Tor users in the region. When one user reports a tor-hostile, everyone else in the group should verify the block and complain at the same time; everyone taking care not to mention Tor. It should remove the the knee-jerk “there have been no complaints” response.
Has anyone tried this?
Regarding the two suggested search services which are both Microsoft syndicates:
-
#DuckDuckGo: hosted by Microsoft and searches are outsourced to Microsoft, so MS gets to see your queries and your IP, among other DDG problems
-
#Qwant: tor-hostile (CAPTCHAs), MS profits from your searches.
Yes, but to be clear my test may or may not be valid in terms of what a blind person would experience. Unlike a blind person I do not use a screen reader. I merely disabled images and saw no visual indicator of an audio option. I would expect blind people to disable images as well because they would only slow them down for no benefit. But someone else said that they bypassed the CAPTCHA completely due to having a screen reader.
Specifically in the case of Protonmail? That was part of my question. I saw no audio CAPTCHA option.
Thanks for the tip!
Although it’s a tricky decision because if the server can detect that you use a screen reader, then your browser fingerprint uniqueness would increase quite a bit.
Indeed it saves bandwidth -- which is particularly important for those with a limited connection. I like it as well because so many images actually downgrade the UX anyway.
It’s a better carbon footprint to nix images but then we get punished for it by anti-bot websites. Bots also neglect to fetch images so I get hit with false positives for robots more frequently.
(Not sure if mentions work on Lemmy.. mentioning @aibler@lemmy.world for good measure)
Ah, well then I would guess you’re not using Tor and perhaps Protonmail is discriminating against Tor users. I used to access protonmail’s clearnet site over Tor and got the CAPTCHAs. Then started using PM’s onion service (in fact I was told the onion service avoided CAPTCHAs) but in fact it still gets CAPTCHAs.
I’m not blind but I browse with images disabled. This means I can no longer login to Protonmail because they push CAPTCHAs. I know some CAPTCHAs have an audio option but I just get a blank box from Protonmail’s CAPTCHA. So I was wondering how blind people deal with that, or if they are simply excluded from using #Protonmail.
If you have a defensive browser that runs over Tor and blocks popups, CAPTCHAs, dark-pattern-loaded cookie walls, and various garbage, we still end up at the losing end of the arms race. The heart of the problem is that privacy enthusiasts are exposed to the same search engine rankings that serve the privacy-naïve/unconcerned masses.
Would it make sense for the browser to autodetect various kinds of enshitification, add the hostname to a local db for future use, then report the hostname anonymously over Tor to central db that serves as an enshitification tracker? The local and centralized DBs could be used to down-rank those sites in future results. And if a link to enshitified sites appears on a page unrelated to searches it could be cautioned with a “⚠”. Some forms of enshitification would probably need manual detection but I could see people being motivated to contribute.
The security and integrity of a centralized db would perhaps be the hardest part of the effort. But if that could be sorted out, we could get search results to prioritize (pro-user) resources. In principle the DB could also track access methods by which a website is garbage-free (e.g. if the garbage does not manifest when viewed in Lynx, then that should be captured in the DB as well).
If you try to download video lU4vv7qCQvg on a variety of #Invidious instances, some (most?) redirect you to a realtime player instead of serving up the file. Those instances that cause the wrong action work correctly for other videos.
works → https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=lU4vv7qCQvg
broken → https://iv.ggtyler.dev/watch?v=lU4vv7qCQvg
Apparently I’m wrong about this.. the preview is said to be created by the server:
https://links.hackliberty.org/comment/1068761
EDIT: well, apparently it’s questionable. No one knows with confidence.
cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/454425
> When I visit this post: > > https://jlai.lu/post/2250911 > > the embedded short abstract intro to the article is “403 Blocked www.lecho.be” When I try visiting the link directly I get “403 bot detection”. This suggests that everyone who opens that thread independently visits that webpage by way of some javascript that’s not under the user’s control. If 1000 people open that thread, then 1000 separate fetches are made. That’s a poor design. The server could do that job just once and the results would be more reliable. As opposed to everyone getting different results. > > This is also a #privacy #security bug. Someone who opens a thread does not necessarily intend to fetch the linked article. Non-tor users are under surveillance in some countries (e.g. the US, where Trump enacted law s.t. ISPs can collect data on users without consent). So they should have control over what sites they visit. Merely opening a thread is an abuse because it makes users actions instantly trackable. IOW, users share information with their ISP without their knowledge or control. > > Note that the example thread shows the full text of the article because the author was diligent about copying it. But that’s not the general case. > > #bug #lemmyBug
When I visit this post:
https://jlai.lu/post/2250911
the embedded short abstract intro to the article is “403 Blocked www.lecho.be” When I try visiting the link directly I get “403 bot detection”. This suggests that everyone who opens that thread independently visits that webpage by way of some javascript that’s not under the user’s control. If 1000 people open that thread, then 1000 separate fetches are made. That’s a poor design. The server could do that job just once and the results would be more reliable. As opposed to everyone getting different results.
