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Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

locusmag.com

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Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#101

Post by thombles »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #91
thombles wrote: post #34

Unfortunately the way he describes the "Ulysses Pact" is fantasy. He makes it sound like it would be just like today, except a savvy user could sideload Signal for example if Apple was compelled to remove it. What would _actually_ happen is a long list of companies would say "brilliant, we don't have to conform to the app store guidelines any more" and go sideload-exclusive. Within a matter of months it would be comm…

"What would _actually_ happen is a long list of companies would say "brilliant, we don't have to conform to the app store guidelines any more" and go sideload-exclusive" This hasn't happened in Android, why do you think it would happen with Apple?

Because Apple’s policies are so much more restrictive, particularly around background modes and streaming games.

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#102

Post by MichaelZuo »

gen220 wrote: post #9
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #7

"There is no way for us to defend ourselves: even skilled technologists who administer their own networked services are no match for the bandits. To keep bandits out, you have to be perfect and perfectly vigilant, and never make a single mistake. For the bandits to get you, they need merely find a single mistake that you’ve made." Ooof. What a boot-to-the-face reminder. Despite my use of a Tor Router, three ubikeys a…

You could run your system completely in RAM, to at least limit the duration of exposure. Persistence is overrated! :)

To go one step further, have three, or more, identical fire walled systems running and have them vote on every calculation with the votes sent to a hardwired switch, that prevents the system from advancing if there’s a disagreement, and shuts off power to the RAM if there’s too many in a row. The chances of any compromise happening to all the systems within the same nanosecond would be infinitesimal.

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#103

Post by cortesoft »

f430 wrote: post #19
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #7

"There is no way for us to defend ourselves: even skilled technologists who administer their own networked services are no match for the bandits. To keep bandits out, you have to be perfect and perfectly vigilant, and never make a single mistake. For the bandits to get you, they need merely find a single mistake that you’ve made." Ooof. What a boot-to-the-face reminder. Despite my use of a Tor Router, three ubikeys a…

If what you are communicating needs to be guaranteed to never be crackable, you only need to use the oldest and most secure way of communicating before the days of internet and computers: short wave transmitted one time pad codes. The reason that number stations continue to operate is that it really is the best way to communicate/order under surveillance which almost certainly is happening in every embassy in non-fri…

You can't operate a number station in someone else's country.... they might not be able to crack the code, but they can sure track down the number station and turn it off/arrest the operator.

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#104

Post by chordalkeyboard »

schnable wrote: post #97
breck wrote: post #36

We need to abolish IP Laws (aka "Imaginary Property" aka "Illogical Property" aka "Incongruent Property" aka "Invalidates Property Laws"—the other term is a big lie, don't repeat it). Not "reform". Not "compromise". Abolish. If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas t…

> If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas to flow to create a more distributed, less unequal, world, and we need it now. We need to unshackle the people. This seems like an odd claim, as society as a whole was able to weather the pandemic overall in incredible comfo…

> weather the pandemic overall in incredible comfort due to technology and content created under our IP regime

strike "under" insert "in spite of"

> demonstrate that we'd have these things without the IP environment of past 100 years.

IP are laws that prohibit who is allowed to manufacture and profit by certain types of goods. The burden of proof rests on those who think that those goods would not exist if more people were permitted to produce them. The presumption is that prohibitive laws have the effect of decreasing the things they prohibit.

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#105

Post by BryantD »

grishka wrote: post #27
BryantD wrote: post #4

I love the idea of a Ulysses Pact. Something like https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491 would be good. I note that while right now there’s no way to override the malware safeguards, Apple's promising to fix this. (I believe that update was made after this article was written, btw.) Now: it’s absolutely true that Apple could change their mind. Given that possibility, I understand why someone might prefer to avoid A…

> there’s no way to override the malware safeguards There technically is, because Macs don't come with locked bootloaders, and, you know, system files aren't exactly burned into one-time programmable memory. I mean, you could patch the binaries and have it your way if you really want to. But in reality you don't even need to do that — you only have to completely disable SIP and add change the kernel arguments (someth…

TIL! Although I’d argue it has to be accessible by my mom before it’s really useful.

