I'm not sure why a law is needed. These big tech companies do the government's bidding all the time.
The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
361–370 of 520 posts
Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly 10 on each side --- that's about as non-partisan as it gets.
I think a lot of us are no longer convinced traditional two-party partisanship is a useful lens through which to understand politics. Regardless of party, the politicians pushing this bill are overwhelmingly pro-surveillance state and pro-big government as well as being invested in perpetuating the two-party machine. Personally, I now see things more through a lens of those who perpetuate the two-party machine and bi…
> It's weird how many votes on something I care about fail to survive committee or amendment by just one vote. And the politicians who voted "against" the thing in the 'losing' party, all happen to be in very 'safe' districts or not facing reelection soon and those facing reelection in 'unsafe' districts happen to be the ones who voted "for" it.
This concept has been identified before, and popularized by Glenn Greenwald, dubbing it the “rotating villain,” which is a delightfully apt turn of phrase.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rotating%20v...
Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well one could argue Google and FB services are not free. I don't possibly see how. The services cost no money, thus they are unequivocally free. Perhaps one could reasonably argue that just because something is free doesn't mean the user isn't entitled to any rights, but torturing the definition of free to suit your argument strikes me as obviously fallacious. > If they are providing their services for free, how c…
You pay with your data and your privacy.
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Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. Maybe there should be a law that makes it illegal to attempt to ban encryption.
Shouldn't it be covered under the 4th amendment?
There is historical precedent classifying encryption as munitions, so arguably the 2nd amendment would also apply, in addition to the 4th.
Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
#365I know it's wildly off-topic but can someone please explain to me why there are still sites like this that are clearly well funded and professional that fail to have spent - what - 2-3 designer hours time ($150?!) on a simple mobile stylesheet? They almost definitely get 50%+ mobile traffic. What gives?
I think they’re hiring, if it’s any consolation. I’m sure that HN staff does actually have work besides moderation.
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/y-combinator/jobs/7D3d...
Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All of them rely on operating system providers not stealing your messages. You can compile your own operating system and control your hardware supply chain - you don't have to rely entirely on trust for those components. > Since they have to be able to display messages they are able to log them somewhere. If they're end-to-end encrypted, no, the people providing the chat application can't log anything except noise.…
Ken Thompson has something to say about trusting the compiler you use for that OS, or even the microcode the CPU running said compiler is using. It’s functionally impossible to not trust an outside vendor for something on a modern computer https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
All the more reason for open firmware for everything.
Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
> functionality that support warrants A back door marked ‘staff only’ doesn’t actually know who is staff and who isn’t.
>A back door marked ‘staff only’ doesn’t actually know who is staff and who isn’t. Which is my you use cryptography instead of just a sign.
What one can make, another can break. Skeleton keys are impossible to secure.
Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
My government has just spent 2 years - a pretty significant percentage of a lifetime - working to keep me from travelling more than 5km from my home and made it illegal for me to see my friends. And I'm not even going to have a sympathetic audience if I try to claim this is against my wishes or wellbeing. Run me through, in simple terms, how much worse it could get? I suppose they aren't trying to kill me, which is a…
My government has restricted travel in order to stop a pandemic virus spreading to the point where hospitals are overwhelmed and we start seeing 10% of the population dying instead of 0.5%. Thankfully they have also implemented a nationwide vaccination scheme and a vaccination pass which is accepted pretty much anywhere worldwide.
It was never going to be 10%. The virus is too localized on the elderly, who isolate and vaccinate themselves well anyway.
Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don't want it, but I used to run a BBS, and a casino, and a forum, and I was aware I could be held accountable if I furthered the dissemination of something nefarious. Doesn't have to be CSAM, but the worse it is, the worse the penalty would be. It would be a hard pull to sue a provider over simple defamation that way if they did nothing to encourage or re-post it. But should Ron Watkins be made to answer for wh…
I told you why I thought your idea was logistically unfeasible and politically incongruent with free speech and right to assembly. You called me a shithead. I don’t think your argumentation strategy is convincing me, but I’ll admit I’m not the smartest guy.
I didn't call you a shithead! This may be a classic case of me using the general "you" and someone taking it to mean you, personally. I'm not talking about you personally. *unless you're Ron Watkins. I'm saying if (someone) wants to run a board for conspiracy theorists and it includes amplifying defamation, e.g. saying someone drinks the blood of babies and doxing people, then they should be held responsible for the content posted by the shitheads they allow to post. Very clear.
Not about you.
Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With benefit of hindsight, turns out there was never a risk of 10% of the population dying. There's a 10-fold increase in deaths when those with COVID can't get the medical care they need.
Countries are reporting in-practice death rates as high at 0.6%, worst case, slight outlier [0]. So even if it were possible for somehow no-one to get medical care (which is difficult to see happening, it takes a while for a wave to burn through and most people don't catch it so there is a lot of potential to beef up the response short-term) and the death rate multiplied 10-fold (which is also open to challenge, depe…
The USA has 900k covid deaths from 74M cases. The real number of cases are likely to be double that, but it's still a very high rate - from the richest country in the world.