This is also a #privacy #security bug. Someone who opens a thread does not necessarily intend to fetch the linked article. Non-tor users are under surveillance in some countries (e.g. the US, where Trump enacted law s.t. ISPs can collect data on users without consent). So they should have control over what sites they visit. Merely opening a thread is an abuse because it makes users actions instantly trackable. IOW, users share information with their ISP without their knowledge or control.
Note that the example thread shows the full text of the article because the author was diligent about copying it. But that’s not the general case.
#bug #lemmyBug
cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/435505
> A data controller responded to a #GDPR request under art.15 & 17 (thus, an access request coupled with erasure request). They responded with a refusal, demanding ID card. They probably demanded it be in color, but I responded with a black and white copy of my ID. They refused again, affirming that the ID card must be in color. So then I sent them a color copy, but I used black boxes to redact my facial image and all personal text except my name. They again refused to honor my request, saying “zonder vlekken en met een goede resolutie om te worden geaccepteerd”. That translates into “without spots or stains”, correct? I don’t think that means without redactions. > > Anyway, I would like a GDPR expert to confirm or deny whether the controller’s refusal and demands are lawful. > > The relevant GDPR text is: > > * https://gdpr-text.com/read/recital-64/ > * https://gdpr-text.com/read/article-12/#para_gdpr-a-12_6 > > My request (via post) included my residential address and also mentioned a unique email address that only that controller knows me by (though they would not necessarily know it’s unique). Shouldn’t that be sufficient?
UPDATE
This abstract covers some of my questions. Indeed redactions on the ID card are allowed when making requests.
To be against the Republican Party does not automatically make you a Democrat,
It does. You’re not accepting the reality of a 2-party system. Democrats encompass the green party voters as well, in effect, because it’s a 2 party system. Democrats broadly have extensive variation united in opposition to the republican platform. Democrats do not have a single org or two that sums up the whole party. The closest notable org that embodies the values of democrats would be the ACLU. But the ACLU is much more narrow to dem’s values than ALEC & NRA are to the republicans. But since you’re complexity averse, I suggest just looking at ACLU’s campaigns and missions compared to ALEC to understand the differences you’re trying to grasp between the parties.
yet you still could not credibly defend the Democratic Party.
Altruism in not compatible with the basic core agenda of the republican platform. Opposing the positions I listed is a sufficient defense for the party of any republican opposition with respect to campaign financing in a two party system. If you’re Sam Bankman-Fried claiming to spend money on altruism, the republican party is a clear antithesis of that endeavor, thus not a credible recipient. As unfavorable as it is to be trapped in a 2-party system, you’re lost on the simplicity of this.
For instance, communists staunchly attack republicans, yet they equally attack the democrats, arguing (rightfully, in my opinion) that both are two sides of the same coin which is capitalism/liberalism.
You’re not grasping the basic political framework of the US. You can finance communists in the US but the results are no different than setting your money on fire. They are not a viable party (assuming they even exist - they may be operating under a different name). Furthermore, bringing communists up only muddies the waters because SBF did not contribute to them. He only contributed to Ds and Rs.
I want to go back to the roots of our debate in order to recalibrate, and that is the fact that you’ve created quite the frail and unnecessarily complicated moral compass which, ironically, adds no philosophical value.
The 2-party system is not complicated. It’s the contrary. It’s simple to a detrimental fault. And because the republican values are what they are, it’s actually trivially simple to work out which party an altruistic philanthropist would favor. They have no choice.
Instead of basing your evaluation of SBF on a shallow criterion of political funding (which leads to many problematic conclusions due to the ideological indeterminacy which plagues American political parties), you can directly employ, like any sane person would, a humanist compass (granted that humanism has its caveats). You should then be asking whether EA conforms to the conceptions of humanism, on the short but also long term, and should future generations be prioritised over present beings?
You’ve misunderstood the thesis. It was not an overall appraisal of Sam Bankman-Fried. There are a lot topics we can discuss and countless approaches to solving the world’s social problems. The topic is specifically about Sam Bankman-Fried’s claim to adhere to effective altruism. If that does not interest you, you should not have entered the thread. You can create threads about whatever you find more interesting than SBF EA.
has there been a consensus among these self-style altruists what defines altruism?
I’m not sure that consensus would be needed, but apparently it’s defined as one person’s vision. Altruism itself is selfless behavior but (TIL) effective altruism is apparently an anti-poverty mission specifically.
I heard vague claims about impact on generations in the far future and I kind of tuned out at that point.
A charitable movement can impact people the day of the donation, or far in the future. Guardian mentions GiveDirectly, which is a program to distribute directly to poor people.