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#106

Post by chordalkeyboard »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #53
breck wrote: post #36

We need to abolish IP Laws (aka "Imaginary Property" aka "Illogical Property" aka "Incongruent Property" aka "Invalidates Property Laws"—the other term is a big lie, don't repeat it). Not "reform". Not "compromise". Abolish. If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas t…

I am genuinely interested in understanding how we could have innovation in a world where a creator is not entitled to benefits from their invention. Including any monetary benefits if they so choose.

> a world where a creator is not entitled to benefits from their invention

This is a mis-statement of the anti-IP case. Given the abolishment of IP laws, creators are not prevented from benefitting from their invention. They merely no longer have the benefit of the state regulators in preventing others from following the inventor's example.

> Including any monetary benefits if they so choose.

The "monetary benefit" here is the power to exclude others from manufacturing the invention with the power of the state, and to compel society at large to pay for enforcement of this monopoly.

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#107

Post by chordalkeyboard »

ardy42 wrote: post #71
krapp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>with provisions and updates there is no reason not to give the people who invent things short and clear monopolies on their ideas. The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to con…

> The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to control the market entirely. But that obviously wouldn't as work well, because: 1. The inventor would pay the R&D costs with no good…

> 1. The inventor would pay the R&D costs with no good way to recoup them, because he'd be competing against knockoffs who didn't have to make that investment, and can price accordingly. You'd be putting the actual inventor at a disadvantage.

Yes, the means of ensuring that research and development would be funded would have to change. This doesn't imply that there would be no r&d, rather the current r&d is being subsidized by laws that give legal privileges to certain corporations while prohibiting their competition from competing.

> 2. There'd be no incentive for inventors to actually publish designs for their inventions. Most people who argue against patents as a concept forget is that to get one you have to publish plans for your idea openly, which makes it much easier to copy. The limited monopoly is an incentive to part with that information. You'd end up leaving the public domain poorer.

You could pay them for the design. Or you could reverse engineer the design from the actual physical product.

> 3. Invention and production are different skillsets. For an author to get paid for writing, they shouldn't need to own a printing press and distribution network.

likewise people shouldn't be subject to violence for copying intangibles.

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#108

Post by mhh__ »

cortesoft wrote: post #103
f430 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you are communicating needs to be guaranteed to never be crackable, you only need to use the oldest and most secure way of communicating before the days of internet and computers: short wave transmitted one time pad codes. The reason that number stations continue to operate is that it really is the best way to communicate/order under surveillance which almost certainly is happening in every embassy in non-fri…

You can't operate a number station in someone else's country.... they might not be able to crack the code, but they can sure track down the number station and turn it off/arrest the operator.

You can trivially find the listeners too if you use a bad/old radio

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

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#109

Post by mhh__ »

f430 wrote: post #19
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #7

"There is no way for us to defend ourselves: even skilled technologists who administer their own networked services are no match for the bandits. To keep bandits out, you have to be perfect and perfectly vigilant, and never make a single mistake. For the bandits to get you, they need merely find a single mistake that you’ve made." Ooof. What a boot-to-the-face reminder. Despite my use of a Tor Router, three ubikeys a…

If what you are communicating needs to be guaranteed to never be crackable, you only need to use the oldest and most secure way of communicating before the days of internet and computers: short wave transmitted one time pad codes. The reason that number stations continue to operate is that it really is the best way to communicate/order under surveillance which almost certainly is happening in every embassy in non-fri…

> It was only when they captured a few Cuban spies were they able to break the number stations operating out of Havana but this is perhaps the only case in history

Bad OPSEC (Reuse of pads) allowed the West to extremely painfully decrypt chunks of soviet communications - finding just how bad communist infiltration was in the process.

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

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#110

Post by krapp »

ardy42 wrote: post #71
krapp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>with provisions and updates there is no reason not to give the people who invent things short and clear monopolies on their ideas. The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to con…

> The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to control the market entirely. But that obviously wouldn't as work well, because: 1. The inventor would pay the R&D costs with no good…

Maybe, instead of an exclusive monopoly, ownership of IP grants an inventor a share of revenue from any products using that IP for a limited time, like a royalty or a license. Then they could make money while the community innovates on their idea.
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