The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

Post by sgjohnson » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:15 AM UTC

Rufbdbskrufb473 wrote: post #357

hellojesus wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is there isn't any better country. Zero countries currently compete with America for greater freedom. Please let me know if you know of any because I'm getting absolutely tired of working four months for free each year, knowing that my tax dollars are paying for goods and services from which I'll never be able to benefit.

It depends what you value most. If you don't mind corruption, then in a lot of developing countries like SE Asia, you can have a huge amount of personal freedom by paying the (relatively cheap) occasional bribe. If you're morally opposed to that, I'd recommend Singapore for its financial freedoms. After working there for a year, I was initially opposed to such an authoritarian government, but they're one of the rare…

Post by sgjohnson » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:21 AM UTC

idiotsecant wrote: post #237

LocalH wrote: post #8

I'm tired of these cutesy backronyms that they try to come up with to influence the public's perception of a law. "EARN IT"? What the fuck? It should be outright illegal to pass laws whose acronyms spell words. But, of course, that'll never happen, because who would willingly give up such a juicy tool for gaming the system?

OK, monkey paw wish granted. Laws may now only be passed and officially discussed using their globally unique identifier like SB-47226 When politicians advocate for or against these laws in the public sphere they will still make up catchy names to make them stick in peoples heads. Now you still get misleading names but its twice as hard to understand what bill is what.

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:30 AM UTC

colinsane wrote: post #327

hackermatic wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that this line of thinking usually turns into just doing nothing and letting them roll over us anyway because they've taken our silence as consent.

generally speaking, rulers don't care about your consent. they might care about the second and third order effects of consent, but to say they'll interpret silence as consent is to suggest that their knowledge of your consent is a primary driver of their actions -- and that's just not the case. but no, i'm not saying you should let yourself be steamrolled. anyone in this thread has the knowledge to work around this p…

Post by autoexec » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:37 AM UTC

akomtu wrote: post #339

clnq wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my mind, another problem is the one-sidedness of this effort. Why is someone privileged to scan my data but I can’t write a scanner and parse theirs? There seems to be a fundamental injustice here. Completely ignoring privacy as a concept for a moment, a fair trade should be like for like, value for value.

Imho, sponsors of this bill want to collect dossiers and use them to blackmail opponents in the future. For example, you want to do something unpopular and a noisy council member opposes your plan. You reach to the "official and confidential" box, find there a personal file on that politician, conveniently created by the AI-scanner, share your discoveries with him and suddenly he changes his mind.

Post by citruscomputing » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:41 AM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #7

A reminder that "you have nothing to hide" argument is a fallacy because people abuse their power: Some first hits as reminders of places where their powers are abused [1]: "NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, ex-lovers: watchdog" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog... [2]: https://reason.com/2022/07/26/police-can-access-your-ring-ca... [3]: https://reason.com/2021/04/26/warrantless-border-s…